7 Common Positioning Mistakes in Deadlock and How to Avoid Them

The number one most common mistake that I see people make is not playing around sightlines or angles that benefit their

hero. For example, a hero like Paige has a projectile that is slow-traveling, pierces, and so benefits specific types

of angles. For example, you can play from the veil and pierce multiple targets like this. And this could be

particularly good if you want to push the wave, especially in lane, right? On top of that, it's really good to play

around corners because it perfectly matches with the time that it takes between projectiles to shoot. As you can

see here, I'm holding M1, and you know, most of the projectiles are going through. I'm playing a hero like

Vindicata, then I definitely don't want to be in the veil, and instead, I want to make sure that I have a nice open

sightline. And the reason for that is due to Vindicata's weapon falloff being larger than most other heroes in the

game. So, how do you determine which sightline and which types of angles you should be using? And one thing that

you're going to want to look at is the falloff range right here. For example, for Vindicata, it's 20 m to 64 m, which

is above average. If we look at a hero like Viper, it's the complete opposite. The falloff range is terrible, starting

at 15 m and going all the way to 33 m. Another thing you'll want to consider is some special attributes your weapons

have. For example, shooting people around corners is very, very strong on Drifter because as long as any of your

bullets hit, it counts as full damage. For example, if I want to shoot this Infernos and I'm standing around a

corner, and I just shoot the side of his body like this, I'm hitting for full damage. It's 20 damage per shot, whereas

if I shoot him like this, it's the same. Similarly, Doorman and Paige pierce, Celeste bounces, so there's some guns

with unique properties that might want to make you reconsider the way you're positioning yourself. The second thing

is the type of abilities you have. For example, let's look at a hero like Apollo. Most of these abilities actually

benefit from being out in the open because they also move you around, right? Meaning Apollo a lot of the time

isn't going to want to play in a closed-off area. However, he does still want to be fairly close, right? Because

a lot of his abilities are not very long range, and so he's kind of like a mid-range hero. He usually wants to play

on top of them because your abilities all give you some sort of movement, which means that he really likes open

open spaces. And this is also supported by his weapon having a falloff range of 25 m, meaning if you're further than 25

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common mistake that I see people make is not adjusting their positioning based on stamina. Let's say I'm playing Wraith

and I'm on this bridge right here. And I'm fighting someone, right? This position doesn't look that bad because I

can get to cover with two stamina pretty easily, right? So, a rule of thumb that you want to keep in mind is usually you

want to be able to get to cover between one and two stamina. So, if I'm on top of the bridge, it might seem like a very

open spot, but if I'm smart about it, I might be able to get to the veil here, which probably wouldn't be great as

Wraith. Or alternatively, right? I can make it to this cover here, go below. This is not exactly the best cover,

either, right? So, it's quite an open area. In order to feel comfortable on this bridge, I need to either have a

significant advantage or have plenty of stamina at my at my availability. If I have three stamina, someone goes on me,

I can simply use my stamina, get away without much problem. However, I see people all the time that will be in

positions like this with zero stamina, and then they'll get caught, and then there's no kind of like cover in near

them to help them. So, always think about your escape path. Do you have enough stamina to get to the next set of

cover? And if you don't, then maybe think twice before going in a large open area that doesn't have cover nearby if

you're low on stamina. One thing that I see people mess up all the time as well and is my third mistake that I see the

most is not using cover to recharge your cooldowns. So, let's say I'm playing Wraith, I'm fighting this infernus, and

he's doing a lot of damage to me, and I try to make an escape here, and I use my TP, and my TP's on cooldown now. During

this time, I definitely want to be evasive and try to find some sort of cover. If you can find like something to

play around, that can help you a lot. For example, something like this, a wall, I'll stay behind the wall, wait a

second, try to juke my opponent, and then by the time I've juked them, I'll have my TP up again, right? Certain

heroes have longer cool downs, but a mistake that I see so often is that people don't try to use cover to wait

out their abilities. So, cover is great to reset, gain your next set of resources, whether it be cool downs,

whether it be items, right? Especially if you have an item like warp zone or low cool down movement ability or

anything that can allow you to stall a little bit more, you definitely should look to use cover. Now, this can look in

a multitude of ways. Uh for example, you can use veils. One common tip that I can give for juking around cover like this

is that when the person goes through the veil, let's say that you're running away, right? And this person's chasing

you, you go through the veil, you can stop right after going through the veil, let him chase you, and then go again

this way, use stamina like this, and it looks really like confusing cuz the person will chase him through the veil,

and then you'll just get out of it right away. So, these are the types of jukes that you can use, and then, you know,

use cover, like juke around pillars like this in order to regain your cool downs, and then you can quickly lose you use

your escape ability. And this is how you either do sick escapes or stall for your team to come or then again, you know,

you can stall for your cool down, and maybe you'll be able to turn the fight. This is something that might seem

obvious, but a lot of people still don't do. Now, mistake number four is not taking into account items or abilities

when you're positioning on specific heroes. Once again, Wraith is a great example because your position on the

map, for example, you might be able to go and push a walker or push a tower fairly freely because you're thinking,

"Hey, so if someone goes on me, I can TP away." However, very often, I don't see people thinking enough about who can

catch them, right? So, let's say you're playing Wraith against Silver. So, if Silver uses bola on you, she can

actually catch you, right? It's like a slowing hex. So, if she uses bola on you, then you can't use your TP. On top

of that, if someone uses slowing hex or silence wave or curse or any other item like that, you won't be able to TP. What

that means is that you should look at people's items, and you should position accordingly. For example, let's say that

she has she would have slowing hex, then that means that if I want to make these aggressive pushes, I need to either keep

in mind where the Silver is on the map and be like, "Okay, Silver isn't here, so I can't get slowing hex." or I need

to buy the spell magic making before making those aggressive decisions, right? Similarly, if you're playing in

the middle of a team fight and you know that they have tools to catch you, you need to make sure that they've either

used those tools and keep a mental map of all of the available options that they have to catch you. So, whether that

be silver or bone cruel alt and all these things and wait until they use it on other people. Now, I know that it's

very tempting to, you know, go in first, use all of your abilities and just try to like dish out as much damage as

possible, but you have your role in the fight and you have to understand the threats that are available, right? And

then itemize accordingly if you can, but if you can't, then you just have to make sure that you play a little bit more

passive until those threats that are, you know, specifically threatening to you are used on other people because I

promise you most people don't have item discipline. Now, mistake number five that I see all the time is people don't

use high ground enough when it comes to just being on the map in general. Obviously, here I'm Lash, high ground is

very, very good on Lash, but it's good on a lot of heroes for multiple reasons. So, the first thing is high ground gives

you options, right? This game doesn't have fall down damage, so if you're on high ground, you can always come down.

There's a few heroes that don't like high ground as much as others, but generally speaking, it's going to be

beneficial to most heroes. It gives you great sidelines. For for example, from this position, I can see really far,

right? I can see threats coming from very far away and I can also get a good idea of how the fight is going. I'm not

saying you should be on high ground all the time, but it's extremely beneficial. Another reason why it's strong is a lot

of the time you can use third-person camera to kind of spot people below. For example, if I spot a Lash kind of below

here, I can spot him with third-person camera be able to spot me. If I put him underneath the bridge right here, as you

can see, I can't see the Lash up there, but if I go where the Lash is positioned right here and then I crouch, I can spot

the Lash fairly easily without being spotted myself. So, abusing third-person camera, I think could be, you know,

positioning related, but don't forget that a lot of the time when you're on these high ground angles, people have no

idea that you're there. They can't see you, you get much better visibility and you get better options, right? So, if if

it's ever a stalemate and you see like a fight is about to happen or you think there might be a fight, consider being

on high ground just to get a better idea of what's about to happen. Now, of course, certain heroes don't like being

on high ground as much. An example of this would be Abrams because if I'm Abrams on high ground and I'm trying to

catch someone with my charge, unless I have Phantom Strike, it's going to be hard to like get the drop on someone

because it's going to take a long time to drop onto them, right? Something to keep in mind as well, for sure, but most

people don't use high ground enough. You should use it more. Make use of it. Now, moving on to mistake number six, trying

to do too much that goes outside of what you're supposed to do. So, an example, and this happens to me all the time, is

let's say you're playing Kelvin, right? Kelvin generally is a bit more of a backline hero who like to, you know,

stay in the back, use your spells, and then when you see like a teammate or something happening, you're going to go

in and you're going to use your dome, right? And you might also play close before your dome. Regardless of how

exactly you're playing Kelvin, everybody agrees that he's not going to be initiating unless he's catching someone

with dome and a teammate. You might be frustrated at your team and decide, "Hey, I see someone on the sideline and

I really want to get this pick on the slash right here." and get really frustrated and just run at the last

super far ahead, overextend yourself because you get frustrated that your team isn't running at the player. So,

what's worse than your team doing the wrong play? You feeding because you're frustrated with your team positioning

yourself wrong. So, don't overcompensate by positioning yourself in in a way that you think your team should be doing just

because your team isn't doing it, right? Stick to what is good for your character. So, if I'm playing Kelvin,

I'm usually going to wait to see an opportunity to either use a good dome or I'm going to position myself on high

ground with Ice Path so that I can get a good view, and then once I have a good view, I can always drop down and use my

dome. Another example of this would be I'm playing Wraith and I don't have alt in this example, and I notice Slash is

super overextended. I move forward really hard and I go on him. Unless I can melt him right away, a lot of the

time this might actually put me out of position where somebody else on my team should be initiating that kill, right?

So, the more correct play would be, "Hey, to just play a little bit more passive. Make sure that you're not

overextending yourself in a position where you can easily get collapsed on depending on your hero. Another example

would be that let's say your team is not doing enough DPS, right? Well, instead of like trying to play your hero

properly, you're going to try to do like a ton of DPS. Now, I will say that that is less of a thing in Deadlock because

every hero can do a lot of damage, so that's less of a mistake, but you know, the TLDR is don't overcompensate the way

that you're positioning yourself because you think your team should be doing something and they're not, okay? Accept

the way that your team is playing and, you know, position accordingly. Mistake number seven, and this one is huge. So,

you want to make sure before the fight that you understand your role in the fight. So, for example here, I picked an

obvious one. I'm St. Claire, I'm playing against Dynamo. What's my role in the fight? Well, it's probably to try to

steal Dynamo ult and go for big singularities, right? That's an obvious example, but why is this important?

Well, you want to think about all of this because before the fight, Deadlock has a lot going on, right? You're going

to be moving around, you're going to be using abilities, using your bunny, using your bolt, and

you're not going to have time to think about, oh, who should I be targeting in this fight? Which ability should I be

stealing on St. Claire specifically, but on any hero during the fight, unless you're a pro player, and even if you

are, right? It's going to be very difficult to think about everything on the spot, which means you need to

preload the information into your brain so that when it comes to executing, all you have to do is just be like, oh yeah,

I remember I just have to go on this guy, use this ability on him, etc. etc. So, here's a couple examples, right? If

you're St. Claire against Dynamo, well, you can simply play way tide, look for the Dynamo, steal his ult, and go for a

singularity. That's probably one of the most obvious examples. However, I want to go in game and show you one of my

recent games so that I can explain to you how you can apply this in your own games more concretely. All right, so

here's an in-game example. In this situation, I'm Victor, and if you look at my items, you can see I have a lot of

anti-gun items. I have suppressor, which slows their fire rate. I have return fire, which returns 65% of their damage.

By the way, for those of you that didn't know, the return the damage return is before mitigation. So, what that means

is that even though I have a lot of bullet resistance, right? I have 38%. I'm still I'm probably returning just as

much damage as they're dealing to me, because the damage that I'm returning is not the damage that I could took, it's

the damage that I would have taken if I didn't have any resistances, right? And even it works if you pop metal skin. So,

if I return fire and metal skin, if they shoot me, they just damage themselves and I don't take any damage. But yeah, I

have metal skin, return fire, warp stone which gives bullet resist, uh and then I have suppressor, so a lot of like

anti-gun items, right? If you notice you look at the net worth, you see hey, their Geist is by far their richest

player, 39,000 souls. They have rejuvenator, so we need to shut her down. Now, Mo and I are going for a very

risky play here, which is we noticed there was a lot of people on the other side of the map, so we're trying to turn

in the earn. I have to ask myself, what is my role in this fight? And my role in this fight is to create space for the

Mo, and in general in this game, and I'll show another example after, my role in this fight is to shut down their gun

carry, which is Geist, but also Warden or Venator, depending on the situation, but Geist is the number one priority

given she has the most farm. So, if we let this fight play out, you're going to see the moment I see Geist, which I see

her right here, I'm just going to go on top of her, fight her, pop my return fire, pop my metal skin, right? And I'm

not too concerned about my life, because all I'm trying to do here is just create space so that my Mo and Krill can get

the earn in. Unfortunately, we give her, you know, like a full life swap, but you know, the principle is the same. I just

focus Geist, obviously, like they kind of fumble, and the fight goes on. At this point, I'm like, all right, well,

you know, we're kind of screwed. I'm pretty sure I should have died here, but I'll I'll keep the clip going just

so you guys see, like somehow I don't really die. I don't know how that's possible, even though I got immobilized

twice, my my Graves I I still just kind of walk away. But that's just an example of how you want to have your game plan

before the fight, so you don't have to make these decisions. Once again, we've got another fight. So, let's do the same

analysis. In this situation, Geist is still the most farm, although it's not nearly as bad as it was before. We're

once again playing for an earn, and I notice, okay, like I'm the front liner, my job is to make space. I've got

refreshers, I've got three lives, so I can afford to be very aggressive, and I want to create space. So, if you look at

how I position myself, I'm positioning myself between the enemies that want to do damage and my teammates, right? So,

I'm the first line of contact. Now, I'm going to rewind a little bit and show you guys from a bird's-eye view. But, if

I look here from a bird's-eye view, right? You can see my team is like coming this way. I'm going to slow it

down here so that we can see. I'm super far forward because I want people to use abilities on me. As my team is getting

the space here, I'm putting myself here. But, you can also notice that it's not like I'm out in the open, right? I'm

still applying some of the other principles that we talked about. I'm playing around corners, I'm playing

tight angles that are going to benefit Victor because I'm a very close-range type heroes with some of my abilities.

I'm always close to cover, especially if I don't have a lot of stamina, and you know, I'm going to I'm going to use

corners like recharge my abilities and, you know, veils and all of that stuff. But, I'm putting myself essentially as a

wall between the objective and my team. But, here, guys goes forward, I'm just on top of her because I don't want her

to be able to walk forward and do anything. So, we're going to go back to my POV.

I'm just fighting the guys here, and I'm taking a ton of damage. I'm not willing to trade against the guys here, like at

all. However, I'm accomplishing my job of keeping her out of the fight. I actually I got rescue beamed by my

support here. I actually didn't really feel like I needed the rescue beam. I'll never say no to healing, of course,

but I kind of like was happy with the position that I was in. And now, I notice my team is going forward. So,

once again, what am I going to do? Warp stone forward, try to tank as much damage as possible, and just really be

in their face. Even though I'm tanking a lot of shots here, I don't really mind because, like I said, this is my job,

and I'm just going to be like focusing the targets that I think are important. So, this is where I had to make a

decision, right? And this is why it's important to have your game plan in your mind beforehand. So, here, I had to make

the decision between do I keep shooting the guys or do I shoot the warden, right? But, based on my game plan, my

game My is to create space for my team and shut down enemy gun carries. So, based on that, I felt that my team could

would have a better chance of winning the fight if I just zone out the Warden and then afterwards come back to clean

it up. I didn't think I was going to be able to kill the guys in time anyway and she was going to get swap off. So, my

decision here, I believe I make the decision to chase the Warden if I remember correctly. And so, I'm just

chasing the Warden. And I'm just seeing, "Okay, can I can I kill this guy?"

Um as you can see, I'm taking a lot of damage. So, I'm not I'm not really killing him and I'm kind of losing this

fight. However, if you look at my team's POV, this editor is now completely out of position, completely isolated and

I've got my second life, so I don't really care and I'm just going to keep going because I'm at my in my mind I'm

like, "I'm just going to shut these guys down, prevent them from doing damage to my team and my team's going to be able

to clean up any stragglers." And that's exactly what happens, right? So, that's why the last mistake is really just

having a game plan when you go into these fights so that you know what to do. Now, I could do a lot of examples

with a lot of different heroes, but I'm going to keep that type of content for the academy. I do have a much longer

video where we talked about positioning, which I just made yesterday. We had a hour-long lesson on positioning,

sightlines, angles and all that stuff. So, check out the academy if you're interested. If you're not interested,

obviously no big deal, but those were the seven most common mistakes that I see people make when it comes to

positioning. Hopefully, you learned a thing or two and if you did, well, subscribe, leave a like, leave a

comment, whatever it is and I will catch you soon in the next video.