Deadlock Macro Guide: Key Strategies for Winning Fights and Objectives

The map in Deadlock holds a lot of secrets. In this video, we're going to go over everything Deadlock macro, how

to fight and when to take mid boss, and finally to the shrines and patronons, and how you can use this knowledge to

win more games. What's up, friends? This is Metro and welcome to the most detailed macro guide on YouTube. If you

haven't checked out part one, link in the description goes over everything farming. Today, we're going to talk

about everything else. walkers earn mid boss, how to get in ahead in fights, when to fight, when to push the enemy

base, when to back out. And we're going to start right away because there's going to be a lot of things to talk

about. And we're going to start with the most common question I get always, which is when do I actually take fights? And

the simple answer is whenever you have an advantage. And we're going to go over every single advantage you can have in

this game. And we're going to explain every single one in detail. And the first one is going to be very basic,

which is you have a power spike. I'm sure you've heard of power spikes in Deadlock before. People talk about power

spikes like the uh investment system where you buy an item and you get to the next level of investment. The main power

spike that we have in the game right now is a 4.8k investment. And I'm sure you've heard of it, which gives you a

lot of power, right? And on every character, especially in the early and mid game, eventually you will hit those

power spikes. And it is true that your power at that point in time goes up significantly, which means you will be a

lot stronger in fights. Okay? And that doesn't only go for items, it also goes for maxing out abilities. Almost every

character in the game has some really good maxle abilities. And once you max them, you become a lot stronger. And it

is on you to know on your character in specific what those abilities are. Usually, when you follow a build of a a

pro player, a streamer, a very educated build, it's going to be very simple for you to line those up because in those

builds, the way they do it usually is you get the big power spike in items at the exact same time you get the big a

big power spike in your level ups because souls and deadlock give you both XP and they give you money, right? So

you can line them up to where once I max out flawless advance in this build, for example, is also usually the time where

I get my full spirit spike and maybe some green items along the way. And that's when I know I'm strong. So uh

scenario number one in fights is simply when you have a power spike when you feel more powerful than the enemy. That

also means that if you're up in lane, right, if you win the laning stage and you have a lot of money, um you should

probably go and actively look for fights into the enemy jungle or, you know, gank other lanes because you're going to be

higher level. you're going to have more items. Enemy is going to die easier. It's going to be an easier time for you.

Vice versa, that also means if you're behind, that's a time you really don't want to look for fights, and you should

probably more react to the enemy. If you see the enemy be up in souls a lot of the time, even up to the highest level,

they will be aggressive on your side of the map and look for kills. And a lot of the time, they will overchase,

especially into walkers, which brings me to scenario number two. You should always fight under objectives.

Objectives help you uh in a major way. Guardians shoot the enemy, right? Especially in the early game, they're

powerful. But walkers in specific, the longer the game goes, the tankier they are. The last walker has the most HP, if

you guys don't know. Not only will they absorb a lot of damage, you can take cover behind them. They will also

naturally give you resist, both bullet and spirit resist. I think they give around 15% of both right now. So, you

have those passively. It's like passively owning both battle vest and enchanters emblem. And if you're behind,

you can still take favorable fights. Even if you're behind in money, you're going to be a a lot more powerful under

the walker. Another point you should consider is ultimates. Okay, there's a lot of ultimates in this game that are

gamechanging game deciding. If you look at the top of the screen during the game and just keep track of enemy ultimates

and team ultimates. If at one point in time suddenly your team has like five WS and the enemy has like one, if you take

a big fight, uh chances are you will probably win, right? because ultimates are so game-changing. On the other side,

if the enemy has a lot of ults and your team really doesn't have a lot, you need to consider that also and play more

passively. Otherwise, positioning. High ground is always strong on most heroes. High ground allows you to hit the enemy

easier. It's going to be harder for them to chase you. They have to get up to the high ground to even get damage to you.

And you can shoulder peak just like in shooters. You can corner peak and shoot enemies from above and they're not going

to be able to shoot back effectively. So positioning in terms of map geometry also really matters and high ground is

the number one thing I can give you. Another thing is veils. If you're sitting behind a veil that you can see

through and the enemy can't see through the one-sided veils, um you're going to have an inherent advantage in the fight,

right? So be smart about how you engage in the fight. But in general, if you are ahead, you want to be the team that

proactively looks for kills, proactively looks on the enemy side to steal jungle, and proactively denies enemies from

farming. Right? If you're ahead, you want to keep your lead. And the way you keep your lead is stealing the enemy

side jungle and looking for kills on the enemy side of the map. Whereas, if you're behind, you want to actively try

to secure your own jungle without dying. Okay, that being said, it brings me to my next point, and I mentioned it

before. Do not push into walkers early. When do you want to push into walkers? This is like one of the really big pain

points a lot of players have in this game. They are ahead. They are ahead in money. There's like not really much

going on in the map. and you walk into a walker, you send like three, four people, the enemy defense, and you end

up dying and suddenly the game is even again. There's going to be three scenarios when you want to attack a

walker. Scenario number one is you are up at least two players. Okay, so that means if you just got a kill in the

enemy jungle or two and you are in a 6v4, right, or in a 5v3, that is around the time in the mid game when you can

attack a walker or attack multiple walkers at once and the enemy is going to have a hard time defending. they're

going to have less numbers than you and the inherent advantage they have in defending the walker is going to be

diminished. Okay, so that's kind of how you secure walkers and you reduce the risk of dying for them. Okay, that's

scenario number one. Scenario number two is if all three of your lanes are pushing into the enemy side and ideally

pushing into all enemy walkers. In that scenario, even in a 6v6, if everyone is alive, you should really tell your team

to push multiple walkers at once. Why is that? The enemy now has to deal with three walkers at once. So ideally, they

have to do a perfect 222 split to defend all walkers equally without losing a walker, right? And chances are if the

enemy has to react and coordinate that kind of defense, if there's pressure on all lanes, they're going to have a very

hard time doing that. even up to Eternal Six, even up to the highest rank in the game. What usually happens is either the

enemy overcommits on one side, sends like four or five people, and your team that pushes that side dies, but the

other two walkers die, or they forget about one side in general, and the walker just dies for free, and you get a

free walker. Usually, the scenario is ideal for the team that pushes, which brings me to a general point I mention

in almost every video. That's why it's so essential to have your creeps pushed first, right? If you don't push your

creep waves in general, the enemy is going to have more map control and you're going to have less of those

scenarios and the enemy is going to have more of those scenarios where they can take more of your map, right? Like take

care of your walkers. Always push creep waves first. Scenario number three for pushing walkers is if you are a split

pusher and there is a bigger fight on the other side of the map. What is split pushing? It's in the name split. You

split from your team. Okay, let's say there's a fight breaking out on the right side of the map, like multiple

people, you see at least five enemies fighting and your team is fighting on that side of the map. It's usually at

that point very safe to push the left side walker on the other side of the map alone. Why is that? The maximum amount

that can defend the walker is a is one person. So, worst case scenario, you're going to be in a one versus one. But a

lot of the time, that last person doesn't even show up anyways. They're probably AFK farming the jungle

somewhere. They're maybe pushing the middle lane or they're about to join that big team fight, right? And you

might say, "But Metro, am I not letting my team down if I don't join that big team fight on the right side?" And that

really depends on the scenario of the game. But usually, if you can kill the walker fast enough, it's always worth it

going for the walker. Worst case scenario, one person defense, you get the walker, and you might even die for

it. But that's always worth it. It's almost always, 99% of the time, it's worth dying for a walker. Okay. What are

good split pushers? Split poisoners in general are characters that have a lot of damage in their auto attacks because

um walkers don't really take a lot of spirit burst damage. They are have more resists against spirit. Good split

pushers would be uh Warden, McInness, Wraith or Graves and Celeste are two of the new characters that are actually

really good. And the reason Celeste is so strong at at walkers, she can put her one on the walker and the one the light

eater debuff works on the walker. So she can left click down the walker really fast. Okay, that doesn't mean you could

you can't split push on any other character. By the way, it works on almost every character. If you see an

opening and the walker is undefended and your team or the enemy team is occupied somewhere else on the map, going for the

walker almost always worth it. So, just to summarize, three scenarios. Scenario number one, you won a big team fight and

the enem is down players. Scenario number two is you're split pushing and scenario number three is all lanes are

pushing into the enemy walker. Otherwise, you don't want to push walkers ever. Okay, that's how you die.

If the game is even, even if you're a bit ahead and you don't have reju, you do not want to push them, which we'll

talk about reju in a bit. That's another scenario that comes in. And that's why deadlock is such an amazing game because

there's so many possibilities. In the mid game, it might not even be worth pushing the walker after a big team

fight win because you can take mid boss. Getting to the next objective, which is the earn. And again, I'm going to

condense this down to three scenarios for you. Okay, when should you pick up the earn? The answer is almost always.

Okay, earn right now gives you a lot of money no matter if you're ahead or behind. But there's different reasons

you want to pick it up, but I'll explain to you why you want to pick it up basically all the time if you are on the

earn side. In an even scenario, even scenarios means there's 10 or less% net worth difference. When you pick up the

earn, the transfer or the drop off point will be on the other side of the map in the middle. Um, you want to pick this up

because you can run it and you will force the enemy to react to you, right? Either they have to chase you down,

waste valuable time to even get to you, or they don't react to you at all, you get free money, or you can force an earn

fight, right? And even if you feel like your team is not helping you, if you're getting close to the drop off spot and

enemies show up with a lot of people and your team doesn't, you can still hold the earn, run backwards to your walker,

and sit there safely, do nothing for a bit, and the enemy is going to be forced to sit in that lane because they know as

soon as they leave, you can drop off the earn and get free money. So, it's almost always better for your team to have

control of the earn. That's why you want to always pick it up, even if it's an even earn. Now even more important if

you are behind more than 10%. So you are the team that's behind and you're losing the earn gives now even more money.

There is a thing in this game called comeback gold. The way it works is the further you are behind the more gold for

you get from every source but the main massive source of comeback souls is really the earn and it will get get you

a lot more money than usual if you're behind. Plus the ear drop drop off spot is going to be on your side of the map,

right? So, it's going to be very, very easy to get there and it's going to be very hard for the enemy to contest you

because there's usually like a walker around there. And even if there's no walker left, the enemy will have to go

deep into your territory to engage you, which should give you and your team a favorable fight. Okay? So, especially if

you're behind and you see you're behind more than 10%, try to get the earn and try to get the earn in the drop offs.

That's like the main comeback mechanic right now. Like that's like the only way in high rank people come back, right?

You won't come back by just farming or sitting in base, the only chance you get is to earn. But more often than not,

even in high rank games, the enemy will not be able to contest you or they forget to contest you and suddenly the

game is back to even like one or two earns and the game is back to even and you can win. Okay? So, be the hero for

your team. Pick up the earn if you're behind. Now, if you're ahead, you should also pick up the earn, but not to

deposit it. Usually, as I just explained, it is very hard if the earn is on the other side of the map, on the

enemy side, to drop it in, right? It's very risky. You have to go very deep. So, what you want to do in that

scenario, especially if you're a support and you don't really want to farm a lot, you pick up the urn and you run it to

your base, right? Or you keep it in your possession just to deny the enemy that comeback gold. I see on low ranks, it

really doesn't happen a lot. In fact, in low ranks in general, people don't run the earn enough. But denying the enemy

the comeback gold is also how you get your team to stay ahead. You can also be the hero. Even if it's an unthankful

job, just run the earn to your base. Keep it there. Um, after a while, it will deal damage to you. By the way, if

you hold the earn for too long, it will deal damage. But like just denying the enemy the earn pickup is good. And if

you really are that far ahead and you get kills, you can decide to walk into the enemy side of the map and get that

earn in as well, right? like if you're far enough ahead, but it's a very risky play until you're super far ahead. Okay,

and that is everything. Earn, it's really not that hard. Pick it up and run it or protect it. That's it, right? As

long as it's in your possession, it's good. Having the earn makes your team stronger because the enemy has to invest

resources to get there. And if they don't, you get more money for the entire team and your team will win more. We are

now getting to mid boss. And I mentioned this earlier. We were talking about how in the mid game it might be not a good

choice to push a walker. Mid boss is the strongest objective in the game right now. It gives the team that kills it

gold, but if you secure the reju as well, it will give you three up to three extra lives that you can use in a fight.

And you could imagine in a 9v3 or 9v6, sorry, you will most likely win the fight even if you kind of misplay,

right? So the mid boss is really what allows you in the mid game to securely push walkers and then in the later game

to securely push into the enemy base. It's like the main tool you have to use other than being very far ahead in gold

to get the end the the finish the finish line. When should you take mid boss? I'll condense this down again to three

main uh ways to play the mid boss. Example number one is after 20 minutes roughly the respawn time of enemies is

going to be long enough to where if your team walks into mid boss fast and kills it, it's usually enough time to where

you can secure the mid boss for free or at the very least the enemy is going to be down players and you're going to have

a good time to contact or fight in the mid boss and probably secure more of the redu than the enemy. Okay, so scenario

number one, 20 minutes or longer. If you get at least two kills, you want to go into mid boss. Scen scenario number two

is you can take mid boss in a 6v6 if the enemy is out of position. If the enemy is running the combat earn that I just

talked about and they're all focused on let's say you're ahead and the enemy is all focused on securing the earn. You

can tell your team, hey, they're dealing with the earn right now. Just go mid right now and kill it at the same time.

And what usually happens is enemy will secure the earn, but you will get a mid boss in as a trade and then you have

three extra lives which is worth the money they just got from the earn. Okay, so that's scenario number two. And then

scenario number three is if you are very far ahead. Okay, and if you have a lot of SS over the enemy, one or the other,

right? So if you have game deciding midfight ultimates like lash, dynamo, right? You have an Ivy stun, Abrams,

Abrams, any any big olds that can secure the earn. Yamato al and you are a bit ahead. That is where you can take the

mid boss fight. Especially if the enemy is down ultimates, right? Like so if the enemy feels like weaker is a good time

to take mid boss, especially if you see on the map that the enemy is kind of split, like if there's one guy on the

left side farming and one guy on the right side farming and your entire team is kind of around middle, go into mid

boss pit, force a mid boss fight, and more often than not, you will be the one to come out on top in the in that fight.

Opposite scenario, when should you contest mid boss? And the answer is here very simple. It's almost always, okay,

if you can get there in time, it's almost always worth contesting. Okay, even if you down a player or two, if the

enemy is in the mid boss pit, they will take damage from the mid boss and you have chances to outplay the enemy,

right? You can go in, stun them, you can parry on the on the reg crystal. There is outplay potential. And I'm not going

to lie to you, if you are contesting and you down people, more often than not, it will not go in your favor. But the

alternative scenario is even worse where you just give them free rejs for free and at that point you're kind of [ __ ]

right? Because if the enemy has three reds and you don't have anything, especially if you're behind, then you

really have to sit in base because then the enemy can't can't just take any fight and then they're going to push

into your base, right? Or take the earn um get more ahead, steal your entire jungle and that's when it's very very

far uh very very hard to get come back. Okay, so you should contest almost always, but especially if you up

ultimate. If you are too far from the mid boss area and you know you can't get there in time, that's when you take the

second best uh option, which is usually killing a walker that's on that side of the map. Like trading mid boss for a

walker or two is not horrible. If you get two walkers, it's actually a good trade, right? Or run the earn again,

right? Like if you can't get there, it's unlucky. It's going to feel bad and you're probably going to fall behind for

it, but like make the best out of it. Okay, so that is Mid Boss. I love providing educational content and it

really means a lot to me that it resonates with so many people. And with the Deadlock Academy, we are going to

provide the best content on the internet for coaching in deadlock period. I offer classes every week to help you climb in

no time and we also have many more courses by handpicked pro players and pro coaches and there is really no

better people I could think of to help you teach the game to make you a better player. We also do weekly coach scrims

where you jump in to improve while just playing the game. Right now, there's a 30-day free trial. Just try it out, see

how it goes, and I think the results will speak for themselves. When should you attack the enemy base? Right now, in

the since the latest patch, they redesigned the base. It's very hard to crack, right? So, again, I'll give you

three rough estimates on when you can attack, but it's very hard to say in in that that case in specific because the

base is so hard to crack. Point number one is you're up at least 35 to 40k. That is usually when you're strong

enough to where you can, if you play it safe, walk into the enemy base, attack and siege the enemy base without

instantly dying. Even then, it might backfire. Okay, so scenario number two is you're up in money and you have reju.

Okay, that's when it's like pretty safe to attack finally where you ideally you are up that net worth like the 3540k

and you have reju. Now, even if you have three reds and you're only up 10 to 20k, if the enemy defends properly, you will

probably lose the fight and give the enemy a chance to come back. I'm not saying it can't happen, but that is

really how it's working right now. So, if you get the mid boss and you have three reju and you're not up 40k, what

you should what should you do instead? This is where you really take the rest of the map. You make sure every walker

is dead. Get the last walker in a in a team fight. And if the enemy is really sitting in base, you take their entire

jungle. And you can do that very safely now because you have those extra lives until you have a significant lead of at

least 35 to 40k. And that's when you want to decide to attack their base. If you can't get there, let's say you

secured VU Reju and then you up 20k and then you farm and then the vu runs out. What do you do next? You can look for

pickoffs, but usually you chill, farm a bit more and wait for the next mid boss. That's why games last so long. right now

even on high level as well because it's again really really hard to crack the enemy base. Okay, just to reiterate

three points either you're up 40k or you have three reds or ideally both is when you want to attack the enemy base and

siege the enemy base. Now how do you siege the enemy base safely? How do you take a fight in the enemy base? You want

to have your team usually coordinated to get one shrine together and then the other shrine together. The reason being

is the enemy has two pathways where they can get to the shrines very easily. So, a good enemy team will send six people

to one side and kill someone of your team there if you split. Okay? So, make sure you go together, clean up one

shrine first, then the other, and then you all focus together uh the patron. After you down the patron, so you get

phase one down, there's a 15-second down time until you can attack the final phase. And the final phase is the

hardest thing to crack because you need to be in the pit. The patreon can curse you, deal damage to you, and the enemy

can just get in really easily and defend, right? And or if there's more than one person of the enemy in the pit,

you cannot damage the Patreon. It will be invulnerable, right? So you need to clean up the enemies first. So what do

you do if you down the first phase Patreon? This is where you want to check how the health of your team is looking.

How many redu do you have left? How is the respawn of the enemies? If the enemy has six players up and they can defend

S6, you want to back out and then go again, right? Next fight after you get like a pickoff or two. If you have no

reg, you want to back out. Finishing the game right now is very sketchy. That's the

one time you want to be careful in this game and play passively because if the enemy turns that fight around,

especially in the late game, and you you're dead for like 90 seconds, that's like a way back for the enemy into the

game. And I've seen a lot of games turn around 180 and do a complete back flip because one team got too greedy and

tried to finish too early. Okay, so really try to be coordinated in general. Otherwise, aggression is king. Putting

pressure on the enemy at every stage in the game if we're talking laning stage or even mid game is king. Okay, you

always want to make sure to play proactive. If you are the team that has to react to everything, if there's like

a wave pushing your green walker and then there's a wave pushing your blue walker and then you have to react and

react then react, you're going to fall behind. You're more likely to make mistakes and you don't have a plan.

You're just reacting to what you see on the screen. The team that has a plan and plays proactively, even if it's risky,

right, even if it's aggressive, is usually the team that ends up winning. Okay? And in later Midame fights, if

there's really nothing else to do on the map, I always tell my team, the first thing I go for, and it works every time

in Eternals, is we should look for a kill first. Okay? If you're getting to mid to late game and mid boss is about

to spawn or you really need a kill on the enemy team, you go as six and you look for a kill and that's how you win

the game. And even in the mid game, again, can only reiterate, make sure the waves are pushed, okay? if you are

strong, if you're up in net worth, if you just bought a big item is when you want to be aggressive, when you want to

invade the enemy jungle, when you want to look for kills, don't spend all day farming, okay? Unless you're the hard

carry. And even on the hard carry, there comes a point where you have enough farm, you you want to start fighting,

okay? If you're not sure about how to play your character in specific, I have a complete roles guide that I'm going to

link in the description below. And that really explains how every single character is being played in Deadlock

because some characters want to farm and some characters want a perma fight. This was more the overall macro. And again,

if you're wondering about farming and how to efficiently gain souls in anything that is not team fighting,

check out my part one of this macro guide, which is everything farming, from how to get jungle creeps to how to farm

syn efficiently to how to get the most money possible. Okay, and I hope that was somewhat helpful. I know it was a

pretty long yap. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments. And until next time, see you friends. Bye-bye.

going to run it back.