Master Deadlock's New Investment Power Spikes for Winning Builds

A couple of days ago, I spectated a new coach this seeker level Kelvin who was struggling to win his games. And it was

a very educational video. I do recommend watching it. But one thing that I noticed about these lower level lobbies

is that they're not taking advantage of something very important that was just introduced in a recent update. So, let

me start this video by asking a rather simple question. What do you Kelvin, Dorman, Moan Krill, and Hayes all have

in common based on the information presented here on the screen? I'll give you a second to answer.

Got your answer? Good. All right. So, if you said that they all are missing items from one of the three item categories in

the game, you would be correct. And this is a very big deal thanks to a recent change that they made. So, what exactly

am I talking about? Well, if you've been out of the loop for the past month or so, then let me catch you up real quick.

So, Valve added a brand new mechanic to the item shop where there are now investment power spikes. [music]

Normally, if you buy a couple of items in a category, then you'll be able to get a little bonus to your spirit power,

health, or weapon damage. And that is still the case. But specifically at the 4.8k soul threshold, you now get a

massive boost to your effectiveness in that specific category. So, you can see here in the spirit category when we jump

from 3.2k up to 4.8k, we go from 19 spirit power up to 45 spirit power, which is a pretty big deal. Similarly,

in the vitality category, we go from 17% health to 34% literally doubling the effect that we get. But the weapon

category is the biggest of all, going from 20% up to 49% weapon damage. So, knowing how to use

these power spikes is a very important thing right now in Deadlock. And you can be missing out on a ton of extra value

by not participating in all three categories. Just as an example here, if I'm playing Kelvin and I don't have any

weapon items, then well, I'm doing about 27 to 28 damage per shot right now. But if I go ahead and buy two weapon items,

and these don't even have to be items that actually inherently give me damage. For example, I can get Cult to Sacrifice

here and just not actually use the active component. And then I can get Spirit Shredder Bullets. And now I've

invested 4.8k into the category, and my damage spikes all the way up to 41 damage per shot, which is a very massive

increase, and it leads to me putting a lot more pressure on the enemy. So, some characters are naturally really good at

using all three of these investment categories without having to change up their build too much. Vindicta, for

example, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this investment change because she already likes to get a lot

of gun and spirit items, and then she has no trouble getting vitality items. That's just normal counterplay. So, I

can just pick up a bunch of items, maybe get a reactive barrier as a situational item, and then wham bam, I have hit 4.8k

in every single category. And so, Vindicta absolutely loves this, and she is doing a ton of damage right now

because she just gets so much spirit power, so much gun damage. And I made a video already about how broken this is.

But some characters have a bit of a tougher time. You see, they're really good at getting two out of the three

categories up to 4.8k, but they usually struggle to get a third category all the way up without deviating a little bit

from what you would previously do in earlier patches. And so, that's really what I want to focus on in this video.

Kelvin here is a great example. He is a very support based character, and you often see him getting a ton of purple

and green items. And that's great. That's absolutely fine. And as a matter of fact, on a lot of these pure spirit

or pure gun based characters, you do want to take advantage of the early spike, getting a bunch of purple items

online right away. So, that way you can do a ton of spirit damage. I mean, if you get to this spike early at 4.8k

souls in the match, and then you get that 35 spirit power online, you can start hitting like a truck with your

abilities. And a lot of characters like Lash are taking advantage of this right now. But it can be a lot harder to get

that third item category online. For example, this is an old spirit healing build, which I definitely really

enjoyed, but it is completely outdated. It actually seems like it hasn't been updated since October. So, not exactly

the best build to be using in today's meta because you'll notice there's not a single gun item to be found. And if we

take a look at a newer build like this very popular support Kelvin build that just got updated, you can see that it

actually does make an attempt to reach that gun threshold and get that 49% damage online. If I go ahead and get

either Heroic Aura or Alchemical Fire, and I also grab a Fleetfoot, I am at that 4.8k threshold. And this is very

helpful on Kelvin. Fleetfoot is obviously amazing on Icepath, makes it so much easier to use. And then Heroic

Aura buffs my entire team with bullet damage reduction, movement speed, and a gun bonus. So, this is really really

nice. And my gun all of a sudden is going to be hitting much, much harder. And I get to make more use out of the

benefit that Heroic Aura does. So, not only does my team benefit from this, but I really, really benefit from this, too.

And so, if you're playing a super spirit based character like Kelvin and you want to take advantage of these categories,

it's a matter of finding out which gun items work for you. And in this case, Heroic Aura is great, Alchemical Fire is

great for supporting your team, and Fleetfoot is great because it gives you a very nice movement speed buff, and it

also, of course, levels up your gun damage. And so, these are a couple of great examples of gun items on Kelvin.

And these aren't even your only options. If you wanted more of a focus on damage, for example, you could get Spirit

Shredder Bullets to make your grenades and your beam do a lot more damage. You just prime somebody with your weapon and

then beam them and grenade them. And you could also get Cult to Sacrifice, which gives you more range, makes it easier to

hit your abilities, gives you more health, and gives you more damage, especially when you're fighting those

walkers. And so, it'll give you a lot more objective pressure. And so, you have a lot of options in the gun

category to help your spirit build out even if you're not trying to focus too much on your gun damage. You just want

to make your gun still be reasonably impactful. Now, this Kelvin build probably does have the best gun items

for Kelvin. I'm not a Kelvin specialist, but I am simply throwing out some options. And these options can be used

on other characters. For example, we can take a look at Lash, who's a character I've been playing a lot recently. You

can get a couple of different items on him. This build still needs some work in terms of the organization, but the point

is we do have a couple of items that can be helpful on him. Whereas Kelvin might want to get the Fleetfoot and the Heroic

Aura online, Lash actually does want to get something like Mystic Shot online because it really synergizes with his

bursty kit. Or you could do Spirit Shredder if you really wanted to, and again, prime them before you actually

hit them with the slam, although this can be hard to do, so I don't usually get this item. But you can also pair

this, again, with Cult to Sacrifice, which gives you more range and a little bit of range goes a long way on Lash

just towards making him feel smoother to play. So, I have ended up liking this synergy of items, but other popular

items on Lash right now include Head Hunter, which again, synergizes with the whole idea of burst. [music] And so, you

really do have a lot of options on him, as well. But the very important thing is you just need to be trying to reach 4.8k

in all of these categories. Now, let's say you're on the flip side and you're playing a gun character who doesn't

necessarily want to buy a lot of spirit items. Well, there are still definitely some good choices for you. So, let's

take a look at that. Hayes is pretty much the perfect example of a gun character who can definitely just buy

all the gun items in the world if she wants. But she does actually benefit a lot from having spirit power, and so

getting up to this spike is actually a big deal on her because she gets pretty good damage scaling on sleep dagger. 2.6

damage per spirit power is insane. She gets a lot of extra duration on the smoke bomb. She gets decent amount of

spirit damage on fixation. And she also gets a ton of extra duration on the bullet dance. So, you do definitely want

some spirit power on this character. So, here are a couple of items that you can buy. First of all, I'm the type of

player who does like getting improved spirit over Titanic Magazine because one more stat I forgot to mention is that

her ammo also scales with spirit. So, you get half an ammo per spirit power. Might as well get some spirit scaling.

You don't really need a Titanic Magazine because this will also scale up your other abilities, too. So, you can do

that if you want. Still go Titanic Magazine if you want. I'm just I like the improved spirit, personally. You can

get Quicksilver Reload on your dagger if you want if you prefer going down that avenue as opposed to active reload. And

you could also get Bullet Resist Shredder. And the combination of these three very common items will get you up

to that 4.8k spirit investment. And look at how much extra duration I'm getting on the smoke bomb right now. 11.5

seconds. And on the sleep dagger here, I'm getting 164 extra burst damage on that. Shoot, we could proc Tank Buster

now if we wanted, although this isn't a spirit Hayes build. We're just trying to get up to the threshold. We're getting

23 extra damage on our fixation here. And we're getting a whopping 3.84 extra seconds on our bullet dance without

buying any sort of actual duration items. And so, this really, really helps out for long-term sustain damage on

this. And so, this is one way that you can get a lot of spirit power on a character

like Hayes and reach that threshold. However, let's say you're a gun item purist and you just go for Titanic

Magazine, Active Reload, and Weakening Headshot. Totally valid, and it gets you up to your 4.8k threshold in gun items.

So, yeah, that's still perfectly reasonable. But how do you get your spirit power then? What's another way

that you can get to that 4.8k investment threshold? Well, the other option would be to potentially invest in a very

potent 6k that synergizes with your build. Now, if you're a Hayes player, you probably already know what I'm

thinking of. It's Focus Lens or Curse. You can do either, and both of these items are very good on Hayes, as well.

And in just one singular purchase and one item slot, you're able to exceed the 4.8k spike, and you still get a ton of

spirit power, which makes all of your abilities stronger. We're still getting 2.74 seconds on bullet dance, 8.23

seconds on smoke bomb, and 117 damage on sleep dagger. And then with the focus lens, we are able to

focus this guy down, do a ton of damage, and then have that damage be dealt back to him with focus lens. So, that is

another very effective thing you can do. And the equivalent of going for a 6K on a spirit focused character would

probably be to go for something that synergizes really well, like maybe a crippling headshot to lower their

resistances and do healing reduction. Maybe shadow weave if you're a crazy person, or spiritual overflow would be

another very good item. And so, you do have options in the gun category as well. But generally, the most efficient

way to reach your investment threshold in a category that you're not intentionally specifically building for

is to get two or so items to reach that potential and try to mitigate the amount of item slots that you're taking up from

your other very important upgrades, because you don't want to have like you know, four or five slots taken up by a

bunch of weapon items when you're still trying to play a spirit build. And so, trying to figure out what one, two, or

sometimes three items can get you to the threshold is the most efficient way to go about it. Which is why again, on

Lash, you'll see me go for mystic shot and then either something like head hunter or cultist sacrifice rather than

getting like three or four different items, because this is a very efficient way to only use up two slots, get two

items that still really help me out, and reach that weapon investment threshold so that way I am able to do a lot of gun

damage without sacrificing too much spirit damage, because I'm still able to spend all the rest of these slots here

on items that really help me out. Now, I pretty much haven't talked at all about vitality items in this video, and that's

because vitality is by far the easiest category to level up on any hero, because this category contains all of

your counterplay and survival options. And so, every build has such an easy time getting these items online. For

example, on Lash here, I might want to buy heal bane for, I don't know, Victor or Abrams or somebody. And then I can

buy sound mastery, and oh, wow, I'm already at 4.8K vitality investment. Okay, that was really easy. Or on Hayes,

I can buy fury trance and reactive barrier, and oh, wow, look at that, I'm already at 4.8K.

So yeah, the vitality category pretty much just goes without saying, and that's why I haven't spoken about it

until this point in the video. So now, you should have a good understanding of why it's so important to reach each of

these 4.8K investment thresholds in Deadlock, and how you can do so regardless of what character you're

playing and whether you're playing a gun build, a spirit build, or some kind of hybrid build. Just to wrap things up,

here's one more example. This is my ball build for Seven that was made freshly after the update. A lot of people have

been enjoying this, and I have been steamrolling my way to eternis with this. And this build gets us to all

three of our investment thresholds pretty quickly, but of course, it does prioritize the spirit investment,

because it gives us a ton of extra power on Seven. So, we start off with a couple of basic items, usual stuff on Seven. We

get cultist sacrifice to get us the majority of the way to our weapon investment, and also because cultist

sacrifice is just really good for farming tempo. We get this right about when the tier three camps are online, so

we just munch one of those minions, we get a ton of souls, and it helps us snowball to our next items, where we get

our big spirit investment up next, and we actually overshoot the category just because these items are really good. And

then we round out the gun category with spirit shredder bullets. And this combo makes us do a lot of both gun and spirit

damage. And the gun damage really is a non-negligible part of the damage on this build. And it's just coming from

cultist sacrifice and spirit shredder. Neither of these intrinsically even give us extra damage until we use cultist

sacrifice here. And if I go ahead and get some boons online, then well, yeah, I'm getting 23% extra weapon damage from

this, 49% extra weapon damage from my weapon investment, and my gun all of a sudden is actually hitting quite hard

for this stage in the game. It's really nice and a good supplement to our damage. And of course, we get all this

gun damage while we get extra range for our balls, extra health, and a little bit of extra spirit damage, because we

are priming them and shredding their spirit with spirit shredder bullets. And then the green category, like I said, is

the easiest to level up. We get spirit lifesteal, we get heal bane, we're there. And then after that, we can get

all of the spirit items online that we want, and we are still playing a mostly spirit build, but we've reached each of

these investment thresholds, and we are just an absolute powerhouse of a character come late game. We're doing a

ton of damage, a ton of area damage at that, too. We're shredding objectives, and it's an absolute blast. So,

hopefully you found this video to be helpful, and if you did, of course, make sure to drop a like on it and subscribe

for more videos like this from me. And you can find a playlist with a bunch of other educational content in the

description down below, so go check that out. But with all that being said, thank you guys for watching. I will see you

all next time. Peace out.