Top Deadlock Tips: Survive Longer and Win More Fights

If you just started playing Deadlock, you may notice that you die a lot. Like every time you head back after

respawning, you just die within 10 seconds of dropping off the zip line and you get sent right back to base.

Fortunately for you, there are several things you can do to minimize dying. Let's get right into it. One very common

reason for dying in Deadlock is being out of position. What does this mean exactly? Well, consider this situation.

You're in the laning phase and you're standing right here killing any troopers and trying to get hits on the enemy

guardian. Your opponents are nowhere to be seen or pretty distant, so it seems safe, right? Unfortunately, within the

blink of an eye, they're suddenly surrounding you and they burst you down before you can even make it halfway back

to your side of the lane and you die. This is bad positioning. You underestimate how quickly an opponent

can get to where you are right now and you overestimate how quickly you can get back to safety. So, work on basic

positioning, making sure you're aware of where you're standing and that you can make it back to safety quickly in case

of sudden aggression by your opponents. And now we move to our next principle, map awareness. Sure is quiet around

here. I wonder where everyone else is. No one in sight, no one on the map. Surely the entire enemy team isn't on

their way to kill me, right? Right? Oh, mackerel. You have to be looking at your map way more often than you probably

already do. Knowing where your opponents are is extremely crucial in your decision-making. Even their absence from

the map is important information. If you see a singular opponent on the opposite side of the map, is it a good idea to

push their walker here right now? Probably not. Since you don't know where any of the other five enemy players are,

it's safest not to push too deep into their territory since they could appear at any time while you're there.

Conversely, if you can see their strongest players on the map and they're currently busy somewhere distant,

perhaps fighting your teammates on the opposite lane, then you're probably safe and you can push their walker right now.

Since they're occupied, they won't be able to rotate quickly enough and the moment they vanish from the map is

probably your cue to leave because if you're pushing their walker, then they're most likely on the way to stop

you. Map awareness is honestly one of the most important things in Deadlock, not just for information about player

locations. The map also tells you what jungle camps are available to farm, what center sacrifices you can take, the

status of the bridge buffs, the HP of the objectives like guardians and walkers, the locations of trooper waves,

the status of the spirit urn, mid boss and other such things. It's definitely one of the skills you should work on

learning early on. Now let's talk about actually fighting since I've mostly been discussing how to not get into fights in

the first place. Well, an important principle in Deadlock is to pick your fights wisely because another common

reason for dying is getting into a fight you think you can take and you probably feel like you're winning for the first

half, but then you suddenly get overwhelmed and die. And you're left wondering, how the mackerel did that

happen? One of the first things you should look at when deciding whether to take a fight or not is the map. If, for

example, you see this Haze on the map before engaging, you should check to see where her teammates are. Are they

visible? Are they distant? Yes, then it's time to check how many souls she has. More than you do? Well, it's

probably not a good idea to fight her. Equal? Eh, maybe you can take the fight. Less? Then you can probably win provided

you don't play the fight poorly. Souls are not the only thing to take into consideration, of course, and there are

many more factors that decide whether the outcome of a fight is more likely to be positive or negative. Like check if

she has her ultimate up. You can see it as this icon right here. It'll appear filled when it's ready and dimmed when

it's in cool down and you can also see how long it takes before it's back up as this colored outline around the circle.

Is her ult in cool down? Is it a long way off from being ready? Yes, then your chances are better. You can check her

items, too. You can do this by holding tab and mousing over the item icons beneath your opponent's profile. Does

she have anything that counters you? If so, then it's probably not a great idea to fight her. Obviously, you can't just

stand there and analyze an opponent's build while everything else is going on, but it's something you'll want to scan

every now and then just to make sure you're not about to get killed by some random item that shuts you down

completely. Also, general knowledge of the game, what the characters do and what the items do plays a huge role in

this type of decision-making. For example, if you're about to fight a Lady Guys who has her ult up, it could be

very dangerous since her ult allows her to swap HP values with you and if you get her low, she could very easily turn

that on you and suddenly you're losing. If you're playing Mina, maybe you could kill her since your own ult silences

enemies for as long as you can keep it on them, so she can't use her ult during that. You'll definitely learn this kind

of game sense over time with experience, so don't worry about trying to cram all the information about every single hero

into your brain when you're starting. So, I'd say the most important considerations you have to make when

deciding whether or not to take a fight, assuming it is your initiative, are the locations of the other enemy players,

the soul difference between you and them, and whether their ultimate is on cool down. If you can verify that most

of these conditions are optimal, then you probably have a good chance of winning the fight provided you played

well. Also, know when to stop chasing someone. If you're getting too deep into enemy territory chasing this one person,

you should probably back off. As I've been saying earlier, it's very easy to get surrounded and cornered and

eventually killed if you venture too far into sections of the map that your team doesn't have control over. You shouldn't

chase, especially if the person you're chasing is not particularly a high-value target. Like if they're the poorest

person on the enemy team, for example. One of the only situations where chasing an enemy deep into their territory is

good is if the particular opponent you're chasing is an important member of the enemy team and if you're sure you

can kill them. This could create an opportunity for your own team to take objectives like a walker or mid boss or

urn. Beware that there is still a very high chance of dying in this case, but it's one of the kinds of deaths that are

worth it since you're still helping your team make overall progress towards winning. But what happens if you have to

take a larger fight that may or may not be of your own initiative? How do you survive long enough to win the fight or

at least long enough to escape it? Well, this is why we buy green items. These are the items in the vitality tab of the

shop. To decide what particular items you'll want to buy, it's pretty helpful to hold tab and check which investment

category your opponents are building into the most. If you mostly see purple bars underneath your opponent's

profiles, then you should probably buy items that counter spirit. These are items like spirit resilience or

spellbreaker or counterspell. Spirit resilience in particular is such a helpful item that I would say you should

buy like 90% of the time. Spellbreaker is great for fighting against very bursty spirit heroes like Mina, for

example. Counterspell is great against heroes with predictable abilities and abilities with very obvious cues like

Lash, Apollo's ultimates. If on the other hand your opponents are mostly gun heroes or there's a particularly

dangerous gun hero on the enemy team who is getting very rich like Haze or Venator, then you should probably be

buying bullet resist items. These are things like bullet resilience, metal skin and perhaps plated armor later on.

Additionally, the very active owning green items gives you more HP. The more green items you have, the more bonus HP

you'll have and of course more HP means you can survive longer. There are also green items that help you survive the

more damage you do. There is leech, for example, which gives you 30% bullet and spirit life steal while also giving you

more HP and enhancing your weapon damage and spirit power. There is infuser, which is more catered to spirit heroes

and its active ability gives you 80% spirit life steal and 30 spirit power. And then there's its weapon counterpart

vampiric burst, which gives you 80% bullet life steal and an additional 34% fire rate. And in the early game we have

items like spirit life steal, bullet life steal and melee life steal, which do exactly what they say they do. Some

green items also enhance your mobility like extra stamina and its upgrade stamina mastery as well as sprint boots

and its upgrade enduring speed and its upgrade juggernaut, which has the added bonus of slowing the fire rate of

enemies who shoot at you just by having it in one of your item slots. This is honestly a topic for an entire new

video, but generally if you're new, you should probably be buying more green items than you think. After all, how can

you dish out more damage in a team fight if you're dead? And green items certainly provide more than just

survivability as they also enhance your hero in various ways besides resistances and HP. Finally, learn to parry. It

could save your life. Heavy melees are pretty easy to predict since they have this loud sound cue that plays and once

you hear it, you should probably press the parry button. It's very easy to practice this as well. Just go into the

sandbox, head to this room and there's a practice dummy that will spam heavy melees at you. Just parry until you get

the hang of it. All right, let's do a quick recap. The principles we discussed are: Don't place yourself in a position

that makes it easy for your opponents to kill you. Look at your map often to make sure you know where everyone else is.

Pick your fights wisely. Know when to stop chasing opponents. Buy green vitality items to help with your

survivability in fights and learn to parry. Anyway, that's mostly all of what I have to say for now about how to not

die as a new player in Deadlock. If you found this information helpful, do leave a like and a comment. Also, I'll

definitely be making more Deadlock content and my next video will probably be about how to play my main and

favorite character, Mina. So, if you want to see more of this stuff, then do hit the subscribe button. I'll be seeing

you soon. >> [music]