Strategy
Strategy in Deadlock is based on the game's unique mechanics, focused on a combination of both third-person-shooter mechanics and MOBA gameplay. In the game's current state, many aspects of the game's strategy have been derived from high MMR play, tournaments, and knowledge from similar titles.
Laning
At the start of each round, players are assigned to the four lanes randomly. Generally speaking, two lanes will be duo lanes and two will be solo lanes. The specific lane colors that are solo and duo are also randomly decided at the beginning of the match. Players are randomly placed, but duo parties are more likely to be queued into the same lane.
Support-centric characters like Ivy or Dynamo perform best in duo lanes with a high-DPS counterpart. Self-reliant characters with sustain or poke abilities, like Shiv, are better suited for the solo lanes. The random placement seems to account for this, though the exact mechanism is unclear.
Laning is strategically divided into three phases:
- Laning Phase (Early game): Players focus on winning their lane by managing troops, jungling, looking for easy kills, and gaining a
soul advantage. - Midgame: Sidelaners who have won their lane start roaming to assist midlaners, while all players continue farming objectives to strengthen their team’s position.
- Endgame: Players work to solidify their team's soul advantage, engage in most of the teamfights, and push to attack the enemy Patron.
Team Composition
A Team Composition is the 6 heroes a team employs in battle. Strategically employing heroes whose abilities complement each other, or who work best with a certain playstyle is significant for team strategy. An example of heroes with complementary abilities are Seven and Ivy. Seven can use his ultimate, Storm Cloud, as crowd control while Ivy can use the ability Watcher's Covenant to move him towards opponents. Similarly, Dynamo can teleport inside the enemy ranks and start his Singularity, while friendly Infernus charges up his Concussive Combustion, guaranteeing that the explosion blasts every target in the vicinity.
Micro Strategies
Uptime
Uptime relates to farm camps (either Troops or Neutrals), to advancing lanes, to harassing enemies, to taking down towers etc. Everything that doesn't make you idle and generate value could be considered Uptime;
Space
- Creating space will define which areas are controlled by your team, which Neutral camps are safe to farm, the length of your Zipline, the vision you have on your map etc. This concept is really broad, but what is important to understand is using Space in your favor and deny any enemy advance of Space;
- During the Laning phase, this concept is even more important, since Space will define how far your Troops advance, it will impact ultimately on your last hits/denies and hero killing opportunities;
Line of Sight
Famous LoS of shooters, meaning the ability of the enemy to target you on their screen; Being in LoS of the enemy is dangerous in many situations and will create kill opportunity for the enemy team. This can be denied by using Corners and Walls (in most of cases);
Cover Usage
Like any shooter, using corners and walls allows you to be covered against almost all skills and items, since most of them require Line of Sight to be activated or cause damage. In other words, corners and wall usage can be translated as unbreakable shields for both Weapon and Spirit protection. Heroes will lean around cover when close to the cover's horizontal edge, exposing their head hitbox. Keep this in mind when shooting around the sides of cover.
Target Prioritization
This concept is situational and depends on different factors. The main idea here is to focus your fire on the most important part of the fight. Some examples:
- Heroes with a number of unsecured Souls, since they can turn the table in team fights. Additionally, the reward for killing this hero will be greater;
- Heroes with disruptive ults - like Dynamo's, Pocket's etc - should be a primary target to either prevent the usage of these abilities or to force them to use in a not-optimal situation for the enemy;
- Heroes with low HP, since allowing them to live will prevent your team to get souls and will allow the enemy to have uptime;
Distance Management
Understanding heroes (and abilities) which work in short range vs long range is key. Some examples:
- Pocket's shotgun will do huge damage from short range, while almost zero damage from mid/long range;
- Vindicta's ult can target long range target without significant damage fall off. Same happens with Grey Talon's first ability;
Aiming
Some heroes require more accuracy and skill expression regarding aiming - such as Vindicta -, but overall aiming is a crucial part of Deadlock.
Cooldown Management
Ideally, skill and item usage should be maximized, since they bring a big advantage in gaining souls and gaining Space. At the same time, cooldowns are your way to create space, to secure kills and escape from dying. So, Cooldown management is key to finding a balance between soul farming usage and enemy hero usage;
Map Knowledge
Crucial for many aspects in the game. Learning veil locations, Rune locations, Teleport locations, which buildings can be camped from rooftop etc., is a huge advantage for farming, securing kills, escaping, pursing enemies and so many other aspects of Deadlock.
Rotations
Can be defined as the creation of opportunities by surprising the enemy. A terminology from Dota calls Gank the art of appearing from a fog of a jungle to surprise - and potentially kill - enemies, but rotations are broader than that and can be related to creating space in different lanes and other related concepts;
Movement
- The process of moving and positioning your hero.
- Involves ziplines and stamina usage in addition to sliding.
Troop Management
- The process of killing enemy troopers whilst denying the enemy from getting souls from yours.
- Can also be referred to as Creep Management.
Creep/troop denial is a crucial part of the game's laning phase and involves shooting the souls of one's own trooper when they are killed. This prevents enemy laners from obtaining soul orbs by killing troopers.