Burnout from CS2 has often got the team at Talkesport venturing into yet another Valve game – Deadlock. The game is quite challenging and best suited for players who have an appetite for FPS games. So, we thought why not prepare a list of the best meta picks in Deadlock and how to play them? 

Well, here it is – a list of the most beginner-friendly meta-heroes in Deadlock. 

Seven

Seven is a hero that drives feel-good mechanics and plays well with the MOBA concept. Capable of dealing significant damage, the hero requires decent positioning and timing to reach its IMBA potential. 

Seven’s Abilities: 

• Lightning Ball can be really useful for clearing waves of creeps quickly. It had good farming, too, and could really annoy your enemies early game. Upgrade it and shoot more!
• Static Charge is a single shield that needs to be employed very strategically. It stuns enemies, thus making it difficult for them to gank you and providing opportunities for you to run away. It’s also good for poking at opponents – because when combined with Lightning Ball it really drains out opponents’ health. Just remember to not go really aggressive when the skill is on cooldown.
• Power Surge is an ability that must be maxed out as early as possible. Chain Damage allows extreme damage to occur instantly within a tight area. It’s a good skill to target farms and is helpful during team battles as well.
• Seven’s Ultimate – Storm Cloud can pretty much flip a team fight. You simply stand there for seven seconds and dish out insane amounts of damage to anyone in your line of sight. Of course, this action will make enemies more interested in interrupting it, so the timing will matter here. Ideally, it should be thrown after your opponents have already taken advantage of their abilities in the fight. Cast it from a higher position above where everyone is to get better views.

Seven is most definitely a meta-hero in Deadlock as of the time of writing this article.

Haze

An easy pick for all the CS2 players out there. The hero is a blend of stealth mechanics that when combined with good strategy will let you catch opponents off guard and will let you perform well in duels. 

Haze is a snowballing hero, meaning it is difficult for the opponents to come back once they are behind you in score, requiring much more effort to come back if the enemy is under-farmed.

Haze’s Abilities: 

• Sleep Dagger prevents enemies from running away, while Fixation enhances damage dealt with every hit on the same target. These are Haze’s hunting tools whenever you spot a lurking enemy who is alone.
• Smoke Bomb is an excellent tool for stalking. It gives invisibility and allows sneaking up to the opponent. The gameplay with Haze is quite demanding, and people need to have good movements since enemies are very hostile and want to ruin the game knowing how dangerous this hero is.
• Haze’s Ultimate – Bullet Dance: This is a skill that Overwatch players will surely remember, because it is the same as Reaper’s ultimate. It is your job to sneak into a group of unaware enemies, activate ultimate, and carry out massive damage. This skill can be interrupted so you have Silencer and Unstoppable items. Use them, activate ultimate and unleash havoc on your enemies.

Kelvin 

A very beginner-friendly hero yet again who has a tanky build despite having high mobility and debuff skills that can be very annoying to the opponents. When in the right hands, he is an unkillable imba hero as well. 

Kelvin’s Abilities: 

• Frost Grenade makes enemies slow down upto a great extent. As it gets leveled up, it heals allies also, so it’s useful in team fights, when all hell breaks loose.
• Ice Path increases mobility and lets you contest higher ground. Mobility is very much crucial in a MOBA. So do not underestimate this ability.
• Arctic Beam slows down the enemy’s firing speed that can break, counter opponents who buff their weapons.
• And then comes Kevin’s Ultimate – Frozen Shelter. This ability gives your team a change of tide of battle a lot of the time. Good for setting up AoE ultimates from the allies, mainly with Seven and Haze, and as a shield for your team. If an enemy is casting their ultimate, you can shield your whole team and make Kelvin deal with the rest as a front-runner who can soak up all the damage. 

Dynamo 

All our previous picks were heroes who are beginner-friendly – but unlike this one. Dynamo is easily a top-tier IMBA hero in pubs as well as tournaments because of his excellent support abilities but requires a lot of skill and a strong understanding of the game state.

And mind you, this hero does not shine alone! He isn’t that strong early on, but what he lacks in the mobility department, he makes up for in the team play section. 

Dynamo’s Abilities: 

If you have played Dota 2 ever before, Dynamo’s ultimate ability Singularity is an exact replica of Black Hole – which is Enigma’s ultimate in Dota. It pulls enemies in, deals some damage, and creates an opportunity for teammates to deal massive AoE damage. Since the ability can be interrupted, you have to pay attention to what items your opponents have and their ability timings. That thing can turn fights, making it pretty imbalanced.

• Kinetic Pulse is the primary ability that lets you knock enemies into the air, so you need to learn the ins and outs of the mechanics plus interactions of this ability.
• Quantum Entanglement gives a minor damage boost and allows you and your team to make short-range teleportations.
• Rejuvenating Aurora – Is an AoE heal to keep your team alive. 

With this loadout, Dynamo is very easily the best support in Deadlock you could ask for!

Shiv

Yet again a hero that requires experience and skills to excel. Shiv’s attack and ability ranges are short-sighted when compared to other heroes which means you can get heavily penalized if you miss your skills, but when positioned right Shiv can quickly destabilize entire team fights.

Shiv’s Abilities: 

• Serrated knives deal heavy damage to the enemy, resulting in bleeding throughout the level. But the damage of the knives depends on how many of them hit their player model. A lot of knives mean much more damage. 
• Slice and Dice is somewhat similar to Genji’s dash from Overwatch, a mobile ability for dealing damage.
• Bloodletting delays some of the damage over time. To really make effective use of it, you’ll want a good idea of all the damage sources in Deadlock and a sense of timing. It’s also a great tool in the lane phase.
• Shiv’s Ultimate – Killing Blow works just like Axe’s ultimate in Dota 2. If the enemy hero has low health, you kill them in one hit; if not, you just deal damage. That’s really nice because, along with how Shiv moves around a lot, which can be really ganking-friendly, you take out important enemy heroes so they won’t turn it around in that fight. It also has a passive: the rage bar is filled up when hitting enemies, and when full, other abilities are buffed.

As Valve brings us more games, we will keep bringing you more such guides and updates for Deadlock, until then stay tuned to Talkesport.