Since its initial announcement on August 23, 2024, Valve’s upcoming competitive hero shooter Deadlock has been the talk of the town. Featuring a unique gameplay experience that blends strategic elements from MOBA titles with the fun movement and gunplay of shooters, Deadlock has rapidly gained traction within the gaming community despite being in its early stages of alpha testing.
As of August 2024, Valve’s Deadlock features a total of 21 playable heroes, with more to come in the near future. With each hero having a distinct set of skills, there are a lot of options for players to pick from based on their personal preference and playstyle.
Want to take down enemies with your superior aim? Lock in Vindicta and snipe opponents while gliding through the air. Looking for a hero who’s mobile and able to dish out insane amounts of damage with their abilities? Go for Lash and wreak havoc on the battlefield.
In this article, we take a look at all the playable heroes in Deadlock alongside a detailed list of their abilities.
Valve Deadlock: All Playable Characters & Abilities Explained
Without further ado, let’s check out the list of playable characters in Deadlock and their abilities.
Abram
- Siphon Life
- Drain health from enemies in front of you while they are in the radius.
- Shoulder Charge
- Charge forward, colliding with enemies and dragging them along. Speed increased after colliding with enemy Heroes.
- Infernal Resilience
- Regenerate a portion of incoming damage over time.
- Seismic Impact
- Leap high into the air and choose a ground location to smash into. When you hit the ground, all enemies in the radius are damaged and stunned.
Bebop
- Exploding Uppercut
- Deal Light Melee damage to nearby units and send them flying back, causing area damage where they land. Does not damage allies.
- Sticky Bomb
- Attach a Sticky Bomb to a nearby target that deals explosive damage after a short fuse time.
- Gain +2.5% bomb damage for every enemy hero hit.
- Hook
- Launch out a hook that grabs and reels in the first enemy or friendly hero it hits, dealing damage if the target is an enemy.
- Hyper Beam
- Charge up your laser to unleash a powerful torrent of energy that deals damage and slows enemies. You have slow movement and turn rate for the duration. If activated in the air, you will hover while unleashing the beam.
Dynamo
- Kinetic Pulse
- Release an energy pulse that knocks enemies up into the air.
- Quantum Entanglement
- Dynamo briefly disappears into the void and then reappears a short distance away. On reappearing, your weapon is reloaded and has a fire rate bonus for the next clip. Can be cast with [M3] to also bring nearby allies and give them a half fire rate bonus.
- Rejuvenating Aurora
- While channeling, restore health over time to you and any allies nearby.
- Singularity
- Create a singularity in your hands that pulls in nearby enemies and damages them. Once it’s finished, enemies get knocked into the air.
Grey Talon
- Charged Shot
- Charge up a powerful shot that pierces through enemies. Hold [1] or [LMC] to hold the shot.
- Rain of Arrows
- Launches you high in the air, allowing you to glide slowly. While airborne, you gain Weapon Damage and multishot on your weapon. Press [SPACE] to cancel the glide.
- Immobilizing Trap
- Throw out a trap that begins to arm itself. Once armed, the trap will trigger when an enemy enters its radius, immobilizing them.
- Guided Owl
- After 1.5s cast time, launch a spirit owl that you control and which explodes on impact. Hold [LMC] to accelerate the owl. Press [SPACE] to release control.
Haze
- Sleep Dagger
- Throw a dagger that damages and sleeps the target. Sleeping targets wake up shortly after being damaged. Throwing a Dagger does not break invisibility.
- Smoke Bomb
- Fade out of sight, becoming invisible and gaining sprint speed. Attacking removes invisibility. Close enemies can see through your invisibility.
- Fixation
- Shooting a target increases your bullet damage on that target. Gain one stack per bullet hit, two if the hit is a headshot.
- Bullet Dance
- Enter a flurry, firing your weapon at nearby enemies with perfect accuracy. During the flurry, Haze gains a fire rate bonus and evades some of the bullets shot at her.
Infernus
- Catalyst
- Spew napalm that slows enemy movement and amplifies the damage Infernus does to them.
- Flame Dash
- Move forward at high speed and leave a flame trail that burns enemies.
- Hold [LMC] to dash faster.
- Afterburn
- Your bullets build up to apply a burning effect on enemies. Infernus’s bullets and abilities will refresh the duration.
- Concussive Combustion
- Turns you into a living bomb that explodes after a short delay, stunning all enemies in its radius.
Ivy
- Kudzy Bomb
- Summon a patch of choking vines that damages and slows enemies in its radius.
- Watcher’s Covenant
- Gain bonuses and automatically connect with a nearby ally to share them. Healing is replicated among all those connected. Connection requires line of sight.
- True Form
- Turn yourself into impervious stone and smash into the ground, stunning and damaging enemies nearby. Heals you for a percentage of a max health. You have some air control before falling.
- Air Drop
- Take flight with an Ally or a bomb. Ally gains bullet resist but cannot attack or use abilities while lfited. Drop your ally or bomb to cause a large explosion that caused movement slow. Ivy and ally gain a bullet shield when flying ends. Fast cast time when targeting an ally, long on self. [Left click] to accelerate flying speed. [Right click] to drop ally/bomb.
Kelvin
- Frost Grenade
- Throw a grenade that explodes in a cloud of freezing ice, damaging and slowing enemies.
- Ice Path
- Kelvin creates a floating trail of ice and snow that gives movement bonuses to him and his allies. Kelvin gains 50% slow resistance for the duration. Enemies can also walk on the floating trail.
- Press [LEFT SHIFT] / [LEFT CTRL] to travel up or down while in Ice Path.
- Arctic Beam
- Kelvin shoots freezing cold energy out in front of him, damaging and slowing anything it touches. The slow increases in strength the more it hits and applies disarm at max strength.
- Kelvin has reduced movement speed while using Arctic Beam; this reduction is removed if using Ice Path.
- Frozen Shelter
- Kelvin freezes the air around him, creating an impenetrable dome around himself. While in the dome, allies rapidly regenerate health, and enemies are slowed.
Lady Geist
- Essence Bomb
- Sacrifice some of your health to launch a bomb that deals damage after a brief arm time.
- Self-damage type is Spirit and can be mitigated.
- Life Drain
- Create a tether that drains enemy health over time and heals you. The target must be in the line of sight and within the maximum range to drain. You can shoot and use other abilities during the drain, but your movement speed is reduced by half. Press [2] to cancel.
- Malice
- Sacrifice some of your health to launch blood shards that apply a stack of Malice. Each stack slows the victim and increases the damage they take from you. The slow effect decreases over time.
- Soul Exchange
- Swaps health levels with an enemy target. Activation requires the enemy to have a higher health level than you. There is a minimum health percentage that enemies can be brought down to.
Lash
- Ground Strike
- Stomp the ground beneath you, damaging enemies in front of you. If you perform Ground Strike while airborne, you quickly dive towards the ground.
- Grapple
- Pull yourself through the air toward a target and grant yourself a weapon damage bonus. This bonus stacks independently. Using Grapple also restores one stamina charge and all air jumps and dashes.
- Flog
- Strike enemies with your whip, stealing life from them.
- Death Slam
- Focus on enemies to connect whips to them. After channeling, connected enemies are lifted and stunned then slammed into the ground. Your victims and any enemies in the landing zone will be damaged and slowed.
- Press [LMC] to throw connected enemies early.
McGinnis
- Mini Turret
- Deploy a Mini Turret that automatically shoots enemies. The turret expires after a limited lifetime. Turrets gain 40% of McGinnis’s max health and have 60% Spirit Resist. They deal reduced damage to troopers and objectives.
- Medicinal Specter
- Deploy a spirit that heals nearby units.
- Spectral Wall
- Creates a wall that divides the terrain in half. On creation, the wall deals damage and applies slow to enemies nearby. After casting, press [LMC] or [3] to erupt the wall early.
- Heavy Barrage
- Unleashes a volley of rockets that home in on a targeted location.
Mo & Krill
- Scorn
- Deal damage to nearby enemies and heal yourself based on the damage done. Heal is stronger against enemy heroes.
- Burrow
- Burrow underground, moving faster, and gaining spirit and bullet armor. Damage from enemy heroes will reduce the speed bonus. When you jump out, knock enemies into the air and perform a spin attack that damages and slows. The cooldown starts when Burrow ends.
- Sand Blast
- Spray sand that disarms enemies in front of you and deals damage.
- Combo
- Hold that target in place, stunning them and dealing damage during the channel.
Paradox
- Pulse Grenade
- Throw a grenade that begins pulsing when it lands. Each pulse applies damage, movement slow, and stacking damage amplification for Paradox against the victim.
- Time Wall
- Create a time-warping wall that stops time for all enemy projectiles and bullets that touch it. Enemies that touch the wall will take damage as a percentage of their max health and be briefly slowed.
- Kinetic Carbine
- Start charging your weapon and gain increased movement speed once it’s fully charged. Your next shot will release the energy, dealing spirit damage and applying a time stop to the enemy hit. The damage dealt is an amplification of your current weapon damage.
- You can slow time on yourself by pressing [RMC] while an empowered shot is available.
- Paradoxical Swap
- Fire a projectile that swaps your position with the target enemy hero. While the effect occurs, you gain spell lifesteal and the enemy takes damage over time.
- Barrage
- Channel to start launching projectiles that deal damage and apply movement slow around their impact point. Each projectile landed on a hero grants you a stacking buff that amplifies all of your damage. If you cast it while in the air, you’ll float and maintain any horizontal momentum you started with.
- Flying Cloak
- Launch a sentient cloak that travels forward and damages enemies. You can teleport to its location as it travels out, ending its lifetime early.
- Enchanter’s Satchel
- Escape into your suitcase. When the duration ends, deal damage to nearby enemies. Duration can be ended early by performing any action.
- Affliction
- Apply damage over time to all enemies nearby. Affliction’s damage is non-lethal and does not apply item procs.
Seven
- Lightning Ball
- Shoot a ball of lightning that travels in a straight line. Does damage to all targets in its radius. Slows down when damaging enemies and stops if it hits the world.
- Static Charge
- Apply a charge to a target enemy hero. After a short duration, the static charge stuns and damages enemies within the radius.
- Power Surge
- Power up your weapon with a shock effect, making your bullets proc shock damage on your target. This shock damage bounces to enemies near your target. Occurs once per burst shot.
- Storm Cloud
- Channel an expanding storm cloud around you that damages all enemies within its radius.
Shiv
- Serrated Knives
- Throw a knife that damages and slows an enemy. Each additional hit adds a stack and refreshes the debuff duration, causing the damage to increase per stack.
- Ultimate Unlock: While rage is full knives will ricochet to another enemy and apply a slow to enemies they bleed.
- Slice and Dice
- Perform a dash forward, damaging enemies along the path.
- Ultimate Unlock: While rage is full an echo of Shiv retraces the dashed path after a short delay, damaging enemies again.
- Bloodletting
- Take only a portion of incoming damage immediately and defer the rest to be taken over time. Activate to clear a portion of the deferred damage.
- Killing Blow
- Activate to leap towards an enemy hero and instantly kill them if their health is below the kill threshold, otherwise deal 200 damage to them.
Vindicta
- Stake
- Throw a stake that tethers enemies to the location where the stake lands. Enemy movement is restricted to the length of the tether.
- Flight
- Leap into the air and fly. While in flight your weapon deals bonus spirit damage.
- Crow Familiar
- Your crow familiar deals impact damage and apply a bleed that deals damage based on the target’s current health.
- Assassinate
- Use your scoped rifle to fire a powerful shot over long distances. Does bonus damage to enemies with less than 50% health remaining. Landing a killing blow on a player with Assassinate grants you bonus souls.
Viscous
- Splatter
- Throw a ball of goo that deals damage and leaves puddles of goo behind that apply movement slow to enemies in the radius.
- Goo puddles linger on the ground and apply a movement slow to enemies walking on them.
- The Cube
- Encase the target in a cube of restorative goo that purges debuffs, protects from damage, and increases health regen. Target is unable to take any new actions while cubed. Can be used on self. Press [SPACE] to escape early.
- Puddle Punch
- Materialize a fist in the world that punches units in the area and sends them flying. Enemies will be dealt damage, have their dash distance reduced for a brief moment, and have their movement slowed.
- Goo Ball
- Morph into a large goo ball that deals damage and stuns enemies on impact. The ball grants large amounts of Bullet and Spirit resist, bounces off walls, and can double jump.
Warden
- Alchemical Flask
- Smash an alchemical flask at your feet, damaging, slowing, and reducing the weapon damage of any enemies caught in the radius.
- Willpower
- Gain a spirit shield that provides bonus movement speed while active. The shield also blocks spirit damage-based effects.
- Binding Word
- Curse an enemy hero. If they don’t move away from their initial position within the escape time, they will be damaged and immobilized
- Last Stand
- After charging for 2.2s, release pulses that damage enemies and heal you based on the damage done.
Wraith
- Royal Flush
- Telekinetically throw cards that hit random targets around you.
- Project Mind
- Teleport to the targeted location.
- Full Auto
- Temporarily boosts your fire rate. Nearby allies receive half the fire rate bonus.
- Telekinesis
- Lift an enemy hero into the air, interrupting them and preventing ability and item use for a short time. When the lift ends, the target receives Telekinesis damage.
Yamato
- Power Slash
- Channel to increase damage over 1.5 seconds, then release a fully-charged sword strike.
- Press [1] or [LMC] to trigger the strike early, dealing partial damage.
- Flying Strike
- Throw a grappling hook to reel yourself toward an enemy, damaging and slowing the target when you arrive.
- Crimson Slash
- Slash enemies in front of you, damaging them and slowing their fire rate. If any enemy heroes are hit, you heal.
- Shadow Transformation
- Become infused with Yamato’s shadow soul. After an initial invincible transformation, your abilities are refreshed and are 60% faster, your weapon has infinite ammo, and you can gain damage resists and immunity to negative status effects. You are unable to die in this mode.
