1 Deadlock tier list: Best characters ranked 2 S-Tier characters in Deadlock 3 A-Tier 4 B-Tier 5 C-Tier Deadlock is Valve’s latest MOBA, and it’s got a wide cast of characters like you’d expect from the genre. It should come as no surprise that some of these characters are better than others. With Deadlock being one of the most popular games on Steam despite having limited Alpha access, Deaddlock is already looking like a smash hit.
And, while Valve is constantly updating the game and reworking hero abilities at this early stage of development, we know enough to determine which characters stand out from the rest of the cast. Just like DOTA 2 before it, the strength of Deadlock ‘s characters is determined by not only their individual power, but how easy they are to counter. Every character can be strong in the right situation, but some are easier to counter than others.
Here’s our full Deadlock tier list to help you determine which character you should play if you’ve got access to the Alpha . Deadlock tier list: Best characters ranked Here’s a full explanation of what qualifies each character for their respective placement on the Deadlock tier list: S: Best of the best, good in pretty much every scenario with diverse build paths and hard to counter A: Strong with the right build, although may be countered by certain items or strategies B: Either easily countered by items or niche in their usefulness C: Can be decent in certain scenarios, but there are better choices S-Tier characters in Deadlock Pocket is easily the most annoying Assassin/close range DPS character to deal with. Killing them is an absolute pain.
Between their 2 teleporting them out of danger and their 3 giving them a couple seconds of immunity, locking Pocket down is hard. And, even if Slowing Hex shuts him down, he has options. Buying an early Debuff Reducer/Debuff Remover against someone with a Slowing Hex or heavy CC will make life much easier for Pocket.
And, even if they end up getting Rooted and locked down, their primary fire and ultimate are so strong that they’ll still have a lasting effect on teamfights. Related: Between their ult’s DoT lasting for what feels like an eternity and having (arguably) the best shotgun in the game, Pocket is an absolute menace that brings damage and utility to the table in spades. With Lady Geist having two strong builds under her belt, one of which can focus on weapon damage while the other focuses spirit damage, it’s no surprise that she’s an S-Tier pick.
If you’re a sharpshooter and think you can land headshots, she’s great. If you can’t aim and want to throw bombs with a hitbox the size of a barn, Geist is for you. Her bomb’s wave clear combined with the strong silence on her 2 and the turnaround potential on her life bar swap ultimate make Geist a force of nature for both sidelaning and teamfighting, and someone who knows how to use her can easily find ways to carry.
If you get too close to Lady Geist, she steals all your health. If you’re too far away? She pokes you down. It’s very difficult to get the leg up against this character, and that makes her an S-Tier pick.
If you’re looking for a support character with the potential to completely flip a match on its head, Dynamo is the pick for you. He doesn’t have the best primary weapon or the strongest damage output, but his utility makes any team better. Whether it be the knockup and damage boost on his 1, the immunity frames on his 2 that can immune game-changing ults with the right timing, his 3 being one of Deadlock’s best heals, and his ult locking entire teams in place for several seconds, Dynamo has a ton of impact on the game regardless of how much income he has.
Dynamo has some weaknesses, sure, but they’re vastly outweighed by his strengths. If you’re looking for a character that fills that supportive role, he’s your best bet. Ivy is yet another support option, though she’s a bit more offensively oriented than Dynamo.
She’s entirely designed around bullying people out of lane due to her primary having fast fire rate, projectile speed, and reload. Combined with the area denial on her 1, farming against Ivy is a nightmare. Additionally, her 2’s bonus fire rate and healing for herself and allies makes her a boon in teamfights, her 3 makes her impossible to kill, and her ult is a great escape tool at worst, and a method of dragging a fed Seven around the map or easily securing urn at beast.
There’s never a time that you wouldn’t want Ivy on your team, especially since she can hold her own as both a damage dealer and a support. Warden is one of Deadlock’s biggest bullies. He’s difficult to 1v1, has strong scaling for both spirit and weapon damage, very strong 1v1 potential, and an ult with enough damage to hard-carry a teamfight.
If he’s able to channel it, Warden can rip through an entire team on his own. Additionally, there are methods of making up for his shortcomings if you’re experienced with the character. His 1 may not have an indicator like most other abilities, but it’s got a lot more range than you’d think once you get a feel for the arc on it.
His 3 is somewhat easy to get out of, but a Slowing Hex fixes that issue. There are few characters as sturdy and effective as Warden, and it’s hard to argue he’s anything but an S-Tier pick. A-Tier Yamato is definitely one of the most unique characters on Deadlock’s roster.
A heavy reliance on abilities, generally limited range, but with a ton of carry potential if she’s played properly, she’s not for the faint of heart. Learning how to properly use her primary fire and getting through lane phase is half the battle with her. However, if you get out of lane with decent farm and know how to pick targets, Yamato feels unstoppable.
Her ultimate making her immune to CC and even death itself makes the swordswoman incredibly hard to keep down. This, combined with generally strong ability damage and sustain across the board and a build that skews on the tankier side makes Yamato incredibly effective. She just doesn’t have quite as much influence or pressure early as someone like Warden.
Seven is one of the easiest and most straightforward casters in Deadlock, with his abilities being very difficult to miss. His 1 has a ton of range and a big hitbox, his 2 is a guaranteed (albeit delayed) stun, and his 3’s damage amp and arcing lightning only makes things easier. But Seven’s ult is really where it’s at.
If you fully spec into his ultimate and get enough farm under your belt, Seven can act as an unstoppable force of nature that claims massive portions of the map for himself. This is made even more powerful when paired with an Ivy ult or someone with enough movement speed and a rescue beam. That said, Seven doesn’t do much from behind, and he’s pretty easy to dive and shut down in the earlier stages of the game.
He’s not quite S-Tier. If you’re looking for a reliable, consistent all-rounder that’s easy to play and has tons of carry potential, Infernus is your best bet. His AoE damage is pretty underwhelming until you get points in his fire trail, but the sheer amount of mixed DPS he does when an enemy is ignited by his 3 shreds even the tankiest of targets.
Infernus does have a ton of damage under his belt in teamfights as long as you’re willing to get up close, but getting close enough for his ult and 2 to be effective is a risky proposition. And, while his ult is one of the strongest teamfight ults in the game on paper, there are a ton of ways to counter it in practice due to the long windup it’s got. The fact that Infernus has to get so close to reach his full damage potential while being easy to lock down keep him out of S-Tier, but he’s a strong pick nonetheless.
Mo & Krill wasn’t typically regarded as a top-tier character through most of Deadlock’s Alpha. He’s got decent sustain and utility, but limited range, an ultimate that locks him in place and only CCs a single target, and a hitbox the size of an 18-wheeler that makes them easy to poke out of lane. However, the key to Mo & Krill lies with maxing their 2.
Once you get out of the lane phase and get a couple items under your belt, this duo can roam around, gank lanes, and clear camps faster than almost any other character in Deadlock. As long as your laners don’t suffer too much for you not being around, Mo & Krill can gain a massive lead simply by farming camps when they spawn around the 8 minute mark. If you’re looking for an extremely effective roamer who can snowball the entire map while building a farm lead, Mo & Krill is the duo you’ll perform best with.
If you’re looking for the best sniper in Deadlock, Grey Talon’s the one. He’s got a ton of range, oppressive DPS that outpaces most other characters in the category, and some incredibly hard to deal with traps. Laning against Talon is an absolute pain if you don’t have sustain, and it’s hard to feel safe when he’s on the map.
While he does have the same pitfall as other fragile DPS characters in his severe lack of self peel, his damage is overwhelmingly strong and his split push is so good that those shortcomings don’t keep him out of A-Tier. Plus, his traps are much harder to deal with than most other CC abilities. There are few things in Deadlock scarier than the sound of Grey Talon’s ult flying at you and his arrows whistling by in lane.
In terms of survivability, Abrams is the tankiest character you can possibly pick. What he lacks in range, he makes up for in gap close, sustain, a huge amount of melee damage, and some strong CC. His 1 has a ton of healing, his 2 slams enemies right into walls, and his ult is a very strong engage tool that only gets better as it gets leveled.
He struggles a bit against characters who can zone him and keep him at a distance, but once Abrams is up close, he dishes a ton of punishment. If you don’t counter-build him and cut down on his healing, he’ll be impossible to kill as well. However, well-timed parries can stun Abrams and leave him open to getting bursted down, and building anti-heal will cut down his survivability immensely.
Shiv is one of the few characters added after the Alpha went live, and he was released in a monstrous state. From his bleed knives being pinpoint accurate and faster than most bullets to his high mobility, strong primary fire, damage mitigation, and execute mechanics, Shiv is pretty much everything you’d want in an assassin. If this character gets rolling, he’s really hard to stop, especially at later points in the game where his 3 will keep him alive far after the point most characters would be dead.
However, if Shiv’s behind, he doesn’t offer much. This character has to snowball to be useful. Shiv’s strength from ahead lands him in A-Tier, but he’s damn close to S.
B-Tier Bebop exists to make laning a nightmare. His absolute strongest point in the game is when he can pull enemies under tower and pick them off early on, snowballing lanes in his favor and making life easy for his lane partner. Additionally, Bebop’s primary fire shreds minions and secures souls with ease.
The character is entirely built around this pull and his ult, however, making his playstyle a bit one-dimensional in most cases. Win lane, win game. But, if Bebop doesn’t gain an advantage for him and his lane partner, you’ve got a much lower chance of pulling out a W due to how many items and characters counter Bebop.
And, while his ultimate has a ton of power behind it to try and close out games, Bebop’s strengths are inconsistent enough that he belongs in B-Tier. Good Bebop players are scary, but only in certain scenarios. Out of every hero on the Deadlock roster, Viscous is definitely the most awkward to use.
His abilities are unwieldy at the best of times, especially considering how easily their 3 clips on geometry and flies out in a direction you weren’t expecting. That, and their 2 simultaneously being a strong heal and a way to accidentally troll your teammates. However, Viscous has one of the best ults in the game, an ult that easily makes them the tankiest character in the game.
Once you hit late game and have free use of your abilities in ult, you become a hard carry. Early on, though? Viscous isn’t great in lane and requires levels/items to have an impact. Viscous is a mixed bag, a character that can be useful and carry matches, but also one that can accidentally throw them.
He’s a bit too inconsistent to justify any ranking higher than B. Haze is one of Deadlock’s few roam-dedicated characters, someone who has generally weak laning and feels a lot better when they get to run around the map and sow the seeds of chaos in other lanes. And, from ahead, Haze is definitely a threat.
From behind, though? Not so much. Haze really needs to get a snowball going to get useful, especially considering her only reliable AoE teamfight damage is on her ultimate. Outside of the single target sleep on her 1, she doesn’t offer any utility.
And, while she’s good for picking off single targets, her teamfighting is inconsistent since her ult is easy to walk right out of and can be countered by Steel Skin. She may feel oppressive at first but, once you learn how to properly play against and counterbuild Haze, she’s much less of a threat. The player has more than enough tools at their disposal to counter her, and she doesn’t have many ways to deal with someone who knows her weaknesses.
Vindicta would be in C-Tier if it weren’t for one thing: Her ultimate. Her base kit is just ok, with her 1 being a generally strong CC tool and her 2 giving her a higher vantage point at the cost of her being exposed and out in the open. She’s very, very easy to kill, and gets obliterated by Slowing Hex.
But Vindicta’s ultimate, when maxed first, gives her 850 souls per kill on top of what she’d already gain for netting a kill in the first place. If a fight goes well for her, she can get a swing of thousands of souls in her favor, allowing her to get all the items she needs to hard carry. However, you have to get these kills with her ult for them to count, making Vindicta’s ability to snowball entirely dependent on being in the right place at the right time and securing the kill.
As a result, she’s a B-Tier character. As a starter character, Wraith is great. She’s fairly safe, has a good primary fire that makes it easy to secure souls in lane, some pretty decent burst damage from her 1, a teleport, and an ult that dooms its target if they don’t have items to counter it.
On paper, she should be good. In reality, Wraith’s best build is 2 max with weapon damage. Her ult is easily countered by characters with I-frames or a Debuff Remover, and her remaining tools aren’t nearly as good as other DPS-focused characters.
Infernus is straight-up better in most scenarios if you’re looking for someone to hold left click with. In terms of survivability, Paradox is one of the better DPS characters. She’s got strong range with her charged 3, decent wave clear with her 1, and the combo of her 2 and ult makes her incredibly difficult to 1v1.
Playing around Paradox’s 2 properly is the biggest difference between a good player and a great one, with it being her strongest ability despite being mostly utility-oriented. However, her raw DPS pales in comparison to other long-range characters like Grey Talon and Vindicta, and her strongest combo requires her to throw herself into the enemy team. Paradox isn’t bad, but she is a bit of a specialist character and requires some finesse.
You won’t be carrying games on this character, but you can be an absolute pain in the neck for the enemy team and cause a lot of havoc for anyone trying to kill you. Lash is an absolute 1-trick magnet. He’s got a unique playstyle with the high mobility on his 2, a ton of burst damage on his 1, and an ult that can be an absolute game-changer if he manages to grab the right targets and pull them into his team.
Lash is one of few characters in Deadlock who’s got a 1-shot combo between grabbing someone with your ult and getting max slam damage on them. However, he’s also kind of awkward to play. Getting into the air and staying there is easier said than done, and a stray Slowing Hex will immediately ground him.
Additionally, playing Lash in small rooms is almost impossible, and he needs wide open space to operate. In ideal scenarios, Lash can be at or near an S-Tier level. However, the skill required to use him properly combined with him needing a lot of setup and momentum to work make him a B-Tier pick.
Good in the right hands, but not very useful otherwise. Kelvin is one of few support characters in Deadlock, with a focus on CCing and zoning enemies. He was one of the best heroes in the game in its early days, but he’s had a bit of a fall from grace due to one big nerf: His 3’s slow beam used to disarm, but now it’s just a normal slow.
When Kelvin had a disarm, he was a real standout as someone who could counter carries who relied heavily upon weapon damage to put the game on their back. Now, he requires a bit more team play to do well, and his 3 is truly his best ability. The other two are alright outside of his ult.
Kelvin’s ultimate can either win the game for your team, or it can lose you the match. Manage to throw your ult up around Rejuvenator and steal it? Your teammates will love you. Accidentally wall off your ulting Haze? Not so much.
He’s a strong character, but there are better options. C-Tier For a character who’s, on the surface, built around placing turrets and playing around them, McGinnis’ turrets aren’t that great. This makes her 1 and stationary heal on her 2 a bit redundant unless she gets enough setup time to toss a bunch of turrets down, and her ultimate is kind of awkward to use.
This leaves McGinnis with a wall and a gun, which, to be fair, can be pretty effective. Your best bet on her is to either rush gun damage and Fleetfoot to run people down, or to fully invest in turret damage. While she has niche use cases, McGinnis is easily the worst character in Deadlock in terms of overall usefulness.
She’s not terrible, but she’s only good at certain things and has a lot of weaknesses..
