Deadlock for Beginners in 20 Minutes - Updated Late 2026

Deadlock Beginner’s Guide Summary

Goal and Core Loop

Deadlock is a third-person MOBA shooter. Earn souls by farming troopers and other sources, spend them on items and ability upgrades, then push across the map to destroy the enemy base and Patron. Abilities use cooldowns rather than mana.

The game is complex, so beginners should focus on learning through play instead of trying to master every system immediately.

Movement and Combat

• Save stamina: It powers dashes, air dashes, dash-jumps, wall-jumps, and down-dashes. Avoid spending it all before a fight.
• Practice wall-jumps and dash-jumps: Wall-jumping is useful throughout the game. To dash-jump, jump while your stamina is blue just after dashing.
• Use map travel tools: Zip lines, jump pads, and teleporters help you rotate. Crouching as you leave a zip line preserves momentum; following with an air dash is especially fast. Getting hit while using a zip line or jump pad can stun you and deal heavy damage.
• Understand melees and parries: Light melees are harder to react to than heavy melees, so heavy attacks are riskier against opponents who can parry. A successful parry lets you follow up with two quick heavy melees and refreshes your parry cooldown. A failed parry puts it on cooldown.
• All regular melees can be parried, but melee abilities generally cannot. The guide calls out Viscous’s Bottle Punch as an exception.

Choosing a Hero and Starting Out

• Pick a hero you find fun, try a few in bot or regular games, then focus on two or three that suit you.
• Don’t worry too much about fixed roles or tier lists; heroes can often serve different purposes.
• During the first 9–10 minutes, focus on farming and learning your hero.
• Troopers drop an airborne soul that you must shoot to secure, plus a ground soul that is collected nearby. Denying enemy souls is valuable too.
• Be willing to trade and make mistakes while learning. Pushing the wave toward the enemy tower is usually a good default.
• Use downtime between waves to break boxes and collect golden-statue buffs. Regular boxes can be broken with a light melee or slide; heavy boxes need a heavy melee. You can also parry a Guardian to stun it briefly when diving.

Items and Ability Upgrades

• Follow a sensible in-game build and its purchase order while learning. Early on, buying items that make sense matters more than following an exact build.
• You start with nine item slots and gain three more as the game progresses. Killing a Walker grants a slot.
• Follow the build’s ability-upgrade order. Upgrades cost one point for the first level, two for the second, and five for the final level.

Timers, Farming, and Objectives

• 2 minutes: Small jungle camps spawn. Farm them promptly if you can do so without missing a wave.
• 3 minutes: Boxes appear around the map.
• 5 minutes: Bridge buffs and medium jungle camps spawn. Claim bridge buffs with a heavy melee; they provide movement, vitality, spirit, or gun benefits. Try medium camps between waves rather than sacrificing lane farm.
• 8 minutes: Strong camps and the central sacrifices become available. Central sacrifices deal damage when hit, so use heavy melees to finish them in fewer hits. Timing the final hit correctly grants permanent golden-statue buffs. They are a major source of souls and are worth contesting.
• Jungle farming gives haunted souls, which can be dropped on death and collected by enemies. Spend souls regularly to reduce what you risk losing.
• Mid-boss: Available from the start, but usually taken later, after a favorable team fight. Defeating it drops a rejuvenator that can be heavy-meleed up to three times. Its buffs give teammates an extra life on death, though each player can benefit only once.
• 10 minutes onward: The game opens up into the mid-game. Keep pushing waves as your default task, then look for fights where your team has an advantage—such as better positioning, more players nearby, or a soul lead. Avoid staying in one lane all game.

Urn and Rift

• Urn: Spawns every five minutes from 10 minutes onward. Carrying it prevents you from using zip lines or teleporters, but delivering it grants souls and permanent buffs. Secure the souls released on delivery, since either team can collect them. The guide advises beginners to pick it up when possible because it can be a strong source of souls.
• Unstable Rift: Appears at a variable time, usually between 11 and 13 minutes, and returns roughly 6–8 minutes after being captured. Teams capture it by standing in its circle. The winning team earns souls and stronger Rift Troopers to help push objectives. The Rift has a comeback mechanic that can favor the team behind, so the leading team should be cautious about committing everyone. For the trailing team, contesting it is often worthwhile.

Walkers and Special Map Areas

• Walkers are the next defensive line. Watch for their stomp, which stuns and deals heavy damage, and their fireballs, which hurt over time. Step out of the stomp area and avoid standing in fire.
• Walkers are difficult to kill early, so the guide suggests focusing on them more around 13–14 minutes onward. Killing one gives souls and a flex item slot. Early deaths to secure a Walker may still be worthwhile for the team’s economy.
• Bell tower: Contains sacrifices and heavy boxes, but breaking them rings a loud bell that alerts the map. It has a limited escape route, making it dangerous to farm if enemies are nearby.
• Sunken plaza: Its fog conceals players and their sounds from the outside, but drains stamina. It offers multiple exits, though being caught without stamina is dangerous.

Ending the Game

1. Kill the enemy base guardians. Once both are dead, both shrines become vulnerable.
2. Destroy the shrines. They strengthen allied minions and reduce the souls enemies receive from those minions.
3. Whenever possible, take mid-boss before pushing the base; its rejuvenator greatly reduces the risk of a failed siege.
4. Damage the Patron after both shrines are destroyed. In its second phase, players must stand in the circle to hurt it, but leave when it charges its curse attack.
5. Deal with defenders before finishing the objective. Enemy heroes in the circle make the Patron harder to damage; two enemies make it invulnerable.

Featured Gamer and Sources

• Deathly (Deathy): Guide host and Deadlock educator.
• PoshyPop: Mentioned as a co-creator of Slime Academy.
• The guide also points new players to Discord communities and Reddit threads for finding a game invite.