INTRO TO DEADLOCK: League of Legends and Overwatch player…

Steam Community guide by ENKIMOON.

The Diagnosis

So you're a League player

You may think that coming from Riot's second most fetid cesspool you will have some transferable skills, and you do! - /allchat and let muscle memory do the rest!
In all seriousness, mechanical skill in league pretty much caps at about Gold 2 50LP, if you have ever climbed any higher than that you probably developed some semblance of macro awareness (or simply got boosted by your champ pool / meta abuse). The things that make a good League player also largely make a good Deadlock player, namely: knowing how to assess matchups, remembering that you do in fact have a map, understanding what lane states are and what to do about them and most importantly having utter contempt for both your opponents and the subpar players on your own team!
You have less to learn than someone coming from a hero shooter (or god forbid a tac shooter), but what you do have to learn will likely take you longer. Deadlock places a fairly significant emphasis on general mechanical skill, moreso than your previous affliction - for starters you've got a whole new dimension to experience - **welcome to 3D **, try not to get too overwhelmed!

Even if you attempt to do the equivalent of picking malphite (or any toplane tank really) you will still need to learn and eventually master a pretty deep movement system. Deadlock is a game where someone can be down significantly on you but if they know how to move and slide dinging you in the head constantly whilst you are struggling to pilot your character - you will just lose, eco advantage or not. Learn your wallbounces, learn how to navigate terrain efficiently, use sliding to apply gun pressure, and for the love of god learn how to aim.
If you need any extra motivation remember - there is nothing more satisfying than outplaying some scum and then jerking off in /allchat about it.

The Diagnosis Cont.

So you're an Overwatch player

First things first, the average age of Deadlock players is around 28 - if any of you are still here then let's continue:
Unlike your League playing cousins, the actual core gameplay mechanics shouldn't be much of a challenge here, if you've spent 30+ minutes on Lucio you can pilot the average deadlock character at a base level. However, and there is no easy way to say this - you're probably really really stupid.

You can always spot someone coming from a hero shooter because they will have a decent grasp of their character, they will move fairly well, play fights competently and then immediately die to the worlds most obvious gank because they were two thirds down an overpushed lane and can't read a map or anticipate anything that isn't already on their screen.

The single most important thing you must learn as an overwatch refugee is how to read your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ map. Literally 70% of success in MOBAs comes down to** anticipation**. In hero shooters your main concerns are individual ability cooldowns - but largely everything important happening is in your general area at any given time. In Deadlock you are making decisions based on what is going to happen 30+ seconds from now at any given spot on a fairly large map. You need to have multiple clocks running in your head, "how long will it take X character to move from where they are to contest me where I am?", "How long will it take the wave of minions I just pushed to reach the next objective?", "How long do we need to delay this teamfight to make sure we have X ults coming up" etc etc. A lot of it will become instinctual and the absolute essence of it is simply reading your map consistently and asking the right questions with the information you have.
And unlike League players I'm sure some of you actually know how to use comms!

Medication (Core Game Systems)

The Map

In case you hadn't noticed - Deadlock is a game in alpha and fundamental things about the game are constantly changing, at the beginning of this ♥♥♥♥ we had four lanes now we have three - the map changes all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time so I'm going to give general principles rather than forensic detail here. Read the patch notes.
League players you know the drill, for the hero shooter troglodytes I'll keep it simple: There are two teams of six players (6v6 what a cool concept!), who contest each other across three lanes, there are no longer any solo lanes, everyone plays duo. Minions are spawned at each nexus every 30 seconds (first wave is 1:05) and proceed down the lane rails until they they arrive at where the rails have become deactivated. Players can use these rails for high speed travel however being shot by enemy players whilst on the rail (unless shielded) stuns you and knocks you down (often resulting in death). The state of a rail reflects the state of a lane (wow!), as minions advance down a lane the rail becomes active for whichever team the corresponding minions belong to. There are three types of minions: Melees, Ranged and Medics (their functions are fairly self explanatory, medic minions drop health packs upon being killed). The lanes feature multiple roadblock objectives, the first set are the guardians, then after them you have walkers, then a set of 2 base guardians at each base entrance, then two shrines on platforms on either side of the base and finally the patron (Nexus), the patron has two phases and cannot be damaged until the shrines have been destroyed. In phase I the patron stands at the centre of the base, after depleting the first healthbar, it transforms into a smaller form and you must go into the pit in order to deal damage to it and win the game, enemy players in the pit grant periodic damage reduction to the patron and also the patron will charge up large pulses that damage, stun and curse you. All objectives have innate defences that limit damage they take if they aren't being attacked by minions. Additionally there are neutral monster camps and buffs that spawn in the spaces in-between lanes, its ostensibly meant to be the games version of a jungle but currently it is very underdeveloped, mainly used to snowball eco when there are no waves or objectives within easy reach. The majorly noteworthy neutral objective is The Midboss: a boss monster that spawns in the sewers beneath midlane at 10 minutes the start of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game currently because Yoshi wants to get weird with it for a patch or two. Killing the Midboss spawns the Rejuvenator, a crystal that slowly descends into the midboss pit over the course of 7 seconds EDITORS NOTE: they ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ changed it again, its three crystals over 7.5 seconds now, they spawn at fixed points in the revamped midboss pit, the design of which makes contesting midbosses significantly easier now due to extra cover and ability to break LoS for previously fight winning ♥♥♥♥ like Lash ult, additionally, the now spaced out rejuv crystals mean that ♥♥♥♥ like Dynamo ult isn't guaranteed to cover the entire objective, plan accordingly. You must use a heavy melee attack to claim a crystal, granting you a teamwide rejuvenator credit. Rejuv credits provide a team wide stat buff and if someone dies whilst your team has credits they revive in place automatically after 3 seconds - this can lead to hilarious chain-inting that will make you want to strangle someone. the first rejuv of the game provides up to 3 credits, all subsequent rejuvs provide up to 4. If you fail the melee attacks and the enemy manages to steal some rejuv credits, your entire team will comfort you with words of support.

Levelling, Economy, Win Condition
It's a MOBA, you kill minions, neutral monsters, enemy players and destroy objectives in order to gain resources, these resources come in two forms.

1. Souls: Souls are gained by killing things, when killing minions (& sometimes objectives but it keeps changing so whatever) you are granted a portion of the total soul value upon the kill and a further portion upon shooting a green soul orb that is released upon death. Enemy soul orbs are also visible to you (they're orange), you can shoot them to steal that portion of the farm for yourself and deny it to the enemy. Souls are your most important resource because they serve both as XP with which to level up (gaining skill points to spend on upgrading your spells) and currency that you spend on items. Hope you've got some hours on aimlabs.
   
2. Slots: Wow look at all these souls I have, I am so rich, my belly is so round, mhmm I love souls. What do I do with my souls besides hoarding them like a big piggy? Well you spend them on items that make you stronger and hence make it easier to get even more souls - round and round, wheels on the bus, time is a flat circle etc etc. However! Each item you buy takes up an inventory slot and to start a game you will have four locked slots - which will unlock as you fulfil required objective milestones. Like a lot of things, the exact milestones keep changing but broadly speaking it is a certain number of enemy objectives destroyed. Having a slot advantage over the enemy is a massive win condition.
   
   As you have likely surmised the goal of Deadlock is to stack a big ♥♥♥♥-off wave of minions in a lane and drive down it, destroying all the objectives until you can deathball into the enemy base, remove shrines and murder the patron.
   

Medication Cont. (In-Depth Farming & Tempo)

Brace yourself for numbers.
This is a moba - cash (or in this case, souls) is king.

We've been over the basics of how you acquire souls, what they do for you and how overall economy affects game-state, but I'm going to take the opportunity to really drum home some of the essentials for the especially slow of you.
Here's how to get your racks up:

Individual Farm Tempo
Whilst at a macro-level your teams overall economic state is what has the most impact on the way a game plays out, you are responsible your own moment-to-moment income and expenditure, I'll explain how you should be spending/not-wasting your souls in the itemisation section later - but first lets go over your personal options for making bank.

In order of priority:

1. The Wave: Minion waves will always be the most readily available and most convenient source of souls, they are always spawning at fixed intervals, 3 waves of 4 minions spawn every 30 seconds, reduced to 25 seconds after 20 minutes and 20 seconds at 35 minutes; wave structure begins as 3 ranged minions + a medic minion but after 5 minutes it becomes 2 ranged, 1 melee and 1 medic. Soul value per Trooper is equal to Souls 116 + (Souls 1.16 per min) with the total value being split 60% in orb and 40% on initial kill. If there are multiple players in close proximity the total value gets split along the obnoxious ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ formula of: 2 players= 54% total value, 3 players= 36% total value, 4 players= 25% total value, 5 players= 20% total value and finally, 6 players = 16% total value. So unless you're making a play that absolutely requires more, optimal post-lane-phase wave farming is no more than 2 players at a time, ideally just one for priority power-farming. I could breakdown even more detail on things like individual trooper resistances, the exact way healthpacks work but I'm going to assume you've had enough maths already - Deadlock Wiki is your friend.
   
2. Sinner's Sacrifice: Sinner's Sacrifices are multiple vending machines spread across the map - there are a total of 10 and they are generally speaking the second highest priority source of souls, due to their ease of access and total value. To begin gathering souls from a sinners sacrifice you must damage it and by that I mean ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ punch it - only melee attacks work, key word being 'attacks', spells that deal melee damage (Viscous goo punch for example) do not work on Sinner's. Sinner's have a scaling [bs]oul value starting at 310 and growing by 3.35 per minute[/b] from the beginning of the match. Every melee strike landed on the box depletes it's pool of HP (always 500) releasing a portion of it's total soul value and dealing a portion of damage back to you. Light melees always deal 50 damage (with one exception) and heavies 100. Do the math. Once depleting the Sinner's HP to 100, a minigame will begin where the lights above the box begin ticking up, if you strike the box as all the bulbs light up you will hit a jackpot giving you stacks of Golden Statue, hitting the jackpot with a light gives you 1 stack and a heavy gives you 4 - so hit that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ heavy (charge it on second to last bulb to guarantee).
   
3. Jungle Camps: If you've played a MOBA before you know how these work for the most part - for everyone else, these are groups of **neutral minions that spawn at fixed locations spread across the map (primarily in the spaces between lanes), they can and should be killed for souls and form another important source of income. Camps have recently been completely overhauled, Haunts (FKA Denizens) now have distinct types and behaviours but retain the previous three tiered system (small, medium, large, with corresponding stat values and soul payouts). Haunt categories or 'families' are as follows:
   ** Barrel Mimic: it ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ blows up. Only spawns at tier 2 or 3 camps.
   
   Past Dues: Shoots books at you, the last shot can sleep you. Only spawns at tier 1 and 2 camps.
   
   Festival Spirit: Shoots tracking fireworks. Only spawns at tier 2 or 3 camps.
   
   Slum Shroom: Shoots mines that do DoT, slow you and apply anti-heal (flat 50% reduction). Only spawns at tier 2 or 3 camps.
   
   Crabbage Pot: AOE Melee that can be parried. Spawns at any camp tier.
   
   Stage Hand: Beam that leaves behind burning trails. Spawns at level 1 or 2 camps.
   
   Specimen: Level 2 ones blow up, otherwise straightforward. Spawns at level 1 or 2 camps.
   
   Gutter Ghoul: Goo projectile that leaves puddles that damage on contact. Spawns at any camp tier.
   
   Underhand: Laser with fire trail. Spawns at any camp tier.
   
   Now, the value proposition (per haunt, multiply by total for overall camp value):
   Small haunts= 41 souls base with ticking 0.44/min
   Initial spawn - 2.00, respawns 1:25 after camp is 'cleared' (every haunt killed)
   Medium haunts= 68 souls base with ticking 0.73/min
   Initial spawn - 5:00, respawns 4:50 after camp is 'cleared'
   Large haunts= 181 souls base with ticking 1.95/min
   Initial spawn - 8:00 and respawns 5:35 after camp is 'cleared'
   Naturally like everything in the game atm - all this ♥♥♥♥ can and does change with patches and The golden rule of "look at your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ map" is key for planning farming 'routes', but I'll go over that more shortly.
   
4. Boxes & Breakables: Breakables are the multiple kinds of destructible objects found scattered about the map (locations are fixed and they do respawn), all breakables (apart from the midboss chamber ones for some reason) spawn after 3:00 in game and respawn 3:00 after being broken. There are also now large, locked crates that require a heavy melee to break. The point of breaking them is that they have a chance to drop unsecured souls, or in the case of Golden Statues - they have a 50% chance to drop one of a few different stat buffs at random. Golden Statue buffs have three levels with the level that drops being determined by in game time - Level 1 at 3-10 mins (like boxes they spawn at 3:00 in game), Level 2 at 10-30 mins and Level 3 from 30 minutes onward. Boxes have a base 60% chance of dropping a scaling amount of souls (they don't do this anymore). Box spawn/respawn time varies by map position - most respawn 3 minutes after breaking, but the midboss building statues only initially spawn at 10:00, buffs in the tunnels spawn at 5:00 and also take 5:00 to respawn.
   

Medication Cont. (Farming Final)

Now that you know what you can farm, lets talk about how you should farm - because farming effectively is pretty much the primary differentiator between good and bad players.

As you can see from the order of priority, waves are typically the most important thing to pay attention to, they're your best source of income but also directly affect the state of the map and what plays you can and can't make, as such they are also typically the most contested meaning you need to assess when you can be pushing proactively or clearing defensively + how many people are in a lane, which lanes should be farmed by whom and how consistently. Hyper-Carries often need to be alone in a lane bouncing waves for minutes at a time, as such often times supportive play-making characters need to ♥♥♥♥-off and y'know make plays around the map, keeping their own income up via the other, lower-priority sources. This is where** tempo** comes in, MOBAs have a lot of down-time, however down-time is not idle-time, you typically do have something should always be doing - usually that nets you cash:
![](https://images.steamusercontent.com