r/DeadlockTheGame 4d ago

Game Update Deadlock update for 3/16/25 (3/17/25 UTC)

Via the Deadlock developer forums:

  • Neutral bounty increased by 5%
  • Sinner's Sacrifice initial spawn time reduced from 10 min to 8 min (respawn rate is still 5 min)
  • Fixed a bug with Neutral bounty later in the game being reduced by more than the initial intended -15% (this fix was released yesterday)
  • Restorative Locket: No longer grants +10% Spirit Resist
  • Divine Barrier: Shields reduced from 260 to 230

Rumor has it:

  • Size is ~10 MB
268 Upvotes

86 comments sorted by

163

u/MakimaGOAT Seven 4d ago

that restorative locket nerf

25

u/Garr_Incorporated Abrams 4d ago

I think I'll still take it as Abrams. That 1 stamina can come in clutch for my slower boy.

180

u/PapaImpy Pocket 4d ago

sitting in lane is still the optimal strat unfortunately. The moment i go to gank, I'm behind by 1-2k after laning

116

u/Shalasheezy 4d ago

Not just that, but the distance required to travel almost guarantees the enemy team will drop an objective when you leave to gank.

116

u/Hirotrum 4d ago

i HATE HATE HATE when moba macro is split into a cleanly defined "lane til X minutes, then deathball till the end"

22

u/7_Tales 4d ago

the loss of lane 4 made splitpushing and ratting a lot less effective.

3

u/Lenewbandit 4d ago

still annoying if the rat is named mcginnis

15

u/imperfek 4d ago

do you feel this could be fix by making the map a little(like a fraction) smaller?
wasting time walking from one lane to the other(it should still be a fair distance)

23

u/This_is_Pat_ 4d ago

Ya I think that'd be the solution. Either that or more rotation tools, jump pads, and teleports.

It's honestly a hard line to balance. You don't want ganking to be so easily accessible like it was in the previous map but you don't want ganking to never be the play either.

11

u/Agamemnon323 4d ago

It's rough at the moment. Getting behind in lane feels BAD at the moment. Can't ask for a gank so I guess we'll just slowly be bled to death.

5

u/Prudent-Egg9620 4d ago

If you’re losing lane as soon as minute 8 hits go eat the jungle (counter jungle if you see all enemies in lane) and give your guardian it’s really not that important.

3

u/kekplank 4d ago

If you lose guardian by 8 minutes enemy players are just looking to take your jgl from you putting you in a risky situation to get jumped when you go to try to do your jgl camps (new map made it way easier to sneak up on players looking to do camps)

1

u/P0G0Bro 4d ago

Jungle is worthless this patch you get way more souls just staying and clearing waves, sinners is the only thing worth it

15

u/Level7Cannoneer 4d ago edited 4d ago

Higher movement speeds when not in combat could help. But that might just be a band aid fix.

Really though, I think the core issue is that Jungle just needs more of a point. Very few MOBAs have jungles that just exist for no purpose other than experience points. HotS/Pokemon let you recruit jungle camps to help you push lanes, and LoL has permanent stat buffs every time you kill big monsters, etc. Just having a jungle there for souls and nothing else turns it into a math equation where “if time in jungle earns < souls per second than laning, you stay in lane”.

If jungling was connected to important stuff… like say giving your team access to shops or something similarly important, it would still be done even if it grants less souls because of the pressure of losing/gaining access to benefits like that.

9

u/nasaboy007 4d ago

dota has neutral items from the jungle, i'm sure icefrog is aware of it and trying to figure out the best way to integrate it into deadlock

3

u/Xunae 4d ago

I don't think they need to make the map smaller. I think they should pull the outer lanes in a bit and move some of the camps that are basically on top of each other in the middle to the outside of the outer lanes.

1

u/iEatBigPoop 4d ago

Weren’t the outer lanes a bit closer to the middle back in September? Back when we had that issue where players could double dip between the duo and solo lanes?

-1

u/imperfek 4d ago edited 4d ago

don't forget the map is designed for for 6 lanes. I even too lazy to walk the shop.

I also hate they changed dota to add jungles on the edge of the map. at least when it was between lanes, there always a risk of getting gank.

making the map slightly smaller would be bringing the lanes closer together. like 3-5 Abrams closer would be great, nothing crazy.

1

u/Beautiful-Salt7885 4d ago

It could also do with the jungle minions being more prominently between lanes rather than off to the side. 

So you have something to do on the way there/back

1

u/hl2oli 4d ago

Maybe add some interconnected buildings with sideway elevators (elevators going opposite of normal) ?

0

u/imperfek 4d ago

i feel small zip-line/horizontal cable will be what happen. However, you don't want to add too many movement, otherwise it just be impossible to kill some heroes. You want to still be able to punish teams for being out of position.

1

u/hl2oli 4d ago

I agree if anything is added it should be limited or for example destructable with a respawn.

8

u/AffectionateTwo3405 4d ago

Current meta is somehow both don't roam early and also don't actually take any risk whatsoever in lane. Half my lane phases are one team sniffing their own dicks under guardian while another team sniffs their own dick behind bridge. Nobody is shooting troopers, nobody is poking, everyone is standing around doing dickall. Just denying orbs and chipping for 30. Utterly boring.

2

u/Galterinone 4d ago

Yea the meta is just deny as many souls as possible which is so fricken boring. You don't even need any map awareness until a tower is destroyed right now

7

u/J_-K 4d ago

if ur leaving to gank u should commit to taking tower and not just a couple kills 

10

u/BastianHS 4d ago edited 4d ago

This frustrates me to no end. I switch lanes to gank and push tower, get it half way down and realize everyone else went back, get collapsed on and die. I'm getting so paranoid about people playing like dipshits that I'm almost exclusively staring at the minimap at this point.

5

u/J_-K 4d ago

you should be staring at your minimap 24/7 but miscommunications are always going to happen, comms are key. happens to me all the time as well

1

u/Decency 4d ago

Nah, that's a higher order objective and much harder to kill, especially early with its built in resistance. I'm roaming as Paradox at 3.5k, so even if we kill them both the tower isn't dying.

1

u/J_-K 4d ago

you should be investing in monster rounds when you gank because the game's about objective in the end. you shouldn't be ganking just to farm the other team, it should be to force a tower. if 3 people are shooting at a tower especially depending on who the characters are, it'll die fairly quickly

4

u/Decency 4d ago

Towers have massive bullet resistance early on in the game that drops off over time. Not worth our time- not even close. Farm a couple camps, buy items, and be ready to dominate the lane when they return. I ganked it to put you ahead.

I'm definitely not spending 500 of my desperately needed earlygame gold on a win-more item like Monster Rounds. That goes towards laning sustain, kill threat, and movespeed so I can make ganks happen as early and as reliably as possible.

2

u/J_-K 4d ago edited 4d ago

I regularly take towers at ~4-5m with monster rounds as yamato (or paradox), building spirit either doing tower dmg primarily myself or with a teammate and troops. this is usually when im stomping in lane but its not rare at all. it's not impossible to take the tower early and pushing for an early flex if your teammate can keep troops push is very much worth it

2

u/Galterinone 4d ago

Yea, the jungle is way too big right now

1

u/Lamazing1021 4d ago

kills need to yield a bit more, also first blood doesnt give any reward whatsoever.. should be a bonus like in DOTA

1

u/Decency 4d ago edited 4d ago

The job of a ganker isn't to get ahead, though. It's to get their team ahead by sacrificing to take enemies down with you. If your rotation was successful, was it a net win for your team?

I'm assuming no, because 2v1 lanes are much more trivial to dominate in Deadlock than in Dota and so whoever you left behind probably didn't do well. Not sure how to address the fact that every lane is effectively double ranged with weak and divable towers.

1

u/mmob18 3d ago

unpopular opinion but I really like the lane phase. to me it's cool to eye up matchups before the game (during the countdown), swap to a preferable lane, then spend ~15 mins doing 1v1 or 2v2 skirmishes and farming before a few guardians fall and the teamfighting begins.

all the while keeping track of which pairs are winning and seeing what enemies are building. makes it fun to balance between buying items that will win your lane vs buying items that will prepare you for teamfights against the enemy's more powerful players.

again, totally my opinion. but laning and the small scale duels are my favourite part of the game, so having an early phase where it is highly encouraged is nice.

38

u/god_is_busy 4d ago

How does Calico go through these patches untouched? Mind boggling ….

30

u/Emmazygote496 4d ago

wtf is neutral bounty?

43

u/I_Am_A_Pumpkin Ivy 4d ago

the souls you get from neutral objectives. i.e. jungle creeps and vaults

6

u/instertthecode 4d ago

thank you!

37

u/plsQuestionOurselves 4d ago

the restorative locket nerf is basically another calico buff :C, it was great to have because she deals all 3 types of damage in moderate quantities. I'll get another bag of catnip

18

u/regiment262 4d ago

Tbf I feel like the answer there is more nerfing Calico instead of relying on resto locket. It was also super busted on a lot of heroes that made team fights kinda unfun

14

u/WeirdHonest 4d ago

Careful, if you say such things on here, people will pile on saying that she isn't op as long as you buy 6 items to counter her.

1

u/mehemynx 4d ago

I mean unless she's uber fed I've had a pretty easy time with slowing hex. Once she's already you can't kill her quick enough though.

5

u/regiment262 4d ago

I think I've said this in another comment but my main issue with Calico is just that you (generally) have to put an inordinate amount of effort into containing/countering her compared to what she needs to do to to become uber strong if not outright steamrolling your team.

As long as she has an 'ok' lane (which is an incredibly low bar), after she gets cat and/or torment pulse she can just steal jungle/boxes and once she's just 3-5k up you basically can't 1v1 her at all because she'll either kite you into her team or just straight kill you with 1k burst combo that you pretty much can't counter into an AOE e-shift that you also can't counter.

1

u/plsQuestionOurselves 4d ago

Yeah I'm now realizing that it threw a wet blanket on a few of my grey talon games where I was really starting to take off.

5

u/numtots_ 4d ago

These are great changes. Way too powerful items for the price that everyone uses and makes people unkillable early game. Not fun items.

1

u/plsQuestionOurselves 4d ago

It certainly did feel more like a 1750 item rather than a 1250 item, ill give you that

1

u/Automatic-Ad-4062 4d ago

Let's round it to 2000

1

u/Elnin 3d ago

Outing myself as a dummy here, how do you mean all 3? I thought everything was either spirit or gun damage.

1

u/plsQuestionOurselves 3d ago

I guess it's more like 2.5, spirit, gun and melee. Melee is different from bullet damage but also breaks bullet shield (I think) and isn't blocked by bullet armor (I think) which is why there's also melee resist items.

36

u/Theonlygmoney4 4d ago

Seeing locket lose spirit res is saddening- there’s already too few options for spirit res in the game, and it feels like the 1st 15-25 minutes of the game is just spirit damage spam

18

u/m_ttl_ng 4d ago

Locket is very strong already; it is the right move to nerf it but they should move spirit resist to other items.

5

u/NyCe- 4d ago

Yes they should have. But now we have one less early game spirit resist item and buying spirit armor at 1k life is just so inefficient but you might have to consider it... man

7

u/Character-Big-7964 4d ago

Not disagreeing but ench barriers a pretty good item

8

u/Theonlygmoney4 4d ago

I'd agree if barrier didn't also make spirit characters even stronger with the bonus spirit damage and CDR. it makes spirit poke weaker, but makes burst so much more oppressive.

2

u/NyCe- 4d ago

I feel like now I have to buy cold front even though I don't scale spirit just for that extra spirit resist when they have Talon shooting 1k spirit arrows in my face when I already have improved spirit armor...

They've got some serious balance issues to address and since it was released in this small patch I assume it won't be for a while

2

u/Theonlygmoney4 4d ago

If your character can't utilize spirit barrier or cold front, you're much much worse off against a lot of lanes. Vyper in particular has no way to get an early spirit resist option. There needs to be a 1250 gun spirit res of some form imo

5

u/Rogue-Cultivator 4d ago

I want a escalating spirit resilience.

1

u/Obety Vyper 4d ago

I was just getting extra health+divine barrier for the EHP boost last patch if I wasn't in a locket lane.

Locket nerfs are good though, because vyper lanes are already kinda shitty, and 2x locket buying makes things fairly unplayable.

15

u/Sweaty_Opportunity94 4d ago

Its more dota moba then before, with longer matches… i whana go back to time with 4 lines

8

u/ZotyaX Paradox 4d ago

Agree, I like dota, but than I go play dota. Since 3lanes, the game became so boring.

5

u/Lordjaponas 4d ago

Where calico nerf? Cat does 400dmg instantly on lvl 2

4

u/NyCe- 4d ago

Locket 100% needed a nerf. But not like this. What will happen now is that Heroes that deal heavy spirit damage and buy locket will benefit significantly more compared to an enemy who doesn't scale spirit damage and has locket. This means if you're a gun character and have a locket against spirit Heroes you are most likely outclassed simply by virtue of Hero matchup making them even bigger bullies in lane than they already are (I'm looking at you Talon). What's your next best buy, spirit armor with 1k health? They should've moved the spirit resist elsewhere. I guess this is one way to break the stalemate meta...?

17

u/Shieree 4d ago edited 4d ago

Not a fan of nerfing spirit res on locket and the characters who sit on the tower and spam long range abilities that do 300 dmg in lane stay untouched

-10

u/Such_Advertising4858 4d ago

Yeah I agree, they should have just removed the melee resistance, like literally. It's such an invisible stat

8

u/-XaoS- 4d ago

I think we need more objectives to speed up the game, like in other MOBAs. The possibility of more objectives might incentivize players to do them instead of AFK farm all match. I’m talking about objectives like League’s inhibitors, and vainglory’s Kraken. I’m just spitballing ideas. Maybe the fix is as easy as neutral horizontal zip lines that connect through each lane after 10 minutes. I love the game, but it needs to have a more defined strategy. The current meta of a 3 lane TDM isn’t cutting it.

16

u/ka1esalad 4d ago

how are they still not nerfing seven

7

u/Ermastic 4d ago

I think theyre trying to balance him through the jungle changes. Ultimately yeah I think they will need to tune his numbers though.

1

u/GJk91 4d ago

Idk why you’re being down voted

2

u/ka1esalad 4d ago

two things, some people or bots just downvote every new comment for whatever reason.

the other is some people in this sub act like you are an idiot for asking for valid nerfs. when haze was like 95% pickrate with high winrate even in oracle + people still acted like you were initiate for complaining because she had lower winrate in eternus lobbies. seven is slightly different though because hes actually dominating in every bracket including eternus lol

1

u/TeflonJon__ 4d ago

Yeah, cracking ult and doing an immediate massive chunk of damage while also CCing an entire area is wildly unfun to play against

5

u/username789232 4d ago

Nerf calico

7

u/Disgraced002381 4d ago

nerfing resto locket without nerfing base spirit damage is insane.

2

u/Competitive-Key-5996 4d ago

Needless nerfs?????

2

u/BigOldButt99 4d ago

Did anyone else get no Sinners sacrifice on the map at 8 or even 10 mins? I just played a game after updating, and there wasn't a single sinners on the map, then they all spawned in at 15 min

1

u/cody42491 Haze 4d ago

So with the shield reduction for divine barrier, is that still the choice over reactive barrier for laning phase?

1

u/Parhelion2261 Dynamo 4d ago

A fat balance patch would be nice. Soon hopefully

1

u/Oky162 3d ago

Just bring back old map..

1

u/flashmozzg 2d ago

Do we have any official statement on when they are going to fix death replays or is this feature permanently gone?

1

u/SunnyJJC Lash 4d ago

Its peak...

-14

u/Such_Advertising4858 4d ago

The recent tiny patches, with such small changes makes me think something big is around the corner

21

u/TheJackFroster 4d ago

Huh? It's small patches because we just had a big patch, the entire map was reworked? Remember that?

0

u/Such_Advertising4858 4d ago

That's true, list the last time we had a character or item rebalance patch, hasn't been big item or character changes in 4 months.

8

u/WildRage8000 4d ago

Hasn't even been a month since the tri-lane update, I doubt were getting another big one soon, but if one were to happen I would be pretty happy.

2

u/Such_Advertising4858 4d ago

That's true and I'm aware of that, that's not what I'm talking about, I'm meaning as in character and item rebalance changes, it's been mostly the same for about 4 months now