All six new Deadlock heroes, ranked

Deadlock just opened the floodgates with a huge patch that overhauled the game and dropped six new playable heroes to fight it out in the Cursed Apple. However, there was a catch: after releasing the first one, Mina, the rest of the five heroes underwent staggered releases, with community votes deciding which ones to unlock next.

After two weeks of voting wars, all heroes are finally playable. Billy came first, then Doorman, Paige, Drifter, and finally Victor, each shaking up the game with their unique kits and strong personalities. From portal shenanigans to a literal goat wielding a bat charging in, let’s see how the new cast members stack up against each other.

Mina was designed to be a glass cannon. Her quick escape and mobility compensate for her fragile HP, while her horrible base stats can scale fast thanks to Love Bites. Like a true vampire, she’s feast or famine, and anything less than a skilled player piloting her can see her fall behind without any hope of catching up.

Mina is most vulnerable during the earlier stages of the game, and it doesn’t help that she can’t farm fast with her kit. Nox Nostra isn’t good unless it scales, but to scale, you need to fight early and often. 

She can’t reliably secure kills because of her lack of crowd control, and going in for the clean-up with Rake oftentimes backfires. On lower ranks, the constant fighting can set her up for great success in the late game, but she isn’t making this happen herself without a coordinated team.

For her enemies, countering Mina is as simple as buying items that prevent her from escaping, like Slowing Hex and/or any of the numerous lockdown abilities in the game, then nuking her small health pool. Despite all that, players who can overcome her hurdles can find an agile, hypercarry.

Paige is a wonderful support that excels at protecting allies and denying space with her numerous crowd-control abilities. Her ultimate has so much clutch potential because it can heal allies and stun enemies at a global range, guaranteeing a teamfight.  

Although not as flashy, her best ability is her barrier, which buffs weapon damage and boosts fire rate with upgrades. On the max level, it can even shield up to two additional allies, making her the ideal support for gun-heavy compositions.

Paige is the ideal support to stack active items with because there isn’t much to do in between cooldowns. Paige thrives in huge teamfights, but is held back by her atrociously long cooldowns.

In a game as complex as Deadlock, Victor is a straightforward character whose game plan is to walk into the enemy team and die. He wants to be right in the middle of the fray, dealing damage with Aura of Suffering and Pain Battery, while keeping himself close to the enemy team with Jumpstart. 

Victor struggles until he can collect enough souls for upgrades and items to sustain him, but when allowed to scale, he feels immortal. He’s a beast when ahead, but struggles when behind.

His main gimmick of dying doesn’t mean much if it wasn’t a problem to take him down in the first place.

He’s one of the best frontliners in Deadlock, but he only brings massive damage and nothing else. Most of the time, that’s enough, but that also means he’s largely dependent on his current tuning.

Billy is one of the most balanced heroes in Deadlock design-wise, as he has clear strengths and counters. He’s an all-in, melee-oriented character with amazing team-initiation and brawling. The drawback is that he’s easily kitable with slows and struggles against range heroes if he doesn’t get the drop on them.

The thing about Billy is that once he’s committed to the fight, there’s no going back. Rising Ram charges him into the frontline, and Chain Gang pulls enemies next to him. Additionally, Chain Gang’s best trait is that it prevents enemies from using their movement abilities, making it a perfect counter to slippery heroes but soft heroes like Pocket.

Billy’s fast initiation can end fights before the enemy team gets a chance to fight back. But he feels cumbersome when you’re behind, as you’ll end up eating every ability and lockdown for nothing on every attempt to engage.

Regardless, Billy is one of the most fun heroes in Deadlock, and he’s lethal in chaotic teamfights when he’s allowed to let loose. Itemisation is important for Billy because you’ll need to thread the needle between survivability and having enough damage to be a threat.

Call Bell is his main damaging ability and has two damage portions, with the explosion boasting above-average Spirit scaling. Combined with Luggage Cart’s ability to reposition enemies and Hotel Guest to set a play, he’s built to burst down an enemy before the real fight begins.

The smug concierge has a truly inventive kit, one inspired by Valve’s own iconic franchise, Portal. Doorway allows him to set up two connected portals that anyone can zip or shoot through, and the tricks that people have been able to pull off in his short time demonstrate the limitless potential of the ability. 

Doorman’s greatest weakness is frankly a skill issue, as players who aren’t utilising his complex portals won’t get much value from his kit. His abilities have a fairly short range, and the skillshots are difficult to land consistently outside of his ultimate or from friendly crowd-control.

But, creative players can use Doorway to create truly unexpected angles to surprising results. Fighting a good Doorman is disorienting and chaotic, forcing you to check all angles when pushing towards an objective, or else you’ll find yourself kidnapped by the nearest Walker. 

Drifter was released overtuned as his numbers were clearly too overpowered to exist in his current state, earning him the highest win rate at above 57%. Much like Shiv’s problematic design, he’ll remain strong if his gameplan remains the same, even if his numbers are toned down.

The hero specialises in stalking prey and punishing stragglers, making him a menace in regular games. The key to this is his passive, Bloodscent, which lets him track lone targets with their heartbeat from a distance, turning Deadlock into a horror movie. Additionally, Drifter deals more damage to isolated targets and gains permanent weapon damage after killing them.

Stalker’s Mark is primarily used to stick to targets during skirmishes, but it also lets him rotate through the map effortlessly. Drifter can line up a mark far away, teleport, then he’s one dash away from your lane.

Of course, his big counter is sticking together, but that’s already a losing play. There are three lanes to defend, jungle camps to farm, and objectives to contest, which means there will always be prey for Drifter.

Deadlock’s six newcomers shake up the game in a meaningful way. These heroes weren’t ranked by their current strength but rather by what their kit provides and how much they impact the game. 

Balance may shuffle their tiers, but heroes like Drifter and Doorman will redefine the match. Regardless of who you voted for, there’s no denying that these heroes are top-tier. Valve continues to prove that their hero design, both abilities and aesthetic, paint a bright future for Deadlock.