Abilities

Ability unlocks

Abilities are unlocked with Ability Unlocks earned at  600,  1200,  2100 and  3600 soul thresholds (Boon levels 0, 2, 4 and 6). The first 3 non-ultimate abilities can be unlocked in any order, while the ultimate ability can only be unlocked at level 6. Ability unlocks cannot be refunded.

Ability points

Infernus Napalm showing the 3 levels of upgrades an ability can have, at 1, 2 and 5 points.

Ability Points are earned at every boon that does not give an ability unlock. These are used to upgrade the power of unlocked abilities, granting additional bonuses and better stats. All abilities have 3 tiers for upgrades, costing 1, 2, and 5 points to unlock. Unspent points are shown under your ability icons.

You can refund an upgrade by clicking its slot up to 10 seconds after unlocking it, if you haven’t used any abilities in that time window.

All 32 ability points can be earned by leveling up.

Types of abilities

Abilities come in three main categories: active, passive, and partially passive.

Active

Active abilities are abilities that are used by pressing the input key, and have a cooldown before they can be used again. An active ability is linked to a hero’s power and when it is on cooldown gives a window of opportunity for counterplay (see strategy for more). Active abilities cannot be used if the player is under the effects of a stun, silence or displacement. Active abilities can have a range of properties including being instant, channeled or having charges.

An instant ability is an ability that can be used only once immediately before being put on cooldown. It is seen as the most basic and straightforward type of abilities. An example of an instant active ability is Bebop‘s Sticky Bomb. Some active abilities can be recast during a specific timeframe, such as Mina‘s Sanguine Retreat, but will still go on cooldown after the first use while the recast timer is active.

A channeled ability is an ability that requires channeling it for a duration, indicated by a filled bar slowly diminishing on the characters HUD. The channel can be stopped before the channel duration is complete, and goes on cooldown after it’s first press before the channel duration has completed. Channeled abilities often prohibit the player from movement but this is not a rule. F. ex.

Kelvin‘s Arctic Beam allows walking around though at a slowed movement speed and crouching, but not dashing and jumping (the jumping key is default the key to cancel channeling). Dynamo‘s Singularity blocks all movement inputs from the player while channeling.

Channeled abilities can be stopped preemptively by and opponent by using a stun or interrupt, but a silence or displacement will not stop an ongoing channeled ability. This does not affect the cooldown of the ability.

An ability with charges, showing 3 ready charges on the left and 5 ready charges on the right.

A charged ability – or, an ability with charges – is an ability that can be used multiple times in a row, and has a separate cooldown for the time between charges and the time for a charge to be restored.

This is indicated by a white bar over the ability icon on your HUD, and is split by a thin black line for the amount of charges the ability currently possess. A charge that is currently on cooldown is indicated by a gray bar slowly filling up in place of the white bar. Some abilities will also start as instant active, and gain charges with levels.

See the table of charged abilities:

Passive

A passive ability is an ability that is not directly activatable by the player, but by some condition of the game. Passive abilities can not be turned off or deactivated in any way after they have been unlocked.

A passive ability can affect either the hero itself, such as Abrams‘s Infernal Resilience or an enemy hero such as Infernus‘s Afterburn, and heroes with a passive ability will often have this ability as a defining trait signifying how they are played and built.

The passive abilities in Deadlock are:

Partial Passive

Partial passive abilities are active abilities with passive components or a passive ability with an active trigger (and are therefore affected by silences, stuns, etc). These are:

• Billy‘s Blasted which has a passive component of reloading ammo and marking enemies, but can be activated. The passive effect persists through the active cooldown.

• Mirage‘s Djinn’s Mark which can be activated early, but the mark will build and trigger even if silenced.

• Shiv‘s Bloodletting has both deferring damage as a passive, and an active to clear said deferred damage.

• Victor‘s Pain Battery where the damage storing is handled as a passive, but the actual usage of the ability behaves as an active ability.

Ability Scaling and damage

Abilities can scale their properties based on other stats.

Scaling

Most abilities scale on Spirit Power, but they can also scale with Boons, Melee Damage and Weapon Damage. The scaling type of an ability usually indicated its damage type, but there can be exceptions, such as Paradox‘s Kinetic Carbine scaling with Weapon Damage but dealing Spirit Damage. The scaling type is indicate by the icon next to the scaling integer, while the damage type is indicated by the icon next to the damage value.

A few abilities have no scaling at all, only increasing in power when spending Ability Points to upgrade them. This includes Lash‘s Grapple, Mo & Krill‘s Sand Blast and Grey Talon‘s Rain of Arrows and Spirit Snare.

Some abilities apply their spirit scaling not in increased damage, but in other aspects of how they work. These vary wildly, and include Lash‘s Death Slam which increases its throwing range, and McGinnis‘s Medicinal Specter which extends its duration.

Spirit Damage

Spirit Damage is the main form of ability damage in Deadlock, and the vast majority of abilities deals all or some of its damage as spirit damage. This damage is generally split into two parts: the base damage represented by an integer, and the spirit scaling damage represented by a percentage of the heros spirit power.

The base damage is a base value that can only be changed via leveling up the ability using Ability Points, the spririt scaling damage can be increased by obtaining more spirit power via items, golden statues, powerups or the rejuvenator.

Melee Damage

Melee damage means that the ability deals a percentage of the hero’s current melee damage on contact. This will also apply any effect currently attributed to the melee of the hero, such as Spirit Strike or Melee Lifesteal.

Conversely, this also means the damage is reduced by a hero’s melee damage resist from items like Close Quarters. Some heroes can upgrade their abilities to instead apply heavy melee damage, and this applies item effects that benefit from this such as Melee Charge.

This will not, however, work with mechanics needing heavy melee attacks such as a sinner’s sacrifice, powerup or a rejuvenator.

Abilities dealing melee damage:

Utility

Some abilities will have no damage dealt, but will instead provide the hero with some sort of utility to use while playing. This is a wide topic and can be anything from Calico‘s Ava providing mobility and eventually health regeneration, Mo & Krill‘s Sand Blast providing a disarm status effect on enemies, and Paige‘s Plot Armor providing a barrier and weapon damage.