Deadlock Heroes Tier List: Who Are the Strongest Characters in Valve's New Game?

Deadlock, the forthcoming title from Valve has created enough stir in the gaming community. Everything from the premise of the game suggesting ideas from Dota 2 and Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 leads to Diehard fans being excited around it. After the game completed it’s alpha testing at May 2024, it was launched to the public at August 24 2024 where a lot of insiders and fans have been discussing regarding the evolving meta alongside the hero powers. What follows is an in depth current tier list of Deadlock based on available community feedback, win rates and gameplay performance metrics so as to enhance the understanding of current dominating heroes of the game.

Credit: Tier Maker

S-Tier: The Titans of Deadlock

In Deadlock, the s tier heroes are the most powerful in the game and so their winrate is one of the highst which mostly comes down to their sheer impact in the team fights, coupled with good team composition. These heroes easily win most of their games putting them into a must pick or must ban in scrims and tournament games.

• Seven (Winrate: 57.7%, Pickrate: 92.7%) Seven is one of the most well known names who everyone remembers as a game changer with them, and now he is back with a bang — all thanks to his many nice features. Lightning ball and Static charge ability allow him to be able to lead in team fights and single fights. And with what Power Surge offers him, more than a master of combats. Is it any wonder he is said to be the 57.7% and above?

• Dynamo Dynamo certainly excels in every aspect as a tank who contributes immensely to the team. His healing factors as well as the Area of Effect damage teamed with his ultimate Singularity can be game winning. The fact that he can give peel to allies while being on the frontline and being tanky himself makes him an S-tier pick without any doubt.

• Haze Due to her stealth mechanisms, Haze is not a foe you want to meet without being prepared as she can be quite difficult yet effective, paired with her burst damage. Using abilities such as Smoke Bomb and Sleep Dagger, she flanks enemies so that her team can destroy them. Yes, her item dependence may hurt her early game, but late game she is a beast.

A-Tier: Highly Effective Choices

When we refer to A-tier heroes, we know they are some of the most powerful heroes as long as they are coordinated with their team and thanks to their great coordination with their team they shine in the big moments. These heroes are great just not overpowering like the S-tier heroes are.

• Warden (Winrate: 54.7%, Pickrate: 50%) Warden on his part is quite good in mid-tier games as he has a win rate of 54.7%, however, when he faces better coordinated teams, he performs poorly because his team utility is low. What stands out about him is his ult Last Stand alongside his Binding Word, which allows him to disable his enemies and output damage.

• Mo & Krill This duo is a terrifying menace during initiations as they are capable of locking down any opponent with their Sand Blast and Combo while their team follows up and deals damage. Their self healing and tankiness quite makes it hard for enemies to kill them which is why they sit firmly A tier.

• Vindicta Vindicta is a long-range hero notorious for her mobility and ability to deal damage, as such she is difficult to fight. In battle, she uses the Assassinate skill that allows her to attack and kill hurt enemies from a great distance and Crow Familiar increases her damage over time enabling her to get quick kills.

B-Tier: Solid but Situational

B-tier heroes don’t perform all that well entirely, rather, there are specific scenarios in which they shine, but even then it is more reliant on the team composition and the match odds. There are strategies where these heroes can be effective but matter of fact is, they still have significant weaknesses which can be exploited.

• Bebop As far as the crowd control aspect of the game is concerned, Bebop with his Sticky Bomb and Hook is more than adequate as he is able to scatter the enemy and deal great amounts of damage with Hyper Beam. Bebop is more effective with solid off-teams, however he does start to lose effectiveness against teams with debuff removal and also needs solid positioning.

• Infernus A great laner, Infernus burns his enemies using Flame Dash and Combustion but is at a great disadvantage if he falls behind because of how reliant on momentum he is. His opponents are forced to confront the wrath of his burst damage, however to regain the upper hand, Infernus struggles against prolonged fights.

• Shiv’s speed and damage potential with Bullet Dance certainly makes him a threat, certainly, but he struggles with needing to be active and dodging cc. When doing well, he ends up being able to provide a lot of damage, but with no burst mitigation, high level play can sometimes make him a detriment during team fights.

C-Tier: Heroes in Need of Adjustment

C-tier heroes do provide some extra boost to the competitors but not enough in specific teams or situations to win. They often don’t have enough versatility and often just have too much dependency on the specific match ups or team combos.

• Lady Geist Lady Geist on the other hand does have great burst damage but her low survivability definitely offsets the balance and drops her down to C tier. Supercharges and Life Drain tend to focus on heavy damage but Wizards Charge does affect them and makes them work less efficiently over a long period of time.

• McGinnis McGinnisunch has dependence on her items greatly in hand, as well as no mobility. Mini tors do help her in straying a bit in the lanes but she does tend to go neutral in team fights and is a struggle at times when it comes to boosting her effectiveness with items.

• Grey Talon Grey talon has a few moves like the Guided Owl and the Immobilizing Trap to try and retain some control over the fight but does tend to be a conditional pick at best as he has no constant source of damage and consistently finds it difficult to come center stage.

Conclusion

As the Deadlock competes for full release from its alpha/beta state, it is likely that power hierarchies will change with patches and hero reworks. Deadlock showed in the past that it is willing to alter the game in such a way so that it is balanced based on feedback given by players and therefore the meta may change as well.

At this point in time, we can say that Seven, Dynamo, and Haze are the ones who represent the S-tier since they have gained the most versatility and the most points in every ranking. However given the versatility many of the A and B tier heroes have, it implies that other teams which have synergy can perform well too. Players should keep changing dynamically and make sure to track the balance changes of heroes to contend in the developing Deadlock meta.