Deadlock is a mixture of a MOBA and a third-person hero shooter. At its core, though, it is a Valve Source game above all else, and with that, comes seemingly endless movement tech.
We’ve likely yet to see even half of what’s really possible to do with Deadlock’s movement system, but the amount of advantages you can get off of knowing how it works can’t be understated.
Here is our intermediate guide to movement in Deadlock.
Deadlock’s movement has an apparently basic structure. You can crouch, dodge, jump, double-jump, air-dash, slide, wall-jump, and a dash-jump.
With the exception of wall-jump, slide, jump, and crouch, all other movements spend a stamina bar. Almost all heroes start the game off with three stamina bars, but there are some exceptions:
You can increase your stamina bars with certain items, but for the majority of your time playing Deadlock, you’ll have between two and four stamina bars. All moves that consume stamina will use a single bar per action. This means that if, for example, you want to dash-jump, you’ll need two stamina bars, as this is a combination of two stamina-consuming actions.
In classic Source engine fashion, Deadlock’s movement is heavily influenced by momentum. Valve seems to be intentionally highlighting this fact with the Transit Line system, which gives you a hefty speed boost to and from your lane.
As long as you keep your movement abilities headed in the same direction, you’ll keep your momentum. Learning how to connect the multiple movement options you have to travel as far as possible while spending as little stamina as you can is key to mastering Deadlock.
Using momentum better than your opponents will help you survive situations they wouldn’t, and punish them when they don’t expect to be punished.
The first movement string you should learn is the Dash-Jump. This is a simple string to learn, but one that takes some practice to do consistently. While having at least two stamina bars, dash and jump when your bars turn blue.
Doing so on the right timing will string your dash and jump together, helping you cover a much further distance using the momentum built by your dash.
If you miss the timing by either being too early or too late, nothing will happen, and you’ll get a pop-up informing you that your timing was off.
Sliding can be achieved by either doing it after dashing, or by doing it while going down an incline. This can be, for example, the stairs present in front of the Guardians in every lane.
Not only is Sliding another momentum-building tool which makes you incredibly mobile, it also gives you infinite ammo during its duration. Let’s say you are playing Bebop, a hero that heavily depends on its magazine size for maximum DPS.
If you start firing while sliding down the lane stairs, you’ll get at least a couple extra seconds of free ammo in your magazine, which can be the difference between a kill or a near-miss.
Sliding backwards is also possible and, albeit it is harder to learn, is extremely powerful when you push your opponents under their Guardian, making poking them and landing denies ever easier.
Once you’ve mastered the Slide and the Dash-Jump, combining them and mastering this combination will put you head and shoulders above any player that hasn’t taken the time to learn these techniques.
Stringing Dash-Jumps into Slides is the fastest and most stamina efficient way to traverse Deadlock’s map. Kicking off with a Dash-Jump will give you enough momentum for you to fall into a Slide, even if you’re not heading down a ramp or a set of stairs.
This means that any character with four stamina bars can use this string twice, and immediately escape from danger while being overextended, maximize their rotation timing or chase an opponent much faster than they can escape.
The final step in the first trek of your journey to mastering Deadlock’s movement is learning how the Transit Line is key to gaining momentum for free, even when you don’t have the speed boost online.
Most people jump off a Transit Line. This is intuitive, and can sometimes be the best decision you can make. Let’s say you’re playing a character who can hover in the air during a certain ability, or you want to get a bird’s eye view of a fight that’s happening. In these cases, you should be jumping off the Line.
In most other situations though, namely every time you start a game and first get into lane, you should be crouching out of the Transit Line to keep the momentum you’ve gained. Jumping stops your forward momentum because you’re forcing your character to go vertical.
Pressing your crouch button as you’re getting to lane and, ideally, holding it with the objective of landing on the stairs in front of your Guardian, is an excellent way to both get a forward position and obtain some extra ammo to poke your opponents before the creeps arrive.
This same technique can be used to maximize how fast you rotate from lane to lane. Teleporting will often be your fastest option to go from one lane to another, but it can be dangerous, and it can sometimes be slower.
Most times, the safest and fastest way to rotate is to take your Transit Line back, crouch off it once you have a direct line of sight to another Line, Air-Dash towards it and hold jump to get on it. Repeat this process if you need to rotate through multiple lanes, and you’ll be faster than you’ve ever expected.
As you get more used to the movement system and how momentum works, you can also string Wall-Jumps into these rotations, allowing you to cover more distance without needing to touch the ground or to spend extra stamina bars.
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