Abilities

An ability is a unique skill of a hero that does damage, grants utility, or both. All heroes have 4 base abilities that are unlocked throughout the early stages of the game using ability unlocks, and upgraded via ability points. Abilities can be either active, passive, or partially passive, and will define how a hero plays, scales, builds and wins using a specific strategy.

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. (Upgrades may be outdated)

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 the player's ability icons.

The player can refund an upgrade by clicking its slot up to 10 seconds after unlocking it, if they 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 will go 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 the players 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. For more info, please see the table of charged abilities:

This is a dynamic list "charges". Edit contents · Edit notes.

Hero	Ability	Charges	Time Between Charges	Notes
Billy	Bashdown	1	8s	+1 charge on T2 upgrade.
Celeste	Radiant Daggers	1	2s	+2 charges on T1 upgrade.
Dynamo	Kinetic Pulse	1	5s	+1 charge on T1 upgrade.
Graves	Jar of Dead	4	13s	Has a conditional charge. Charges by being near when anything dies.
Grey Talon	Charged Shot	1	4s	+1 charge on T1 upgrade.
Haze	Smoke Bomb	—	—	Becomes charged on T2 upgrade with 2 charges and 7s time between charges.
Holliday	Powder Keg	1	3.5s	+2 charges on T3 upgrade.
Holliday	Bounce Pad	1	3.5s	—
Infernus	Napalm	1	6s	+1 charge on T1 upgrade.
Infernus	Flame Dash	—	—	Becomes charged on T3 upgrade with 2 charges and 14s time between charges.
Ivy	Entangling Thorns	1	5s	+1 charge on T1 upgrade.
Kelvin	Frost Grenade	2	7s	—
Lady Geist	Life Drain	—	—	Becomes charged on T3 upgrade with 3 charges and 0.1s time between charges.
Lash	Grapple	1	2s	+1 charge on T3 upgrade.
McGinnis	Mini Turret	1	3s	+2 charges on T2 upgrade.
Mirage	Fire Scarabs	2	1s	+2 charges on T2 upgrade.
Paige	Bookwyrm	1	7s	+1 charge on T3 upgrade.
Paradox	Time Wall	—	—	Becomes charged on T3 upgrade with 3 charges and 2s time between charges.
Rem	Pillow Toss	1	8s	+1 charge on T3 upgrade.
Seven	Lightning Ball	1	7s	+1 charge on T1 upgrade.
Shiv	Serrated Knives	2	2s	+2 charges on T2 upgrade.
Sinclair	Vexing Bolt	1	3s	—
The Doorman	Call Bell	1	6s	+1 charge on T1 upgrade.
Venator	Consecrating Grenade	—	—	Becomes charged on T3 upgrade with 1 charge and 3s time between charges.
Venator	Hex-Lined Snap Trap	2	8s	+1 charge on T3 upgrade.
Victor	Jumpstart	1	8s	+1 charge on T3 upgrade.
Vindicta	Assassinate	2	2.5s	—
Viscous	Puddle Punch	1	1.7s	+1 charge on T1 upgrade.
Vyper	Screwjab Dagger	2	4s	+1 charge on T1 upgrade.
Wraith	Card Trick	2	—	+2 charges on T1 upgrade Has a conditional charge.
Yamato	Flying Slash	—	—	Becomes charged on T3 upgrade with 3 charges and 3s time between charges.

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 will deal 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 will deal 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 will apply 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:

This is a dynamic list "melee". Edit contents · Edit notes.

Hero	Ability	Base Damage	Light Melee Scaling	Notes
Bebop	Exploding Uppercut	0.01	×1	—
Bebop	Grapple Arm	0	×0.7	—
Billy	Bashdown	0	×1.1	on T3 becomes ×0.6 Heavy Melee scaling.
Calico	Leaping Slash	10	×0.8	on T3 gets +60 base damage (total 70).
Drifter	Rend	0	×1.2	on T3 becomes ×0.55 Heavy Melee scaling.
Silver	Boot Kick	0	×0.9	—
Silver (Transformed)	Go For The Throat	0	×1.5	on T1 gets +30 base damage (total 30).
Silver (Transformed)	Mauling Leap	0	×1.5	—
Viscous	Puddle Punch	20	×0.6	on T1 gets +20 base damage (total 40). on T3 becomes 40 base damage with ×0.6 Heavy Melee scaling. Can be parried.
Yamato	Flying Slash	0	×1	—

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.