Deadlock’s Aug. 29 patch is now live, bringing hundreds of quality-of-life and balance changes for the heroes and items and potentially changing the build metagame entirely.
A 680MB Deadlock update quietly dropped on Steam on Thursday, Aug. 29, introducing changes to every aspect of the game: Performance, maps, items, and hero kits. It’s not surprising that the Valve developers are hard at work improving the game all across the board, considering Deadlock’s in the early development phase.
Here’s all the most significant changes in Deadlock‘s Aug. 29 update.
Deadlock Aug. 29 patch notes
Seven heads pile of hero changes
Fifteen of the 21 available heroes received balance changes in Deadlock’s Aug. 29 patch. In particular, Seven, the hero with the highest early win rate, was hit with a hefty five changes to his Static Charge and Storm Cloud abilities.
Similarly, 14 other heroes’ abilities now have slightly different cast times, ranges, damage, or debuffs. It’s too early to tell whether these changes in Deadlock’s Aug. 29 patch are enough to shift the meta, but players are already working out new broken builds, and something in this update may help a new hero become must-play.
New items: High-Velocity Mag, Headhunter
Two new Weapon items (marked with a red New label) have been added: High-Velocity Mag and Headhunter. You can purchase the High-Velocity Mag for 500 Souls, which can be upgraded during the late game to Headhunter for 3000 Souls.
Many weapon upgrades also received nerfs and buffs. E.g., Toxic Bullets reduce the enemy hero’s heals by 65 percent instead of 55, do reduced bleed damage (five percent, down from six), and increase your health by 100.
Magic Carpet the latest new Spirit Item
Like the weapon items, several Spirit upgrades also got balance changes, with one new item added to the existing arsenal. It’s called Magic Carpet, and as the name suggests, it summons a flying carpet (like Aladdin’s rug) that you ride to move in any direction. While on the carpet, you get impressive Bullet and Spirit shields. Summoning the carpet takes just over a second, and you can ride it for almost eight seconds.
Way more lifesteal off your non-hero kills
Non-hero characters (like creeps) offer better lifesteal (40 instead of 30 percent) with your melee attacks. Like the other two categories, many items also received changes, with a few glitches around Soul Rebirth’s usage being fixed by the devs.
Stats, reports, and walljump
A new profile page displays a breakdown of your recent matches and all-time hero statistics in Deadlock. You can check the following: Games Played, Games Won, Last Hits, Denies, Kills, Assists, Souls Collected, Healing, Hero Damage, and Objective Damage. Unlike other stats, Souls Collected and Healing are all zero.
You can also now report players during and after a match. To report while in-game, press Esc to access the player list. Because several players abused the pause feature, the developers also limited the pauses for each team to just three.
The Aug. 29 patch also introduced a new movement mechanic, letting you wall jump with any hero. The update also brought several QoL changes like improved skill descriptions, ropes to get to the high ground, and several audio and gameplay bugfixes.
There are no official notes, but you can read all the Deadlock changes here.
