Abrams is your go-to frontline tanky brawler who doesn’t mind jumping into the middle of the action. With heavy punches and crowd control, Abrams is best to pair with squishy backline glass cannons that can dish out their damage while he goes ham.
Here’s the best build for Abrams in Deadlock, including our suggested skill and item progression with some gameplay tips.
Abrams’ abilities in Deadlock
Like other Deadlock heroes, Abrams also has three basic abilities and an ultimate, a primary weapon, and not to forget, the option to melee. Here’s a rundown of his abilities:
- Siphon Life: Drain health from enemies in front of you while they’re in the attack’s radius.
- Shoulder Charge: Charge forward, colliding with enemies and dragging them along. Hitting a wall stuns enemies caught by Abrams. Speed increased after colliding with enemy heroes.
- Infernal Resilience (Passive): Regenerate a portion of incoming damage over time.
- Seismic Impact (Ultimate): Leap high into the air and choose a ground location to crash into. When you hit the ground, all enemies in the radius are damaged and stunned.
Abrams’ weapon is a short-range revolver shotgun. It incentivizes being up close to your enemies and smacking them with your melee attack in conjunction with your revolver shots. Your passive, Infernal Resilience, makes sure you get out of most of these trades favorably, thanks to the tankiness it provides.
The best Abrams build in Deadlock
Early game
For Abrams’ skill build early on, I unlock and then put another point into Infernal Resilience before unlocking Siphon Life, Shoulder Charge, and finally, Seismic Impact. The additional point spent in Infernal Resilience gives an extra 1.5 health regen, which helps immensely in the laning stage.
I pick up Restorative Shot as my first item in almost every game as Abrams. It helps sustaining through the laning phase—just make sure you’re are using the health-granting shot on heroes as much as possible, because it returns considerably more HP. I also get Close Quarters, Melee Lifesteal, Spirit Strike, and Extra Stamina immediately after. All these items bolster Abrams’ in-your-face playstyle.
If you’re getting poked too much, you can pick up Extra Regen or Healing Rite for additional sustain. Reactive Barrier is also a great pickup against heroes like Beebop and Warden.
The key to winning lane as Abrams is to use covers and maintain a short distance from your enemy laners.
Mid-game
Abrams is an excellent ganker, which means as you take the enemy guardian, it’s time to head to other lanes and wreak havoc. To enable your damage output while ganking, max out Siphon Life after unlocking your ultimate Seismic Impact. The first AP into your ult is crucial, as it reduces your ult cooldown to 110 seconds from 150. After this, you can max out Shoulder Charge and Seismic Impact before putting the last points into maxing Infernal Resilience.
As for items, I pick up Sprint Boots before I start rotating to other lanes. From there onward, I save up for Torment Pulse. Pulse synergizes greatly with the frontline bruiser playstyle as you are constantly chasing down heroes with your Shoulder Charge and heavy melee attacks. After that, I pick up a few 1250 Soul items depending on how the match is going. Duration Extender, Berserker, Bullet Resist Shredder, and Enduring Speed are almost always default pickups in the midgame.
If you feel you are low on defenses, consider buying Bullet Armor or Spirit Armor, depending on which kind of damage you’re receiving the most. You can do this by checking the incoming damage pop-up after your deaths.
Late game
As you approach late game with Abrams, you can go two major routes—be a teamfight monster with low cooldown ultimate, or assume more of a carry role with weapon damage. I feel Abrams excels at the first role much more than the second one, but sometimes you have to pick up the load if your team is missing the firepower.
For teamfight prowess, pick up Hunter’s Aura for more debuffs, Superior Stamina for maneuverability, Lifestrike for more potent punches, and Improved Spirit Armor and Improved Bullet Armor for durability. Superior Cooldown and Diviner’s Kevlar make sure you have incredibly low downtime on your ultimate and other abilities.
If you want to pursue more of a carry playstyle though, I’d suggest picking up Point Blank and Crippling Headshot. These will make your shotty a serious threat to enemy heroes in the late game.
As for situational items, I’d suggest keeping Leech in mind. It will make sure, your regen is not fully countered by enemy Healbanes. Also, to deal with powerful enemy carries in the late-game, consider picking up items like Knockdown, Silence Glyph, and Curse.
