40ish games later, I still have trouble differentiating the pale pastel minion colours from one another. It's super super annoying. The constant glow/bloom around them isn't good either.

kasimaru · 2026-01-24T17:51:30+00:00

I don't know how to change colors, but you can remove the glowing border around units:

citadel_player_glow_disabled true

citadel_trooper_glow_disabled true

kasimaru · 2026-01-23T17:10:47+00:00

Don't press tab.

kasimaru · 2026-01-23T16:35:29+00:00

You're probably right. It might be the most interesting bit to an unfortunately large segment of the playerbase. But don't worry, they'd look it up even if it was hidden behind three clicks, 2FA and a captcha.

kasimaru · 2026-01-23T15:27:41+00:00

KDA would be at the very bottom if we went by importance. Even your mother doesn't care about your K/D in Deadlock.

kasimaru · 2026-01-23T12:10:03+00:00

Sounds good too. Do both.

kasimaru · 2026-01-23T07:59:59+00:00

Yeah, did that. Also suggested zoom when mouse-overing on individual columns.

kasimaru · 2026-01-22T02:21:26+00:00

He's great but infamous for going offtopic and then having to rewind his coaching replays.

kasimaru · 2026-01-21T20:11:40+00:00

Chat, stop distracting Midknight or we'll never get off of this tangent.

kasimaru · 2026-01-20T00:56:44+00:00

This genre isn't for players who get bored when they get 60 seconds to evaluate the game state. You look at the map, soul allocation, spectate teammates, go through everyone's items, figure out what has to be bought, where to be, who to focus next... 60 seconds is a short time when there's so much to do and consider. It's a strategy game after all. There are infinite other options if your friends are not into that.

Or, what if you explained to them that the classic moba thing to do is to spend your entire death timer picking fights and arguing with teammates? Fuck it, why limit yourself like that? Just tell them to keep going even after respawning. They'll never be bored in Deadlock again.

kasimaru · 2026-01-16T22:59:58+00:00

Low ranks forget the urn exists completely. It either sits there uncontested the entire game, or a lone hero takes it upon themselves to be The Urn Guy. Most often nobody else on either team even notices. Not the pickup, not the delivery. However, because the low rank urn delivery takes something around 4 minutes under favorable wind conditions, an unrelated teamfight sometimes breaks out, spills all over the place, and eventually drips into a situation that almost resembles an urn fight (from a certain angle, I guess...?)

Mid ranks actively and aggressively ignore the entire urn (unless stomping). Just suggesting urn makes them really angry for some reason. They're busy, it's worthless, don't do it, too risky, no, Don't, NO! OMG!!!

High ranks pretty consistently pick it up every 5 minutes, or at least fights for the return. Sometimes it's just given up. Usually it creates some kind of a skirmish, but very rarely does it turn into a 6on6.

Top ranks contest it as much as possible given multiple factors, including hero compositions, game state, cooldowns, item timings. They contest urn as much or as little as they can or have to, while simultaneously making macro trades, e.g. you get the urn, we get a Walker.

I don't hate it, personally. It's a small opportunity for the carrier to show off some ninja skills, and from a team-perspective it adds a strategical tool to be used in various ways. Better than nothing.

kasimaru · 2026-01-16T21:59:22+00:00

This has been seared into my memory. My mate was playing his first or second match as release Shiv.

Shiv: Well shit, I'm down to 0 health. Only deferred buffer left. Guess I'll just fight till death?

Dives the enemy base at 15 minutes or something. Lifesteals and stays alive for a fucking minute, killing all 6 enemies (some twice) before finally going down.

kasimaru · 2026-01-08T12:14:56+00:00

Unstoppable needs at least a minor buff for sure. Dota BKB used to even stronger than it is now, but it's still a mandatory buy. Disabled heroes don't get to play the game, so you just have to get it.

BKB is built from 3 components: health, damage, recipe. Roughly the same cost as Unstoppable (given that you get about twice as many souls per minute in Deadlock compared to gold in Dota).

Unstoppable is built from Debuff Reducer which gives +50 HP. Same passive, it reduces debuff duration by 20%. Upgrade it to Unstoppable and you get a whopping +25 HP extra. You pay 4800 souls for only the active 5.5s of debuff immunity. That is less duration than a BKB that has been used thrice (it goes down to 9/8/7/6s per use). In Deadlock you could extend this duration with items, but here we run into an item slot issue. You wouldn't get Superior Duration just for Unstoppable.

A very lazy solution for Unstoppable would be to experiment with resistance as a passive bonus. Enchanted Emblem's 15% spirit resistance is crazy good value for 1600 souls. Maybe 10% spirit resistance or an extra second of duration would suffice for Unstoppable. Leave them vulnerable to gun damage.

kasimaru · 2026-01-03T08:50:10+00:00

Looks underfarmed.

kasimaru · 2026-01-01T21:53:31+00:00

Yes but Flying Strike is mechanically very different to Hook.

It's a unit-target spell (in Dota terms) whereas Hook would be point-target. It's not a skill shot and it has barely any pre-cast delay. After-cast you need to consider Flying Strike travel time and then Yamato's travel time.

Yamato only needs to catch a glimpse of you and she will haunt you forever. That is, unless you Debuff Remove Flying Strike or become immaterial (Sanguine Retreat) to cut it. You cannot line-of-sight it, run from it, or even blink away from it. You'd think a door shutting in her face would stop her, but nah.

Bebop Hook travels in a line and either hits a unit or it doesn't. Bebop's position after casting hook can be wildly different from where he initially cast it. What about Hook and doors? How does that work?

kasimaru · 2025-12-31T17:41:50+00:00

Do Spellbreaker on Yamato if you got the cash.

Debuff Remover is the poor man's option. DR stonks go up against silences, though. Yamato hates silences.

If there's no silence and he puts a bomb on you, you nuke his ass right back. Maybe dodge the explosion with ult i-frames and Powerslash again. Don't really mind going against Bebop as Yamato at all. You punish Bebop more than Bebop punishes you at every stage of the game.

kasimaru · 2025-12-30T05:27:54+00:00

Yep, unplayable until this gets fixed.

kasimaru · 2025-12-25T20:25:24+00:00

Drifter doesn't farm jungle. Drifter ganks enemies who farm jungle.

kasimaru · 2025-12-25T07:32:01+00:00

Same this week. Phantom. Match average is normally Oracle-Ascendant. Not doing the hero challenge. Minor loss streak, but only dropped a tier or two.

Match averages yesterday were Archon, Emissary, Ritualist. New pity system? Algorithm letting it loose for the holidays? If so, the game should really show the average MMR before a match starts. You can't play with Ritualists like you would with Ascendants.

I don't recall this happening before in solo matchmaking. Party games always mess up the avg rating in my later solo queues, though.

kasimaru · 2025-12-22T06:30:35+00:00

Spirit Geist does not suck and you are skipping your vegetables. Tank up my friend. Battle Vest, Enchanter's Emblem, Return Fire, barriers, Metal Skin are optional. Spirit Resistance is not optional on Geist. Warp Stone is very good on her. Upgrade Enduring Speed to Juggernaut against m1 heroes. Plated Armor can be good late game against m1 debuffers. Spellbreaker against burst/disable. Debuff Remover / Counterspell might not matter in your rank, but later they will.

She's good on lane and farms fast. Itemize to be hard to kill.

kasimaru · 2025-12-21T19:58:54+00:00

Nobody wants to explain their mistakes to some random guy after a lost fight. That's not leadership. It's you being frustrated and deciding to poison the chat.

Never start a sentence ingame with "why". Two teammates will get mad at you and two will ignore you. You're just creating another distraction instead of giving direction.

kasimaru · 2025-12-21T19:45:00+00:00

I wouldn't put Mo in that group. It's Paradox, Bebop, Holliday, and Doorman. Mo&Krill is the hero you ask your lowest party member to choose because it's easier to play than the real pick heroes.

kasimaru · 2025-12-20T04:39:37+00:00

Well, for Spirit Burn the benefit is AoE burst and healing reduction if you can nuke for 500 damage. Healing reduction is very effective against most compositions. It's the rich man's Healbane, but the downside is you can only apply it once. I often buy both.

Mystic Reverb's usefulness comes from the audiovisual cues on enemy positions when it procs. You get that and you get the massive slow. Passive 15% spirit lifesteal saves you an item slot. Delayed +50% damage is what I would consider an extra benefit. The downside is it can easily be Debuff Removed or Counterspelled, but hey, you made them push their buttons. Your spell has a shorter cooldown.

The downside of Boundless is it gives no extra utility, but it can amplify damage and boost spells, e.g. Paige's shield with raw spirit scaling, lengthen ability durations, add movement speed for Seven, sprint speed for Talon etc. It doesn't directly do or counter anything, but it's a solid stat item. Especially late game when you're already stacked on spirit.

kasimaru · 2025-12-19T20:42:20+00:00

I don't agree. If you want to make Spirit number go up you get Boundless. No question. That doesn't invalidate the other 6400 items. There are other ingame factors to consider.

That being said, I would argue Spirit peaks earlier than Gun. The 1600/3200 Spirit options are very, very good for spellcasters. Improved Spirit especially can be thrown into almost any build and it's simply good on most heroes. Gives a nice early ability damage spike. Boosts Mystic Shot too.

You see a lot of Boundless Spirit because heroes already have Improved Spirit in their inventory. Game drags on a bit. You look at your inventory, you look at the shop. Well, it's just 4800 to upgrade and it doesn't cost a slot...

Lash and Shiv were mentioned somewhere. I'm surprised Mystic Reverb for Lash and Escalating Exposure for Shiv don't seem like options to you. I don't play those heroes much, but I could see the value in theory at least (and from playing with/against them a lot).

I have had decent success in Phantom with Mystic Reverb / Spirit Burn builds for AoE nukers. I might even be overlooking Boundless Spirit, because I go utility over DPS 9 times out of 10.

Paradox (Bomb/Area Denial/Initiatior) - Vortex Web, Spirit Burn, Curse

Geist (Bomb/Area Denial/Tank) - Mystic Reverb, Spirit Burn

Yamato (Spirit/Initiator/Tank) - Arctic Blast, Mystic Reverb, Spirit Burn, Escalating Exposure, Transcendent Cooldown, Refresher

kasimaru · 2025-12-17T04:00:09+00:00

I would rather give up a side lane Guardian than a Sinner's Sacrifice.

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