HOW to lane: a macro overview

My games were awfully long on average, so i decided to dedicate my free time (not that i have anything to do with it) to write this "guide".

Introduction

this guide will be a simple overview of what you should be doing in game, instead of running around like headless chickens and end the games faster when you have the advantage.

this guide will not teach you the basics of this game as i consider the people actually reading already know how the game plays and is trying to look for a framework, a flowchart to implement in game.

Early Game

early game could be very different in every game - that's the nature of a MOBA game.
you can identify the early game phase ending by either by destroying an enemy guardian or vice versa, the start of skirmishes, and pushing towards the walkers.

How to approach Early game:

in early game, you should be farming, trading, and denying souls from the enemy team.
while this is a pretty solid movement shooter, the core of deadlock is still a moba, you need to push your lanes and try to gain a lane advantage against your laning opponent. take good trades and try to view this game's macro through the lens of a MOBA player, think more objectively and adapt.

i will be elaborating further on what i mean by denying souls and trying to get a lane advantage:


in deadlock, when the minions die by your weapon last hit, it will spawn soul orbs that can be shot by either team, you should always look to deny the enemy minions' soul every time possible.

there are multiple ways to get an advantage in lane:

• bully the enemy in lane and deny souls, keep them in the guardian
  
• get an early elimination then proceed to deny souls whilst pushing the guardian
  
• crash your lane and head back to buy items, to gain even more trading advantage

(crashing a lane means pushing the minions all the way to the enemy turret/guardian)

what to do when you're the one behind?

if you're a solo queue-er you're out of luck, play in guardian and try to deny the enemy's soul while they are pushing you, try to not give too much space, you need to keep them in place instead of letting them roam around and destroy your team. try to not feed. to my current experience, deadlock players are generally not as toxic as other mobas, you might be frustrated if you're losing lane, but just hold on and try to keep up.

I'm winning lane, how to push the advantage?

crash your lane and roam, help your other lanes that might be struggling and try to get a pick or two, after that, come back to your lane and play neutral and don't throw your lead. you need to be patient, wait for the overextension and punish your enemy. finish the early game phase strong by destroying the enemy guardian.

congratulations, you finished the early game

Mid Game

for this part, i don't want to over-complicate it.

as a team, you need to look for opportunities to push the walkers to get more flex slots and snowball from there, if you're in an advantaged position don't just loiter around farming the map, you need to have establish control over the map, split pushing, set up skirmishes, look for picks and take down the walkers, if a huge fight broke out and your team came victorious, get mid boss for the rejuvenator. just follow the following flowchart:

for clarity:
if you win and 2+ are dead from the enemy team, go for mid boss, else push

if you lose and somehow 4 of you are alive, if the enemy is going for midboss, fight it, else defend and play passive

Why fight for the Mid boss

the mid boss will drop a rejuvenator that basically halves your respawn time, as such it is a powerfull buff to acquire to force a fight towards the losing team in order to widen the gap between souls.

Mid boss Rejuvenator buffs:

as of the latest patch 10/10/2024:

in between wars, you will find yourselves in a neutral state in which both sides are playing safe and aren't engaged in any battle, in this "downtime" you should either be Split Pushing or like i said, set up skirmishes to get picks or even just farm the map, don't be mindlessly walking down mid and get ganked.

Split Pushing

When should you be split pushing?
you need to be looking at the map state, where are the enemies last seen, how pushed up are the minions. you need to think and decide whether it is worth the risk of being ganked, for example:

as seen here, the yellow lane was pushed all the way near the guardians, and the rest of the lanes are being pushed to you.
depending on how your team play the map, there would be many different outcome that could happen.

for example, if the enemies are all pushing the lanes against you and your teammates are defending the guardians, it is a safe bet to just hop on the zip line to yellow lane and use the speed boost to rush to the minions. it will alleviate some pressure from your defending teammates as the enemy scramble to fall back to defend their shrine(s) and/or their guardian before the shrine.

if you constantly implement split pushing like this you would be a thorn on your enemies' asses and probably carve a winning path from a losing situation. here, you need to play the games more to properly evaluate what to do.

Late Game

late game is the phase where you actually want to actively seek opportunities to end the game.
most players are stuck in the mid game mentality where they are constantly spreading out and doing unfavourable skirmishes that ends up giving a comeback chance to the enemy.

HOW to close up games

how to close up games quicker is the question that people should be asking, it doesn't matter if you place on top of the leaderboard if you lose, it doesn't matter. what matters is winning or losing. so, STOP THROWING YOUR GAMES!

Group up and push!

STOP FARMING you have more than enough souls, group up and fight for the final push (preferably after winning a rejuv fight prior in midboss). REGARDLESS, you need to group UP!

Zone out the enemy team and Gank the pesky splitpushers and solo-clearers

further explanation:
zoning means denying spaces for the enemy team. if they want space, fight them, you have the lead, fight them, don't let them reset the lane back to neutral and keep the minions pushed.
if the enemy manage to keep you busy and pushed the lane towards you, you need to immediately push the lane back or be aware that your opponent could be pushing down the zip-lines and push your patron.

LOOK AT YOUR MAP, clear your lanes

beware of enemy split pushers. losing teams would keep trying to gain back the neutral by clearing and pushing the lanes to you, clear your lanes. (in a recent match i had to stay back clearing three lanes while my team were fighting some unnecessary fight without their backliner - me, i had to decide between clearing or joining the fight) please, clear your lanes! don't let your enemy have an easy way back in the game!

Take beneficial fights

biggest mistake i and many others had made is forcing a push when you're 2-3 man down, while it may have been very close you still need to be playing rationally, if the enemy team somehow aced (team wipe) the game surely would've gone in the different direction, instead, try to return to neutral and play more passively until your teammates are back up.

YOU and your team should be looking for opportunities to fight midboss

i can't state how important the rejuvenator buff is, your respawn time is very long in the late game and you need to take careful fights - the rejuvenator could alleviate some pressure regarding taking on fights.

Don't waste the rejuvenator buff

if you and your team have the rejuvenator buff secured, look for fights, seek to eliminate the enemies, take more aggressive fights - you can afford to die with the rejuvenator buff. remember, the enemies' respawn time is as long as yours, but with the rejuvenator buff, your respawn time is halfed, thus meaning every fight that results in the enemy casualty is beneficial and can contribute to you and your team ending the enemy patron while they're respawning.

Congrats, you won... Right...?

[hueOfHorse]

gotta update this

[Scout Who Hates Sniper]

Peak

[Blar]

heavy fw the graphics here especially that vindicta 1

[Múmia de ET]

I made flowcharts for this if you want I can send them over to you

[Apathyツ]

its an alpha why are you no lifing this

[sun is a deadly lazer]

also, i probably won't be updating the graphics unless there is some major changes. i'm looking forward to the full release, but for now the game has gone stale for me.

[sun is a deadly lazer]

crashing a lane means just pushing the minions all the way to the enemy turret/guardian.
updated to be in the guide

[sun is a deadly lazer]

i'm pretty sure i was already referring to the yellow lane in the paragraph before, but sure, i'll update it to be more specific

[xcel]

nice guide dude, i don't even play the game

[Noble Scotsman]

In your split pushing example you should be more specific about which lanes you're talking about. If I was looking for guidance and knew little about MOBAs I wouldn't know at all which lanes you are referring to. I'm assuming the example below is part of image you also presented but of which lanes are you referring. Yellow is the main lane you are talking about I believe but being concise should be a priority here.

"for example, if the enemies are all pushing the lanes against you and your teammates are defending the guardians, it is a safe bet to just hop on the zip line and use the speed boost to rush to the minions. it will alleviate some pressure from your defending teammates as the enemy scramble to fall back to defend their shrine(s) and/or their guardian before the shrine."