Deadlock Lanes: How to Lane Like a Pro
Deadlock’s innovative blend of MOBA and shooter gameplay has attracted a lot of players to the game. Among those players are a lot of gamers who have never tried a MOBA before. Deadlock is inherently a MOBA and a lot of its gameplay follows the MOBA formula. Something that’s very important in MOBAs is laning. In this article, we’ll tell you all you need to know about Deadlock’s lanes and how to navigate them.
What are Lanes?
The Patrons of both teams are connected through four routes. These routes are called lanes. To make it easier for players to communicate and strategize, each lane is given a color. Lanes in Deadlock are colored yellow, orange, blue, and purple. This coloring is indicated on the map and the Transit Line. The red part of each lane on the map indicates the length of the lane that an enemy has control over.
Every 25 seconds, a wave of 4 Troopers will spawn at the start of each lane (at the base) and travel by Transit Line (a fancy word for zipline) to the end of each lane (the part that’s not red).
Objectives in a Lane
The journey from your Patron to the enemy’s isn’t an easy one. Apart from facing enemy heroes and Troopers, you will also need to defeat enemy objectives. To put it simply, these are mini-bosses, and they spawn in this order in each lane. You will have to defeat all of them to reach the enemy Patron:
Attacking / Defending a Lane
Again, the main objective in Deadlock is to destroy the enemy Patron. To do so, you need to travel through the lane and reach their base. But the enemy won’t let you do this so easily. So, when you are pushing through the lane and fighting enemy heroes, minions, and other objectives that’s called attacking a lane.
On the other hand, if an enemy is heavily pushing you in a lane and you are holding them off, that’s defending a lane.
So, any time you hear a teammate say to defend a certain lane it means to hold the enemy off from progressing further. On the other hand, attacking a lane will mean going aggressive on the mentioned lane and making some progress.
The Laning Phase
The laning phase is just another name for the early game. It’s the phase of the game where your goal is to farm souls and get a lead on the enemy. We have a dedicated article on what Souls are and the ways to farm them.
Essentially, Souls are used to upgrade your Hero, and if you can upgrade your Hero before the enemy it can give you a huge advantage. The laning phase is the early stage in the game where the focus is on gathering Souls.
The act of prioritizing Soul farming and killing Troopers is what’s called ‘laning’.
Winning and Losing Lane
If you have progressed a lot in a lane and are close to the enemy Patron, you are winning lane. For example: you have defeated the enemy Walker and are about to make your way to the Elder Guardians, allowing you access to the enemy base.
Losing lane is the opposite of this. It’s when enemies have breached your defenses in a lane and have pushed significantly.
Essentially, ‘winning lane’ and ‘losing lane’ are used to indicate progress in a certain lane.
Lane Pressure
When you are attacking a lane and winning, it creates pressure on the enemy. For example: at the start of the match, you killed an enemy hero and all the Troopers in a lane. Now, you can progress further and attack the enemy’s objective. This will create pressure on the enemies to defend that lane. If you see an opportunity, you can even ask a teammate to help you put more pressure on the lane.
If you keep this pressure up, sooner or later there will be a break in the enemy defenses, allowing you to make easy progress.
Moreover, when you put a lot of pressure on a single lane, enemy heroes will likely come from other lanes to defend them, giving you opportunities to strike the other lanes.
Knowing when to pressure certain lanes and when to back off is one of Deadlock’s most important strategical decisions.
How to Choose a Lane
This is all about team coordination. At the start of the match, you can tell your team which lane you want to take. The lanes are colored for this exact purpose. For instance, you can tell your team that you will take care of the yellow Lane.
A common mistake beginners make is switching lanes every time they die. This is not a wise decision, as leaving your selected lane without telling your teammates will create confusion and allow the enemy team to make progress.
In most cases, you should stick to your lane, try to make progress in it, and communicate with your team when you want to switch lanes.
Some Quick Tips to Get You Through the Laning Phase
Laning Phase is where a lot of beginner players make mistakes. These mistakes can allow the enemy to get a soul lead on you. A small lead in the beginning can easily snowball into a massive lead in the end game. So, here are some tips to get you through the laning phase.
Focus on the farm and not the kills
It is an instinct to go for kills as soon as you see an enemy hero. It can be especially enticing for players who are transitioning from shooter games, where getting frags is extremely important and sometimes even the only goal.
But in the laning phase, kills don’t mean much. Your sole focus should be to farm more troopers than the enemy and secure/deny as many souls orbs as possible. Your goal here is to farm more souls than the enemy. Go for kills only if it helps in farming souls.
Get items as soon as you have enough Souls
In the heat of the battle, it’s easy to forget about buying items. But that’s what the laning phase is about: it’s meant to farm souls and upgrade your hero quickly.
There is an item shop right beside your Guardian, so you don’t have to go back to base in order to get items. Just collect some souls, retreat to the shop, get the items you need, and get back to farming again.
Have a proper build made for the laning phase
You need to have a build made that can help you in farming souls and Troopers. In the laning phase, it makes no sense to build your character for an endgame push, as getting Souls is the most important part of the laning phase. You can easily pick a build from the Browse Builds section, or you can make your own. In general, we recommend to have a set build that you use for farming Souls during the lane phase.
Try to avoid dying as much as possible
Again, the sole purpose of the laning phase is to farm souls. If you die, you will allow the enemy to get free souls while you respawn. As such, try to avoid dying. Stay behind cover, retreat when necessary, and secure/deny Souls as best as you can. If you have to heal, save your Transit line boost go back to base for a quick heal and then come back.
Conclusion
Lanes are the bread and butter of every MOBA, and Deadlock is no exception. A lot of new players fail to grasp the importance of the laning phase in MOBAs, so it pays off if you know what to do in Deadlock’s lanes. This article covers pretty much everything you need to know.
