update · September 16, 2026
Deadlock Update Adjusts Comeback Economy, Weapons, and Heroes
Deadlock alters comeback mechanics, removes weapon pauses from rapid-fire actions, and adjusts dozens of heroes and items.
Valve's third-person shooter receives a broad balance pass targeting economy loops, weapon handling, and hero abilities. The patch changes how comeback souls pay out, stops movement actions from interrupting gun cycles, and tunes stats across the entire roster.
Comeback Scaling and Bounties
Unstable Rift comeback resistance now scales over time. The old fixed 35% cap is replaced by a baseline of 10% plus 1% per minute, peaking at 40% at the 30-minute mark. Fixed bonus soul payouts for small net worth deficits are gone for hero kills and Unstable Rift bounties. Extra comeback souls earned by players above the enemy net worth average are now routed through the tick gold system, with 70% going directly to the lowest two players. Objective payouts also shift, raising Guardian bounties by 10% and Walker bounties by 5%. The objective bounty share distributed to nearby heroes drops from 30% to 25%, with the remainder split among all six team members. Respawn times at 20 minutes tick up from 35 seconds to 38 seconds.
Gun Handling and Movement
Dashes and light melee attacks no longer pause gun cycle times, benefiting high-cycle weapons like Silver and Abrams. Parrying now pauses reloading instead of letting it continue, and executing a parry during a regular dash cancels both the dash and momentum to parry instantly. Stuns now pause reloads rather than resetting them. Movement slows drop by roughly 20% globally, and ground dash slows decrease by about 10%. Slow effects now impact air drag by 35% of the slow value. Underground tunnel breakables take longer to appear and respawn, moving from 3 minutes to 5 minutes.
Hero Adjustments
Celeste faces multiple nerfs, including a stamina cooldown increase to 5.3 seconds, reduced Light Eater spirit lifesteal at 18%, and a 38-second cooldown on Dazzling Trick. Lash sees a reduced gun falloff range of 16m to 48m, a shorter Grapple T2 weapon damage buff lasting 6 seconds, and a weaker Flog heal at 40%. Warden's bullet damage scaling per boon drops to 0.25 alongside reduced spirit scaling for fire rate, and Alchemical Flask projectile range and speed decrease by 30%. On the other side, Haze gains +3 to her Fixation headshot stack count, Silver receives faster sprint speed and health per boon, and Shiv's alt-fire base damage rises by 4% with a reworked Serrated Knives effect at full rage.
Item Tweaks
Shadow Weave now builds from Sprint Boots, grants 2 sprint speed, and drops its cooldown to 37 seconds. Spiritual Overflow builds 35% slower, reduces its proc spirit power to 30, and lowers fire rate to 25%. Veil Walker no longer builds from Sprint Boots, loses its out-of-combat regeneration and flat sprint bonuses, strips movement speed bonuses when invisibility ends, and drops spirit power to 6. Golden Goose Egg increases its damage penalty to -15%, lowers souls per minute to 80, and counts stored souls toward net worth calculations for comeback rewards. Diviner's Kevlar picks up +10% ultimate ability cooldown reduction.
Why this patch matters
This update tempers early-game comeback payouts while smoothing out movement and weapon handling. Players relying on nerfed characters like Celeste and Warden will need to rethink their builds.