Deadlock Counter-Building: What to Buy Against Every Threat

Build theory is about what your hero wants. Counter-building is about what the enemy team does. It’s often the difference between a build that works in theory and one that wins the game in front of you.

How to read the enemy team

Ask three questions after the draft, and again around the 10-minute mark:

1. What kind of damage is killing us? Bullets or spirit? This decides your resist.
2. Who is ahead? A fed enemy is worth an item on their own.
3. What do they rely on? Healing, crowd control, mobility, or one big ultimate?

Check the scoreboard (Tab) for souls and items, and look at hero roles if you don’t know an enemy hero. Each of our hero guides also lists that hero’s weaknesses.

Quick reference

Problem	Buy	Notes
Gun carries	Battle Vest, Weapon Shielding, Bullet Resilience, Metal Skin	Resist first, Metal Skin for burst
Spirit burst	Spirit Shielding, Spirit Resilience, Spellbreaker	Spellbreaker for one-shot combos
Healing and lifesteal	Toxic Bullets, Healbane, Decay, Spirit Burn	One anti-heal per team is often enough
Tanks	Armor Piercer, Tankbuster, Toxic Bullets, Crippling Headshot	Damage based on max or current health
Crowd control	Debuff Reducer, Reactive Barrier, Unstoppable, Dispel Magic	Cleanse before the stun, not after
Slippery heroes	Slowing Hex, Knockdown, Slowing Bullets, Mystic Slow	Knockdown grounds fliers
One fed carry	Inhibitor, Disarming Hex, Silencer	Shut down their damage
Melee brawlers	Rebuttal, Juggernaut	And learn to parry

Against gun carries

Gun damage is blocked by bullet resist. Build it in steps:

• Early: Battle Vest (18% bullet resist, and it keeps your damage up while you’re healthy) or Weapon Shielding (18% plus a barrier when you take a burst of gun damage).
• Mid to late: Bullet Resilience, 30% bullet resist, rising to 45% while you’re below half health.
• Burst windows: Metal Skin makes you immune to bullets for 5 seconds. Save it for the moment a carry commits, such as Haze’s ultimate.
• Frontliners: Juggernaut slows the fire rate of anyone who shoots you, and Plated Armor can deflect bullets and block on-hit effects.

Against spirit burst

Spirit damage is blocked by spirit resist:

• Early: Spirit Shielding, 18% spirit resist plus a barrier when you take a burst of spirit damage.
• Mid to late: Spirit Resilience, the spirit version of Bullet Resilience.
• Against one-shot combos: Spellbreaker cuts the next big hit of spirit damage by 65%, on a short cooldown.
• If you’re a caster too: Witchmail gives spirit resist and spirit power, and cuts your own cooldowns when you’re hit.
• If your parry is good: Counterspell lets a parry block an ability.

Against healing and lifesteal

Healers and lifesteal builds can out-sustain your damage. Anti-heal cuts the healing they receive:

Item	Healing cut	Best for
Spirit Burn	70%	Spirit burst heroes, late game
Decay	50%	Any hero; an active you aim at one target
Inhibitor	40%	Gun heroes; also cuts their damage by 30%
Toxic Bullets	35%	Gun heroes; also a bleed based on max health
Healbane	35%	Spirit heroes; cheap and early
Crippling Headshot	Cuts healing	Accurate gun carries; also cuts both resists

One or two anti-heal items across your team is usually enough. Healing cuts stack multiplicatively, not by adding: two 40% cuts make 64%, not 80%. Each extra source adds less than the last, so five players buying it wastes slots. Talk to your team about who carries it.

Against tanks

Tanks stack health and resists, so flat damage falls off. Look for damage that ignores resist or scales with their health:

• Armor Piercer: bullets have a chance to ignore bullet resist entirely.
• Tankbuster: a big ability hit deals extra damage based on the target’s current health, ignoring spirit resist.
• Toxic Bullets and Decay: damage based on a share of their health, plus anti-heal.
• Crippling Headshot, Bullet Resist Shredder, Spirit Shredder, Escalating Exposure: lower their resists for your whole team.

Or don’t fight the tank at all. Ignore them and kill the carries behind them.

Against crowd control

Stuns, silences, sleeps and slows stop you from doing your job. The answers come in two kinds:

Reduce it:

• Debuff Reducer: every debuff on you lasts 25% shorter. It builds into both Unstoppable and Spellbreaker.
• Reactive Barrier: an automatic 325-point barrier whenever you’re stunned, silenced, slept or rooted.

Prevent or remove it:

• Unstoppable: immunity to stun, silence, sleep, root and disarm for 5.5 seconds. Essential for heroes with channelled ultimates.
• Dispel Magic: removes debuffs already on you, then heals you.

Both actives can’t be used once you’re already stunned or asleep. Press them when you see the enemy’s crowd control coming, or right as you commit to a fight.

Against slippery and flying heroes

Heroes who dash, fly or teleport away need to be pinned down:

• Slowing Hex: slows them and silences their movement abilities and items.
• Knockdown: a stun after a short delay, and longer if they’re in the air.
• Slowing Bullets (gun) or Mystic Slow (spirit): slows built into your damage.

Against one fed carry

If one enemy is far ahead, it can be worth an item just for them:

• Inhibitor: your bullets cut their damage by 30% and their healing by 40%.
• Disarming Hex: stops a gun carry shooting for about 4 seconds.
• Silencer: your bullets build up to a silence on ability-reliant heroes.
• Cheat Death: if they always kill you first, it buys you 4.5 seconds to fight back.

Against big ultimates

Some fights are decided by one ultimate. You can interrupt it, survive it or avoid it:

• Interrupt channels with stuns: Knockdown, or your hero’s own stun. Note that Silence Wave doesn’t stop channelled abilities.
• Survive it with the right active: Metal Skin against gun ultimates, Spellbreaker or a spirit barrier against spirit ultimates.
• Avoid it by spreading out. Area ultimates do the most damage to a clumped team.

When not to counter-build

• Don’t overreact. One death to an enemy isn’t a reason to change your build. A pattern of deaths is.
• Don’t skip your core. Counter items work best on top of a working build, not instead of it.
• Don’t double up. If a teammate already has anti-heal or a disarm, buy something else.
• Sell it when the threat is gone. If the enemy healer stops mattering late in the game, that slot can become a tier 4 damage item.

See also

• Build rater: check your build’s matchups against real match data
• Build theory: gun, spirit and hybrid
• Damage types and resistances
• Crowd control explained
• Every item
• Item tier list