Deadlock Abilities Explained: Unlocks, Ability Points and Spirit Power

Every hero has four abilities: three regular abilities and an ultimate. How and when you unlock and upgrade them is one of your most important decisions each match.

When abilities unlock

You unlock abilities as your total souls rise and you reach certain boon levels:

Souls	Boon level	Unlock
600	0	1st ability (you start the match with this)
1,100	2	2nd ability
2,000	4	3rd ability
3,800	7	Ultimate

• Your first three abilities can be unlocked in any order.
• The ultimate always unlocks at 3,800 souls.

Don’t forget your ultimate. A surprising number of new players play for minutes without unlocking it. Check every time you reach 3,800 souls.

Ability points and upgrade tiers

You earn an ability point at every boon level that doesn’t unlock an ability. Each ability has three upgrade tiers:

Tier	Cost
Tier 1	1 point
Tier 2	2 points
Tier 3	5 points

That’s 8 points per ability, and 32 points in total, which is exactly enough to max every ability by the very late game.

Quick upgrade: hold Left Alt and press the ability’s number key (Alt+1 to Alt+4).

Refunds: you can undo an upgrade within 10 seconds, as long as you haven’t used an ability since.

Choosing an upgrade order

Tier 3 costs as much as tiers 1 and 2 combined, so it’s a big investment. General rules:

1. Get tier 1 on your key abilities early. It’s cheap and often a big improvement (shorter cooldowns, extra charges, more damage).
2. Prioritise the ability your hero relies on for farming or trading in the laning phase.
3. Save up for big tier 3s that change how an ability plays, such as a huge cooldown cut or crowd-control immunity.
4. Follow your hero guide’s order until you understand why it’s built that way. See Abrams, Haze or McGinnis.

Types of abilities

• Active: you press it. Actives are blocked by stuns, silences and displacement.
• Passive: always on, or triggers automatically. Can’t be turned off.
• Partly passive: a mix of the two.

Spirit power and scaling

Most abilities get stronger with spirit power, which mainly comes from Spirit items:

Ability damage = Base damage + (Spirit power × Coefficient)

Example: an ability with 65 base damage and a ×0.8 coefficient, used with 20 spirit power, deals 65 + (20 × 0.8) = 81 damage.

• Every ability has its own coefficient, shown in-game by a purple icon. High coefficients mean big gains from spirit items.
• Flat spirit power from items adds directly to your total.
• Percentage spirit power bonuses apply to your current total.
• Some abilities scale with weapon damage, melee damage or boons instead. Check each ability’s tooltip.

This is why some heroes are built as “spirit” heroes and others as “gun” heroes. If your best abilities have high spirit scaling, Spirit items give you more power per soul.

Spirit items that improve abilities

Item	Cost	What it improves
Extra Spirit → Improved Spirit	800 → 1,600	Spirit power
Extra Charge	800	Charges on abilities that use them
Mystic Expansion → Greater Expansion	800 → 3,200	Ability radius and range
Duration Extender → Superior Duration	1,600 → 3,200	Ability duration
Compress Cooldown → Superior Cooldown → Transcendent Cooldown	1,600 → 3,200 → 6,400	Ability cooldowns (Superior Cooldown: −20%)
Boundless Spirit	6,400	Spirit power (late-game)

The arrows show component upgrades: buying the bigger item uses up the smaller one and takes its cost off the price.

Using abilities well

• Track cooldowns, yours and theirs. If the enemy just used their escape, now is when you engage.
• Don’t waste crowd control. A stun used on a target that’s already stunned is a stun lost.
• Hold your ultimate for fights that matter, unless it guarantees a kill on a key target.

Next: Damage types and resistances →