Deadlock Mid Game Guide: Roaming, Ganking and Pushing

The mid game is where leads are built. Laning gave you souls; now you turn them into objectives, which pay your whole team and can’t be taken back.

What changes around 10 minutes

Time	What happens
10:00	First Soul Urn, then every 5 minutes
~11:00	First Unstable Rift, then about every 7 minutes
12:00	Guardians lose all damage resistance
18:00	Walkers’ extra resistance is gone
20:00	Trooper waves speed up to every 25 seconds

Roaming and ganking

Roaming means leaving your lane to help elsewhere. Ganking is arriving somewhere the enemy doesn’t expect to get a kill.

Good times to roam:

• Your wave has just pushed into the enemy, and the next one is a while away.
• An enemy in a nearby lane is pushed up, alone, or low on health.
• An objective (a Guardian, the Urn, the Rift) is nearby and you can take it after the fight.

How to gank well:

1. Come from an angle they can’t see: the jungle, a rooftop or a tunnel, not straight down the lane.
2. Tell your teammate in that lane so they’re ready to follow up.
3. Use crowd control first, then damage.
4. Turn the kill into something: push the wave, hit the Guardian, or take a camp.

Don’t roam if your own lane would lose a Guardian, or if you’d miss several waves walking around.

Pushing objectives

The order in every lane is Guardian → Walker → Base Guardians. See objectives for full details.

Guardians

After 12:00 they have no damage resistance, and they’re worth 1,375 souls to the team. Push in behind your troopers and it falls fast.

Walkers

Walkers are worth 3,675 souls plus an extra item slot for your whole team, and they give nearby allies 15% resist when they fall. But they’re dangerous:

• Bring troopers. Without them, a Walker takes 65% less damage and regenerates (backdoor protection).
• Spread out. Its Stomp stuns everyone within 15 metres for 2 seconds.
• Don’t stand in its fireballs’ burning ground.

The Soul Urn

The Urn is worth 250 + 70 souls per minute plus four permanent buffs for the carrier. Pick a tanky carrier, escort it with two or three teammates, and deliver it within 45 seconds for full value. To stop the enemy’s Urn, melee the carrier: one melee hit makes them drop it. See the Soul Urn.

The Unstable Rift

A king-of-the-hill zone on a side-lane bridge worth 1,482 souls + 222 per minute (from 13:00), plus powerful Rift Troopers to push with. Arrive early, fight in the zone, and never send one player, since everyone in the zone shows on the minimap. See the Unstable Rift.

The Mid Boss

The Mid Boss is up from the start and pays 3,000 souls, two permanent buffs per player, and the Rejuvenator: revive credits that last 3 minutes.

• Take it after a won fight, when several enemies are dead.
• Listen for the roar at 50% health. It tells both teams the boss is being taken.
• Heavy melee the crystal when it drops; either team can claim it.

See the Mid Boss.

Keep farming

The mid game isn’t only fights. Between objectives:

• Keep your lane pushed so troopers keep earning souls.
• Farm camps on the way to the next objective, not on the other side of the map.
• Don’t group as six on one wave. Sharing souls between three players only adds about 8% to the total. Spread out until there’s a fight to take.

Mid-game mistakes

1. Chasing kills into the enemy’s half with no objective to take afterwards.
2. Ignoring the Urn and Rift timers.
3. Taking the Walker without troopers.
4. Starting the Mid Boss with the whole enemy team alive and nearby.
5. All six players farming the same lane.

Next: Late game and closing out →