After months of sitting at the bottom of nearly every statistical measurement, Norwegian VALORANT agent Deadlock will finally be getting the buff she deserves in Patch 7.10.
The sentinel agent was first released in June of this year before the VCT Champions tournament in August, where she was picked a whopping zero times. Deadlock also continues to sit near the bottom of agent pick rates across all ranks in casual play.
Despite making other changes in mid-Episode patches—including fine-tuning several VALORANT agents like Cypher and Raze—Riot hasn’t touched Deadlock in months, even under the shadow of her awful statistics. Thankfully, Riot community lead Jeff Landa today confirmed the news players have been waiting for: Deadlock buffs are coming.
Landa tweeted Monday evening with a link to a TikTok posted on the official VALORANT account which shows a few upcoming changes to Deadlock’s kit. Full patch notes or PBE notes are yet to be released for 7.10.
In the TikTok video, there is a split screen that presents the upcoming changes to one of Deadlock’s abilities: her GravNet. GravNet is a trap that is placed on the ground and catches enemies by weighing them down to the ground and slowing them.
Compared to other similar sentinel abilities, like Sage’s Slow Orb and Chamber’s trap, GravNet is pretty much just a worse version of the two.
However, some of the changes shown in the video are promising, especially for aspiring Deadlock mains.
First, GravNet will now have a similar mechanic to Cypher’s Spycam dart, where the player caught in the net will have to manually remove it from their body. This is a great buff for Deadlock since it gives her and her team more opportunities to capitalize on enemies caught in the net. A player will still suffer from GravNet’s effect until they manually remove the net, which now takes 1.5 seconds as opposed to 0.8 seconds.
Secondly, the GravNet will now prohibit agents like Jett from using their movement abilities to escape it. In the video, we can see a Jett try to Updraft out of the net, only to be tied down.
The size and durability of the actual GravNet will also be increased, with the radius up to eight meters from just six meters, alongside the increased removal time.
Lastly, the actual effects GravNet puts on enemies to encumber them will now be greater. The force of gravity weighing them down is stronger, reducing the mobility of all agents.
These are fantastic changes for Deadlock, and hopefully, the patch will fine-tune some of her other abilities even more. Her Sound Sensor, for example, has a plethora of issues that could be solved if the ability was adjusted to be more like other sentinels’.
Keep an eye out for the full VALORANT 7.10 patch notes after this small tease.
