Deadlock’s Ivy

When I was invited to join the Deadlock closed playtest in August 2024, I installed it and logged into the main menu with pretty much no idea what I was getting into. After starting up the sandbox to poke around, I was faced with a massive list of random heroes I knew nothing about, and chose the winged gargoyle because I figured flight would be useful for exploring the map.

A year and a half later, Ivy is still my favorite hero in the game. She really has a little bit of everything, and I’m mostly just writing this to gush about her essentially serving as the gateway drug to me eventually finding my footing in the labyrinthine, overwhelming, and unfamiliar waters of Valve’s worst-kept secret since Meet the Spy. 

I’m not sure I’d recommend her to every new Deadlock player, but boy was she perfect for someone like me, who came from an arena shooter background with specialties in mobility, gunplay, and healing. While she’s not normally mentioned on lists of beginner heroes due to her skill ceiling, I highly recommend her if you have transferrable skills from games like Team Fortress 2, Overwatch, or Quake Champions. To go over her kit real quick:

(Note: Please note that I’m still quite green at this game, don’t take this as an informed guide or anything more than the reasons Ivy singlehandedly saved me from never getting into Deadlock.)

0. Protector’s Hand

Not listed as an ability is her weapon of choice, an SMG-style gun that is incredibly easy to use. Rapid-fire, accurate, and full-auto, its only major weakness is a somewhat small magazine, which I usually adjust via purchasing the “Extended->Titanic magazine” items and sprint-crouching for a few moments of infinite ammo. Compared to many characters’ signature weapons, Ivy’s is very intuitive for a shooter migrant and a solid reliable workhouse whether clearing minions or fighting enemy players.

1. Entangling Thorns

Thrown like a grenade, this is an AoE attack that slows any targets hit by it. The debuff is useful for escaping, but I mostly enjoy using it to clear waves of minions when they clump up.

2. Kudzu Connection

Tag a teammate with a vine that shares any healing you both do and removes your move speed penalty when shooting. This is a great support ability for patching up your lane partner, I pretty much exclusively use it to heal them and not the other way round (though on a coordinated team with voice comms, I could see the inverse being very useful as well.) This combos incredibly well with her next (and, imo, best) ability:

3. Stone Form

This ability is so versatile, it’s the first one I unlock in any match. Ivy leaps in the air, turns into an invulnerable health-regenerating statue, then smashes herself down for a powerful AoE attack that even stuns at higher upgrade tiers. Invulnerability with health regen is just as good as it sounds, and you even retain horizontal mobility while in the air so you can still duck around corners or continue fleeing with your life while the ability’s going off. Offensively, it’s great for squashing a whole wave of minions in one attack or just dealing general AoE damage, like Thorn Grenade. This ability just adds a ton of utility and battlefield impact and is probably my favorite thing about her. But her final ability is probably my second-favorite:

4. Air Drop

Ivy takes to the air, either holding a teammate or (if no teammate was selected) a bomb, and can now fly for 21 seconds. Dropping the teammate or the bomb causes an explosion that, at higher upgrades, slows and silences them upon hit. Upon finishing her flight (even if she cancels it early), she gains a protective barrier at higher upgrade levels. Even before we factor in the upgrade utilities, the flight alone is incredible for battlefield traversal, I’ve used it to escape with my life or to maintain the height advantage to make it harder for my enemies to fight me. I rarely get to use the teammate-carrying feature because I play in chaotic low-communication pubs, but on coordinated teams I can see this ability being devastating with the right laner combos, and the bomb you get otherwise is no slouch either. Overall this ability adds a ton of mobility to an already-mobile hero, and I’m constantly finding value out of controlling the skies like few other heroes can.

Items

Ivy is considered one of the most versatile heroes in the game, capable of being built out for her gun, her mobility, her support abilities, or her combat abilities. Healing Rite is probably my favorite item in the game, it’s essentially a dirt-cheap syringe that heals her for a nice chunk of HP over a few seconds. The healing can be cancelled by taking enemy fire, so treat it as an out-of-combat heal, but I find it very useful for topping up myself or a teammate (or both, with Kudzu Connection!) to maintain my tempo and use that time I saved to farm more minions/creeps and get those 500 souls back with interest. Overall it adds just that little bit of extra healing to strike the balance I like in my gun/healing hybrid build, and as I get better at the game I like knowing I’ll be able to start experimenting with alternate Ivy setups thanks to her commendable flexibility.

Overall, if you share my arena shooter background and are looking for a survivalist, highly mobile hero with a powerful yet straightforward learning curve, Ivy is a great character to start your Deadlock journey with. I was originally turned off by the game’s MOBA elements, and they’re still the part taking the longest for me to wrap my head around, so I appreciate having Ivy to play because it means I’m enjoying her gameplay enough to keep coming back for more, and the rest I can pick up in the background through continued experience. Thank you, Ivy!