Deadlock is Not Your Typical Sentinel: Here is How She Differs

Valorant’s newest addition, Deadlock, may challenge many well-established conceptions regarding the Sentinel class.

Currently, we have 5 Sentinel agents in Valorant. Cypher, Chamber, Killjoy, Sage, and Deadlock are the ones that fall into that class. Their duty is mostly to fortify a team’s defense and watch for flanking enemies. The operation flow for them generally goes like this – enter the buy phase, set your utilities up for success, and wait for the enemy to walk into it. Their success heavily relies on smart setups established in the pre-round phase. Deadlock, in many ways, strives further away from this idea. She is the only Sentinel we can think of that is to be used on the fly for maximum output. So let’s dive deep and try to break it down for you.

Gravnet cannot be Deployed Pre-round

Credit: Riot Games

Riot Games’ agent design keeps getting better and better, and Deadlock is no short of clever features. Her Gravnet ability particularly sparked interest because it can be easily mistaken for a Molotov, but it’s far from it. When deployed, enemies caught within its impact area will forcefully be made to crouch, imposing a significant movement nerf on them. However, the takeaway is that there is no room for its pre-round application. You must actively seek opportunities to get value out of this utility upon use. 

Barrier Mesh is Powerful but must be used on the Fly

Credit: Riot Games

This arguably is the most powerful ability for our agent in the discussion. The Barrier is impossible to manoeuvre through. Breaking the nodes takes a lot of ammo, making it a costly choice in this post-ammo-nerf state of Valorant. Like our ability discussed earlier, this one cannot be deployed post-round either. Moreover, even if the option was there to use it pre-round, players are better off carefully observing the round situation and then choosing a spot to use it.

Sonic Sensor allows for pre-round application but with a catch

Credit: Riot Games

It would be too drastic of Riot to stray from its core Sentinel design philosophy completely. Therefore, it should be no surprise that at least one of her features is allowed for pre-round deployment. Indeed we are talking about her Sonic Sensor ability here. However, it needs a lot to detect flanks and lurks, as enemies can just walk past it as long as no noise is made. Also, attackers can easily take site control after a successful fake since her Sonic Sensor can be just walked past silently. It can be estimated that the game almost incentivises players not to use it pre-round. Players are better off assessing the round motion and then using it accordingly.

Conclusion

Credit: Riot Games

With two of her most impactful abilities unable to be utilised before the round starts, it leaves her with her Ultimate – Annihilation and another ability called “Sonic Sensor.” It’s common knowledge that the ultimate is used against active enemy targets. Therefore, there is no room for its application pre-round. Sonic Sensor has also been discussed to be better suited for on-the-fly usage. To conclude, her kit is heavily designed to bring value upon mid-round utilisation, which is a far cry from the traditional Sentinel archetype. Riot has once again outdone itself in terms of creative accomplishments, and the way Deadlock is going to shake up the meta excites us. 

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