VALORANT’s Deadlock: The Weakest Agent in the Game
The newest agent in VALORANT, Deadlock, has quickly gained a reputation for being the worst character in the game. Just two months after her release, the community has pointed out several reasons why she can’t compete with the rest of the roster.
Last month at the 2023 VCT Champions tournament, Deadlock was the only agent who didn’t see any playtime. Additionally, her pick rate in ranked matches continues to decline according to statistics from Blitz. The community has identified various issues with Deadlock, but one inconsistency stands out.
Unlike other sentinel agents in VALORANT who have flank-watching utility, Deadlock faces a major disadvantage: she can’t pick up her traps once they’ve been placed in a round. Once the traps are set, there’s no way to change their position.
A Reddit thread from Sept. 5 highlighted one player’s frustration with this inconsistency. Other flank-watching utilities like Cypher’s Trapwires, Chamber’s Trap, and Killjoy’s Alarm Bot can all be recalled and repositioned within a round, albeit with a small cooldown.
However, with Deadlock’s Sonic Sensors, you can’t recall them or put them in a better spot. This creates several issues. For starters, if the sensors are placed too low or too high, they can easily be dodged. If you make a positioning mistake, there’s no way to rectify it. Additionally, if you set up the sensors to watch one site entry point and the opposing team attacks the opposite site, you’ve wasted your utility and resources.
“It’s too easy to see and break, you can’t pick it up mid-round, the fact that it can just be slow-walked past offers no real site control, and even if it does go off and stun you can dodge it fairly easily,” said one player regarding Deadlock’s Sonic Sensor ability.
The inability to reposition or recall Deadlock’s utility in the middle of a round reveals a significant inconsistency among agents of the same class, in this case, Sentinels. It also contradicts Riot’s recent focus on improving “game state clarity”—making it easier to understand what is happening on the map. By allowing some Sentinels to recall utility and others not, it not only affects agent balance but also creates an accessibility barrier for new players trying to grasp the different roles in VALORANT.
Many players agree that being able to pick up the sensors mid-round would be a significant buff for Deadlock. However, they also acknowledge that she likely needs larger changes to her kit. One player even joked that it would be more useful to set the net grenade’s 200 credit cost on fire instead.
Despite the community consensus on Deadlock’s weak state, Riot did not make any changes to the agent in the latest game patch, which saw adjustments to over half of the roster. Only time will tell if Riot will address Deadlock in a future update if her pick and win rates continue to decline.
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