Best Deadlock Lady Geist build: Abilities & Items

Lady Geist is a top hero in Deadlock with a cool trick that trades health for massive damage. Play her right, and enemies won’t last long. Here’s how to make the most of her abilities.

Deadlock may focus more on gunplay than other MOBAs, but heroes with strong abilities can still dominate. Lady Geist proves this by using her abilities and passives to become an unstoppable force.

If you’re up for something different and ready to commit to a unique playstyle, give Lady Geist and her deadly abilities a shot.

Best abilities to use on Lady Geist

This is the best order we have found to unlock Lady Geist’s abilities:

Deadlock/Dexerto

We recommend starting off with Essence Bomb (Ability 1) and Malice (Ability 3), as these are the most direct and easiest to grasp.

Then, continue with Life Drain (Ability 2) once you’ve purchased a few items to make Lady Geist a sturdier character. When you’re ready to bring out the real guns, unlock and max out Soul Exchange (Ability 4).

When leveling up abilities, make Essence Bomb and Life Drain your main priorities. This will help you damage regular enemies and recover health without having to head back to the base.

After that, work on maxing out Soul Exchange to devastate enemy heroes. Malice should not be a priority, since it doesn’t really impact your gameplay unless it’s fully maxed out. Even then, it’s not as strong as other abilities.

Lady Geist abilities explained

If you aren’t familiar with Lady Geist’s kit and what she can do in Deadlock, here’s a quick rundown:

Ability icon	Ability name	Description	Levels
	Essence Bomb	Sacrifice some of your health to launch a bomb that deals damage after a brief arm time.	Level 1: +2m Radius Level 2: +60 Damage Level 3: Bombs leave a toxic mess on the ground, dealing 22% of the original damage per second for 6 seconds.
	Life Drain	Create a tether that drains enemy health over time and heals you. Target must be in line of sight and within max range to drain. You can shoot and use other abilities during the drain, but your movement speed is reduced by half.	Level 1: +20 Damage Per Second Level 2: +2 Duration Level 3: Enemy is Silenced while being Life Drained (requires line of sight).
	Malice	Sacrifice some of your health to launch blood shards that apply a stack of Malice. Each stack slows the victim and increases the damage they take from you. The slow effect decreases over time.	Level 1: -3 seconds of cooldown Level 2: +40 Health to Damage Level 3: +6 Blood Shards
	Soul Exchange	Swaps health levels with an enemy target. There is a minimum health percentage that enemies can be brought down to and a minimum amount of health received based on victims current health.	Level 1: -40 seconds of cooldown Level 2: -10% enemy minimum health Level 3: On cast, +40% Fire Rate and +40% Spirit Resist for 8 seconds.

Best build on Lady Geist: Deadlock items explained

Items here will be divided into four sections: Early game, mid game, late game/luxury buys, and situational purchases.

The first three sections will give you a general idea of what you should buy at each stage of the game, though it’s ok to jump to late-game items if you’re ahead. Situational items are all about countering certain mechanics.

Here’s what you should be buying to give yourself the best chance at winning:

Early Game items

Valve/Dexerto

Lady Geist toys with her health to deal damage. This means you need several recovery items in your arsenal.

Weapon Items:

• Restorative Shot: Allows your next bullet to restore health.
• Monster Rounds: Increases health regeneration; and Healing Rite, which grants you regeneration.

Vitality Items:

• Extra Stamina: Gives you more resources to play with.
• Healing Rite: Helps Lady Geist build her health pool.

Mystic Items:

• Mystic Burst and Reach: Improve the reach and boost the damage of your Essence Bomb.
• Extra Spirit: Gives you an extra boost of Spirit.

Mid Game items

Valve/Dexerto

In the mid-game, we’ll begin working on Lady Geist’s resistance.

Vitality Items:

• Spirit Lifesteal: Lets you Steal 23% Life and grants 75 Bonus Health.
• Bullet Armor: Grants 20% Bullet Resist and 6% Weapon Damage.
• Enchanter’s Barrier: With Spirit Shield, you also gain Spirit Power and Cooldown Reduction.

Weapon Items:

• Kinetic Dash: Gain 100 Bonus Health and 1.5 Health Regen
• Mystic Shot: Increases your Weapon Damage and Spirit Power.
• Soul Shredder Bullets: Your bullets amplify your Spirit Damage and grant you Spirit Lifesteal.
• Warp Stone: Grants 20% Weapon Damage and eight extra Spirit Power.

Mystic Items:

• Improved Burst: Your abilities deal bonus Spirit Damage.
• Improved Cooldown: Reduces the cooldown of your abilities and items.
• Improved Spirit: Grants 23 Spirit Power, as well as a health and health regen boost.
• Improved Reach: Increases your ability range, bullet resist and spirit power.

Late Game/Luxury

Valve/Dexerto

Lady Geist’s late game is all about touching up her health abilities and maximizing her Spirit items.

Vitality items:

• Unstoppable: Makes you immune to Stun, Silence, Sleep, Root, and Disarm.
• Phantom Strike: Teleports you to an enemy and applies Disarm and Slow.
• Leech: Provides Spirit Lifesteal, Bullet Lifesteal, Bonus Health, Spirit Power, and Weapon Damage.

Mystic Item:

• Mystic Slow: Grants you 100 Bonus Health and health regen, as well as Spirit Power. Best of all, it reduces the movement speed and fire rate of enemies you deal Spirit Damage.
• Superior Cooldown: Gives you a 32% Cooldown Reduction for a specific ability, but 24% to the rest.
• Surge of Power: Gives you Movement Speed when you use a specific ability.
• Boundless Spirit: Provides Spirit Power, bonus Health, Health Regen, Weapon Damage, and Sprint Speed.
• Diviner’s Kevlar: Grants temporary Bullet and Spirit Shield, as well as Spirit Power, every time you cast your ultimate.
• Escalating Exposure: Dealing Spirit Damage applies a stacking Spirit Amp that increases your Spirit Damage to the target.
• Mystic Reverb: Increases the damage reach of an ability you choose.

Situational items

Dexerto/Valve

Vitality Items:

• Healbane: Lady Geist sacrifices her health to deal damage, so an extra burst of healing is always welcome.
• Divine Barrier: With this Vitality item, you get Lady Geist a much-needed Bullet and Spirit Shield. This also comes with a Movement Speed boost to get out of sticky situations.
• Inhibitor: When you need your enemies to stand still and take your damage, this is the skill to use.

Mystic Items:

• Ethereal Shift: If you’ve been wounded, hide and activate Ethereal Shift to recover some much-needed Spirit.
• Curse: This is another item that forces your enemy to stand still and take your damage, as they’re silenced, disarmed, and prevented from using items.
• Echo Shard: Echo Shard gives you the chance to recast an ability without waiting for cooldown. For a character that relies as heavily on her abilities as Lady Geist does, this is a heaven-sent item.
• Slowing Hex: Combine the Slowing Hex with the Curse to drive your enemies into a corner and deal devastating damage.
• Bullet Resist Shredder: With this item, you can deal extra damage to enemies.

Pros and Cons of Lady Geist

Pros:

• She deals high burst damage with Essence Bomb, her heavy hitter.
• Her build is very flexible and can adapt to weapon or spirit damage.
• She has a strong wave clear and camp takedowns.
• Health Steal is a huge plus, since Life Drain keeps her alive in fights.

Cons:

• One negative aspect is the health costs, since abilities drain her own health.
• She has almost no mobility, which makes her an easy target for ganks.
• She’s too skill-dependent: Miss, and you waste health.

Where does Lady Geist sit in the meta?

Lady Geist is an S-tier character. She is the definition of a double threat: whether you prefer smashing people with massive AoE bombs or draining their life force up close, she’s your woman.

With her Essence Bomb, it’s basically impossible to miss (unless you’re trying), making her a terrifying presence in both lane and team fights.

Sure, her primary weapon is laughably bad, but once you’ve got some items, she’s a force of nature. Geist is the ultimate “don’t get close, don’t stay far” champion – she’ll poke you down or steal your health either way. If you know what you’re doing, you’ll carry hard.

That’s all you need to start winning with Lady Geist in Deadlock! Don’t worry if you lose a few matches at first. Keep practicing, and you’ll get the hang of it.

If Lady Geist isn’t your style, no worries. You can check out our Deadlock character tier list to see your other options, and the best builds for Pocket, Shiv, Warden, and Grey Talon.