Best Deadlock McGinnis build: Abilities & Items

McGinnis is an extremely strong character in Deadlock when it comes to locking down zones and getting your team out of critical situations – but only if she’s built right.

Although Deadlock relies quite heavily on aiming and gunplay compared to other MOBAs, casting abilities do provide a massive boost to your character. McGinnis is one of the easiest characters in Deadlock considering her turrets do a lot of the work for you.

However, playing her at a high level requires knowledge of how to use her lane pressure and strong split push potential to offset her generally lackluster burst damage and setup time for her turrets.

We’re here to help you make the best choices for McGinnis’s items and abilities to have her perform to her full potential in Deadlock.

Best McGinnis abilities in Deadlock

Here’s the starting and max path for McGinnis’s abilities in Deadlock. You should note that while McGinnis features an arsenal of abilities that can be quite handy in several scenarios, her ultimate does feel underwhelming and can be difficult to use unless your team has other characters who can stun or root enemies.

Valve

• Ability starting path: 3>2>1
  • Against characters who deal a lot of damage in the early stages of the game, getting your 2 first is advised for the extra sustainability.
• Ability max path: 1 point in 2>max 1>2 points in 3>1 point in 2>1 point in 4>max 2>max 3>max 4
  • McGinnis features an unique kit of abilities, allowing you to modify your build path according to the requirements of each match. In games where your team has disablers, it is recommended to max out your ultimate first to deal massive bursts of damage in team fights, whereas it is better to focus on your other abilities when playing in a utility based role.

Having a point in your Medicinal Specter ability is very efficient in the early game as it not only heals all allied units in the area of effect but also grants them a boost in firing rate. This allows you to push out your wave of minions while also granting you much needed sustain and bonus firing rate to trade health with your enemy on the lane.

Mini Turret will definitely be your most used ability on McGinnis as this ability allows you to place bonus firepower on the battlefield without having to face the enemy by yourself. This can come in extremely handy in situations where you are trying to run away from the enemy and placing a turret causes hindrance for the enemy in their chase.

As for Heavy Barrage, it only allows you to deal damage to locations that are in your field of view and the Spectral Wall is a great way of trapping your enemies before blowing them up with the massive burst damage of your ultimate.

Deadlock McGinnis abilities explained

In case you aren’t familiar with McGinnis’s arsenal and what she does in Deadlock, here’s a quick rundown:

Valve/Screenshot captured by Dexerto

• 1: Mini Turret
  • Deploys a Mini Turret that automatically shoots enemies. The turret expires after a limited lifetime. Turrets have 30% of McGinnis’s max health, 60% Spirit Resist, and deal reduced damage to troopers and objectives.
    • Level 1: +1 ability charge and turrets apply +25% movement slow
    • Level 2: +10 meter attack range and +10% turret fire rate
    • Level 3: +45 turret DPS
• 2: Medicinal Specter
  • Deploy a spirit that heals nearby units
    • Level 1: +35% fire rate on units being healed by Medicinal Specter
    • Level 2: -18 second cooldown
    • Level 3: +5% max health regen per second
• 3: Spectral Wall
  • Creates a wall that divides the terrain in half. On creation, the wall deals damage and applies slow to enemies nearby. Can be triggered again to make the wall erupt before the detonation period and further damage to enemies.
    • Level 1: Removes 1 stamina and amplifies McGinnis’s damage by 25% on hit enemies for 7 seconds
    • Level 2: -15 second cooldown
    • Level 3: Adds a 1 second stun to enemies hit by Spectral Wall
• 4: Heavy Barrage
  • Unleashes a volley of rockets that home in on a targeted location.
    • Level 1: Applies 35% movement slow
    • Level 2: -50 second cooldown
    • Level 3: +30 damage per rocket

Best build on McGinnis: Deadlock items explained

Items here are divided into four sections: early game, mid-game, late-game/luxury buys, and situational purchases.

The first three sections provide you with a general idea of what items you should be looking to buy on McGinnis during each stage of the game, however, you can always jump straight to late-game items if you’re ahead. As for situational items, they are mainly for countering certain mechanics and scenarios in matches.

Here’s everything you should be buying on McGinnis to give yourself a better chance of taking down the enemy’s Patron:

Early Game items

Valve/Screenshot captured by Dexerto

McGinnis has one of the best primary weapons in the game when used properly, with her minigun offering a level of lane pressure that’s very difficult to fight against. For this reason, Monster Rounds‘ boosted damage against NPCs is great for shoving the enemy into a corner. Basic Magazine is also great for increased ammo and to build into Titanic Magazine later.

Extra Stamina and Extra Regen will help you sustain on the lane and since McGinnis prefers staying in lane to collect souls and ability points, the additional regen from Healing Rite also plays an important role during the early stages of the game if you end up getting poked out of lane.

Extra Charge will help you deploy multiple Mini Turret charges, while Mystic Reach grants much-needed boosts to spirit damage as well as range for all your abilities, but especially your turrets.

Mid Game items

Valve/Screenshot captured by Dexerto

Despite her turrets being an important part of her kit, McGinnis benefits heavily from running the enemy down herself. Fleetfoot is a must considering her lack of gap close, while Soul Shredder bullets will enhance her turrets’ damage when she lands a few shots. Heroic Aura is great for split pushing since it works on your turrets, and Intensifying Magazine pairs well with McGinnis’ wind up primary fire.

For your sustainability, you should be looking to purchase Enduring Speed and Fortitude for some much needed regeneration as well as movement speed. Fortitude will further help you in jungling neutral creeps and split-pushing, as the max-health regen keeps you topped up when rotating. Split-pushing on McGinnis is the reason you should be picking her.

As for McGinnis’ turrets, neglecting them won’t get you anywhere. For the mid game, you will ideally want to buy Improved Cooldown and Suppressor to lower the cooldown of your abilities and lower the fire rate of your enemies respectively. Suppressor works with your turret and makes her incredibly difficult to trade with and is easily upgraded into Mystic Slow later.

Late Game/Luxury

Valve/Screenshot captured by Dexerto

McGinnis’ high firing rate allows her to make the most of Weapon damage items that apply Spirit power debuffs to the enemy, like Spiritual Overflow. When paired with Titanic Magazine, Spiritual Overflow allows you to build up massive Spirit Damage on enemies, bursting down the tankiest of heroes.

You will also need Improved Bullet Armor and Improved Spirit Armor in the late game to sustain against enemy heroes who can jump on you in the backline. Additionally, Inhibitor grants you a bunch of movement slow as well as damage reduction to create distance between yourself and such heroes while also being able to sustain their reduced damage output.

Relying heavily on Spirit damage from her abilities, McGinnis thrives with lower cooldowns and amplified ability damage. To make the most of her arsenal, you should be looking to grab items like Rapid Recharge, Echo Shard, and Superior Cooldown that allows McGinnis to spam her abilities in the late game. Echo sharding to toss down a couple turrets in rapid succession may save your life.

Apart from that, all of her abilities last for a short duration, making Superior Duration an ideal choice to make her turrets stay active for longer, eventually resulting in minimal downtime with the bonus cooldown reduction items. These can be combined with Mystic Slow to ensure that enemies get further slowed.

On top of these, you should ideally grab Escalating Exposure and Boundless Spirit to amplify McGinnis’s Spirit damage to the maximum, allowing her to be a formidable character to deal with in the late game.

Situational items

Valve/Screenshot captured by Dexerto

These items are situational on McGinnis, and should be bought in the right scenario to get the most out of them. Here’s a breakdown of each of these items and when you should buy it:

• Warp Stone: You gain a handy short teleport option which allows you to reposition yourself in fights while also gaining a weapon damage and spirit power boost. This item is ideal for playing against enemies who have a teleport or dash ability in their kit.
• Toxic Bullets: This item allows you to build up bleed up damage on enemies while also applying a healing reduction debuff on them. Given that the damage dealt by the bleed effect is a percentage of the enemy’s current health, this item is very strong against high HP and high regen heroes.
• Active Reload: With the option to finish your reload instantly and gain a firing rate and bullet lifesteal boost, Active Reload is a must have for McGinnis when focusing on a more bullet damage focused build than a spirit damage one.
• Leech: This is a game-changer for McGinnis, especially in matches where she has fallen behind. Granting you bonus lifesteal for both bullet and spirit damage, Leech will allow you to stretch out fights and sustain for longer durations to overturn the tide of the game.
• Unstoppable: This is one of the most overpowered items in the game when teamed up against a bunch of disablers. If you keep getting shut down from using your ultimate, Unstoppable makes it much easier, preventing enemies from applying disables to you.
• Debuff Remover: Debuff Remover is a good addition to your armory if the enemy team keeps disarming or silencing you in team fights. This item allows you to dispel most negative debuffs and resume casting abilities in fights as long as you are not stunned or slept.
• Rescue Beam: Since McGinnis is sitting in the back most of the time, upgrading your Healing Rite to a Rescue Beam can be a strong choice.
• Reactive Barrier: Applies an automatic barrier on you whenever McGinnis is disabled by enemy abilities or items, grant bullet and spirit armor from a short duration. Reactive Barrier is a good situational item for McGinnis when the enemy team focuses you down, as your turrets can put in work while you’re CCed.
• Slowing Hex: Slowing Hex is ideal in scenarios when you are up against high mobility heroes equipped with dash and teleport abilities as this not only slows them down, but also silences all movement based abilities and items.
• Withering Whip: Places a debuff on a target enemy hero, applying a fire rate slow and bullet resist reduction for a short duration. This is a highly situational item on McGinnis, necessary only when an enemy hero keeps chasing you down with their boosted fire rate.
• Ethereal Shift: You can become untargetable and invincible for a short duration if you get ambushed by enemies. However, you can’t move or perform any actions during this duration and gain an instant reload and boosted spirit power. This is a good purchase when playing against enemy heroes that can jump and burst you in an instant.
• Knockdown: You can use this active item to place a debuff on an enemy which activates after a short duration to stun the enemy and render them ineffective from making any actions. This item is highly effective on McGinnis when your team is lacking disables to combo with your ultimate abillity.
• Curse: McGinnis can use Curse to place a debuff on an enemy hero that silences, disarms, and prevents them from using any items for a short duration. This item is more of a late game situation item where you are unable to contain an enemy hero from spamming their abilities or dishing out massive bursts of bullet damage.

That’s everything you need to know before you start taking down those enemies with McGinnis. Although she can feel a little underwhelming in the current state of the game, she is one of the easier characters to get started and learn the intricate mechanics with.

If you feel out of place with McGinnis’s arsenal of abilities, you can check out our Deadlock character tier list to go through a few other options.