Deadlock Paradox build: Best items, abilities & more

Deadlock’s Paradox stands out for her time-based skills and steampunk style, giving players a mix of tactical gameplay and high-impact moves – but only if you choose the right build.

Paradox shines best when built as a single-target damage machine, prioritizing cooldown reductions and as many weapon damage buffs as possible. If you want to use this character to her full potential, we have the best build right here.

Best Paradox abilities in Deadlock

Here you can find the best ability starting and max path for Paradox.

Valve/Dexerto

Paradox manipulates time and space with abilities such as Kinetic Carbine, which charges for a powerful shot that can stop time, Pulse Grenade for area denial and damage amplification, Time Wall to block and slow enemies, and Paradoxical Swap, her ultimate that allows her to swap places with an enemy, disrupting positioning.

The ability ordering here is because of the substantially decreased cooldown at level 2 in Kinetic Carbine, followed by the drastically reduced cooldown at level 3 in your ult, which is highly critical.

Among these, Paradoxical Swap stands out as the most important because of its game-changing ability in offensive and defensive capabilities, drastically impacting the outcome by moving foes or Paradox herself in vital moments.

Deadlock Paradox abilities explained

Here is a rundown of Paradox’s abilities:

• 1: Pulse Grenade
  • Throw a grenade that begins pulsing when it lands. Each pulse applies damage, movement slow, and stacking damage amplification for Paradox against the Victim.
    • Level 1: +1 Pulses
    • Level 2: -8s Cooldown
    • Level 3: +45 Pulse Damage
• 2: Time Wall
  • Create a time-warping wall that stops time for all enemy projectiles and bullets that touch it. Enemies that touch the wall will take damage as a percentage of their max health and be briefly slowed.
    • Level 1: +2m Width, +1m Height
    • Level 2: +1 Charges
    • Level 3: Enemies that touch Time Wall will be Silenced for 3s
• 3: Kinetic Carbine
  • Start charging your weapon and gain increased movement speed once it’s fully charged. Your next shot will release the energy, dealing spirit damage and applying a time stop to the enemy hit. The damage dealt is an amplification of your current weapon damage. You can slow time on yourself by pressing right-click while an empowered shot is available.
    • Level 1: +0.5s Max Stop Duration
    • Level 2: -10s Cooldown and +2s Speed Boost Duration
    • Level 3: +50% Max Damage Amp
• 4: Paradoxical Swap
  • Fire a projectile that swaps your position with the target enemy hero. While the effect occurs, you gain spirit lifesteal and the enemy takes damage over time.
    • Level 1: +15m Cast Range
    • Level 2: +100 Swap Damage
    • Level 3: -15s Cooldown

Best build for Paradox: Deadlock items explained

Early Game Items

Valve/Dexerto

Buy High-Velocity Mag off the rip to bolster Paradox’s weapon damage, adding extra threat to her poke, and deterring the opposing lane hero from early pushing.

With this character, critical hits matter, Headshot Booster buffs up the extra damage you inflict with your gun and the Kinetic Carbine. While you still have a full health bar, Hollow Point Ward increases your Spirit power while passively dealing 20% additional Weapon Damage.

Since Paradox’s abilities require her to stay on the move and bend space and time, increasing her Sprint Speed enables her to be quick from the onset. But Paradox herself is a strategy-based hero, hence it’s ideal to purchase Extra Health and Healing Rite to keep her alive while she disrupts enemies.

Buy Mystic Burst and Mystic Reach as well if you want to buff your Bullet and Melee Damage which improves the radius and the Spirit Damage you deal in a single hit. Finally, the Extra Charge ensures you still have an ability in the tank in the heat of battle.

Mid Game Items

Valve/Dexerto

Mystic Shot is a great item that comes in extremely handy during mid-game, bolstering Paradox’s weapon with Spirit damage. Pairing it with Headhunter ensures you’re healing with every headshot while continuing to damage opponents.

Warp Stone makes you teleport straight ahead, granting temporary resistance to damage of all types. Enduring Speed and Extra Stamina add further to your increased sprint speed and allow you to pursue attacks and push the enemy attack line further while making way to their defense line.

Lastly, Improved Burst and Improved Cooldown increase Bullet Damage and significantly reduce cooldown on each of Paradox’s abilities.

Late Game/Luxury Items

Valve/Dexerto

By this point, you’ll want to keep dishing out damage on your enemies while having your armor and health bars filled, which is when Crippling Headshot, Siphon Bullets, Improved Bullet Armor, Improved Spirit Armor, and Fortitude all work in sync.

Furthermore, Superior Stamina ensures you don’t slow down while pushing enemy forces back and get in spaces to launch your attacks. Superior Cooldown is a bonus add-on that further reduces your cooldown times for abilities.

Diviner’s Kevlar and Mystic Reverb increase spirit lifesteal, spirit damage, and spirit shield, while Boundless Spirit enhances the quality of Spirit powers for Paradox.

Situational items

Valve/Dexerto

Since these items are situational, we’ll explain when you’ll want to use them all below:

• Kinetic Dash: When standard movement is insufficient, use it to quickly reposition yourself in battle, escape ganks, or chase down low-health enemies.
• Spiritual Overflow: Use when you need to spam skills in lengthy fights or when energy conservation is critical during sieges.
• Soul Rebirth: Employ in instances where you need to be focused initially, such as fights or risky tower dives, to get a second opportunity.
• Debuff Remover: Use immediately if you are under critical debuffs such as stuns or silences that prevent you from acting or escaping.
• Divine Barrier: Trigger when you’re about to receive a lot of damage, such as during an enemy’s ultimate or diving into numerous opponents.
• Metal Skin: Activate in melee combat or while doing substantial physical damage to boost your survivability.
• Phantom Strike: Ideal for launching surprise attacks or escaping over barriers when usual routes are blocked or risky.
• Slowing Hex: Apply when kiting enemies or during pursues to keep them from escaping or closing the distance.
• Ethereal Shift: Use to phase through key skill shots or to quickly alter your position in a fight to have a better angle of attack or retreat.
• Knockdown: Best used to disrupt enemy abilities that could change the fight or to stop a fleeing opponent in their tracks.
• Silence Glyph: Deploy against ability-dependent enemies at the start of a battle or to prevent escapes using abilities.
• Curse: Cast on vital targets in team fights to lower their effectiveness, or on an enemy carry to reduce their threat level at critical times.

That’s everything you need to know about playing Paradox in Deadlock! As one of the most strategic heroes, she’ll take more practice than most to master but is absolutely worth the time investment. If you want to see how Paradox stacks up to the rest of the cast, you can check out our tier list here.