Best Deadlock Vindicta build: Abilities & Items

Vindicta is one of Deadlock’s few long-range specialists, and she’s a great choice if you’re looking to take down enemies from range. But you’ll need the right build to start snowballing and, more importantly, to stay alive.

Regarding carry potential, Vindicta has some of the highest damage in Deadlock. Her ability to fly out of reach makes her particularly annoying to deal with for your opponent, but don’t let that distance make you feel safe.

This guide will go over not only how to play Vindicta but also how your opponents will try to counter you. She’s one of the most straightforward characters in Deadlock to shut down, but also one of its hardest carries.

With the player count climbing daily, more and more people will know how to play against you. You’ll have to learn how to fight back.

Here’s the best build for Vindicta in Deadlock, as well as which items you should build and how you should max her abilities.

Vindicta’s best abilities in Deadlock

Here’s both the starting and max order for Vindicta’s ability. There is a path that’s objectively the best in terms of maxing, but only if you’re willing to play around her strengths. She’s framed as an easy starter character, but Vindicta is anything but. To succeed in higher-level play, she needs to get ahead early. Very ahead.

Here’s what you should start and max:

• Ability starting path: 1>3>2
  • Note: You can go 3>1>2 if you’re confident, but starting with Stake is a good choice if you’re learning the game for the sake of not getting rushed down in lane.
• Ability max path: 4>2>1>3
  • Note: If you can help it, don’t put points in any other abilities until you’ve got your ult maxed out. You should be saving those points, even in the early game where you’ve got access to them. Also, maxing Crow Familiar before Stake is good if you need the anti-heal.

Assassinate is Vindicta’s bread and butter. It has multiple charges that make it worth putting Quicksilver Reload on. The execute damage takes out low targets, and the static amount of bonus souls per kill can make her stand out. In Deadlock’s early game, kills aren’t worth much. They scale up as the game goes on.

So, when other people get 300-500 souls per kill early on, you’re getting almost 1500. One good fight can give you a massive lead, unlike any other character in Deadlock. If you’re looking for a straightforward, lower-risk sniper, pick Grey Talon. If you’re going to pick Vindicta, you have to be willing to take risks to get ahead.

As for her other abilities, Stake is a fantastic CC tool you should save for using her ult if you can, Flight should be used to catch people by surprise and poke people down in lane, and Crow Familiar is a solid tank shred tool that has great anti-heal if you need it.

Deadlock Vindicta abilities explained

Here’s a summary of Vindicta’s abilities if you aren’t familiar with them:

• 1: Stake
  • Throw a stake that tethers enemies to the location where the stake lands. Enemy movement is restricted to the length of the tether.
    • Level 1: +0.75 Tether duration
    • Level 2: -20 second cooldown
    • Level 3: Tethered enemies are also disarmed
• 2: Flight
  • Leap into the air and fly. While in flight, your weapon deals bonus spirit damage.
    • Level 1: +50% base ammo while flying
    • Level 2: -15 second cooldown
    • Level 3: +12 spirit damage per bullet
• 3: Crow Familiar
  • Your crow familiar deals impact damage and applies a bleed that deals damage for 3% of the target’s current health per second
    • Level 1: Crow Ricochets up to 2 times toward other enemies within 15 meters
    • Level 2: -17 second cooldown
    • Level 3: +3% bleed and suppresses healing by -40%
• 4: Assassinate
  • Use your scoped rifle to fire a powerful shot over long distances. Deal only partial damage until fully charged after 1 second of being scoped. Does bonus damage to enemies with less than 50% health remaining. Landing a killing blow on a player with Assassinate grants 250 bonus souls.
    • Level 1: -20 second cooldown
    • Level 2: +140 bonus damage
    • Level 3: +600 souls per Assassination

Best build on Vindicta: Deadlock items explained

The items here will be divided into four sections: early-game, mid-game, late-game luxury items, and situational options.

Those first three sections are straightforward, though it’s ok to buy a late-game item early on if you’ve got a bunch of souls lying around. In fact, you should in a few cases. The high variance around Vindicta’s Assassinate makes explaining her build path a bit trickier than other heroes.

Important note: Slowing Hex is the bane of your existence on Vindicta, and people who know to buy it early against you will dive you constantly. If you see someone buy this early, keep them as far away as possible and invest in defense options.

There’s no objectively correct build on any character in Deadlock, but that rule is even more true for this hero. That said, that’ll give you a good place to start.

Early Game items

As usual, Monster Rounds is here if you’ve got a hard time managing your ammo and need some help with keeping the pressure up in the lane. Vindicta doesn’t need it nearly as much as heroes with low early damage like Haze or Wraith, but it’s still a good set of training wheels. Headshot Booster is your best bet and should be bought after you get your hands on High-Velocity Mag.

Extra Health and Healing Rite are your best defensive options. If Vindicta gets close to the enemy early, she’s as good as dead. Focus on buying damage and poking people down in lane over getting defense.

Both Extra Stamina and Sprint Boots are good for getting around the map and getting away from threats, and can be optionally upgraded later. You can pop Flight to gain some quick momentum, cancel it, and then air dash to maintain that speed sort of like a “super jump”. You may want to get Stamina first to take advantage of this mechanic.

Extra Charge is an early-game must, though you won’t have to upgrade it for a while. Just make sure you wait until you’ve got your ult to buy it.

Mid Game items

If you get enough kills to grab it early on, Glass Cannon is your absolute best option to get the ball rolling. You’ll shred through targets if you can fully stack that extra weapon damage. Long Range is a solid option if you don’t get that big early lead, with Active Reload being great for sustain and getting two mags out of your Flight ability.

Warp Stone is usually the kind of thing in the situational items category, but it’s a must on Vindicta. You can use it during Flight without interrupting the ability and keeping the bonus damage.

If you’re struggling with item slots and don’t have any Flex slots yet, sell Headshot Booster/Monster Rounds. You’ll want to keep High-Velocity Mag for a bit.

Bullet Lifesteal is a solid sustain option if you’re still getting shredded with Active Reload, and Superior Stamina is an absolute must for the dash speed and jump distance. Bullet Armor and Spirit Armor are great tank options and feel a bit better their shield items due to Vindicta mostly taking extended trades.

Quicksilver Reload is the only must-have spirit item here, as it’s really nice to have if you need just a couple more bullets to get a kill. Put this on Assassinate, get a quickscope in on your target, and finish them off with a fresh mag.

Late Game/Luxury

Lucky Shot is your best bet if you’re looking to build a lead. If Glass Cannon is too high of a risk for you, or you’ve already got it, Lucky Shot is a great choice. Vampiric Burst is great for some extra ammo and lifesteal, and Crippling Headshot will help you shred tanky characters.

Leech is solid if you need some extra sustain and are getting actively anti-healed, but Fortitude is actually your best sustain option as long as you’re not getting dived. That bonus HP regen will help you with long trades. Improved Bullet Armor and Improved Spirit Armor are worth buying here for extra defense. Soul Rebirth is great if you’re carrying and worried one death will lose you the game.

Ethereal Shift is borderline situational, but it’s so strong as a counter-dive tool that you’ll want it in most games. Boundless Spirit is a strong power spike to your spirit damage, and Magic Carpet is an option so often skipped over that people won’t expect you to have it.

Situational items

With these items having specific use cases, we’ll be breaking each one down 1 by 1:

• Toxic Bullets: If you’re in need of anti-heal before you’ve got your 3 maxed out, this is your best anti-heal option.
• Sharpshooter: Yes, this is an upgrade of Long Range, but one that’s vaguely situational. The enhanced zoom level is so high that it’s almost a hinderance. Keep that in mind before buying it.
• Silencer: This is a fantastic option against mobile characters like Lash to keep them from getting away, or to keep a character like Wraith from casting their CC abilities on you.
• Enduring Speed: This is somewhat optional on Vindicta and is only a necessary step up from Sprint Boots if you find yourself rotating a lot.
• Divine Barrier: If you’re super behind and can’t afford other defense items, buy this instead. This is your lifeline to try and recover from a deficit.
• Reactive Barrier: Against heavy CC teams, this is a great option for tanking a few hits.
• Unstoppable: Against certain team compositions or people who are adamant about diving you, Unstoppable is sometimes a necessary option. But it’s also very, very expensive. Only buy this if there’s nothing you can do to keep your opponent from CC locking you 100-0.
• Curse: Curse is your best friend against a hard carry trying to dive you. Whether it be Haze, Mo & Krill, Lash, or other backline bombers, this’ll buy you enough time to get some damage in and have your teammates help peel for you. Only grab it if you really need it, though. Curse is pricy.

That’s how you should build and play Vindicta in Deadlock! If you want to see how good she is compared to the rest of the cast, check out our tier list.