Best Deadlock Yamato build: Abilities & Items

Yamato is one of the deadlier heroes in Deadlock, acting as a fantastic spellcasting mage or a powerful damage dealer depending on how you prefer to play. However, she’s a little squishy at the beginning of the game, so you’ll need the best build to truly get the most out of her.

From the moment she arrived, Deadlock fans flocked to try out Yamato. Her mysterious samurai mage style had players enthralled, and that’s without mentioning her pretty tragic backstory that just so happens to be purely in Japanese.

Backstory aside, Yamato can be a god on the battlefield, if she’s built correctly, you’ll be able to decimate enemies and keep yourself safe without even blinking an eye.

Here’s Yamato’s best build in Deadlock, including which abilities you should max, what items you need to buy, and how to get the most out of her kit.

Best abilities to use on Yamato

This is the best ability point order you can follow:

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To really get the most out of this hero, we recommend unlocking Crimson Slash first. Through dealing damage to your enemies you’ll end up healing, which can be a lifesaver in the early parts of the game.

Then, unlock Power Slash. This will let you charge up a powerful attack from range and obliterate the enemy. It’ll serve as one of your primary skills at the beginning.

Next, unlock Flying Strike. While you have some powerful damage attacks, you’ll want to increase your movement tenfold. Flying Strike will buff that perfectly, letting you fly toward an enemy to take them down before they know what hit them.

Lastly, unlock the Ultimate, which is Shadow Transformation. Invincibility is a complete game changer for Yamato mains, and shouldn’t be ignored.

With all your abilities unlocked, we recommend leveling up the Crimson Slash to second level, for a little more healing. Then, upgrade your first ability, Power Slash, to the max for bonus fully charged damage. After this, put a point in your ultimate, and then max out your third ability, Crimson Slash. Next, bring Flying Strike to level two and max out your ultimate. Lastly, complete the set by maxing out Flying Strike after the ultimate.

Deadlock Yamato abilities explained

If you haven’t played as Yamato yet, or are interested in a more detailed look into her kit, we’ve got a full list of her abilities below:

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• 1. Power Slash
  • Charge up and attack, dealing high damage on a full charge.
  • Channel to increase damage over 1.4 seconds, then release a fully-charged sword strike.
  • Press [1] or [LMB] to trigger the strike early, dealing partial damage.
    • Level 1: Gain +60 Bullet Resist while channeling
    • Level 2: Apply 40% movement slow for 3 seconds
    • Level 3: +200 Fully Charge Damage
• 2. Flying Strike
  • Fly towards an enemy target.
  • Throw a grappling hood to reel yourself towards an enemy, damaging and slowing the target when you arrive.
    • Level 1: +25% Movement Slow
    • Level 2: +20m Cast Range
    • Level 3: +6 Weapon Damage for 10 seconds after striking the target
• 3. Crimson Slash
  • Damage enemies nearby, healing on hit.
  • Slash enemies in front of you, damaging them and slowing their fire rate. If any enemy heroes are hit, you heal.
    • Level 1: +30% Fire Rate Slow
    • +10% of Max Health. Heal on hero hit
    • -6s Cooldown
• 4. Shadow Transformation
  • Become invincible and more powerful.
  • Become infused with Yamato’s shadow soul. After an initial invincible transformation, your abilities are refreshed and are 60% faster, your weapon has infinite ammo, and you gain damage resists and immunity to negative status effects. You are unable to die in this mode.
    • -30 second cooldown
    • +4 move speed
    • +1.5 second duration

Best build for Yamato: Deadlock items explained

Building Yamato, or any other hero in Deadlock for that matter, is best done by splitting it up into four sections; early game, mid-game, late game/luxury buys, and situational items.

The first three sections will give you an idea of what you should be buying at each stage, although if you’re fed, then definitely buy the late-game items.

The early game primarily involves you gathering Souls while attacking enemies. The mid and late-game items focus on maximizing Yamato’s potential on the battlefield and Situational items are, naturally, for very specific scenarios, and are primarily used for countering different heroes.

So, with that in mind, here are the items you should grab when playing as Yamato.

Early Game items

At the beginning of Deadlock, you’ll want to be honing all the best aspects of Yamato. To do that, you need to make sure you have a High-Velocity Mag to help increase her weapon and make it faster. This’ll upgrade into Headhunter later as well, something

On top of this, Headshot Booster and Close Quarters are your best friends. Since you’ll primarily be up close, with Yamato, having that 45 bonus damage even if just one pellet hits the head is incredibly useful, as well as the extra damage from Close Quarters.

If Crimson Slash wasn’t powerful enough, we also recommend you grab Melee Lifesteal for a little more healing. You’ll be performing a lot of melee anyway, so why not benefit from it? If you’re struggling with health, grab Healing Rite too, it’ll give you that extra boost you need. On top of this, Sprint Boots are great for an early game build.

Spirit Strike is primarily a personal preference, but that extra shield, regen, melee damage, and spirit pen are hard to pass up. Mystic Burst is an absolute must for Yamato, that bonus Spirit Damage will be a gamechanger for your early game battles.

Mid Game items

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Kinetic Dash, Enduring Speed, and Superior Stamina are great to have in the midgame of Deadlock, they help increase your mobility, fire rate, and will be ideal for rushing around the battlefield.

To complement this perfectly, grab Soul Shredder Bullets. Not only will you have some extra damage, but it’ll apply a debuff, heal you, and increase your Spirit Damage.

Given she’s a closer-ranged fighter, you’ll want to choose Melee Charge and Lifestrike too, for extra healing, debuffs on the enemy movement, and extra damage.

Torment Pulse may be a little expensive, but enabling AoE damage is perfect for Yamato, and can greatly complement how you play in the mid-game, especially when you combine it with Mystic Vulnerability and Improved Burst.

Late Game/Luxury items

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Late-game items are vital to keep the best Yamato build relevant and winning battles as you get more experienced and go up against equally as strong players. With that in mind, it’s well worth grabbing Crippling Headshot for that vital extra damage.

On top of this, Spiritual Overflow gives players tons of bonus spirit damage after they get a few hits on the unsuspecting enemy.

Then there’s protection, which is vital in this stage. Improved Bullet Armor and Improved Spirit Armor are perfect choices, and Leech is great to have if you keep getting anti-healed, which is common in late-game battles.

Refresher, Superior Duration, and Superior Cooldowns are also a must. By this time all your abilities will be maxed out, and these just make them even more powerful. Make sure to use Refresher after your ult to get double the amount of uptime on it.

Situational items

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Since these items all have certain uses, it’s best to go through them one by one:

• Headhunter: This item builds off of High-Velocity Mag, and it’s arguably a must-have. However, when you should buy it is up in the air. If you’re ahead and want to rush it, that’s fine. Want to get some tank or spirit items instead? That’s fine, just upgrade into this late game. Yes, it’s situational, but you should buy it at some point.
• Warp Stone: This item is fantastic if you’re looking for some extra mobility. It’s not a must-buy, but is perfect if you think Yamato just needs a little boost.
• Debuff Remover: No one likes negative effects, and Debuff Remover is perfect to get rid of that, it’ll also increase your movement.
• Metal Skin: Nothing is worse than going up against enemies with massive bullet damage. If this is the case, grab Metal Skin for extra protection. Perfect for countering a fed Haze or Wraith.
• Healbane: Dealing spirit damage and placing healing reduction on the enemy is fantastic, especially if you’re going up against a lot of healers. Also great for snowballing due to the passive heal.
• Reactive Barrier: It’s not always about damage, and if you’re going up against tons of DPS’ and tanks, then the protection from this item is well worth it if you get CC locked.
• Slowing Hex: While it may be a worse version of Knockdown, Slowing Hex is much cheaper, and is perfect for early-game battles if you can’t afford Knockdown.
• Cold Front: Why not increase your mobility with Debuff Remover while also reducing the enemy’s speed with Cold Front? After all, it’ll also give you more Spirit damage.
• Knockdown: Knockdown is great. It’s expensive, but ideal for going up against Seven ults or flying enemies.

If you’re curious to see how Yamato stacks up to other characters, check out our tier list. You can also check out our best builds for Seven, Shiv, Pocket, and Warden.