2 of Deadlock's 6 new heroes are running over low-skill matches—I'd know, because they've been stomping me flat into the sidewalk like a chump

Deadlock's "Six New Heroes" update has added, you guessed it, six new heroes. You gotta respect the economy of language there. Two of which, the Drifter and Victor, are causing a bit of a scene.

See, both the Drifter and Victor are what you might, in the MOBA lingua arcana, call "pub stompers"—if you play around their abilities, you'll mostly be fine. If you don't, they'll snowball into an incredible problem.

When it comes to the Drifter, this issue's a little more apparent. Bloodscent gives you a literal blood trail and heartbeat sound effect while you're near isolated enemies and, more importantly, a permanent stacking weapon damage buff whenever you kill (or assist in a kill) an enemy hero.

In other words, if you've got terrible map sense and are blindly farming the jungle while the Drifter's about, he's going to get a bazillion Bloodscent stacks and run you over.

Victor's a little more complicated. His Aura of Suffering builds up damage to enemies and himself, his Jumpstart trades HP for regeneration and movement speed, and his Pain Battery lashes out whenever he takes damage.

With the right item build, these abilities can make him an absolute menace—but the real kicker is his ultimate Shocking Reanimation, which, similar to the Wraith King in DOTA 2, gives him an extra life. Meaning, if your team spends a ton of abilities and resources killing him, that's a perfect opportunity for the enemy to swoop in and murder you all while your pants are down. Which happens in my elo bracket a lot.

In fact, in low-skill games, both of these heroes become huge problems. Players will feed Drifter like it's their job, or dive deep on Victor while his ultimate's up and then get steamrolled, over and over, flooding them with souls until they can hold down W and win. That's being concurred in some feedback threads, such as this one on the DeadlockTheGame subreddit:

"Viktor and Drifter are fun, but not super fun to play against," writes one player. "Drifter feels too strong," adds another, "Reminds me of the time when Bloodseeker from DOTA 2 got damage for free just cause one guy was low hp on the other side of the map." Shudder. Yeah, that's exactly the feeling.

I've noticed this myself because, well—I've got decent MOBA knowledge, with such secret insights as 'you gotta look at your minimap occasionally' and 'you should go push waves sometimes' and 'muting voice chat is good for your mental health'—but I'm willing to admit I'm garbo at shooters. I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn if I were inside one with a flamethrower.

I've watched, multiple times, helpless to stop them, as my teammates spend everything to kill Victor once, then die. Or walk into the enemy jungle while Drifter's missing, and die. And when they're both on the same team? It's a double-dose of pub stomping misery. Then I try to make a play, miss half my shots, and weep with the understanding that I'm part of the problem. I'm working on it, I promise.

While it is undeniably a skill issue, it's not like Valve hasn't been taking the nerf stick to the both of 'em—so I can assume they're causing problems in high elos, too. Multiple nerfs have targeted both heroes since their release. For instance, Victor's ultimate now only brings him back to 60% health until he puts points in it—and the Drifter has earned himself 12 separate nerf bullet-points. And hey, I mean, it's a playtest. We're playtesting, and I'd rather these heroes be too strong for a while, but interesting, than weak and wimpy upon release.

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