Active vs passive items
Passive items work for free the moment you buy them; active items are extra abilities you press — and you only get four keybinds (Z, X, C, V), so every active is a slot AND a button you actually have to use.
Most items in the shop are passive: buy one, slot it, and the stats and effects just apply on their own. Active items are different — each is an extra ability bound to Z, X, C or V with its own cooldown, and because there are only four keys you can run at most four actives at once.
Two kinds of items, four keys
Most of the shop is passive — you buy the item, drop it in a slot, and its stats and effects just apply on their own: more HP, faster fire rate, a headshot debuff, a proc on your bullets. You never press anything; it works for as long as it sits in your build. Only about a quarter of items are active instead, and each one is an extra ability you trigger by hand, with its own icon and cooldown shown next to your hero abilities. Deadlock binds those actives to just four keys — Z, X, C and V by default — so you can run at most FOUR active items at once, no matter how many slots your build has (even with all four flex slots unlocked for 16 total items). When you buy an active, the shop asks which of the four keys to put it on; you can move it later by dragging it in your inventory. Some actives fire the instant you press them — Warp Stone (T3) blinks you forward, Metal Skin (T3) makes you bullet-immune, Grit (T1) drops a 200 Barrier for 4s — while others want a target first: Healing Rite (T1) is aimed at an ally or self-cast, Knockdown (T3) is aimed at an enemy hero. A few items are an active AND an imbue at the same time (Echo Shard), and the active half still eats one of your four keybind slots — the imbue side is its own mechanic. The bottom line: an active costs you both a build slot and a key, while a passive only costs a slot.
Cooldowns, and what actually reduces them
Every active has its own independent cooldown printed right on the item, and that number is almost always exactly the wait you get. Current examples across the tiers: Warp Stone 16s, Return Fire 23s (reflects 65% of bullet and 25% of spirit damage you take for 6.5s), Metal Skin 24s, Cold Front 25s, Knockdown 35s, Echo Shard 35s, Majestic Leap and Dispel Magic 45s, Healing Rite 70s. The big trap players fall into: the cooldown-reduction items you stack for your HERO abilities do not touch ITEM cooldowns. Superior Cooldown (T3) only speeds up your hero's abilities, and Refresher (T4) resets your abilities and their charges — not your item actives. The single item that also cuts active-item cooldowns is Transcendent Cooldown (T4), and even then a few charge-based actives are deliberately built to ignore it. So when you plan an active around a fight, assume the tooltip number is the real timer. One cheap, current example is Grit, the T1 Vitality active added in the 05-22-2026 patch — a 200 Barrier on a 60s cooldown that anyone can afford in lane.
How to play it
Treat your four keybind slots as a budget, not a wish list. Most strong builds run only two or three actives and fill the rest with passives, because an active you forget to press is worse than a passive that works for free. Pick actives that cover what your kit lacks: a repositioning or escape tool (Majestic Leap, Warp Stone, Magic Carpet), a panic defensive (Metal Skin against a burst hero, Dispel Magic to strip a stun or slow, Grit for a cheap early Barrier), and one playmaker (Knockdown's delayed stun to pin a target for your ult, Echo Shard to cast your strongest ability twice). Keep the SAME item on the SAME key every match so the muscle memory carries over — most players park their escape on the easiest key. Use actives proactively: they sit on cooldown whether you press them or not, so a Healing Rite topped off in lane or a Warp Stone burned to dodge a skillshot is free value, never a waste. Lead combos with the active that has a cast/aim step — aim Knockdown first, then leap in — and save your instant-cast panic buttons (Metal Skin) for the exact frame the burst lands, since fumbling an aim under pressure is how you die. Last thing: don't confuse active items with active reload — active reload is the timing tap on your gun's reload, not a keybind item.
Raw dataidentity & API
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- active-and-passive-items
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- items
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- shopping
- aliases
- active items, passive items, active item slots, Z X C V, usable items, item abilities, item actives, active item keybinds, how to use items, which items are active, активные предметы, пассивные предметы, активки, предметы-способности
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- manual:mechanics/active-and-passive-items
- updatedAt
- 2026-06-06T00:00:00.000Z