Lanes and troopers
You don't win lane by shooting troopers fastest — you win it by controlling WHERE the two waves collide.
Troopers are the AI soldiers that march down each of the map's three lanes in waves. Killing them is your main early income, and steering where your wave meets the enemy's is the whole game of the laning phase: hold it on your side to farm safely, shove it to their side only when you're ready to leave.
The wave and its troopers
Since the 2025 map rework Deadlock has three lanes, and you start each one solo or in a duo. A fresh wave is 4 troopers. Early game it's 3 Ranged troopers (300 HP, a 25m gun, weak in melee) plus 1 Medic/Banner trooper (350 HP). From the 5:00 mark one Ranged is swapped for a Melee trooper (400 HP, tankier, faster on its feet, and it hits much harder up close), so late waves are 2 Ranged + 1 Melee + 1 Medic. Each trooper is a soul bounty — last-hit it for the secured orb, shoot the enemy's orb to deny it (see Last-hitting and Soul orbs & denies). The Medic is the one to watch: kill the ENEMY medic and it drops a healing pack only your side can pick up — the enemy can't deny it or grab it back, so it's free lane sustain. Troopers ride a zipline vessel into the lane; the very first wave is deliberately slowed to about a third speed so it can't reach you before you arrive, while every wave after rides in at full speed. You can shoot a vessel down to drop its troopers early, and destroying a pair of enemy Base Guardians spawns an extra zipline-boosted reinforcement wave to power your push.
How to play it
The point where the two waves collide is the equilibrium, and it drifts toward whoever is losing troopers slower. Three states to know: FREEZE — only last-hit and don't pre-damage the wave, letting the enemy's troopers slightly outnumber yours so the fight sits near your tower; you farm safely, the enemy has to overextend to contest, and you set up easy ganks. SLOW PUSH — kill only the enemy troopers and keep yours alive so your wave snowballs and crashes on its own. CRASH/SHOVE — dump damage to shove the wave into the enemy Guardian, but only right before you rotate, take a camp, or recall, so you don't bleed farm while you're gone. The cardinal sin is mindlessly shoving with no vision: an overextended wave with no map info gets you ganked. Always sweep up the ground orbs and grab that medic heal pack. Rule of thumb: when you're ahead, push and pressure the Guardian; when you're behind, freeze near tower and farm safe until your items come online.
Timings & numbers
Waves set out about every 30 seconds; in the very late game (after 35:00) they speed up to every 20 seconds for faster sieges. Melee troopers join the wave at 5:00 — the moment laning damage spikes, so respect the heavier wave. Trooper HP to remember: Ranged 300, Medic 350, Melee 400; recent patches also give troopers about 7 HP/sec regen when out of combat, so chip damage on a retreating wave heals off — commit to last hits instead of poking. Zipline speeds: the first wave rides at ~33% speed, all reinforcement waves at 100%, and your team's zipline gets faster on a lane once you take its Base Guardians (see Ziplines). Soul income from a kill is split by how many allies are nearby, so don't crowd a lane just for last hits (see Souls). Jungle camps and the urn are separate income on top of the wave (see Neutral camps) — but until you're strong enough to leave, the wave is your bread and butter.
Update history49
- Parrying a trooper now stuns the trooper
- Medic trooper heal duration increased from 2s to 4s (same overall heal amount)
- When receiving multiple of the Medic trooper orb the duration will now be added ontop rather than stacking directly (so picking up 4 in a row will give the regen over 16s instead of over 4s, overall heal is the same just slower)
- Medic Trooper heal increased from 12% missing hp to 13%
- Guardian
- Medic Trooper missing health percent heal reduced from 14% to 12%
- Medic Trooper fixed regen growth per minute reduced from 3 to 2
- Walker: Bonus Health Reduced from +175 to +125
- Medic Trooper missing health percent heal reduced from 16% to 14%
- Medic Trooper fixed regen growth per minute reduced from 4 to 3
- Guardian
- Middle Lane troopers now gets upgraded when either of the shrines die, rather than only when both die
- Trooper wave interval increased from every 25s to every 20s starting at 35 minutes
- Added a neutral camp (2 Normal, 3 Weak) at Hidden King Park Walker
- Added a neutral camp (2 Normal, 3 Weak) at Archmother York Walker
Raw dataidentity & API
identity
- id
- mechanic_lanes_and_troopers
- slug
- lanes-and-troopers
- category
- economy
- flowStage
- laning
- aliases
- lane, laning, troopers, creeps, minions, lane creeps, wave, wave equilibrium, freeze, freezing the wave, push the wave, ranged trooper, melee trooper, medic trooper, banner trooper, линия, лайнинг, крипы, волна
- sourcePath
- manual:mechanics/lanes-and-troopers
- updatedAt
- 2026-06-06T00:00:00.000Z