Soul orbs & denies
Only about 40% of every trooper kill is up for grabs as a deniable orb — shoot it to lock it in before the enemy steals it; the other 60% is yours no matter what.
When you kill a trooper its souls split in two: roughly 60% falls as a ground orb that's guaranteed to your team, and about 40% floats up as a deniable orb either side can shoot. Confirming your floating orbs and denying the enemy's is the single biggest skill gap in the laning phase.
Where a trooper's souls go
A trooper kill splits its bounty into two orbs. About 40% flies up as the deniable orb — the one both teams can shoot. The other ~60% drops as a ground orb that auto-travels to any allied hero within 18 m and cannot be denied; it lingers ~18 s early game, growing +2 s per minute up to 40 s after the 10-minute mark. The floating orb defaults to your team if nobody touches it, so shooting (or meleeing) it doesn't add souls — it banks them instantly and slams the enemy's window to deny shut. If an enemy puts a round into your floating orb first, they deny it: you get zero from that orb and its full value goes to them. Souls also share with crowding allies — solo you bank 100%, but with a 2nd / 3rd / 4th / 5th / 6th hero on the kill each share drops to 54% / 36% / 25% / 20% / 16%, so stacking bodies on one wave costs you souls. Every secure and every deny also chips a bullet back into your magazine.
How to play it
Treat the floating orb as a second trigger pull: last-hit the trooper, then immediately tap its orb. Against a passive laner you can let orbs auto-bank, but the moment an enemy is in range and watching, confirm every single orb by hand — a missed confirm is a free deny for them. Watch their orbs the same way: when the enemy last-hits, you have the identical window to deny, and a clean deny is a double swing — they lose ~40% of that kill and you pocket it. Manage ammo so you never click empty over an orb (Extended Magazine and the ammo-back-on-secure both help); melee can confirm an orb point-blank to save bullets, and Close Quarters plus tight positioning lets you contest orbs deep in the lane you'd otherwise miss. Above all, stay within 18 m of your dying troopers so the guaranteed 60% ground orb actually reaches you — orbs you walk away from expire. Don't double-up in a duo lane for the souls alone: the 54%-each share penalty quietly bleeds your economy.
Why denies swing the lane
A secure plus a deny is a true double swing: +40% of a trooper to you and -40% off the enemy on a single kill. Stacked across a wave, that builds a souls lead with nobody ever dying — that's how lanes are won 'for free.' Because only the 40% floating orb is deniable, even a flawless enemy caps out at stealing ~40% of a wave; your 60% ground orbs are safe as long as you collect them, which makes positioning to scoop ground orbs more valuable than winning every deny duel. Souls compound straight into power: item tiers cost 800 / 1600 / 3200 / 6400, so a handful of denied orbs each wave is often the gap between hitting your next tier on time or a full minute late. Late in laning the ground orb hangs around up to 40 s, so you can take a fight or an objective and still sweep your guaranteed souls after — but deniable orbs vanish in seconds, so those you confirm in the moment, every time.
Update history14
- Very small tweaks to the secure/deny lag calculation to improve it
- Fixed a bug causing soul orb shots towards the end of the contested window to not register as hits on the server
- Soul Orb auto claim radius reduced from 40m to 35m
- The soul orb securer's advantage over denier has been reduced.
- Soul orb spawn delay range increased from 0.2-0.7 to 0.4-0.7
- Soul orb size increased by 10%
- Soul orb lag compensation buffer increased from 120ms to 140ms
- Soul Orb spawn delay increased a bit and added some variability
Raw dataidentity & API
identity
- id
- mechanic_soul_orbs_and_denies
- slug
- soul-orbs-and-denies
- category
- economy
- flowStage
- laning
- aliases
- soul orb, securing, secure orb, confirm souls, secure souls, unsecured souls, deny, denying, soul deny, soul steal, steal orb, ground orb, deniable orb, proximity souls, last-hit orb
- sourcePath
- manual:mechanics/soul-orbs-and-denies
- updatedAt
- 2026-06-06T00:00:00.000Z