Deadlock stats have revealed that one of the highest pick rate characters also has the game’s lowest win rate, with her struggling to win matches. But is this because she’s bad?
Valve’s new MOBA shooter isn’t even fully available yet, but Deadlock already has a sizeable and dedicated player base. Those lucky enough to have access have largely positive feedback, praising its gameplay, characters, and more.
One of the most popular characters so far is Vindicta, a long-range specialist whose backstory ties her to the Salem Witch Trials and the supernatural. According to Tracklock, Vindicta currently has the third-highest pick rate at 85.64%, putting her behind only Seven (91.38%) and Haze (87.44%).
However, players have discovered that she also has the lowest win rate of all heroes in the game right now.
While this certainly looks bad for Vindicta, commenters responding to the Reddit post can explain why she appears to be struggling.
“Vindicta is just a victim of being very popular,” said one commenter, adding “good players with good aim absolutely dominate with her.”
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Given that Vindicta’s abilities are so reliant on the player’s skill level – our own tier list even says “Vindicta would be in C-Tier if it weren’t for one thing: Her ultimate” – it makes sense that her high pick rate would work against her in such a major way. She’s marked as an easy character, but Vindicta is anything but.
The way her ultimate works is, when Vindicta gets a kill with her sniper, she gets bonus Souls. And, when you max that ability out early, she gets 850 souls per Assassinate kill. If you snowball early, she can roll through games, but playing this way is a huge gamble and requires pinpoint accuracy.
On top of that, another user added that she’s “the squishiest character in the game so it’s very easy to farm inexperienced vindicta players.”
This is far from the first time this has happened to a popular character in a competitive game. Other commenters compared Vindicta’s situation to that of Dota 2‘s Shadow Fiend or League of Legends‘ Yasuo.
Fortunately for Vindicta fans, it’s still early days for Deadlock. The devs are already introducing balancing adjustments in updates like the August 29 patch, so future changes could make her more powerful or easier to use.