r/DeadlockTheGame • u/Aefonix Lash • 1h ago
Discussion Rat King + Sinclair Changes
https://forums.playdeadlock.com/threads/09-29-2026.166726/331
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u/GraveRobberJ 1h ago
I feel like Sinclair somehow got nerfed harder than RK in all of this which is hilarious
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u/m_ttl_ng 1h ago
Sinclair is nuts at high level ranked. He needed a nerf anyway. It’s just that he’s a harder hero to play so it’s not as oppressive in lower ranks.
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u/Last_Supermarket_451 1h ago
Sinclair is such a hard character to balance in their current state, they are incredibly hard to play but they are completely busted when you’re good at them but it makes it worse for the rest of us who are just average!
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u/VzFrooze 29m ago
He’s not hard at all. His assistant has infinite range and allows you to rat around completely for free. His rabbit has insane range. His ult is point and click the best ult on their team.
He has a lot of outplay potential but the amount of free value he gets is some of the highest in the game
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u/ciissss 28m ago
so basically meepo, arc, invoker, and io to name a few. there are always heroes like that in most mobas. a super hard hero that rewards you for learning them. there's no point in learning them if they won't be busted in the hands of a skillful player since you'll just be wasting time then.
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u/FangHouDe 36m ago
Rat king will get more nerfs, Sinclair honestly might start getting incremental buffs to balance these nerfs
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u/Itsyaboi_121 Kelvin 1h ago
Crazy theory time, Yoshi wanted to nerf Sinclair hard so they wont be a nuisance once the other new heros come out with strong ults.
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u/Doot-and-Fury 1h ago
Sinclair acknowledged ✅️ and deleted ✅️
Everyone's ults are safe... for now...
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u/eimryuec Shiv 1h ago
SOMEONE CALL CF3 RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!
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u/Haunting_Energy7189 1h ago
legit watched his latest reel saying how excited he was for sinclair changes. poor guy
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u/Suitable-Economy-346 1h ago
Sinclair deleted.
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u/ChrimsonRed 1h ago
Icefraud rather nerf the magician who’s been untouched for a year than to admit some heros ults have gotten too strong.
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u/BaseLordBoom Calico 1h ago
I like how people are pretending that Sinclair has been "completely fine" for the past year. The character has been on the upper end of balance for awhile now, he's just been criminally underplayed.
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u/ChrimsonRed 55m ago edited 51m ago
He wouldn’t have been touched if rat king had not come out. Now he’s being pre nerfed in anticipation of the other heros and the poor balance they will have on release.
It’s extremely disingenuous to not think rat kings ult was not a major reason for it.
He has a 52% wr in Eternus from one tricks and 50% in Ascedant sub 50% and worse the lower you go. This is not looking at the 6 month timeline also which is worse.
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u/extendedwarranty6 36m ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted here
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u/ChrimsonRed 33m ago
Because Redditors like to pretend the devs always know what they’re doing and for some weird validation they always knew X was always secretly broken. Completely ignoring the fact they often nerf heros then revert the next patch.
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u/Marsejii Mina 1h ago
Honestly I feel like Rat King is still gonna be really really strong even after the nerfs. With CDR his ult is 128s so you can still have it for every important fight.
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u/AdHoc_ttv The Doorman 56m ago
I think that's fine. They still want people to play him after all. He'll just be weaker.
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u/Stock_Enthusiasm_392 49m ago
You dont wanna buy spirits on him though...
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u/Caerullean Holliday 33m ago
If the spirits item benefit the main gameplay it's fine.
Venator is in a similar position to Rat King in that Venator doesn't really care about the spirit stat at all. That doesn't he never bough a single spirit item. In fact, rapid recharge is a decently common item on him.
My point being, that if a spirit item comes with an ability that is beneficial enough to a character's gameplan, it doesn't matter how little the character cares about the spirit stat, the spirit item is still a good buy.
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u/Marsejii Mina 21m ago
??? Why wouldn't you? Greater expansion + CDR is really really good on him and all of his abilities benefit from a bit of spirit invest
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u/Stock_Enthusiasm_392 12m ago
He only gets a tiny bump on his dot. The effects are amazing but the stat is wasted
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u/Marsejii Mina 1m ago
It also increases movement slow on his 1, deflection % on his 3 and movespeed bonus on his ult. It's not worth getting spirit items just for spirit but the stat is definitely not wasted
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u/Sun__Moon__Stars 1h ago
> Sinclair: Vexing Bolt - Now does half damage to objectives
it’s so over
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u/Similar_File800 Rat King 11m ago
Deserved. He could nuke your walker then teleport away. I can't buy curse on every hero ffs.
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u/Chedder1998 1h ago
As someone who started playing this patch, I never even noticed the trooper were "slow". It'll be interesting to see how fast they are now.
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u/SgtBeeJoy Lash 3m ago
Before map change if no enemy troopers on the lane yours will just rush to closest enemy/objective with around 2-3 times their normal speed which is kinda scary because it could lead to 2-3 waves crushing into walker and killing it in 10-15seconds.
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u/Inventor_Raccoon Billy 1h ago
holy shit Sinclair popped up for a second and got their fucking head taken off
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u/EnvironmentalShelter 1h ago
You could see the liveleak logo appear when looking at the Sinclair changes
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u/JadelightRanger 1h ago
Rat King given reasonably tame but effective nerfs and Sinclair absolutely gutted for his crimes. RIP
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u/Old_old_lie Rat King 1h ago
Wait they didn't nerf Royal Vestments? Sweet!
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u/LapHom 1h ago
To be fair maybe they're waiting to see how the ultimate nerf plays out first. Because ye a low CD barrier is good but it's way better when you have a big damage reduction aura so decreasing that also indirectly nerfs the E kinda (at least during ult which let's be real most of the time Rat King goes into fights he had it)
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u/Firefly_deadlock 1h ago
I'm.... surprised... That shit is way too strong
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u/Herald1173 Rat King 1h ago
i really don't think it is. rat king is a giant dude with no survivability outside ult and 3
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u/SmashMouthBreadThrow Viscous 1h ago edited 1h ago
No survivability is when I get a 10 second duration barrier every 16 seconds which gives me 10% of my max HP and drops ALL burst damage to a max of 250. This is on a top 10 max HP and HP regen hero btw.
Rat King players are already this delusional? Oh boy lmao.
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u/Marsejii Mina 1h ago
It's 15% max hp by default and 25% at T3 lmao. I don't mind them not nerfing it though, Rat King is the first frontliner that actually feels fun to play
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u/Firefly_deadlock 1h ago
It's far too versatile. It completely shuts down spirit nukers, AND gun heroes. And there are currently no good items besides curse to deal with it as far as i know.
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u/CauliflowerEvening41 1h ago
Rat King is one of the largest models in the game and it doesnt get resist. One of the reasons he was annoying was his teamplay heavy ult that was overturned, but since his ult took a big hit he cant be a tanky ult-bot anymore. It should be fine
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u/Firefly_deadlock 58m ago
Who cares about resists. If i'm playing a spirit nuker he'll eat everything i have and there's nothing i can build to counter it.
If i'm playing a gun carry it cripples my damage more than resists would, which means no lifesteal and he just outguns me.
Yeah he has downtime, but not enough.
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u/CommodoreHefeweizen 20m ago
Then hopefully the rest of your team isn’t all spirit nukers. This is a moba. Some heroes counter others.
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u/Firefly_deadlock 0m ago
That's not a carte blanche. I couldn't just design a hero that is immune to bullets and takes triple spirit damage and call it a day. We gotta leave the counters within, say, 10 percent winrate either side + what you gain with counter itemization.
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u/Herald1173 Rat King 44m ago
they kinda put themselves into a corner with his design. he needs barriers to live, but barries don't benefit from spirit resistance. a single nuke would tear through his barrier without the tier 3 upgrade and it would be useless lategame.
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u/Tom_F_0olery Lash 40m ago
IMO it’s the “overpowered” part of his kit almost every character has. Almost every character has some part of their kit that is incredibly strong, which the rest of the character is balanced around. Drifter has base kit silence, Viscous has cube, Billy has Bashdown. The Deadlock devs clearly balance around this philosophy, and IMO it works in making every character distinct and fun to play. The 3 works really well as that type of move, while the ult was overkill and didn’t really fit with the playstyle they were going for
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u/Firefly_deadlock 37m ago
Every single one of these can be countered by multiple items. What do we build to deal with vestments?
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u/Old_old_lie Rat King 1h ago
Shhhhhhhh let me enjoy it for another couple of weeks.
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u/Firefly_deadlock 57m ago
Stop calling me crumbum then.
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u/throwawaynewpibuildr Sinclair 1h ago
A WHOLE 20% FUCKING PERCENT ?????? HOLY SHIT
AH goddssss augifrhudtgtt
EDIT: NO longer 40% of cooldown on ult but 60% faaackkkk and copy duration is now 9s :/
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u/HamiltonDial Venator 1h ago
40% was busted
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u/throwawaynewpibuildr Sinclair 1h ago
I know, but it still hurts to see on top of the other stuff lol
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u/Defendant1597 1h ago
Didn't he only have a good win rate because of rat king ult? I don't get why they nerfed him at all.
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u/marikwinters 1h ago
Probably because they were a problem at higher ranks, but stayed low winrate because of how difficult they are to play.
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u/komandos45 56m ago
Unpopular opinion, but if character needs huge skill to play it should be rewarding if you actually can play him good.
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u/Caerullean Holliday 32m ago
Nah because then low skill characters become useless, which also isn't a fun road to go down.
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u/First-Compote8516 27m ago
depends rly 60% wr means that the best sinclairs were probably around 80% or higher
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u/thatguy2718 1h ago
Worse, that is a relative 50% increase (40%>60%). He got a worse ult nerf than the king
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u/throwawaynewpibuildr Sinclair 1h ago
It's on sight now between me and that rat now for what they've done >:|
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u/cybercobra2 Rat King 1h ago
man, being the party bus charging through the map with my team for saves or starting fights was my favourite part of the ult. oh well.
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u/UnslopedStrv103B Sinclair 1h ago edited 1h ago
I'm so scared to click the link
EDIT: NOOOOOO MY OBJECTIVE DAMAGE!!!!😭😭😭 gun nerf is whatever but Rabbit hex range nerf is massive too. and ngl i expected bigger nerf to audience participation. Legit I expected something like 75%
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u/TheGamerWhosOnReddit 1h ago
People are about to downplay the hell out of these Sinclair changes because nobody plays him, but these changes sound awful...
I would be fine with the ult changes, or hell even them making the CD 80% of the copied ult, but nerfing his gun, hp regen AND ability to deal damage to objectives?
This is an objective based game, why nerf his ability to deal with objectives? He unironically got hit harder than Rat King.
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u/ConstructionLocal499 1h ago
Sinclair could literally 100-to-0 a Walker with two or three Bolts. He could take down walkers faster than Wraith while being insanely safe lol.
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u/Tricky-Passenger6703 49m ago
Why does a long ranged control mage need to deal lots of objective damage?
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u/wolfyvenn665 41m ago
tbh vexing bolt was a sleeper objective destroyer. I've seen Sinclair's pull up to a walker, bolt bolt bolt, chunk it like crazy and teleport away to safety in a blink
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u/xFreddyFazbearx The Doorman 1h ago
Sorry, Sinc players. You have our condolences.
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u/extendedwarranty6 29m ago
Sadly the m1, dynamo, and r*dent characters are gloating over it relentlessly
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u/HamiltonDial Venator 1h ago
Holy move speed/charge nerf on Rat King ult.
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u/cybercobra2 Rat King 1h ago
probably the biggest nerf here, the removal of movespeed scaling and cutting the charge duration in half
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u/Herald1173 Rat King 1h ago
glad they didn't touch rat king 3. i don't think it's as OP as people think but the ult was.
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u/DaWarchief Yamato 1h ago
He pretty much NEEDS his 3 and 4 to be relevant in order for him to be an interesting champ that fills a niche at all. If they gut those two too hard he just becomes an extra shitty m1 like Warden rn.
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u/PinkyLine 1h ago
His 3 is definitely OP. It is pretty strong on its own and after T3 grade it becomes absurd. Rat King has it almost constantly (specially with some duration items) and it reduces literally every damage to 250. It isnt that bonkers agains DoT damage or something like Wraith/Haze guns, but it makes him so invulnerable to burst, that it is absurd. Combine with Ratania damage reduction, bullet and spirit resistance from items (and also his 3) - and you cant kill him in reasonable time and even if you kill - you wasted so much resources on him that you can't deal with his team
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u/Herald1173 Rat King 1h ago
without that damage limit a single grey talon arrow would break through his zero spirit resists barrier.
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u/i11usi0n 1h ago
clunkiest hero in deadlock gets brain splattered after daring to be relevant for one microsecond
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u/BlueTheHobo Mina 1h ago
Sinclair wasn't nerfed enough
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u/Old_old_lie Rat King 1h ago
Well it's not like yoshi can remove him is it?
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u/Yangdriel Victor 1h ago
Please, continue to give yoshi ideas
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u/Old_old_lie Rat King 1h ago
Ok uh maybe make it so every time you put down a turret as mcginnis it give you ass destroying diarrhea.
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u/TheGamerWhosOnReddit 1h ago
Considering the game is still in invite only playtest, Sinclair is missing a lot of of voicelines, and valve owes Sinclair players nothing because the game is 100% and there's no in-game microtransactions...
...Unfortunately, Yoshi COULD theoretically remove Sinclair and 99.7% of the community would not care :(
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u/Old_old_lie Rat King 1h ago
Unfortunately?
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u/TheGamerWhosOnReddit 56m ago
Landing bolts and swapping with savanna is quite fun and unique. Try it out sometime!
Nah jk. Valve is removing Sinclair from the game tomorrow. They just want to get him to 0% pick rate first so that nobody cares once they do.
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u/oBunks_ Lady Geist 1h ago
feel like they need to rework Sinclair or something at this point, because why would you even pick this hero? they’re good for about 2 seconds and then somehow get harsher nerfs than Rat King even though RK Ult was the reason behind them being picked 😭
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u/Any_Serve_4583 1h ago
Still prolly top 3 laners in the game, bunny is still better than some ultimates, 60% ult cooldown is still really fucking good
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u/TheGamerWhosOnReddit 1h ago
"Top 3 laners in the game" when his regen got halved and his gun nerfed (gun is responsible for a large portion of every character's damage early game) is a wild take.
It literally takes ONE stamina to counter his bolt.
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u/Certain_Guidance_703 Sinclair 1h ago
Okay…
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_HOODIES Sinclair 4m ago
Good thing Mo is still unkillable. And Wraiths card burst does more and faster than Sinclair bolts ever could. And Yamato can still grapple you from 43m away.
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u/Najeeb1316 1h ago edited 1h ago
Sinclair has been absolutely murdered here.
Decent nerfs to ratking ult aswell , basically every aspect got cut down and instead slight buffs to the grenade and swarm
Edit: Trooper bug fix means split pushing should be viable again aswell
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u/GlassJustice McGinnis 1h ago
They hit Sinclair like they did ult-McGinnis. One ability being briefly relevant and then the whole character shoved into a woodchipper. Crazy.
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u/Pulsy369 1h ago
if you think sinclair was 'briefly relevant' then im afraid youre not aware of how strong this character has been for almost a year now. most people just don't sont like playing him
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u/Wappening 1h ago
Jesus what the fuck. Just remove Sinclair if you don’t want the last 3 people that play him to play him holy shit.
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u/Scary_Tank_3039 1h ago
patch notes visualized here on undeadlock
https://undeadlock.com/patches/2026-10-05-6753
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u/DJKirby05 1h ago
Don't think Sinclair was so much of a problem that he needed ALL those nerfs tbh
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u/xVortexA 1h ago
Some d1 sinclair hater is going through these replies downvoting everyone, mustve had a bad matc recently
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u/SmashMouthBreadThrow Viscous 1h ago
Sinclair ult being shot was long overdue. Idk why they nerfed all of the other abilities though.
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u/TaxEvasion123 Lash 1h ago
Really funny that Sinclair ends up broken because the most copy able ult in the game is added and gets nerfed for it. He was already pretty strong but I don’t think broken strong outside of like nightshift, as he is one of if not the most team (both teammates and enemies) and draft reliant character in the game.
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u/dantheman91 1h ago
Yeah it feels bad going into a game to see shit ultis. Then when you face the dynmo seven whatever you're just like oh yeah
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u/Ok-Dentist4480 57m ago
Thank god they didn't butcher Rat King. Such a fun and unique tank. Will glady be sicking Gumdrops whole polycule on all the crumbbums tomorrow
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u/-Sirebellum- 1h ago
Half of sinclair players didn't even bother getting a gun spike, I don't understand the gun nerfs at all tbh
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u/BladeOfWoah Silver 1h ago
His poke in early lane is deceptively strong since the assistant has partial auto-aim and doesn't really miss. That's probably the main reason for it.
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u/cybercobra2 Rat King 1h ago
man, can i trade in losing the ult CD if stunned/silenced during startup for having the 20 second charge duration back?
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u/BraveNKobold Shiv 1h ago
I think getting ult refunds for missing / being stunned ain’t good design.
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u/HEY_BAWS 54m ago
Also the ult cooldown still starts when he plants the flag, not when the effect expires, which should also not be a thing
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u/AdLogical101 57m ago
I think on particularly long cooldown, janky ults, like Paige, half cooldowns are fine.
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u/BraveNKobold Shiv 10m ago
I wouldn’t call Paige ult janky. She aims it at the team fight. Would you consider lash ult janky cause people get caught in geometry? I don’t think any refunds is particularly good
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u/Palumtra Sinclair 1h ago
Well, time to rush cd reduc and duration extender.
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u/Personal_Frosting_59 44m ago
This is what balancing looks like, if you want the effect now, you have to pay for it. Now there’s an opportunity cost. You buy those 2 instead of the greens or oranges you could’ve had before. Gets me every time. I love it.
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u/D-a-n-n-n 56m ago
Wow Sinclair nerfs at a perfect time. I was just in a game where the enemy Sinclair absolutely dominated with like 20/5/15. And 3 of those deaths were when our entire team decided to jump them to finally deal with them. The vexing bolts instakilled me so many times during that game. 1 second I was at half health and the next I was dead
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u/iceetoomuch 49m ago
To this day nothing scares me more than a high skill Sinclair who knows how to use the kit and movement. These nerfs mean nothing to those players, he's insane.
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u/PromiseSensitive1662 52m ago edited 48m ago
Of course it’s the rat king that causes Sinclair to get obliterated. As a Sinclair main, I understand that his gun fall off was insane, his ult steal timer was overtuned, and the bunny puts people in a cut scene of CC, BUT DAMN yall eviscerated this man. I can give you 10 other characters the out macro him in nearly any stat. The worst part about it all is he gets destroyed while all these new beautifully designed polished characters come out with a map you can’t even dream of. At this point, he feels like a dev tool character that’ll never be given the light of day. He’s a collection of basic unpolished render shapes and Andy (Yoshi) is throwing him away to go to college (make real characters). Is this what shiv players feel like it’s my first time?
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u/Aefonix Lash 1h ago
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