Deadlock's latest set of changes is mostly hero buffs and nerfs, part of a change of schedule that's seen the devs dish out bigger updates less frequently. The bulk of hero changes are focused on newer additions like Vyper, Holliday, Calico, and Sinclar. Calico's Leaping Slash ability has been reworked a little, making the area of effect more accurate and updating it so it can now destroy breakable walls. Her Ava ability has also been changed with a shorter cooldown and a speed reduction, among other updates.
But it's not just the newer heroes that are getting tweaked. Haze got a couple of buffs to Bullet Dance, Grey Talon's Spirit Snare got buffed, Kelvin's Arctic Beam now also slows roll distance by 20%, and Shiv's Serrated Knives now pass through Soul Orbs to hit one more target.
That last change was especially notable for one player. Some updates are easier to predict than others, especially when it comes to heroes with overpowered or seriously weak abilities. But someone managed to predict Shiv's new knives a couple of days before the change was announced.
"So three days ago, I made this suggestion post, and everybody here hated it," says redditor KarlKaiser47. "Now it's in the game!" The original post saw the player suggest that it could be neat if the devs could make abilities like Shiv or Geist's knives still secure souls but then also travel through them so they can hit one more target.
"Find it annoying when you kill a creep or your laning partner kills it, and then you try to throw a knife at the enemy, but it gets absorbed by the soul. It could also make for some cool trick shots where you secure the soul and hit someone at the same time."
While this didn't get a whole lot of traction, the other players who commented on the idea clearly weren't too fond of it. Someone else jokes that if the devs implement this, then they may as well "make it go through the wall, too," or "add an automatic aimbot so you can never miss." While others just said that this change would be the same as bullets passing through enemies.
Well: We're going to find out! And making slightly wacky changes like this is one of the benefits of still being in a playtest: Nothing's set in stone yet, and it's better that the developers experiment with ideas and heroes now while it's still in production.
"In case anyone is still on the fence, this is the time for them to add quirky, fun shit because it sounds fun; nothing matters right now," another player says. "It might have consequences, it might not, but they can make sweeping changes without having any degree of hesitation on how it impacts a single thing. They're free to do fun shit."
I'm not entirely sure we can attribute this new Shiv change to this one comment alone, but the timing of everything is certainly amusing. And who knows, maybe the developers like to troll for zany ideas bouncing around in Reddit or Discord, and there's no shortage of recommendations to test out.
