A new Deadlock update completely transforms laning and progression, and I'm not sure Valve knows the meaning of 'small'

When you look at a game's Steam page and see the 'small update' tag, it can be easy to assume it's some bug fixes and minor tweaks. I didn't expect to open the new Deadlock update and find myself staring at more than 240 lines of changes, therefore, let alone ones that completely transform the entire flow of the laning phase. The hero-shooter MOBA is still very much in the experimental phase, of course, and years of Dota 2 have taught me that Valve is certainly no stranger to dropping dramatic overhauls on our heads, yet this one managed to catch me off guard. If you're playing Deadlock, you'll want to pay close attention.

The new Deadlock patch notes are big and bold, ranging from item alterations to balance changes across the full roster of Deadlock characters, and they start with a bang right at the top. Instead of granting you half of their souls immediately on kill, troopers will now drop it on the ground, and one member of your team must get within 18 meters to suck it up. It'll last on the floor for 18 seconds initially, scaling up to 40, and can't be grabbed by your opponents (but they can see its location). The floating, deniable orb remains the same, although its value has been dropped slightly from 50% to 40% of the total souls.

In practice, that means players can no longer farm lanes from a long distance; at least one of you will have to get in close (though, once collected, souls are shared between teammates as normal). In addition to this, the medic troopers have lost their healing ability, and will now drop a medic pack on the ground when defeated. This has the same 18m pickup range and duration as the soul orb, and heals everyone in a 30 meter radius when absorbed. Alongside this, the starting soul count has been raised from 400 to 600, and trooper bounties increased by 10%.

There are nerfs for characters including Holliday, Mina, Paradox, and Kelvin. The ice specialist suffers in particular, with dramatically lower base bullet velocity and the loss of his big cooldown decrease on Frozen Shelter. The likes of Abrams, Lash, Billy, Wraith, and Dynamo see buffs, while others such as Ivy and Bebop have a mix of ups and downs. I'm also pleased to see that Mirage can now use his ult, Traveler, on friendly objectives as well as heroes, giving him much more flexibility.

There's a similar range of changes on the item side of things. Many items that provide cooldown reduction have had those effects lessened (or in the case of Echo Shard, removed entirely). Some lesser-used options get bumped up slightly, while more popular choices see nerfs; perhaps most notably, Split Shot has had its cooldown more than doubled from 14 to 32 seconds, a change that's been long needed.

Elsewhere, damage resistance for Guardians and Walkers has been adjusted, with the latter in particular likely to feel much more tanky. Valve has also "reworked the position of your player camera and various details that affect visibility around your hero." I suspect it'll take a bit of testing to work out exactly what this one means and how it impacts play, so get in there and start figuring things out.

This Deadlock update is live now. You can read through the complete patch notes courtesy of Valve if you're planning to jump back in, and if you've been considering doing so then now's an ideal time. After all, everyone's going to be puzzling out the new meta together.