Guide to Creating your own Spirit Build in Deadlock

Getting comfortable with creating your own builds in Deadlock to me is one of the best ways to really experience the game in its most full sense and enjoy playing it even more. But it can be really, really daunting, especially for new players.

What I want to do here is walk through, step by step, how to build a spirit-focused Seven, using the exact process I use when I sit down to make a build. This is going to be a Storm Surge (ult) build for Seven, but the structure works for other spirit heroes too.

And yeah, I’m a bit of a smooth brain when it comes to builds, so I like to keep things very simple: one screen, four categories – Early, Mid, Late, and Situational.

Step 1 – Decide Who You’re Building and What You’re Scaling

If you’re going to do a spirit build in Deadlock, you have to start by answering two questions:

1. What hero am I building?

2. What ability (or abilities) am I trying to scale?

Seven is a great spirit hero because he has multiple spirit-damage abilities:

• Lightning Ball

• The stun

• Power Surge

• Storm Surge (ult)

Each of those could lead to a different style of build. A Lightning Ball spam build wants lots of charges and cooldown. A Power Surge-focused build wants spirit amp and jumps. A Grey Talon spirit build is completely different—single-target burst, Spirit Burn, Mystic Reverb, etc.

For this guide, we’re going pure ult build: Storm Surge Seven. Huge zones, massive teamfight impact, objective control.

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Step 2 – Reverse Engineer from the Late Game

I actually like to reverse engineer my builds. Instead of starting at level 1, I ask:

“If everything goes perfectly, what does my Seven look like in the late game?”

For an ult build, my fantasy is:

as large of an ult as possible in the mid to late game to cover huge areas, defend Walkers, attack Walkers, cover all of base if we’re pushing, or defend base if we’re behind.

So I start with a late-game core something like:

• Escalating Exposure – perfect for ticking ult damage, stacking spirit amp.

• Boundless Spirit – raw spirit power, spirit resist, regen.

• Lightning Scroll – stun and lock-down inside the ult, plus HP.

• Transcendent Cooldown – more ults, more often.

That’s our destination. But if you just build only these items, you end up with no weapon, no HP, no early game. So we have to work backwards.

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Step 3 – Early Game: Don’t Be Useless

From those late-game items, I like to pull out their components and see what’s actually useful early. Then I prune.

A realistic, clean early game for Seven might look like:

• Monster Rounds – waveclear and farm; you almost never regret this.

• Spirit Lifesteal – health + spirit power + sustain.

• Enchanter’s Emblem – spirit resist, regen, and cooldown when healthy.

• Mystic Expansion (imbued on ult once you unlock it) – 20% ability range to start scaling your Storm Surge.

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That’s about ~6–7k souls worth of items, which is roughly where most early games end. You’re not a giga-carry yet, but:

• Your gun doesn’t feel awful.

• You’re not insta-dying.

• You have some spirit power and CDR.

• And as soon as you unlock ult, you immediately give it Expansion for that bigger zone.

From there, you can start looking for early opportunities: an expanded ult to defend a Guardian, gank a lane, or bail out a losing fight.

Step 4 – Mid Game: Your Scaling Arc

The mid-game, for this build, is your scaling arc. You’re not fully online yet, but you’re buying items that quietly make your future ults disgusting.

Good mid-game spirit pieces might include:

• Mystic Vulnerability – spirit amp on targets you tag.

• Mystic Slow – keeps people stuck in your ult longer.

• Duration Extender (imbued on ult) – 22% more ult duration on one ability.

• Compressed / Superior Cooldown – more casts of everything, including ult.

By the time you’ve picked up a couple of these, you’re usually around 12–14k souls. That’s about halfway through an average game—and your ult is already starting to feel like a real win condition in fights.

Step 5 – Late Game & Situational Items

Once you’re transitioning into the late game, you start finishing that original core:

• Escalating Exposure

• Boundless Spirit

• Lightning Scroll

• Transcendent Cooldown

On top of that, you layer situational vitality:

• Unstoppable if you’re getting knocked out of ult.

• Kevlar if you want a big barrier + more ability duration instead.

• Debuff Reducer if the enemy team has a lot of CC.

• Bullet Resilience / Suppressor if gun damage is shredding you.

• Refresher as a greedy capstone if you want back-to-back ults and can afford the risk.

You won’t always hit every single item, but having them all laid out on one page—core up top, situational down low—keeps your decisions really clear in actual games.

Step 6 – Ability Order: Keep It Simple

Remember the goal:

Get the ult online fast and make it strong as fast as possible.

A reasonable ability priority for this build might be:

1. Early points into Lightning Ball and Stun so you can farm and fight.

2. Pick up Power Surge and at least one upgrade into the spirit shred.

3. Unlock Storm Surge as soon as realistically possible.

4. Finish ult levels over time as you move into mid/late game.

5. After that, upgrade whichever ability lines up with how you’re actually playing—more slow on Ball, more shred on Surge, etc.

Don’t overcomplicate it. Read what the augments do, and ask:

“Does this make my ult plan better, or am I just taking it because it’s shiny?”

Why Bother Doing All This?

Because the alternative is what most of us have done a million times: you’re ziplining to lane, frantically scrolling community builds, pick one that “kinda does what you want,” and then halfway through the game you realize you have no idea what the build is trying to do.

That gets old.

The best way to play Deadlock, in my opinion, is when you:

• Know what your build is trying to do.

• Know when your power spikes are.

• Know why you’re buying every item.

This spirit Seven ult build is just one example—but the process is the real takeaway. Decide the hero, decide the ability, reverse engineer your late-game fantasy, then fill in the early and mid game with practical, purposeful buys.

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