The first time you boot up Deadlock, you’re going to be prompted to play a tutorial to learn the bare minimum of how things work in the Cursed Apple. And this game is absolutely complicated enough that everyone, myself included, will highly recommend you indulge that offer. You will find yourself playing a cackling electricity-ridden scarecrow with a satellite dish for a head, and the first thing I remember thinking was, “aabicus, under no circumstances are you allowed to main the tutorial guy. Any other character, sure, but there’s nothing lamer than playing the easy class clearly designed for noobs.”
I mentioned in a previous article that my favorite character in Deadlock is Ivy, and that is absolutely still true. I’d gladly play her every single game if I could. But Deadlock has a “Hero Pool” mechanic where you must select multiple characters to queue up as. Luckily I can set Ivy as priority, but that means I need to continue my tradition of having an offclass for those times I can’t nab my main. Historically, I’ve always gone for AoE generalists with average stats across the board and easy-to-use kits. And in the end, after trying and falling out of love with almost a dozen hopefuls, I inevitably found myself coming back to Seven until I eventually gave up and embraced the storm cloud.
Right off the bat, I must admit that he does not share Ivy’s commendable versatility. You are not gonna be building Gun Sevens or Support Sevens, you’re gonna be building Spirit Sevens. But instead, he’s really good at the things he’s good at, specifically AoE damage and minion/creep farming. The enemy will struggle to get close, they’ll struggle to outpace you in killing waves, and they’ll struggle to find a team fight where you aren’t earning your keep tagging multiple enemies with any number of debilitating effects and blasts of lightning. If you just want to deal mad damage and see how many assist kills you can rack up every match, you really can’t go wrong with Seven. He’s great for new players who want a hero they can figure out quickly and then focus on learning Deadlock.
A Note on Seven’s Stats
To avoid burying the lede, I’m gonna open with what I consider Seven’s biggest liability, his abysmal starting health regeneration. He’s actually in the worst regen bracket at a measly 1 hp/sec, so you’re gonna need to buy some early healing items to counteract this weakness. Most Seven builds I see lean into this literally and stack items that grant more regen. There’s a ton of them and you can very effectively do so, but I just use my beloved Healing Rite and it gets the job done. Aside from this one deficiency, he otherwise has very average stats in stamina, healthpool, spirit power, melee etc. letting you build in any direction you like when it comes to item choice. (He even gets a 55% crit resistance to compensate for his oversized head hitbox!)
And now, let’s cover all the features in his ozone-inducing kit:
0. Cold Calculus
Not bound to any specific ability is Seven’s gun, a burst-fire rifle that is one of the easiest weapons to use in the game. It has barely any recoil and great control when moving, letting you focus on tracking targets over managing firing patterns. I don’t normally enjoy burst-fire rifles, but this time the bursts factor into how ability #3 works, so I’m less bothered as it has a mechanical reason to shoot that way.
1. Lightning Ball
This ability is so fun! Whether you build it up or just leave it in your back pocket, there are few things more satisfying than flinging a ball of lightning that flies in a straight line until hitting either an enemy or a map object. If it hits an enemy, it’ll keep moving, just slower, meaning you can hurt as many targets as are lined up in a row. These balls melt minion waves or creep camps, and are no slouch at zoning off hallways or disrupting enemy pushes either.
2. Static Charge
This ability is designed to punish enemy ambushes. The next time an Abrams or Apollo lands in your face, press 2 to imbue them with an electric charge that, after a short delay, detonates and stuns them while also dealing damage. Probably the most understated of Seven’s abilities, but you’re certainly gonna appreciate it when enemies jump you. Nobody wants to get stunned in the middle of melee combat, and you can spend the few seconds they’re hurriedly repositioning to make some distance yourself. While Seven’s other three abilities are more iconic, this one is still great for your survivability and also complements your area denial capabilities.
3. Power Surge
This ability juices up your gun, letting it deal additional spirit damage that bounces to all other enemies around your hapless target. Because you’re a Spirit Seven, that additional damage will scale to ludicrous numbers, letting you secretly also be a Gun Seven. You just get it all! Many Seven players consider this the hero’s flagship ability, as it is extremely powerful to have all your Spirit stuff proccing off your gunfire, and it triggers every single burst so you can layer this damage on top of itself.
4. Storm Cloud
Seven’s ultimate channels the full power of a thunderstorm, levitating him into the air and carpet-bombing a massive area around him in a deluge of electricity that hits every enemy within it. He additionally can target the ground with a special lightning bolt that deals extra damage and knocks back nearby enemies. While the damage on this storm is commendable (especially if you invest into it), it does leave you something of a sitting duck up there as you can only move at a snail’s pace. (Unless you combo it with an ulting Ivy, that’s right my favorite heroes have synergy!) Either way, this ability brings his area denial specialty front and center in the flashiest way anything could.
Have you noticed a pattern? All of Seven’s abilities are fun, they’re effective, they synergize with each other, and they excel in multiple different use cases and item loadouts. There are extremely popular public builds that prioritize each of the four abilities, juicing any one of them into apocalyptic levels of one-trick devastation, or you can spread the upgrades around and control the entire visible map wherever you go. It all works, you’re Seven! Go zap some foos, maybe with your help we can finally flip that oft-cited statistic and kill more people with lightning than cars.
Aabicus Archives 