Deadlock: Mhozo’s Vindicta Assassinate Build / Beginner Guide

Vindicta has a high pick rate but low win rate overall. Most deaths tend to be a result of being dove by too many enemies, and most losses a result of not accumulating enough souls in the early game. In general, think about your movement, awareness, and opportunities:

• Early Game – Prioritize farming souls and have minions or teammates in front of you, especially in the early game. Stay slippery and far away from your enemies – souls are more important until Assassinate is ready.
• Mid Game – Poke enemy short-range heroes, but save stamina to escape their combos. Keep an eye on your minimap at all times (at least once every ten seconds) to track enemies so you can avoid being dove/ganked at a numbers disadvantage. Join nearby team fights wisely (even in other lanes) and finish off low-health enemies with Assassinate.
• Late Game – Continue to use Assassinate to eliminate low health enemy heroes and look for team fights. With enough of a soul lead, and each Assassinate earning you another 850 bonus souls, your weapon and spirit damage can decimate objectives and most opponents and finish the game.

• Range – Poking enemies from afar during the early game laning phase to get poke/chip damage, and range across the map to nearby lanes to Assassinate. Snare, Crow Familiar, and Assassinate all have LoS range, but note your gun still has fall-off damage.
• Burst Damage – Your Assassinate can be a threat to any enemy below 50% HP, and with Spirit burst items and Snare, you can be a threat to lone enemy heroes, especially if you have good aim.
• Soul Snowballing – Vindicta can snowball a lead with Assassinate granting 250 (850 at max) bonus souls per Assassination. Her Assassinate can feel oppressive and control entire regions of the map at higher Spirit power when it threatens kills AND soul leads.

• Horizontal Mobility – Vindicta can use Flight vertically, but has bad horizontal mobility. To counter this, cancel Flight early for some horizontal movement, and use Snare to trap a player that got too close to you.
• Close Range Survivability – Many heroes with close range weapons and abilities can decimate you when they get too close to you. Vindicta’s abilities and playstyle are designed for range, and her low stamina and average health/regen don’t help – so instead purchase stamina/health/regen items and active items (e.g. Warp Stone) to enable you to keep your distance and get out of sticky situations.
• Difficult to Recover – Vindicta needs a strong start in laning/early mid game in souls to build her Assassinate snowball potential, or else she may not feel impactful later. While pressuring the enemy to play passively with damage is useful, be sure to focus on securing and denying souls in the first five minutes; kills are barely a boon that early!

Vindicta does best with both Spirit and Weapon items, as her long range weapon reach can be extended with several Weapon items, and her Crow and Assassinate damage directly benefit from the increased Spirit power and Spirit Damage bonuses from many Spirit items. But don’t neglect Vitality items – they can keep you alive and relevant in more games without being hard countered.

Vindicta’s spread of statistics marks her as a hero focused on damaging with her gun (and abilities!) but with less sustain i.e. what you’d expect from a sniper character. Stay far away from enemy players that are able to CC (crowd control), out-damage, or out-number you, and consider some items to mitigate her lower stamina.

• Vindicta has higher DPS and bullet damage than most heroes, and the highest bullet velocity, but a moderate amount of ammo with only 22 bullets, and a roughly 15% longer reload time than average. Almost every hero’s gun is a projectile weapon including Vindicta, but Vindicta’s high bullet velocity makes shooting with your gun much snappier/more ‘hitscan’ so you don’t usually need a High-Velocity Mag item to shoot from a distance. Always spend time reloading behind cover so you don’t take unnecessary damage, as most enemies can reload faster than you can.
• Despite being a sniper with her gun Wallflower’s Revenge, her melee damage and falloff range are the same as most heroes. Vindicta is just as capable as others of securing souls with melee attacks – or if an enemy player surprises you in close range, as a last resort, a strong melee attack can do a lot of damage in early game!

  Damage scales down starting at about 22 meters, so despite having a sniper rifle, left clicks are less effective at maximum range; you may want to Assassinate enemy heroes to chip their health down at ranges beyond 22 meters.

  

  In the above screenshot, the first Infernus is 22 meters away where damage fall-off range starts. From 0-22 meters, each headshot bullet does 26-28 damage at start of game. Damage scales down the further away you are from your target. The second Infernus is 58 meters away where it ends, and each headshot bullet does 2-4 damage. Without items, most other heroes have the same damage fall-off range with their gun as Vindicta!

  Aim from high ground or from the sky with Flight where it is much easier to hit them than it is for them to hit you. However, that height is also additional distance from your target. The same Infernus at 22 meters away (26-28 damage) can become closer to about 30 meters away (23-24 damage) when you’re in the same spot but 20 feet higher. You may need to fly horizontally closer to your target to maximize damage if they’re on the ground and you’re above them, but most enemy players find it much harder to aim upwards.

  

  With items like Long Range / Sharpshooter, not only is the same Infernus 22 meters away being hit for 37-39 damage (40% Long Range bonus) or 46-48 damage (70% Sharpshooter bonus) with headshot bullets, but Sharpshooter’s 15% weapon fall-off range gives you a few extra meters to snipe before damage fall-off kicks in! Note they must be farther than 15 meters to receive that bonus however. The 15 – 22 meter range is the ideal range for Vindicta with these items, and a few meters farther will not make as much of a difference.

• While she moves slightly faster than average at 8 m/s (most heroes are around 7 m/s), she has average health and health regeneration. Unfortunately Vindicta is one of the only two heroes that start with only two stamina, and the only one that starts with a -10% Bullet Resist stat! Avoid bullet damage by keeping your distance from enemy heroes, and being aware of cover at all times, or purchase a Restorative Shot, or Bullet Armor item. For her stamina and health survivability, invest in Vitality items like Extra Stamina/Superior Stamina and Sprint Boots/Enduring Speed to bring her up to par.

Note this is a static persistent copy of a public build hosted within the game in case in-game guides are reset. To access public guides, play as the hero (Vindicta) in a game or Hero Sandbox, press your Open Shop hotkey (B by default), and click on ‘Browse Builds’ in the upper right corner. Then in the upper left, click the ‘Public’ tab and search for my username or ‘Guide’, or the name of this Steam guide, and click the 🖤 heart icon to favorite this guide so you can find it later in the Favorites tab and try it in game – thank you for your support!

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This build is intended for beginners. It is not optimal for high MMR, it is not tuned to the current meta, and it will not win you every game, but it will help you learn the impact of each item on Vindicta and perhaps inspire you to create your own favorite build. Try these items in Sandbox Mode, and experiment with the build in Private Bot Matches and Public Bot Matches to see what items you like the best.

This build uses Fly/Stake to keep your distance while weak and farming creeps in the early game until you can Assassinate to snowball souls and win!

• First hit enemies with Crow Familiar – due to its percentage HP damage, enemies take more damage if they have more health, so it’s better to use it earlier when they have more health, and 3% or 6% of their health can make a difference.
• Use the item Alchemical Fire with your Stake ability as an essential combo to whittle down enemy hitpoints and trap them in place to make them easier targets for your gunfire.
• When enemy heroes are under 50% HP, you can inflict bonus damage with your Assassinate – when the ability is maxed, you get a +850 total soul bonus to feed your Late Game item purchases.
• Choose your Late Game items based on who you are facing, what items you prefer, what problems enemies are causing you, and whether you can mitigate their carry (highest performer) with the right item in your flex slots. The build outlines several common situations and what items may help you survive, regain souls, and buy what you need.

While playing, prioritize purchasing the non-Optional items in the first three rows, purchase the Optional items as needed, and sell the 500-soul tier 1 items to swap for more impactful late-game items. The build outlines which items are most likely best to sell first (below ‘End Game’).

This guide was last updated on September 12, 2024, version 1.0. Credit to Mobalytics, Doomdicta, Pixels and Games, More Mtashed, BrunoDGames, Dead Air, and various other content creators for their inspiration, guidance, and tips.

Best of luck in your games – you’ll make the world a better place… one body at a time.