Deadlock’s March 6 Update Reworks Objectives, Economy, and Much of the Item Meta

Valve's March 6, 2026 Deadlock gameplay update reads less like a weekly balance patch and more like a broad structural reset. The official notes touch objective pacing, late-game pushes, bounty values, map clarity, item efficiency, and hero tuning all at once, which means the patch is likely to alter not just numbers but the rhythm of matches.

The biggest shifts are around shrine and base progression. The first shrine is now easier to kill while the second is harder, changing shrine HP from 8100 to a 5000/10000 structure depending on which one remains. Shrines also no longer hit heroes standing underneath them. Super trooper bonus DPS rises from +40% to +60%, middle lane troopers upgrade when either shrine dies instead of waiting for both, and killing a pair of base guardians now spawns a zipline-boosted trooper wave to reinforce the push.

Valve also retuned the economy around major objectives. Guardian bounty moves from 1000 to 1500, walker bounty from 3500 to 4000, and shrine bounty from 0 to 2000. Mid Boss base bounty climbs from 2000 to 3000 while HP rises from 11900 to 13000, and the global announcement threshold drops from 70% to 50%. Rejuv drop duration also falls from 7s to 6s, which changes how long teams can safely contest that reward window.

Key changes

A new T1 Spirit item called Golden Goose Egg has been added.

The minimap now shows whether the Urn is favored, neutral, or unfavored.

Two new neutral camps were added near Hidden King Park Walker and Archmother York Walker.

The patch includes a very large pass across items, sustain tools, mobility, and hero kits.

The item and hero sections reinforce the same message. Valve did not just trim a few outliers. It changed lifesteal, resist, cooldown, movement, melee, and sustain interactions across a wide slice of the shop, then followed that with a long list of hero-specific changes. For players trying to read the meta, the important conclusion is simple: post-patch Deadlock should be treated as a fresh baseline, not as a small continuation of the previous balance state.