Deadlock Patch Analysis - 2026-02-26

This is a data-quality and scaling-fix patch that adds proper Scale Type annotations to several T3 ability upgrades across six released heroes and removes a turret health field from McGinnis. The only item change is a tooltip correction for Spiritual Overflow, whose Cooldown Reduction stat was already present in the data but not shown in the description. If the Scale Type annotations represent newly enabled scaling (rather than display-only fixes), this patch quietly buffs the T3 upgrades of Holliday, The Doorman, Billy, Wraith, and Viscous.

Major Changes Analysis

Spiritual Overflow — Description Fix (No Gameplay Change)

Spiritual Overflow’s tooltip now correctly lists Cooldown Reduction alongside Fire Rate and Spirit Power.

No stat changes occurred. The item already had the following values in both the old and new data:

Impact: Zero gameplay change. Players who read tooltips carefully will now discover that Spiritual Overflow provides significant CDR on top of its Fire Rate and Spirit Power buffs. This makes the item even more attractive for ability-spamming heroes who also benefit from weapon fire (to charge it up). At full stacks, 22% Cooldown Reduction is substantial — comparable to Improved Cooldown (25%) but bundled with offensive stats.

Heroes who benefit most from this awareness: Paradox (Kinetic Carbine weaving), Mirage (Djinn’s Mark + weapon combos), Infernus (Afterburn + sustained fire), and any hybrid spirit/weapon builder who was sleeping on this item’s CDR component.

McGinnis — Mini Turret Health Scaling Removed

The TurretHealthPerBoon field (value: 10) was removed from McGinnis’s Mini Turret ability. This field provided additional flat HP to turrets for each boon (power increase) McGinnis accumulated.

Turret HP at key game stages:

Caveat: It is possible that TurretHealthPerBoon was a deprecated field the engine was already ignoring (with TurretBaseHealth’s own power_increase scaling being the sole source of per-boon HP). If so, this is pure data cleanup with no gameplay impact. However, if the field was active and additive, this represents a significant nerf to turret durability in the mid and late game — turrets become 26-36% squishier depending on game stage.

If this is a real nerf: McGinnis’s turret-centric playstyle takes a meaningful hit. At 20 boons (mid-game), turrets drop from 610 to 410 HP — they’d fall much faster to enemy chip damage, AoE abilities, and focused fire. This would push McGinnis toward more aggressive turret placement (accepting shorter turret lifespans) rather than defensive zone-denial setups where turrets need to survive sustained pressure.

Turret DPS and other stats are unchanged (30 base DPS with +0.39 spirit scaling, 24s lifetime, 25m attack range).

Scale Type Annotations — Six Heroes Affected

The following changes add explicit Scale Type labels to ability scaling values that previously had null types. The scaling coefficients (the Value field within Scale) are unchanged — only the Type annotation was added.

Interpretation matters: If null type meant the engine wasn’t applying any scaling, then these are buffs that enable proper stat scaling on T3 upgrades. If null was simply a missing label that the engine inferred, these are tooltip/data fixes with no gameplay impact. The consistent pattern across many abilities suggests a systematic data fix.

Holliday — Bounce Pad T3 (StompDamage)

If this enables new scaling: At 40 spirit power, T3 StompDamage goes from a flat 67.5 to 67.5 + (0.32 × 40) = 80.4 damage (+19%).

The Doorman — Luggage Cart T3 (WallImpactDamage)

If this enables new scaling: At 40 spirit power, T3 WallImpactDamage goes from a flat 117 to 117 + (0.75 × 40) = 147 damage (+25.6%). This is Luggage Cart’s bonus damage when it slams an enemy into a wall — a significant damage increase for Doorman players who consistently pin enemies against terrain.

Billy — Rising Ram T3 (DealMaxHealthDamagePct)

If this enables new scaling: At 40 spirit power, T3 max-health damage goes from a flat 6.5% to 6.5% + (0.017 × 40) = 7.18% (+10.5%). Against a 2,000 HP target, this is 143.6 damage vs 130 damage — a 13.6 damage increase per hit.

Billy — Bashdown T3 (HeavyMeleeDamage + MeleeDamage)

The HeavyMeleeDamage field now scales with heavy melee damage (0.6 coefficient). MeleeDamage has a 0.0 coefficient, so the melee type annotation has no practical effect. This means Billy’s Bashdown T3 upgrade benefits from heavy melee damage bonuses — items like Melee Charge and Crushing Fists that boost heavy melee damage would now amplify Bashdown’s T3 bonus.

Wraith — Full Auto T2 & T3 (MagicDamagePerBullet)

If this enables new scaling: At 40 spirit power, Full Auto T2’s spirit damage per bullet goes from flat 2.52 to 2.52 + (0.0465 × 40) = 4.38 per bullet (+73.8%). T3 adds an additional (0.0465 × 40) = 1.86 per bullet. With Wraith’s high fire rate during Full Auto, even small per-bullet increases compound rapidly.

Wraith impact estimate at 40 spirit: During a 5-second Full Auto window with ~30 bullets (estimated high fire rate), T2 spirit damage goes from ~75.6 total to ~131.4 total (+55.8 damage). Not game-changing individually, but meaningful over sustained fights and when stacking with other spirit items.

Viscous — Puddle Punch T3 (DamageHeavyMelee + Damage)

Puddle Punch T3 enables heavy melee mode (“UseHeavyMelee”: 1), and its DamageHeavyMelee field now properly scales with heavy melee damage. The Damage field’s -27.0 value with a 0.0 scale coefficient means the melee type annotation has no scaling effect.

If this enables new scaling: Viscous’s T3 Puddle Punch heavy melee hit gains significant scaling. Heavy melee bonuses from items like Melee Charge (+60% heavy melee) and Crushing Fists now properly amplify Puddle Punch T3’s damage.

Theorycrafting

Are the Scale Type Fixes Actually Buffs?

The most important question for this patch: were these abilities already scaling despite null types, or were they genuinely broken?

Evidence for “real buffs” (scaling was broken):

• The changes exclusively target T3 upgrades, not base ability values (which already have proper types)
• Multiple abilities across different heroes have the same pattern — systematic data fix
• The base-level fields for these same abilities already have correct types (e.g., Viscous’s base Puddle Punch Damage field already had "Type": "melee" at the ability level, but the T3 upgrade’s version had null)

Evidence for “display-only fix”:

• The Spiritual Overflow change (the only item change) is confirmed to be a tooltip fix — stats were already there
• The engine might infer types from context

Most likely interpretation: These are real scaling fixes. The base abilities had scaling, but the T3 upgrade bonus values weren’t inheriting the scale type, meaning the additional damage/effects from T3 weren’t scaling with stats as intended. This is a systematic bug fix that makes T3 ability upgrades properly scale with spirit power, heavy melee, and melee damage.

Winners If Scaling Is Newly Enabled

The Doorman benefits most — a 25.6% increase in wall slam damage at 40 spirit is substantial for a hero whose entire Luggage Cart fantasy revolves around pinning enemies to walls.

McGinnis Turret Survivability

If the TurretHealthPerBoon removal is a real nerf, McGinnis players should adapt:

1. Prioritize turret placement over preservation — shorter-lived turrets mean less value from defensive setups and more value from aggressive forward placement where they deal damage before dying
2. Spirit items become relatively more important for turret DPS scaling (+0.39 spirit) since turret survivability is lower — maximize damage output before they’re destroyed
3. T1 upgrade (slow on hit) becomes relatively stronger since turrets have fewer HP to survive long enough for the T2 range bonus to matter

Spiritual Overflow Awareness

Now that the tooltip correctly shows CDR, expect more players to notice Spiritual Overflow as a “three-stat” charging item:

This makes Spiritual Overflow one of the most efficient single-item stat packages in the game for hybrid weapon/spirit builders. Heroes who weave abilities between sustained weapon fire — Paradox, Mirage, Infernus, Grey Talon — get exceptional value from all three bonuses simultaneously.

Predictions

1. No immediate meta shift. If the Scale Type changes are display-only fixes, this patch has near-zero gameplay impact. Even if they enable real scaling, the affected T3 upgrades are relatively niche compared to the sweeping Apollo nerfs in the previous patch.

2. The Doorman and Viscous T3 builds get subtle power increases if scaling is newly enabled. Doorman players who build spirit will find Luggage Cart wall slams noticeably stronger late game. Viscous players running Puddle Punch T3 with melee items (Crushing Fists, Melee Charge) may see improved burst combos.

3. Spiritual Overflow purchase rates may tick up as the corrected tooltip makes its CDR component visible to more players. The item was already strong; it was just undersold by its own description.

4. McGinnis turret health bears watching. If future patches continue adjusting her turret scaling, it signals Valve iterating on how turret-based playstyles should scale into the late game. The current TurretBaseHealth scaling (+13/boon) still provides reasonable durability, but the removal of the additional +10/boon suggests Valve wants turrets to be more vulnerable as games progress.

5. More Scale Type fixes may follow. The systematic nature of this fix (six abilities across six heroes) suggests Valve identified a class of data bugs. Expect similar annotation fixes in upcoming patches for other T3 upgrades that may have been silently missing scaling.

Conclusion

This is a maintenance-and-polish patch rather than a balance shakeup. The headline change — Spiritual Overflow’s description now mentioning its Cooldown Reduction — is purely cosmetic, fixing a tooltip that understated the item’s true power. The Scale Type annotation fixes across Holliday, The Doorman, Billy, Wraith, and Viscous either enable proper spirit/melee scaling on T3 ability upgrades (making them subtle buffs) or are display-metadata corrections with no gameplay impact. McGinnis’s TurretHealthPerBoon removal is the one potentially meaningful gameplay change, reducing turret durability by 26-36% in the mid-to-late game if the field was actively used by the engine. Overall, this patch tidies up data inconsistencies introduced over recent updates and sets a cleaner foundation for future balance changes.