Comprehensive Guide to McGinnis in Deadlock – Strategies, Builds, and Tips

McGinnis

Welcome to the McGinnis guide, where we will explore how to effectively utilize this versatile hero in Deadlock. With her powerful turrets, healing abilities, and significant damage output, McGinnis can adapt to various situations on the battlefield. In this guide, we’ll cover optimal builds, ability point allocation, and strategies to maximize her effectiveness in both early and late game scenarios.

McGinnis is a hero that anyone can easily pick up and be effective with due to her turrets, healing abilities, and large magazine size. However, an expert player can truly shine by mastering great positioning, headshot damage, and effective wall usage to dominate team fights.

She is an excellent choice for players seeking versatility and a smooth learning curve to enhance their gameplay experience.

Weapon Stat

Vitality Stat

Deadlock McGinnis Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• Can entrench a position with turrets, providing the team with significant advantages.

• Medicinal Specter enhances her team's sustainability, further strengthening her push capabilities.

• Powerful in the early and mid-game due to her large weapon magazine and effective kit.

Weaknesses

• Lacks innate mobility, making her vulnerable to ganks or poor positioning.

• Damage output declines in the late game compared to other heroes, as she relies on becoming immobile to maximize DPS.

• Offers no crowd control (CC) unless heavily investing in Spectral Wall early on.

Deadlock McGinnis Abilities

Mini Turret (1)

Deploy a Mini Turret that automatically shoots enemies. The turret has a limited lifetime and gains 30% of McGinnis’s max health, along with 60% Spirit Resist. They deal reduced damage to troopers and objectives.

• Charges: 1

• Range: 20m

• Cooldown: 18s

• Turret DPS: 60

• Attack Range: 25m

• Lifetime: 24s

Mini Turret Upgrades

Maxing her signature Mini Turret makes it much harder for enemies to dislodge them. You gain more turrets, they slow enemies, have increased range, and deal more damage.

Tips for Mini Turret

• If you invest in turrets early, make sure to get Extra Charge and Rapid Recharge for three additional turrets and faster cooldowns.

• Acquiring Extra Charge for 500 early on is almost always a smart choice if you frequently use turrets.

• Remember that turrets benefit from Spirit, so if you want them to be strong, you may have to sacrifice some of your own strength. Choose your playstyle accordingly.

Medicinal Specter (2)

Deploy a spirit that heals nearby units.

• Range: 15m

• Duration: 6s

• Cooldown: 48s

• Heal Radius: 5m

• Health Regen: +25/sec

Medicinal Specter Upgrades

Maxing Medicinal Specter increases its healing potency, provides an attack speed buff to healed units, and reduces the cooldown for more frequent use. The final upgrade scales with total HP, making it especially beneficial for tanks during prolonged engagements.

Tips for Medicinal Specter

• The spirit increases the duration of the heal, boosting the total healing amount, so keep that in mind when selecting items. If you opt for a turret build, you will enhance your healing capabilities even further.

• In a direct DPS fight, standing within the healing radius and granting yourself an attack speed buff can significantly turn the tide of battle.

Spectral Wall (3)

Creates a wall that divides the terrain in half. Upon creation, the wall deals damage and applies a slow to nearby enemies. After casting, you can press [LMC] or [3] to erupt the wall early.

• Range: 50m

• Duration: 5s

• Cooldown: 46s

• Damage: 64

• Movement Slow: 20%

• Slow Duration: 2.5s

• Minimum Range: 6m

• Impact Range: 5m

Spectral Wall Upgrades

Maxing your Spectral Wall allows for more frequent use and increases its effectiveness, culminating in a stun effect with the final upgrade.

Tips for Spectral Wall

• Advanced McGinnis players often invest points in this ability early to control the battlefield and set up powerful ganks for their teammates.

• Get comfortable using this ability frequently, but play defensively if it's on cooldown, as it’s your primary defensive option against aggressive enemy plays.

• Aim to position your wall so that it passes through your opponents; press the deploy button immediately after to trap them with their back against the wall, making it difficult for them to escape.

Heavy Barrage (4)

Unleashes a volley of rockets that home in on a targeted location.

• Range: 50m

• Min Range: 7m

• Damage per Rocket: 30

• Cooldown: 140s

• Rockets per Second: 6

• Explosion Radius: 5m

• Channeling Time: 13s

Heavy Barrage Upgrades

Maxing out Heavy Barrage allows it to slow opponents, reduces its cooldown significantly, and increases its damage output. The spike in damage during the early game is substantial, enhancing her strong mid and early game capabilities.

Tips for Heavy Barrage

• As soon as you acquire this skill, look for opportunities to engage, especially if your teammate has strong crowd control (CC). You can deal significant damage quickly, and if you can block enemies with a wall, it often leads to an easy kill.

• If you don’t prioritize this ability early on and instead focus on buying weapons, it will lose effectiveness quickly, so avoid relying on it exclusively.

Ability Point Order

How to Counter McGinnis

McGinnis has a strong laning phase and will aim to shove her waves to pressure your tower. To counter her, try to push back or coordinate with allies to gank when she overextends.

Monster Rounds are effective against turrets, and Reactive Barrier can trigger off her wall to provide additional protection.

Her AoE healing can accumulate quickly, so be prepared to acquire anti-healing items if it becomes a significant issue.

Item Costs

	Item	Cost
	Monster Rounds	500
	Toxic Bullets	3,000
	Reactive Barrier	1,250
	Healbane	1,250
	Decay	1,250

Deadlock McGinnis Build

Turrets are fun to use, but they struggle to remain effective in the later stages of the game. This build focuses on leveraging the incredibly high base damage of Turrets while simultaneously building and scaling your own power. Despite minimal investment, Turrets will contribute approximately 30-50% of your overall damage in this build!

Early Game

Purchase all items in order to ease your laning phase! Focus on walling off the enemy and securing last hits (CS) with the early regeneration items and Medicinal Specter.

If you start struggling, don’t hesitate to sit by your tower and wait for health regeneration to kick in—early game kills have minimal impact as long as you’re farming effectively.

The toughest part will be the first couple of minutes until you acquire Bullet Lifesteal. After that, you'll enjoy a significant amount of sustain in lane and can start actively trading as much as possible.

Clear T3 camps at 8 minutes using your Heavy Barrage ultimate, and try not to waste it on enemy players in the early game. Getting a kill with your ultimate is less valuable than securing a T3 camp, especially considering its long cooldown after recent nerfs!

	Item	Cost
	Restorative Shot	500
	Basic Magazine	500
	Bullet Lifesteal	1,250
	Melee Charge	1,250
	Extra Health	500
	Extra Charge	500
	Extra Stamina	500
	Sprint Boots	500

Mid Game

If you need additional slots, consider selling Restorative Shot, Extra Health, or Basic Magazine (preferably in that order of priority).

The combination of Fleetfoot and Melee Charge is extremely important, as Fleetfoot's active ability cancels melee attacks! You can double jump into the air, perform a heavy punch, and then cancel it with Fleetfoot. If you have Melee Charge, you'll travel across the map—an excellent escape tool. Additionally, you can bait enemy parries by canceling your melee attacks just before they hit.

Use Fleetfoot's active combined with Melee Charge on creeps before fights to stack up 200+ bullets, ensuring you never have to reload!

This build experiences a massive power spike once you obtain Heroic Aura, as each turret will now deal about 185 DPS with zero investment from items, while you simultaneously gain 42% Bullet Lifesteal for significant sustain in fights.

Once you acquire Intensifying Magazine and Decay, your DPS will be fantastic, allowing you to focus on survivability items like Healing Booster. You’ll quickly reach the next power spike with a maxed-out Medicinal Specter, which provides you and your team with +6% HP/s.

	Item	Cost
	Fleetfoot	1,250
	Heroic Aura	3,000
	Decay	1,250
	Intensifying Magazine	3,000
	Bullet Resist Shredder	1,250
	Enduring Speed	1,750
	Improved Cooldown	1,250
	Healing Booster	1,250
	Spirit Armor	1,250
	Colossus	6,200
	Improved Spirit Armor	4,250
	Escalating Resilience	3,000

Late Game

Most games will be over by this point, but if the match extends, you’ll need to replace Decay with Toxic Bullets to free up an Active slot for more beneficial items like Debuff Remover, Unstoppable, or Metal Skin (everyone appreciates this item against Haze!).

For late-game DPS scaling, Crippling Headshot is excellent as it benefits both your team and yourself. At this stage, survivability will be more crucial than raw damage.

Leech can be good, but it has significant diminishing returns and won't provide as much value compared to items like Unstoppable or Inhibitor. Alternating between Unstoppable and Colossus (or combining them in critical situations) is fantastic for sustaining in longer team fights.

	Item	Cost
	Toxic Bullets	3,000
	Decay	1,250
	Improved Bullet Armor	4,250
	Improved Spirit Armor	4,250
	Inhibitor	6,200
	Lucky Shot	6,200
	Quicksilver Reload	1,250