Grey Talon, the cunning predator, can be one of the strongest heroes in Deadlock when you play him right. With a compound bow as his weapon, this hero can take to the skies and rain down a barrage of arrows, decimating everyone in his sight. And even if the enemy manages to get away, his trusty Guided Owl can chase it down to secure the kill.
However, executing the hero to perfection requires a degree of skill, as with most heroes in Deadlock. We’ve compiled this list to showcase the best items you can build on Grey Talon, along with a quick guide on how to play the hero.
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Deadlock Grey Talon Overview & Ability Details
Grey Talon is a high-DPS hero in Deadlock who specializes in taking out his enemies from a distance while laying traps that restrict their movement. The hero’s skill set revolves around gliding over the battlefield and utilizing his compound bow to deal insane damage. Both his Bullets Per Sec and Move Speed stats scale with Spirit Power, making a Spirit Build a viable choice for the hero. But his weapon damage build is currently the strongest version of the hero.
Here’s a quick breakdown of his abilities:
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Ability Name |
Effects |
Upgrades |
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Charged Shot |
Charge up a powerful shot that pierces through enemies. Hold (1) or Left Mouse Button to hold the shot.
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Rain of Arrows |
Launches you high in the air, allowing you to glide slowly. While airborne, you gain Weapon Damage and multishot on your weapon. Press Space to cancel the glide.
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Immobilizing Trap |
Throw out a trap that begins to arm itself. Once armed, the trap will trigger when an enemy enters its radius, immobilizing and then slowing them.
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Guided Owl |
After 1.5s cast time, launch a spirit owl that you control and which explodes on impact, damaging and stunning enemies. Gain permanent Spirit Power for each enemy hero killed with Guided Owl.
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Grey Talon Build Guide (Ability Order & Item Progression) in Deadlock
Until the recent patch in Deadlock, Grey Talon would always build into Spirit items or items that boost Spirit Power to play around his first ability, Charged Shot. Its excellent Spirit scaling used to turn it into a one-shot kill ability when you had a couple of Spirit items on your back. On top of that, since Grey Talon gains movement speed with Spirit Power, you could also zoom around the map like the Flash.
However, after the nerf, the weapon damage build focusing on his Rain of Arrows is in a better spot. With this build, as you reach late game, you’ll be raining down a barrage of arrows at the enemies during team fights, dealing insane amounts of damage. It also offers a ton of early-game pressure. Here’s how the build works:
Grey Talon Ability Order
Even though your build is focused around Rain of Arrows, you’ll want to unlock Charged Shot first. It’s your main harassment tool during the laning phase. You can use it to snipe out the enemy hero, safely taking away a massive chunk of their health pool from a distance. Rain of Arrows is the next ability you’ll want to unlock, followed by Immobilizing Trap. Finally, get Guided Owl as soon as it’s available.
For your upgrade, put 1 AP into Rain of Arrows and 1 AP into Charged Shot, in that order. After that, max out Rain of Arrows and Charged Shot before investing points into other upgrades. Then, invest 1 AP into Guided Owl for that extra damage bonus and 1 AP into Immobilizing Trap for the reduced cooldown. Max out Guided Owl next before unlocking the rest of the upgrades for Immobilizing Trap.
Grey Talon Item Progression
When building the hero around his second ability, you’ll need to stock up on weapon items to boost your damage output. You also want to go for a few key Vitality items to ensure the enemy team can’t take you down when you’re gliding above the battlefield.
Here are the items you’ll want to build Grey Talon for this build:
Early Game
- High-Velocity Mag
- Headshot Booster
- Basic Magazine
- Hollow Point Ward
- Enduring Spirit
- Extra Stamina
- Healing Rite (Optional)
- Rapid Rounds (Optional)
For the early laning stage, you’ll want to go with a few weapon damage items to fill up your weapon inventory slot. High-Velocity Mag is a good first pickup since you can build into Headhunter. Afterward, go for Headshot Booster to buff up the damage from headshots. Basic Magazine and Hollow Point Ward give you additional weapon damage that you can use to win almost any 1-v-1 trade with your lane opponent.
You’ll also want to go for Enduring Spirit and Extra Stamina for some sustain. Enduring Spirit allows you to lifesteal off your Charged Shot, which does a decent bit of damage at this stage of the game. For tough lanes, consider going for Healing Rite. The active healing from this item will save you from returning to base every few minutes.
Mid Game
- Swift Striker
- Quicksilver Reload
- Improved Cooldown
- Burst Fire
- Headhunter
- Slowing Bullets (Optional)
- Superior Cooldown
- Duration Extender
- Enchanter’s Barrier
- Combat Barrier
- Veil Walker (Optional)
Some of the weapon damage items you picked up in the early game will quickly get replaced as you get into the mid-game stage of Deadlock. The first item you’ll want is Swift Striker, which will replace Hollow Point Ward and beef up your fire rate. You then want to go for Quicksilver Reload and Improved Cooldown.
Imbue Quicksilver Reload with your Rain of Arrows. It can also work well with Charged Shot in certain matchups.
Go with Burst Fire and Headhunter next. Slowing Bullets can be a good choice, but it’s entirely optional. If you plan on building Silencer, it’s worth picking up. Otherwise, you can skip it. Upgrade your Improved Cooldown to Superior Cooldown next and also get Duration Extender. It will let you spam your Rain of Arrows and have a longer air time.
For survival items, Enchanter’s Barrier and Combat Barrier both are good on Grey Talon. In games where you think stealth will come in handy, Veil Walker can also be a good choice.
Late Game
- Superior Stamina
- Lucky Shot
- Titanic Magazine
- Ricochet (Optional)
- Superior Duration
- Glass Cannon
- Crippling Headshot
- Mystic Reverb
- Silencer
- Shadow Weave
- Leech
You can pick up a few more Weapon items as you get into the late game and unlock your flex slots. But first, you’ll want to get Superior Stamina for that extra Stamina bar and Stamina Recovery. After that, Lucky Shot is a must-have since it can proc on the multishot from Rain of Arrows.
Titanic Magazine is a viable upgrade to your Basic Magazine. Ricochet is an optional item, but it does boost your damage significantly. After that, go for Superior Duration and follow it up with Glass Cannon and Crippling Headshot. Pick up Mystic Reverb and imbue your Charged Shot with this ability to use it as a Slow. Silencer can be a good pick if you want an extra disable in your hand.
Shadow Weave and Leech are both situational items. For stealth and ambush damage bonuses, Shadow Weave is naturally the better choice. But the lifesteal from Leech is also excellent for Grey Talon.
How to Play Grey Talon in Deadlock
Positioning is the key to mastering Grey Talon in Deadlock. Similar to Haze, Grey Talon can dish out tons of weapon damage as long as he’s not getting focused down. But as soon as the enemy team gets their crosshair on Grey Talon, it doesn’t take long for them to bring him down.
Ideally, with this hero, you want to go to a solo lane so that you can harass your lane opponent with both your Charged Shot and Rain of Arrows. Your early focus, however, should always be on securing Souls for yourself and working towards your early game items. Poking from a distance is fine, but don’t try to force kills and put yourself in awkward positions.
Grey Talon can shove lanes quickly with his abilities. When you shove the lane towards the opponent’s tower, you have a bit of space to run to nearby neutral camps and get a Souls advantage over your opponent. With a few core items in your inventory, your damage output will be boosted significantly.
During team fights, you’ll want to position yourself near the backlines. With Rain of Arrows, you’ll always have a bird’s eye view of the battlefield. Use it to your advantage and keep dishing out damage when your team engages with the enemy.
You can use Space to cancel Rain of Arrows early if needed.
Immobilizing Trap can be useful in setting up ambushes around Mid Boss if your team is setting up for it. Since you’re focusing on playing around your Rain of Arrows, use Guided Owl to gank other lanes and apply pressure constantly. This will let your allies have an easier time, even when they’re in a bad matchup.
This Grey Talon build relies heavily on filling up your inventory slots. The more items you buy, the stronger the hero becomes. So don’t rush into objectives and play the map if the enemy team pressures you. Once you hit the late-game, and have all your inventory slots filled up, there are few heroes that can have as much team fight impact as you in terms of damage output.
That being said, once you manage to farm up all the core items, playing this hero isn’t all too difficult. His abilities are pretty straightforward, and you’ll be able to dominate the battlefield in Deadlock because of his sheer damage output.
