Deadlock’s Baba and Danny changes are about the cost of movement
The October14 pass reduces Baba’s chained momentum while making Danny’s rocket jumps less expensive in health.
Deadlock's October 14 balance pass treats mobility as more than a cooldown number. Baba loses several ways to carry momentum through the air, while Deadman Danny receives a cheaper rocket jump alongside stronger basic durability. Reading the changes together shows Valve adjusting the cost of entering and leaving a fight, not simply raising one hero's damage and lowering another's.
The official update is a dated balance change, rather than a new patch announced today. It follows the City Never Sleeps rollout of additional characters, and remains useful context for players learning how the newer kits behave.
Baba's escape has more friction
Repeated airborne light melees during Granny Long Legs now give diminishing forward momentum. Looking upward produces less lift, and the heavy-melee ground pound no longer gains horizontal speed from landing on slopes. Those details affect how movement chains together, which can matter more than a small change to the ability's listed cooldown.
A player who learned an escape as a sequence of inputs may therefore need to reconsider the destination as well as the timing. A route can fail because it no longer reaches the same ledge or carries the same speed, even when the ability activates successfully. That is why movement changes are difficult to compress into a simple “buff” or “nerf” label: the consequence lives in the geometry of the route.
Baba also becomes more vulnerable to bullets, with a negative base bullet resistance, while Threadsap's resistance reduction now ends when she dies. The latter change gives an opponent a clearer way to end the ongoing disadvantage. It connects the debuff's persistence to the survival of the hero applying it.
Danny gets more room to spend health
Deadman Danny's rocket-jump self-damage falls from 6.5% of maximum health to 5%, and becomes spirit damage. Base health rises from 680 to 730, with regeneration increasing from 2.5 to 3.25. Those changes act on both sides of the same decision: how much health a movement action consumes and how much health the character has available.
The implication is a less punishing budget for repeated repositioning, not proof that every aggressive jump is now safe. Landing in an exposed position can still overwhelm the saved health. The patch also improves several weapon and ability values, so attributing any future change in results solely to rocket jumping would require more evidence than the notes provide.
Our earlier Deadlock coverage of Harrow looked at a different addition to the roster. This pair illustrates another part of developing that roster: making powerful movement legible and costly enough to answer. For a player, the useful adjustment is concrete. Relearn where Baba's route ends, and treat Danny's saved health as room for a better position rather than permission to land anywhere.
