Deadlock Rat King Guide After the Nerf: Armor, Rats and Banner Timing

Rat King’s most tempting mistake is seeing your armor ready and deciding the team is ready too. A few seconds later, your teammates are still approaching, the banner is planted somewhere unhelpful and you are taking everyone’s attention alone.

Rat King arrived on October 2 and received substantial changes on October 5. His ultimate especially needs a fresh assessment: a longer cooldown, a smaller radius and less damage reduction make first-day assumptions unreliable.

This guide reflects the game as checked on October 13, 2026. Your job is to create a fight in which your team can use your pressure and banner. Understanding the armor’s limits and the ultimate’s phases makes that much easier.

The ultimate’s first upgrade also lost its 20-second cooldown reduction. The old 110-second cooldown with that upgrade is no longer the starting point for planning your fights. Items can change your actual values; this table describes changes to the abilities themselves.

The practical effect is that a speculative banner chase costs more, while your regular abilities offer more opportunities between ultimates. Before committing your banner, check which teammates are close enough and ready to fight.

Scrap Grenade detonates repeatedly, deals Bullet damage and slows enemies. A thrown explosive is not automatically a Spirit damage ability, so account for its actual damage type when thinking about enemy defenses.

Opponents can melee the grenade to knock it away. A clearly visible grenade placed in front of an unoccupied enemy may not stay where you intended.

Look for someone who is already busy shooting, leaving cover or reacting to a teammate. Making them choose between the grenade and another threat is more useful than assuming they will ignore it. The additional final detonation requires the third upgrade; do not include it in your opening damage expectations.

Attached rats deal Spirit damage over time and reduce Bullet Resist with every bite. More attached rats mean faster bites.

That gives you a straightforward follow-up: attach rats, then pressure the target with your weapon. The enemy has an answer, though. A ground or air dash removes one rat, so an initial Swarm hit does not guarantee every possible bite.

Watch how the target spends movement. Someone who has already dashed repeatedly may face a harder choice after the next application. If they get behind cover, however, the remaining rats are not a reason to chase into a position your team cannot support.

Royal Pestments grants a Combat Barrier based on your maximum health. While the armor holds, incoming bullets have a chance to be deflected toward the attacker.

Keep two conditions in mind:

Maximum health therefore has a clear relationship with the armor. That does not make other defensive stats useless: after the barrier breaks, you still need to survive on your actual health.

Use the armor for a trade you expect to take. Activating it and then spending too long looking for an entry can leave you less prepared for the real engagement than you assumed.

First, Rat King raises the banner. Nearby allies gain movement speed, immunity to slows and reduced incoming damage. Move together during this phase. A teammate outside the area does not benefit simply because Rat King is on their team.

You can then slam the banner into the ground. The eruption deals Bullet damage, knocks enemies up and slows them. Rats emerging from the sewers apply Rat Swarm to enemies they hit.

The planted banner provides another benefit: allies in its area gain fire rate and lose the normal movement-speed penalty from shooting.

A useful banner location is one your team can keep fighting around. A poor location is somewhere enemies have already left and teammates have not reached. Landing the slam feels good, but the remaining zone should still serve a purpose afterward.

Start with grenade and Swarm pressure from a position your team can support. Watch who responds and how they use their movement. Apply armor for the approaching trade, then use the banner if your allies are ready to advance together.

After planting, you do not have to chase the lowest-health enemy immediately. Staying with your teammates and using the shooting benefits against an accessible target may achieve more.

If opponents retreat instead of fighting on your terms, that is already an outcome. Trying to turn every banner into a kill can pull you away from the teammates who were meant to benefit from it.

Maximum health supports Royal Pestments’ barrier size. Weapon damage helps capitalize on the rats reducing Bullet Resist. Defense and mobility matter when you cannot survive the approach or remain close enough to your allies.

Do not buy Spirit expecting the ultimate’s old movement-speed scaling: that relationship was removed on October 5. Spirit damage still matters to Rat Swarm, but the reason for your purchase has changed.

Before a major item, ask whether you lack damage against a target you can already reach, or whether you cannot create a useful fight at all. Those problems need different answers.

Rat King can also use small passages around the map; see the Deadlock tunnels guide. To understand how opponents can respond to your defenses, read how to counter Rat King.