Valorant Deadlock Guide: How to use Barrier Mesh effectively?

Barrier Mesh is the signature ability of Valorant's latest Agent, Deadlock. She is the 23rd character to join the roster of playable characters in Riot Games' 5v5 online tactical shooter. Hailing from Norway, she belongs to the Sentinel class of Agents, specializing in anchoring sites and stopping enemy pushes. Understanding how each ability of a new Valorant Agent works is important before you can play them in a ranked game.

This guide will tell you everything you need to know about Deadlock's Barrier Mesh ability.

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How does Deadlock's Barrier Mesh (E) Ability work in Valorant?

The official description of Barrier Mesh says:

EQUIP a Barrier Mesh disc. FIRE to throw forward. Upon landing, the disc generates barriers from the origin point that block character movement.

The simplest way to understand Barrier Mesh is to look at it compared to Sage's Barrier Orb ability. As the name suggests, both of them block movement. Upon deployment, both abilities take a couple of seconds to fortify, after which they become more difficult to destroy.

There are also a couple of fundamental differences in how the two abilities work.

• Firstly, Deadlock's ability only prevents characters from passing through while letting bullets and other projectiles pass through indiscriminately. Sage's wall, on the other hand, doesn't let anything pass through.
• Second, Deadlock's barriers are spread like a mesh around a central point, while Sage's walls are in segments.

With the basics out of the way, here are some key points you should remember about Deadlock's Barrier Mesh ability in Valorant:

• It takes about 30 Vandal bullets or 31 Phantom bullets to break the large energy ball in the ability. This is equivalent to 12 left clicks or 8 right clicks with your melee weapons.
• The small energy balls take 20 Vandal shots or 21 Phantom shots to kill. The melee equivalent is 8 left clicks or 6 right clicks.
• The maximum distance from the central energy ball to the small energy ball can be 6 meters. Therefore, trying to block off a wide area like B-Long on Pearl will be ineffective.
• Barrier Mesh has the same projectile as that of Cypher's Cyber Cage. This means you can try to use lineups for that with this ability.
• You have to shoot at the energy orbs to break the barrier. Shooting at the machine itself won't do any good.

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Tips on using Deadlock's Barrier Mesh (E) Ability in Valorant

While Barrier Mesh might seem like a simple ability to use, there are certain nuances you should keep in mind to increase its effectiveness significantly:

1) Use it in narrow passages

As mentioned before, this ability will not be able to cover wide areas in Valorant's maps, such as B-Long on Pearl and Mid on Split, the way Sage's wall does. Instead, use it in areas like Showers on Bind or A-Short on Haven.

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2) Make sure opponents have to break more than one small energy orb to pass through

One of the strongest points of this ability is that it forces enemies to waste a lot of bullets breaking it. With the recent nerfs to the reserve ammo of the Phantom and the Vandal, this will give you a significant advantage in the late round.

To ensure enemies have to break multiple blocks of the wall, place the ability close to a wall in a narrow corridor.

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3) Place it near the Spike in post-plant situations

Deadlock's movement-blocking ability can be an effective post-plant tool as it can cut off access to the Spike. This can buy you time and give you an advantage in gunfights because the enemies may run out of bullets or at least have to readjust their crosshairs.

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This is everything you need to know about the signature ability of Valorant's Agent 23. You can also check out our guide on what team compositions Deadlock fits best.