Celeste

Celeste fires a flare of light in a cone ahead of her. Enemies caught by it take additional spirit damage whenever she subsequently attacks them, and those attacks return spirit lifesteal to her.

What it is for: The keystone of her damage and sustain. Her weapon does almost nothing on its own; Light Eater is what converts her ordinary shots into spirit damage and healing, so almost every fight starts with this cast.

Damage

40 flare damage plus 15 per subsequent tagged hit, over an 8s duration (deadlock.one). The 09-16-2026 patch reduced its spirit lifesteal from 20% to 18%.

Defensive

The spirit lifesteal it enables is her only meaningful in-combat healing.

How to play against it

• Break line of sight after she tags you — the mark only pays out on her subsequent attacks, so denying her shots denies both her damage and her healing
• Use a dispel or debuff-removal item to strip the mark outright; mobalytics explicitly lists this as her cleanest counter
• Stay outside the cone's arc when she is reloading or repositioning; the cone is frontal and short-ranged

Interactions

• Nerfed on 09-16-2026: spirit lifesteal cut from 20% to 18%
• Debuff-removal effects strip the mark entirely, which is why dispel items are a clean answer to her
• Because it is a cone with limited range (+3m at Tier 2), it forces her to be closer than her fragility comfortably allows
• The bounce weapon plus the tag means she can sustain off a target she is not even directly aiming at

Celeste wraps herself in a protective prism. If enemies destroy the barrier, it shatters and silences everyone nearby while dealing a share of the barrier's value as damage.

What it is for: A trap disguised as a shield. It is her defensive cooldown, but it is also her anti-dive tool — an attacker who bursts through the barrier silences themselves and then cannot use abilities to finish the kill or escape.

Damage

Deals a portion of the barrier value as damage on break; base barrier is 100, with Tier 2 adding +80 and 0.7 spirit scaling (deadlock.one).

Crowd control

Silence on nearby enemies when the barrier is destroyed; Tier 3 adds +1.5s silence duration.

Mobility

Tier 1 grants +3.5m move speed while active.

Defensive

Absorbs damage directly and punishes whoever removes it.

How to play against it

• Break the barrier from range rather than in melee — the silence only hits nearby enemies, so a ranged hero pops it for free
• If you must dive her, break the barrier first from a step back, then close once the silence has already fired
• Note the 38s cooldown after the 09-16-2026 patch; once it is spent she is a sub-700-health hero with no defensive layer for over half a minute

Interactions

• The 09-16-2026 patch increased its cooldown to 38s (up from the 32s listed on deadlock.io's June page), which is a meaningful nerf to how often she can hold it
• Tier 3 both extends the silence and cuts the cooldown by 18s, and deadlock.io notes it enables Shining Wonder bounces
• Breaking the barrier from range avoids the silence entirely — the silence is proximity-based
• It stacks with her air-mobility passive to make her very hard to burst down mid-air

Celeste calls a shaft of light down from above a chosen point. After a brief formation delay it fully manifests and detonates, damaging everything in the area. Each time it strikes an enemy hero she gains a stacking buff to her spirit damage.

What it is for: Her zone-control tool and her ramp. The delay makes it bad as a reactive damage source but excellent as an area denial on a choke or an objective, and the stacks are how her damage scales through a long fight.

Damage

55 impact damage base (deadlock.one); Tier 2 adds +80 and cuts 22s off the 33s cooldown. Tracklock reports the stacking buff caps at 6 stacks.

Defensive

Used behind her to deter a chase through a corridor.

How to play against it

• Leave the marked area before the beam fully forms — the whole ability is a telegraph with a delay, and simply walking out denies both the damage and her stack
• Denying her hero hits denies the stacking spirit amp, so her damage never ramps
• Do not stand still in doorways, stairwells or on an objective while she has charges up; those are the only places the delay does not matter

Interactions

• The formation delay means it is almost always dodged by a mobile target unless it is placed where the target has to be — a doorway, an objective, on top of a Dynamo Singularity
• Stacking spirit amp plus the Tier 3 fire rate bonus makes her genuinely dangerous in a long fight and harmless in a short one
• Tier 1's +2 charges is a large practical spike because it lets her cover two positions rather than guessing one
• Note the naming oddity: the ability is called Radiant Daggers but both deadlock.one and deadlock.io describe it as a descending beam of light — the name and the visual do not obviously match, which is worth re-checking in game

Celeste launches an orb of light that damages the first target it strikes, slowing them and shortening their dash distance, then bounces on to other enemies in range. If nothing is in range it hovers for a short time still looking for a target, and it prefers enemy heroes over other units.

What it is for: Her teamfight contribution and her anti-mobility tool. The dash-distance reduction is unusual and specifically punishes heroes who rely on dash chains to close or escape.

Damage

140 base spirit damage (deadlock.one); Tier 2 adds +80.

Crowd control

Movement slow plus a dash-distance reduction on each target hit; Tier 1 adds +20% slow and -15% dash distance.

Defensive

Slowing a chase is a real disengage use for a hero this fragile.

How to play against it

• Spread out — it bounces between enemies in range, so the entire value of the ultimate depends on your team being clustered
• Post-09-16-2026 its radius is smaller, so maintaining even modest spacing at objectives substantially reduces the number of bounces
• If you are hit, expect your dash distance to be shortened; plan the escape around walking behind cover rather than dash-chaining out
• It prioritises heroes over other units, so there is no way to body-block it with troopers

Interactions

• The 09-16-2026 patch decreased its radius and reduced its bounce limits — the June-dated upgrade figures (+8 max bounces at T3) predate that change and should be treated as an upper bound
• It is target-seeking rather than aimed, so spreading out is the counter rather than dodging
• Dash-distance reduction is a rare debuff and is particularly punishing for heroes whose escape is a dash chain rather than a blink
• 160s base cooldown, dropping 30s at Tier 3