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Celeste

CarryMageSkirmisher Spirit Damage Late Game Medium Difficulty

Patch 10-30-2026, 310,886 matches. Updated daily.

Playing Celeste? Build Combos Plan against a full team

How to counter and play Celeste

Items to buy

  • vs silences and ability denial Debuff Reducer Debuff Reducer 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorPassive +25% Debuff Resist +90 Bonus Health Dispel Magic Dispel Magic 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorInstantCast +45s Cooldown +10% Spirit Resist +3s Buff Duration +250 Heal Amount Indomitable Indomitable 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorPassive +55s Cooldown +10s Duration +10% Bullet Resist +10% Spirit Resist +20s Cooldown On Apply +2 Out of Combat Regen Builds from Reactive Barrier
  • vs healing and lifesteal Healbane Healbane 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorPassive +8s Duration +7 Spirit Power -35% Incoming Healing Decay Decay 3,200 souls Tier 3TechPress +30s Cooldown +12s Duration +0.1s Cast Delay +8 Spirit Power -55% Incoming Healing +65 Bonus Health Toxic Bullets Toxic Bullets 3,200 souls Tier 3WeaponPassive -40% Incoming Healing
  • vs zoning and area denial Enduring Speed Enduring Speed 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorPassive +25% Slow Resist +2 Out of Combat Regen Builds from Sprint Boots Fleetfoot Fleetfoot 1,600 souls Tier 2WeaponInstantCast +16s Cooldown +5s Duration +100 move speed penalty while shooting reduction +35% Slide Distance +6% Bullet Resist +40% Slow Resist +6% Weapon Damage Restorative Locket Restorative Locket 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorInstantCast +20s Cooldown +0.1s Cast Delay +8% Spirit Resist +25 Max Stacks +3 Max Stamina Restore
  • Use a dispel or debuff-removal item on Light Eater Light Eater 10m Range8s Duration20s Cooldown Celeste fires a flare of light in a cone ahead of her. Damage 40 flare damage plus 15 per subsequent tagged hit, over an 8s duration… Defensive The spirit lifesteal it enables is her only meaningful in-combat healing. 1 +15% spirit lifesteal 2 -10s cooldown (from a 20s base) and +3m cast range 5 +22 damage and +0.2 spirit scaling 's mark — stripping it removes both her bonus Spirit Damage and her only real in-combat healing
  • Break Dazzling Trick Dazzling Trick 38s Cooldown Celeste wraps herself in a protective prism. Crowd Control Silence on nearby enemies when the barrier is destroyed; Damage Deals a portion of the barrier value as damage on break; Mobility Tier 1 grants +3.5m move speed while active. 1 +3.5m move speed 2 +80 combat barrier and +0.7 spirit scaling 5 +1.5s silence duration and -20s cooldown from range rather than in melee; the Silence on break is proximity-based, so popping it from a step back costs you nothing
  • Punish her ~690-700 health directly with a single burst window; she has no untargetable escape and no real durability once the barrier is gone
  • Walk out of the Radiant Daggers Radiant Daggers 25m Range33s Cooldown Celeste calls a shaft of light down from above a chosen point. Damage 55 impact damage base (deadlock.one); Defensive Used behind her to deter a chase through a corridor. 1 +2 charges 2 +70 impact damage, -22s cooldown and +5m cast range 5 +5% spirit amp and +9% fire rate per stack marked area before the beam finishes forming — the delay is the entire counterplay and denies her the stacking spirit amp as well
  • Spread out at objectives; Shining Wonder Shining Wonder 170s Cooldown 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. Crowd Control Movement slow plus a dash-distance reduction on each target hit; Damage 125 base spirit damage (Game data, 30 October 2026); Defensive Slowing a chase is a real disengage use for a hero this fragile. 1 +20% move-speed slow and -15% dash distance 2 +90 damage 5 +8 maximum bounces and -30s cooldown bounces between clustered enemies and the 09-16-2026 radius nerf makes even modest spacing effective
  • Use knockups and displacement (Dynamo's Kinetic Pulse Kinetic Pulse 26s Cooldown Dynamo sends a wave of energy racing along the ground in front of him. Crowd Control Knockup — brief airborne loss of control. Damage 115 spirit damage base (deadlock.one); Defensive The knockup interrupts an incoming dive or channel, buying his team the… 1 +1 charge 2 applies -15% bullet resist and a 30% move-speed slow for 4s 5 +135 damage and +20m cast range , Billy's Bashdown Bashdown 4m Range35s Cooldown Billy drives his bat into the ground. Crowd Control Pulls airborne enemies downward plus a knockup shockwave on the ground — two… Damage 35 spirit damage scaling with Spirit Power (deadlock.one); Defensive The knockup interrupts an incoming dive or a channelled ability. 1 -10s cooldown (from a 35s base) 2 +1 charge and +2m radius 5 -3s charge time and now deals 50% heavy melee damage , Bebop's Exploding Uppercut Exploding Uppercut 22s Cooldown Bebop swings upward, knocking back everyone close to him. Crowd Control Knockback/knockup on the initial hit, plus a fire-rate reduction applied by… Damage Not sourced as a single figure on current pages; Mobility none for Bebop himself; 1 roughly -11s cooldown (base is about 22s) 2 +9 uppercut hit buff and +30% weapon damage 5 on hero hit, resets Grapple Arm's cooldown and restores about +18% of his missing health ) to cut her air mobility mid-flight — mobalytics lists displacement as a direct counter
  • Force fights while her stamina is spent; the 09-16-2026 patch raised her stamina cooldown to 5.3s and she has no other escape layer
  • Once Light Eater tags you, every one of her bullets carries bonus Spirit Damage and heals her — a trade you think you are winning on her low DPS is actually refilling her health bar
  • Diving her into Dazzling Trick silences you when you break the barrier, so the burst that was supposed to kill her leaves you unable to use abilities to finish or flee
  • Radiant Daggers denies chokepoints and objective circles outright; with T1's extra charges she can cover two exits at once
  • Shining Wonder shortens your dash distance as well as slowing you, which specifically breaks dash-chain escapes rather than merely delaying them
  • Her air-control passive plus four stamina charges means chasing her through vertical terrain usually just wastes your stamina
  • Dazzling Trick first — after the 09-16-2026 patch it is on a 38s cooldown, and it is both her defensive layer and her anti-dive Silence. Force it with a feint from range, let the Silence expire, then dive for real
  • Light Eater second — without the tag her weapon is a 31 DPS marksman rifle with a 2.00s reload and she has no healing at all. Breaking line of sight after she casts it wastes the entire 8s window
  • Her stamina charges third — chasing her through vertical routes burns her stamina, and since the 09-16-2026 patch raised her stamina cooldown to 5.3s she cannot refill them quickly
  • Shining Wonder is denied by spacing rather than baited; it seeks targets, so there is no dodge, only spread
  • The 38s after Dazzling Trick is spent — she is a sub-700-health hero with no barrier, no Silence and no untargetable escape
  • Any moment she is out of stamina charges; her air mobility is her only real defence and the 5.3s stamina cooldown is slow to refill
  • The 8s Light Eater window when you have broken line of sight — she is doing 31 DPS with no Lifesteal and cannot ramp Radiant Daggers stacks
  • During her 2.00s reload with an 8-round clip; at 1.72 shots per second she empties and reloads frequently
  • While she is mid-air after a Knockup or displacement — she cannot correct her position and her air control is what she was relying on
  • Early game generally: mobalytics and dramalock both note her laning phase is weak and her sub-700 health makes her the easiest lane kill of this group

Plan a game against Celeste and the rest of their team →

Good at

  • Very mobile: four stamina charges, an air-control passive, sliding and wall-bouncing movement
  • Dazzling Trick's break-Silence is a genuine anti-dive punish, not just a shield
  • Ramping Spirit Damage through Radiant Daggers stacks makes her scale well into long fights and the late game
  • Shining Wonder's dash-distance reduction is a rare and effective anti-mobility debuff
  • The bounce weapon lets her hit targets around corners and behind cover

Weak to

  • Around 690-700 health, so she dies quickly once she is caught
  • Very low raw weapon DPS (31) — her damage only exists once Light Eater has tagged the target
  • Her damage tools (Radiant Daggers' formation delay, Shining Wonder's bounces) are all telegraphed or spacing-dependent
  • Nerfed across the board on 09-16-2026: stamina cooldown up, Light Eater Lifesteal down, Dazzling Trick cooldown up, Shining Wonder radius and bounces down
  • Knockups and displacement cut off her air mobility, which is her primary defence

In lane, good at

  • Four stamina charges plus her air-control passive (enhanced air acceleration and reduced gravity effects) make her extremely hard to pin down in a lane
  • The bounce weapon's aim assistance means near-misses still connect, which forgives imperfect aim at awkward angles
  • Light Eater's spirit Lifesteal lets her stay in lane longer than her health pool suggests

In lane, weak to

  • Genuinely awkward laning — the 50 m/s projectile speed and bounce mechanic take real practice, and mobalytics explicitly calls her laning phase weak
  • Around 690-700 maximum health puts her at the bottom of the roster for durability
  • Only ~31 weapon DPS before Light Eater tags, so she cannot win a straight trade early
  • Vulnerable to knockups and displacement, which cut off her air mobility mid-flight
  • Light Eater T1/T2 — The extra spirit Lifesteal and -10s cooldown turn her from a fragile poker into a hero who sustains through skirmishes
  • Radiant Daggers T1 (+2 charges) — Multiple charges let her actually cover the ground an enemy must walk through, which is when the delay stops mattering
  • Shining Wonder unlock — Gives her the multi-target slow and dash reduction she needs to matter in a real teamfight
  • Late 35min+ with Radiant Daggers T3 stacks — +5% more spirit amp and +9% fire rate per stack compound through a long fight, which is where her late-game scaling lives

Burst Marksman Rifle with Ricochet ("Carny Life")

Medium RangeProjectileBouncy

31 DPS

Falloff Range 22m 60m

A slow burst weapon at 18.00 per bullet and only 1.72 shots per second (~31 DPS) with an 8-round clip and a 2.00s reload, firing very slow 50 m/s projectiles. Its defining quirk is a bounce mechanic: shots that hit a surface near an enemy ricochet onto them with aim assistance, so near-misses still land and direct hits can carry to a secondary target. Low raw DPS is intentional — her damage comes from spirit conversion via Light Eater, not from the gun itself.

  • 18 Bullet Damage
  • 1 Pellets per Shot
  • 1.72 Bullets per sec
  • 8 Ammo
  • 2s Reload Time
  • 50m/s Bullet Velocity
  • 50Light Melee
  • 116Heavy Melee
Vitality and movement
  • 690 Health
  • 1 Health Regen
  • 6.20m/s Move Speed
  • 1.60m/s Sprint Speed
  • 4 Stamina
  • 5.30s Stamina Cooldown

Base values on patch data. Items and boons change all of these.

The heroes Celeste wins most with, against what their two win rates would predict.

  • Graves Graves ControllerSummonerClose rangeHybrid damage Map pressure while away from the fight via Borrowed Decree Ghouls marching at objectives Durability low (1/3) Burst low (1/3) Mobility none (0/3) Healing low (1/3) 55.3% together +2.6% above expected
  • Deadman Danny Deadman Danny SkirmisherInitiatorMid rangeHybrid damage Free flight: he picks his angles and reaches heroes others can't Durability low (1/3) Burst high (2/3) Mobility very high (3/3) Healing low (1/3) 53.6% together +2.2% above expected
  • Kelvin Kelvin SupportControllerMid rangeHybrid damage Frozen Shelter is a hard physical barrier that stops ranged damage and ultimates outright Durability high (2/3) Burst low (1/3) Mobility high (2/3) Healing very high (3/3) 53.4% together +1.7% above expected
  • Baba Baba ControllerMageMid rangeSpirit damage Three kinds of control in one kit: silence, a hex and several slows Durability low (1/3) Burst high (2/3) Mobility high (2/3) Healing low (1/3) 53.2% together +1.5% above expected
  • Paige Paige SupportControllerMid rangeSpirit damage Peel — Plot Armor is a save and a damage buff on one button. Durability low (1/3) Burst low (1/3) Mobility none (0/3) Healing high (2/3) 53.8% together +1.4% above expected
  • Rat King Rat King BruiserSupportClose rangeBullet damage Makes his whole team's guns better: stacking bullet-resist shred from Rat Swarm Durability high (2/3) Burst high (2/3) Mobility low (1/3) Healing low (1/3) 52.0% together +1.0% above expected

Every Celeste duo →

Every Celeste matchup

Celeste wins 48.1% of games overall. Who counters Celeste and who Celeste counters: all 43 opponents, from Celeste's hardest to easiest, with how far each sits from that average. Celeste struggles Celeste does well

Graves and Paige are strong against almost every hero this patch, so they sit near the top here too. The counters that are about Celeste in particular: Haze (Celeste wins 44.0%).

Only matches whose average rank was Oracle and above, where Celeste wins 51.2% overall.

Abilities

Pick an ability to see what it does and how to play around it.

Light Eater

Ability 1 · Frontal Cone Debuff Applying a Spirit-Damage-on-Hit Mark

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.

Purpose: 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 + 15 per subsequent tagged hit, over an 8s duration (deadlock.one).
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
Upgrade tiers
  • T1: +15% spirit Lifesteal
  • T2: -10s cooldown (from a 20s base) and +3m cast range
  • T3: +22 damage and +0.2 spirit scaling

Dazzling Trick

Ability 2 · Self-Barrier That Silences on Break

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.

Purpose: 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 20s, 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
Upgrade tiers
  • T1: +3.5m move speed
  • T2: +80 combat barrier and +0.7 spirit scaling
  • T3: +1.5s Silence duration and -20s cooldown

Radiant Daggers

Ability 3 · Charged Delayed-Detonation Light Beam with a Stacking Self-Buff

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.

Purpose: 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 +70 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 Singularity 250s Cooldown Dynamo forms a black hole in his hands that drags nearby enemies toward him, stunning them and burning them with spirit damage for the duration of the channel. Crowd Control AoE stun plus a continuous vacuum pull for the full channel duration — the… Damage 75 spirit damage per second base (deadlock.one) over a ~2.75s channel; Mobility none; Dynamo is rooted in place for the channel 1 +2m vacuum radius 2 +0.75s channel time 5 +6% damage per enemy's missing health
  • 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
Upgrade tiers
  • T1: +2 charges
  • T2: +70 impact damage, -22s cooldown and +5m cast range
  • T3: +5% spirit amp and +9% fire rate per stack

Shining Wonder

Ultimate · Bouncing Seeking Orb with Slow and Dash-Distance Reduction

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.

Purpose: 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
125 base Spirit Damage (Game data, 30 October 2026); 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
  • 170s base cooldown, dropping 30s at Tier 3
Upgrade tiers
  • T1: +20% move-speed slow and -15% dash distance
  • T2: +90 damage
  • T3: +8 maximum bounces and -30s cooldown
Patch history for these abilities (2)
  • Light Eater The 09-16-2026 patch reduced its spirit Lifesteal from 20% to 18%.
  • Shining Wonder Note: the 09-16-2026 patch reduced bounce limits, so the effective ceiling is now lower.

Values were last changed in patch 10-30-2026.

Celeste's win rate by game length

Game length changes little for Celeste compared with other heroes: #29 of 44 in games under 25 minutes, #26 of 44 from 25 to 40, #33 of 44 past 40. The "Late Game" tag at the top is about how the kit comes online; on this patch the results do not show Celeste passing other heroes in long games.

40% 45% 50% 55% 0.6% of all games end at 10–15 minutes 1.2% of all games end at 15–20 minutes 3.4% of all games end at 20–25 minutes 11.0% of all games end at 25–30 minutes 23.2% of all games end at 30–35 minutes 26.4% of all games end at 35–40 minutes 17.9% of all games end at 40–45 minutes 9.4% of all games end at 45–50 minutes 4.3% of all games end at 50–55 minutes 1.7% of all games end at 55–60 minutes 0.8% of all games end at 60+ minutes 10–15 min: 43.4% over 1,635 games 43.4% 15–20 min: 47.0% over 3,886 games 47.0% 20–25 min: 47.8% over 11,550 games 47.8% 25–30 min: 48.0% over 34,342 games 48.0% 30–35 min: 47.9% over 71,082 games 47.9% 35–40 min: 47.9% over 80,597 games 47.9% 40–45 min: 48.2% over 56,122 games 48.2% 45–50 min: 48.7% over 29,864 games 48.7% 50–55 min: 48.7% over 14,452 games 48.7% 55–60 min: 48.7% over 5,753 games 48.7% 60+ min: 49.0% over 2,958 games 49.0% 10–1515–2020–2525–3030–3535–4040–4545–5050–5555–6060+
above 50% below 50% under 1,000 games how many games end then
See the numbers
MinutesWinsvs usualGames
10–15 43.4% −4.7% 1,635
15–20 47.0% −1.1% 3,886
20–25 47.8% −0.3% 11,550
25–30 48.0% −0.1% 34,342
30–35 47.9% −0.2% 71,082
35–40 47.9% −0.2% 80,597
40–45 48.2% +0.1% 56,122
45–50 48.7% +0.6% 29,864
50–55 48.7% +0.6% 14,452
55–60 48.7% +0.6% 5,753
60+ 49.0% +0.9% 2,958

"vs usual" is against Celeste's 48.1% over all these games. Faded rows have under 1,000 games, where a few percent either way is noise; under 300, no win rate is shown.

Each point is how often Celeste won games that ended at that length, not the chance of winning at that minute. Short games are usually one-sided, so the left side is about closing out a lead and the right side about long, close games. Games under 10 minutes are left out. Every hero by game length →

Sources and confidence for this record

Record confidence: Strong evidence. Compiled for patch 10-30-2026, researched 2026-10-30.

Difficulty rating: Deadlock Labs hero difficulty guide (deadlocklabs.gg/heroes/difficulty/) lists Celeste as Medium; Lockbuilds' difficulty tier list places her at Hard. Her bounce-based weapon and air-movement passive push toward the higher rating in practice.