Complete Guide to Doorman: New Deadlock Hero Strategies and Gameplay
Master Doorman's unique portal mechanics, support playstyle, and strategic positioning to control team mobility and disrupt enemies.
Doorman brings Portal-style mechanics to Deadlock with his connected doorways, enemy displacement ultimate, and unique support playstyle. Unlike traditional carry heroes, Doorman's abilities provide nearly full value without heavy item investment, making him one of the game's purest support characters.
Understanding Doorman's Abilities
Doorman's kit revolves around mobility and displacement rather than raw damage output.
Ability 1 - Doorways: Creates two connected portals that anyone can travel through instantly. Players can peek through doors for scouting or positioning, and Doorman can manually close doors to trap enemies who pass through. The doors have limited range and can be tricky to position on angled surfaces, but when placed correctly, they transform team mobility.
Ability 2 - Luggage Cart: A dual-purpose ability that pushes teammates forward or slows enemies. The hitbox feels inconsistent and takes practice to land reliably, but upgrading this ability provides a significant barrier (almost 400 at good scaling).
Ability 3 - Bell Throw: Area denial tool that disrupts enemy aim and provides decent base damage. The bell can be double-popped for extra damage, though this is risky to execute. Originally had infinite range at release but received heavy nerfs.
Ultimate - Shadow Realm: Sends enemies to a hotel dimension where they must find a door or take damage over time. Deals 50 initial damage plus 150 damage with stun on wall impact. Around 50 second cooldown.
Core Playstyle and Role
Doorman functions as an almost pure support character. His abilities provide value at base level without scaling items, making him effective even when behind. The doorway ability gets full value regardless of items (only enhanced by range increases like Mystic Burst), and the bell disrupts enemies whether you're fed or starving.
Your primary value comes from:
- Teamfight participation: Doorways enable rotations and escapes that wouldn't otherwise exist
- Urn rotations: Speed up objective control with strategic door placement
- Peeling for carries: Use doors to create escape routes for teammates under pressure
- Hypercarry disruption: Send fed enemies to the shadow realm during critical fights
Doorman has significant tunnel vision when placing doors, so positioning awareness is crucial. Poor door placement can get you caught while trying to escape.
Item Builds
Spirit Support Build (Recommended)
This is Doorman's most effective playstyle. Since your abilities don't need items to function, you can rush high-impact support items.
Early: Mystic Burst, range increases, extra charges
Core: Focus on spirit power and utility items that enhance your abilities. Mystic expansion improves doorway range.
Situational:
- Focus Lens: Catch enemies exiting doors
- Slow/Hex items: Enhance ultimate effectiveness when enemies are in the shadow realm
- Echo Shard: Better for close-quarters fighting, situational
Gun Build (Situational)
While Doorman has decent gun damage that shouldn't be underestimated (despite his "potato auto" slow projectile speed), the gun build is only worth pursuing when your team desperately lacks damage output. Most teams benefit more from Doorman playing support since other characters scale better with farm.
Refresher Orb Meme Build
Some players rush Refresher Orb as a first tier 4 item (similar to Dynamo builds) to double-cast the ultimate. This creates psychological warfare by repeatedly sending enemies to the hotel. Pair with Decay for extra damage while they're trapped. This build is viable but requires snowballing and can leave you vulnerable if you fall behind.
Advanced Techniques
Zero-Soul Combo: Doorway → walker → luggage cart to trap enemies. This combo works at any net worth and is your bread-and-butter playmaking tool.
Door Peeking: Use doorways for scouting and trick shots before committing to fights.
Strategic Closing: Manually close doors after enemies pass through to prevent their escape.
Slot Machine Timing: Hit the slot machine on the second-to-last light bulb for permanent buffs. These can accelerate your item timings significantly.
Team Composition and Synergy
Doorman's effectiveness depends heavily on team composition. He lacks solo kill potential and struggles to farm jungle efficiently, making him better suited for active teamfight support than split-pushing or carrying.
Good with: Teams that need mobility, peel, or ways to disengage from bad fights. Doorman excels at saving overextended teammates and enabling aggressive engages.
Struggles against: Heroes with strong close-quarters presence like Drifter. If enemies can collapse on you quickly, your door setup time becomes a liability.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths:
- Strong lane phase
- Provides value without items
- Excellent team mobility and peel
- Portal mechanics enable creative plays
- Can shut down enemy carries with ultimate
Weaknesses:
- High skill ceiling - door placement is difficult to master
- Very slow projectile speed ("potato autos")
- Becomes "weirder to play" as games progress
- Poor jungle farming
- Limited range on door placement
- Significant tunnel vision when using abilities
- Team-dependent with low pick potential
Doorman rewards players who think spatially and can predict enemy movement. The hero is strong in coordinated environments where teams can capitalize on your mobility tools, but struggles when teammates don't understand how to use your portals effectively.
Video Resources
Additional Sources
- The Best Build For Every Hero In Deadlock - Metro Deadlock
- Deadlock for Dummies: A beginner's guide (2025) - AverageJonas