What spawns when, how a wave pays out, and what to do with each minute until the Guardians fall.
Timers checked on 11 November 2026 against the wiki, the game files and current guides. Sources are at the bottom.
Everything in lane runs on a timer. These are the ones worth knowing by heart.
Troopers meet in lane. A new wave follows every 30 seconds until 20:00.
Back 1:25 after the last denizen in the camp dies.
Break the ones on your path. They refill every 3:00.
One on each side bridge. They last 160 seconds and return every 5:00.
Respawn 4:50 after they are cleared.
It replaces one ranged trooper in every wave, so waves hit Guardians harder.
It starts the match taking half damage. By 6:00 it takes full damage.
Large camps respawn in 5:35, Sinner's Sacrifice in 5:00.
Drops every 5:00 from here. When it lands, the lane phase is over.
The first one opens on a side-lane bridge, then roughly every 7 minutes.
Any Guardian still standing is an easy target for a shoved wave.
The same lane asks for different things at 1:00, 4:00 and 9:00.
Nothing else is on the map yet. All your income is the wave in front of you.
Decide whether you are pressing or absorbing, and put the wave where that works.
The first reasons to leave lane appear. Leave only on a pushed wave.
The jungle opens fully and the Guardian gets weaker every minute.
Most lanes are won on orbs, long before anyone dies.
About half lands the moment the trooper dies and is shared with allies standing nearby.
The other half hangs in the air for about a second. Whoever shoots or punches it first keeps it.
The whole bounty is paid at once. There is no orb to deny.
Trooper souls are split by how many allies are nearby, and the split is generous: two players earn more together than one alone.
Kill the enemy medic trooper first. It drops a heal that only your side can pick up.
Average souls per player at each checkpoint, from the matches deadlock-api tracks. Use the rank filter to compare yourself with a bracket.
The 800-soul items bought earliest on average in this rank range, with the win rate of the players who bought them.
The wave is always doing one of these. Pick the one that fits what you want to do next.
Kill their troopers as fast as you can. Your wave walks into their Guardian.
Use it when: you are about to leave lane for a camp, a buff or a rotation, or the enemy just died or went to base.
Only take last hits. The waves meet on your side, near your Guardian.
Use it when: you are behind or being hunted. The enemy has to step far from safety for every last hit.
Kill their ranged troopers and leave yours alive. Your wave grows and arrives as one big wave.
Use it when: something spawns in 30 to 60 seconds: the 5:00 buff, the 10:00 Urn.
Shooting it early is wasted time. Shooting it late is free souls.
Positions come from the game's own map file, so this picture follows the patches. Lanes are drawn along their ziplines.
What the laning videos agree on, compressed.
Guides disagree on a few numbers after this year's patches. Where they did, the game files and the most recently updated page won. The exact kill and orb split is one of those: sources give anything from 50/50 to 65/35, so this page says “about half”.
| Time | Souls | Last hits | Denies |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3:00 | 1,768 | 5.9 | 0.9 |
| 6:00 | 3,593 | 12.5 | 1.6 |
| 9:00 | 5,958 | 18.9 | 2.0 |
| 12:00 | 8,801 | 25.3 | 2.2 |
| 15:00 | 11,952 | 32.3 | 2.3 |
| Camp | Opens | Respawns | Health | Souls | On the map |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small camp | 2:00 | 1:25 | 142 | 45 per denizen | 4 |
| Medium camp | 5:00 | 4:50 | 354 | 75 per denizen | 25 |
| Large camp | 8:00 | 5:35 | 1,246 | 199 per denizen | 11 |
| Sinner's Sacrifice | 8:00 | 5:00 | 500 | about 310 | 11 |
Health and soul values are for 0:00, from the game files. Bounties grow 1.08% a minute. A camp only starts its respawn timer when the last denizen in it dies.
64% of everything a player earns by 9:00 comes from troopers. Camps and kills only catch up after the lane phase. Bars count souls earned, so they sit a little under net worth, which includes the souls you start with.
