Deadlock Farming Guide: Fast Soul Farm Routes (2026)

🎯 The core idea

City Never Sleeps replaced the old Neutrals with Haunts, and they move, wake from range and group up. That makes soul farming faster than before: aggro a camp with one shot, punch or AoE the whole clump, hit eyes for crits, and weave Tough Crates (guaranteed souls for one Heavy Melee) into every trip. Learn the 2:00, 3:00, 5:00 and 8:00 spawn timers and your jungle route builds itself.

• free costs nothing
• cheap small cost
• setup needs preparation
• grind pays off slowly
• skip the thing to stop doing

Haunts move now: punch the whole camp at once

free The biggest change to Deadlock jungle farming in the September 29, 2026 City Never Sleeps update is that camp creatures, now called Haunts, walk around once they are fighting you. The deadlock.wiki Haunt page confirms it: active Haunts move and some step in close to use melee attacks. In practice that means a camp drifts into a tight group around you.

The video's fastest pattern: shoot one Haunt once to wake the camp, stand at the doorway, let them come to you, then punch. Because they clump, one Light or Heavy Melee hits several at once. AndrewChicken's advice is to stop spending abilities on small (tier I) camps entirely, since melee alone clears them, and save your cooldowns for lane fights and bigger camps. This is the new jungle farming habit that saves the most time in the early game.

Melee builds and displacement in the new jungle

setup Heroes that used to farm badly can now clear medium camps well, because melee is better against grouped Haunts. In the video, a melee Viscous with Melee Charge, Opening Rounds and Point Blank tears through camps, and Abrams pins Haunts into a wall, stuns them and punches. Pots of the Crabbage Pot family group up the same way when shot.

There's a catch. Displacement works on Haunts now, so a careless knockback can scatter a camp. The video shows Viscous Puddle Punch launching a camp in all directions, which makes the rest of the clear slower. Aim knockbacks sideways or into a wall so the Haunts land together. Note that Puddle Punch's heavy-melee upgrade can't open Tough Crates, according to the wiki's Crate page, so don't rely on it for boxes either.

Line up two camps for one AoE ability

free Moving Haunts can be steered. In the Sunken Plaza (the purple Plaza District area on the Archmother side, between Blue and Yellow lanes), two camps sit next to each other. The video wakes both, lets them walk toward each other, and then a single Seven Lightning Ball kills both camps at once.

This is the core of fast farm patterns in the new map: provoke with your gun, let the Haunts clump, then hit the clump with one AoE (or walk in and punch if you're a melee hero). Any hero with a big area ability can do this, which is why AoE spirit heroes farm so quickly right now.

Respect the camps: use cover, don't face-tank

skip Stop walking into the middle of a medium or large camp and soaking all the damage. Medium and large Haunts have special attacks from their family: the wiki lists homing fireworks (Festival Spirit), spore mines with -50% healing reduction (Slum Shroom), lasers that leave fire on the ground (Stage Hand, Underhand) and toxic puddles (Gutter Ghoul). The video shows a hero taking hundreds of damage in seconds from a tier II/III camp.

Fight from a doorframe or behind a wall, peek to shoot, and step out of the special attack instead of trading. Haunts also scale through the match: the wiki says their health rises 2.1% per minute and their damage 0.5% per minute. Their soul value rises too, so they stay worth killing. Some melee Haunt attacks, such as the Crabbage Pot slam, can be parried.

Farm from range: wake camps from outside the pit

free The old jungle creeps couldn't be damaged while hunkered down until you were close. Haunts spawn dormant too, but the wiki gives the exact rule: damage counts once you're within 38.1 m or the Haunt is already active. In the video, Seven stands in the doorway of the Sunken Plaza pit, throws Lightning Ball inside and clears the camp without ever entering.

This matters most in the Sunken Plaza. The wiki notes its fog blocks sight and sound and slowly drains stamina, so standing inside costs you the stamina you need to escape a gank. Farm it from the edge. It is one of the richest spots on the map (two Haunt camps plus Sinner's Sacrifice sites), so learning to clear it from outside pays off every game.

Haunt camp tiers, spawn timers and soul values

grind Every camp belongs to one of three tiers. The minimap shows the tier: a plain triangle is small, one line under it is medium, two lines is large. The eye colour of a Haunt also tells you its tier. These are the deadlock.wiki baseline values for City Never Sleeps:

The frame above matches the table: around seven minutes in, a Past Dues I shows 44 souls and a Past Dues II shows 73. Small camps have 3 Haunts and sit near both teams' left-lane and blue-lane Guardians. Large camps have at least one large Haunt plus two large or two medium ones. Two things for carry farming: souls from a Haunt are split evenly between every allied player who damaged it, and the respawn timer only starts when the last creature dies. A support who tags your camp takes part of your gold, and a camp left at one Haunt never respawns. Haunt soul values are new and may still be tuned in follow-up patches, so recheck the wiki if numbers feel off.

Headshots on Haunts: aim for the eye

free The wiki confirms that shooting a Haunt in the eye deals critical damage, and the video adds a useful habit: every Haunt has some eye-shaped marker showing where its headshot box is. On tier II ghouls it's simply the head. On small flyers it's the blue head.

The tricky one is the theatre camp. The Stage Hands are marionettes, and the crit spot isn't the puppet; it's the eye on the hand holding the strings above it. Shoot the puppeteer, not the puppet. Eye shots are free extra damage and make a real difference to how fast you can clear a camp with your gun in the mid game.

Tough Crates: guaranteed souls for one Heavy Melee

free City Never Sleeps added Tough Crates, which players call heavy crates or heavy-punch boxes. They are bigger than normal crates, teal with thick metal edges and a fist-shaped lock, and only a Heavy Melee opens them. Per the deadlock.wiki Crate page:

So a Tough Crate is worth double a regular crate and never comes up empty. The video gets 85 souls from one at about 10 minutes, which matches the wiki's formula (46 + 4 × 10 = 86). Like regular crates, most spawn at 3:00 and respawn about 3 minutes after being broken, in fixed spots. If you leave the souls on the ground, the respawn is delayed. Crate souls are Haunted Souls and are added to your total immediately.

A soul farming route by spawn time

setup A good farming route is mostly about timers. Combine the wiki's numbers for Haunts, crates and Sinner's Sacrifice and you get a simple schedule for how to farm souls fast without missing waves:

The video's main rule for the early game: clear the wave first, then go on a box run, and be back in lane when the next wave arrives. Tell your lane partner before an extended run. On side lanes the video points to Tough Crates near the bridge, including one on the enemy side, and on Blue lane a lot of regular crates behind the Guardian with one Tough Crate near the Walker. Regular crates are still worth taking; the wiki counts 518 crates on the map.

Yellow lane box route on the Archmother side

free If you're on Yellow lane on the Archmother side, the video shows an unusually dense jungle route. Start with the crates around your Guardian, then cross to Fairfax Tower behind the Curiosity Shop: two crates, a Tough Crate, then three more crates. Continue into the next room for another Tough Crate and loop back toward your Guardian.

For a longer run, there are three more crates by the Curiosity Shop and three more inside it, plus a Tough Crate in the secret shop room, which is a guaranteed payout if the regular boxes roll empty. These locations come from the video's own footage, not the wiki, and the wiki only lists crate counts, not every spot. Treat this as one strong route and not a full crate map.

Vault crates in the Sunken Plaza and Bell Tower

cheap The Yellow lane route passes the Sunken Plaza, and the vault there holds four Tough Crates plus many regular ones. The video says these vault crates, and the ones in the Bell Tower vault on the other side of the map, don't spawn at 3:00 but at 5:00, so it times them with the 5-minute bridge buffs.

The wiki doesn't confirm that detail for these two vaults. Its Crate page lists two timing exceptions: crates in the Tunnels spawn at 5:00 (and respawn after 5 minutes since the September 16, 2026 patch), and the room below Times Square spawns them at 10:00. So treat the 5:00 vault timing as the video's observation, and check the vault before 5:00 once to see for yourself. Either way, this vault is worth a detour because it sits a short hop from the Yellow Guardian.

Sinner's Sacrifice: don't break three alone at low health

setup Sinner's Sacrifice machines first spawn at 8:00 and respawn 5 minutes after being broken (or after their hybrid camp is cleared). Each one is worth 310 souls plus 3.35 per minute, and the jackpot hit gives permanent buffs. That makes them great mid-game farm, but they hit back. The wiki says a machine deals 80 damage per melee hit to you, between 320 and 640 in total depending on your mix of light and heavy hits.

That's why the video warns against taking all three Bell Tower machines alone early in the game. Breaking all three can leave you very low, and the Bell Tower rings for everyone (since September 30 it also pings the minimap), so enemies know where you are. Call it to your team or bring your lane partner. Note that melee-damage abilities such as Viscous Puddle Punch don't damage the machines at all.

Corrupted Sinner's Sacrifice: hitting the fast jackpot

free City Never Sleeps gave Sinner's Sacrifice variable timings. Per the wiki, once a machine is down to three bulbs, it picks a speed: slow 60% of the time (static white lights) or fast 40% of the time (lights blinking orange and red). The video calls the fast one the corrupted version.

When it enters the jackpot mini-game, the lights fill from left to right, and you need to hit while all of them are lit. On the fast version, start your Heavy Melee earlier: the video times the swing as the lights reach roughly the second-to-last bulb so the hit lands when the row completes. Use a Heavy Melee, not a light one. The wiki says a heavy-melee jackpot gives 4 random permanent buffs and a light one only 1, while missing gives just the remaining souls. The machine doesn't hit back during the jackpot, so take your time.

How this guide was fact-checked

The source is AndrewChicken's video "You NEED to Know These NEW Jungle Farming Tips! (Deadlock)", uploaded October 2, 2026, three days after City Never Sleeps. Every number was checked against deadlock.wiki pages for Haunt, Crate, Sinner's Sacrifice and Souls, and the City Never Sleeps, September 30, October 5 and October 14, 2026 update pages. None of the October balance patches changed Haunts, crates or Sinner's Sacrifice.

• Confirmed by the wiki: Haunts move and group when active; eye shots crit; camp tiers, health, souls, spawn and respawn timers; souls split between allies who damage a Haunt; Tough Crates need a Heavy Melee, have 46 base souls (+4/min) against 23 (+2/min) for regular crates, and always drop souls, so "double the souls of a regular box" is correct; crates spawn at 3:00; Sinner's Sacrifice spawn time, retaliation damage, jackpot speeds and buff counts.
• Video number that checks out: the 85 souls from a Tough Crate at about 10 minutes matches the wiki formula (86).
• Not confirmed by the wiki: the video says the Sunken Plaza and Bell Tower vault crates spawn at 5:00. The wiki only lists the Tunnels (5:00) and the room below Times Square (10:00) as exceptions to the 3:00 rule, so that timing is attributed to the video.
• Added from the wiki, not in the video: the 38.1 m activation rule, Haunt scaling per minute, the Sunken Plaza stamina drain, the Bell Tower minimap ping, and the fact that Puddle Punch can't open Tough Crates or damage Sinner's machines.
• From the video's footage only: the exact Yellow lane route and the crate spots around Fairfax Tower and the Curiosity Shop, and the bridge and Blue lane Tough Crate spots. The wiki has no per-location crate map.

What this guide doesn't answer

• Every Tough Crate location on the map. This guide covers the routes the video shows; a full crate map is a separate topic.
• Hero-specific farming builds. Which items speed up farming for a given hero belongs in that hero's guide.
• When to stop farming and group. Turning your soul lead into objectives is macro, not farming.
• Buff Containers, Healing Snacks and Steam Vents. These are other City Never Sleeps map features the video doesn't cover.
• Future Haunt soul tuning. Values may change in later patches; the wiki's Haunt page is the place to recheck them.