Deadlock Vents Guide: Steam Vents, Tunnel Vents & Jump Pads

🎯 The core idea

Deadlock has three things called vents, and they do different jobs. Steam Vents, added in City Never Sleeps, hide you from enemy heroes and give light regen until you fight or someone walks in. Tunnel Vents are underground shortcuts that only four heroes can enter. Jump Pads (Air Vents) launch anyone. Plan your rotations around all three, and never treat a Steam Vent as a safe room.

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

Three kinds of vent in Deadlock

When people search for Deadlock vents, they can mean any of three map features. The deadlock.wiki "Vent" page lists all three:

Steam Vents are the new ones. The City Never Sleeps update on September 29, 2026 added them with the patch line "Steam Vents added around the map, providing invisibility and regen while standing on it." The same update reworked the whole map, so routes you learned before then may no longer work. With all that new map to learn, these vents explained in one place should save you some deaths.

The source video is Leif's "Vent Optimizing and Routes for City Never Sleeps" (October 14, 2026). It's a sandbox route montage played as Holliday, set to music, with no narration. So the mechanics on this page come from the wiki, and the video shows where things are and how a fast route flows. In the frame above, Holliday runs through a blue steam cloud on a rooftop without stopping. The video often does this: the steam sits on the route, and the route doesn't stop at it.

Steam Vent invisibility: what hides you and what reveals you

free Stand inside the steam, and the wiki says you are hidden from enemy heroes. You also can't be targeted by items or abilities that need a hero target, such as Knockdown. Your allies can still see you, and the hero turns pale blue and see-through, as on Holliday in this frame. This is how Steam Vent invisibility works in practice.

The wiki lists three things that reveal you:

• You take damage or get hit by an effect. Area damage, a stray grenade or a spread of bullets fired into the cloud will reveal you.
• You damage an enemy hero or put an effect on one. Your first shot from the vent gives you away, so make it count.
• An enemy hero walks into the vent. Anyone who steps into the steam can see you.

skip Don't hide in a vent the enemy just watched you enter. The steam only stops them from seeing or targeting you. It doesn't stop damage. Spraying the cloud or walking into it both reveal you.

Steam Vent regen: how much healing to expect

cheap The second effect is a regeneration boost while you stand in the steam. The City Never Sleeps patch notes just call it "regen". The wiki's Map page calls it a "small health regeneration boost". The Steam Vent page is still marked as a stub, and it lists the bonus as "+4.8 x 0.083" without turning that into health per second. So we won't give an HP/s number here. Treat Steam Vent regen as a way to top up a few chunks of health while you wait for a wave or a teammate. It won't heal you from low HP to full.

This frame shows the most useful kind of vent for this: a steam cloud in an underground passage on the way to a Curiosity Shop. You can stop here on your way to shop, out of enemy sight, and not lose any time.

Steam Vent locations: Secret Shops, Haunts and the Mid-Boss

The wiki says Steam Vents sit "near areas of interest, including Secret Shops, Haunts, and the Mid-Boss". The wiki doesn't have a full map of vent locations yet, and Leif's video doesn't put a pin on every one. What the footage does show matches the wiki's list:

• Near Haunt camps. At about 4:25, Holliday passes a puff of steam beside an Underhand camp (shown above). At about 0:36, she stands in steam by the alley that opens onto a large Haunt camp.
• Underground near the Curiosity Shop. At about 1:10, there's steam in the passage under the map near one of the two neutral "secret" Curiosity Shops.
• On rooftops along fast routes. At about 0:31 and 5:04, there are steam clouds on rooftop paths that the route runs straight through.

setup In the sandbox, write down the Steam Vent locations nearest your lane's Haunt camps. Those are where the enemy will hide to ambush you while you farm, and where you can hide too.

Tunnel Vents: which heroes fit, and the 70% speed boost

Tunnel Vents lead into the tunnels under the map, a network of shortcuts between different areas. Per the wiki, only these heroes can use them:

• Calico in Ava form.
• Mo & Krill, by crouching next to the vent (Ctrl by default) or during Burrow.
• Rat King, by crouching next to the vent.
• Rem, while crouching.

Grey Talon's Guided Owl can also fly in if you hit the angle right. In Street Brawl, the Shrink Ray item lets any hero in. Inside the tunnels, you get 70% more Move Speed, but the wiki notes that sprint speed isn't multiplied by this boost. Mo & Krill and Rat King take a moment to get in, and they can't slide into a vent.

skip Don't try to use a vent to escape a fight you're still in. You can't use a Tunnel Vent if you dealt or took damage in the last 4 seconds (barrier damage doesn't count), or while you carry the Soul Urn. When a vent is locked for you, a grill shows on the entrance once you're within 10 metres. So check for the grill before you commit to a route.

The tunnels also hold small Crates, Buff Containers and cockroaches worth 1 soul each, so a vent hero can pick up some loot along the way. Holliday can't use Tunnel Vents. So the video shows Deadlock tunnels only from the underground passages anyone can walk, like the signed way to the Curiosity Shop in this frame. The vent-only crawlspaces aren't shown.

Underground routes to the Mid-Boss and Teleporters

The Mid-Boss lives underground in the sewers in the middle of the map. Per the wiki, the entrances to its pit are marked with the Rejuvenator sign, at Broadway. The video's "Mid-boss engagement" chapter runs through this area. In this frame, the Mid-Boss health bar shows at the top of the screen as Holliday passes through. The "Boon received" popup is just a level-up from souls she picked up. Steam Vents near the Mid-Boss give you a place to wait out of sight before a contest.

The same underground level also has the map's four Teleporters, linked in pairs next to the underground Secret Shops. They take you to the opposite side of the map. Each one takes four seconds to channel, so enemies chasing you can catch up. When you arrive, you get a small speed boost (the wiki's update history lists +3 m/s for 5 seconds). Use them for rotation shortcuts when no one is chasing you, not as an escape.

Steam vent escape and ambush plays

free A good steam vent escape breaks line of sight first and then disappears. Turn a corner, step into the steam, and let the chaser run past. If they walk into the cloud or fire into it, you'll be revealed, so only stay when they have reason to think you went somewhere else. In this frame, Holliday stands in a street-level vent beside a candle-lit doorway, and an enemy structure's red health bar shows at the top of the screen.

Ambushes work the other way round. Wait in a vent next to a Haunt camp or a Curiosity Shop, let the enemy start farming or shopping, and open with your strongest damage. That first hit reveals you, so start with everything you have.

Steam isn't the only way to break vision. The wiki's Map page also covers Cosmic Veils, which are one-way vision barriers under arches and in Juke Rooms. From the grey side, you can't see enemy heroes on the other side. Juke Rooms are dead-end rooms behind a veil, marked by a shadowy figure in the doorway. A good escape route links these: a veil to break sight, then a vent to disappear, then a rope or zipline to get away.

Ziplines, Jump Pads and other rotation shortcuts

This frame shows the Broadway zipline prompt ("Hold to ride", disabled while flying). The wiki gives the numbers that matter for any vent rotation:

• Ziplines run at 18 m/s on the inner lane and 21 m/s on the outer lanes. Riding one refreshes your air dash and double jump. Dropping off with Ctrl keeps your momentum for 2 seconds.
• Damage locks you out. If an enemy hero or enemy objective damaged you in the last 3 seconds, you can't attach. If an enemy hero hits you while you ride, you get knocked off, take 15% of your max health as damage and are stunned for 2.5 seconds after you land. Once you've ridden for 3 seconds, a blue effect shows that you can't be knocked off.
• Jump Pads (the wiki also calls them Bounce Pads, Launch Pads or Air Vents) launch you in the direction of the wind above the pad. The landing spot is usually marked with white graffiti, and you can air strafe while flying. If you take damage in the first 0.9 seconds after launch, you're stunned until 0.2 seconds after you land, slowed by 30% for 2 seconds, and take 15% of your max health as damage. The wiki's update history recorded this window as 0.6 seconds when it was added in October 2025, and the current overview says 0.9 seconds.

skip Don't use Deadlock jump pads to escape someone who is already shooting you. A hit during the launch makes the pad a stun trap. Holliday also has her own Bounce Pad ability. That's a separate hero ability, not the map's jump pads.

Rooftop routes and vent tech from the video

Most of Leif's routes stay high up: rooftops, ledges and archways, with as few stops at street level as possible. The dev overlay in the top-left corner shows the current speed and, in brackets, the run's peak. On the Chinatown archway run shown here, it peaks near 1,670 in the overlay's units, compared with about 1,300 on other runs.

The "vent tech" in this video is mostly normal movement tech done well. The wiki's Movement page covers each piece:

• Dash Jump. Press jump while your stamina bars under the crosshair are blue during a dash. It costs 2 stamina in total and is the main long jump between rooftops.
• Wall Jump. Free, no stamina, and you can repeat it, so you can climb a gap without using your air jump.
• Mantle Glide. Hold crouch while you mantle, and you slide out the top of the ledge instead of stopping.
• Slide. Crouch above 8.9 m/s, or on a slope such as stairs.

The steam clouds show up along these lines, so your Deadlock map movement and your hiding spots end up on the same route.

Loot and breakables along vent routes

cheap Fast routes also go past loot. This rooftop has a Tough Crate marked "HEAVY". City Never Sleeps added these, and you need a heavy melee to open one. A zipline runs overhead. The patch also added hidden Healing Snacks, renamed Golden Statues to Buff Containers, and added Spirit Resist, Ability Range, Bullet Resist and Move Speed to the buffs from Buff Containers and Sinner's Sacrifice. Your vent rotation is worth more when it also passes a crate or a container.

grind Learning these routes takes a few sandbox sessions. The video is entirely sandbox footage (the "Testing Tools" panel is in every frame), and running a route ten times there costs you nothing.

How this guide was fact-checked

• From deadlock.wiki: what Steam Vents do (hidden from enemy heroes, untargetable by hero-target abilities, regen) and the three ways to get revealed. Where Steam Vents are placed (Secret Shops, Haunts, Mid-Boss). Which heroes can use Tunnel Vents, the 4-second combat lockout, the Soul Urn rule, the 10 m grill indicator and the 70% tunnel speed boost. The Jump Pad launch-stun numbers, zipline speeds and lockouts, Teleporter count and channel time, where the Mid-Boss is, and the movement tech definitions. The City Never Sleeps patch text (September 29, 2026) on the update's wiki page.
• From the video (Leif, October 14, 2026): route footage, where the steam clouds sit along those routes, the Broadway zipline prompt, the Tough Crate on the rooftop, and the overlay speed readings. The video has no narration, so none of its frames make a claim that the wiki could contradict.
• Things we couldn't confirm: the wiki's Steam Vent page is a stub that lists the regen as "+4.8 x 0.083", so we didn't give an HP-per-second number. The wiki gives two windows for the Jump Pad stun (0.6 s in the October 2025 patch entry, 0.9 s in the current overview). We gave the current one and noted the other. The wiki has no Tunnel Vent page of its own. Those facts are on its "Tunnel" page.

What this guide doesn't answer

• A full map of every Steam Vent and Tunnel Vent location. The wiki doesn't have one yet, and the video doesn't mark them. We'd rather leave it out than guess.
• Hero-specific tunnel routes for Calico, Mo & Krill, Rat King and Rem. Each one deserves its own route guide, and the video only uses Holliday, who can't enter Tunnel Vents.
• Exact speed conversions for the dev overlay. The video never says what units the readout uses, so we only compare its numbers with each other.
• Changes after October 14, 2026. No vent changes were listed in the wiki's update history up to the date we wrote this. Future patches may change it.