Apollo's Flawless Advance ignores moving skills, Ultimate goes trough buildings. It's unfun.

[athemil]

Case 1:
Apollo's Advance skill ignored Doorman's cart push.
View attachment Deadlock - 2026-02-23 12-19-44 AM.mp4

Case 2:
His ultimate passes trough a whole building
View attachment Deadlock - 2026-02-23 11-32-51 PM - Kill.mp4


playing against apollo is generally unfun. He ignores multiple game rules and skills. fix it.

 

[lithoss]

Apollo is just a bad design in general. still OP and requires you to build your entire build around stopping him. just remove from game

 

[VictorKain]

You are right in the sens that he ignore any anti movement or deplacement in the game if you dont time it right and it s frustrating to play against when he is so ez to play. They are some counter play that also work against other heros that him but it s just to much.

*The cart doorman is really hard to touch him even dead on him*

 

[Syngu]

He is the most unbalanced hero in all MOBA games. His ability three shouldn't continue if he can't perfect it, and perfecting it should be harder. Right now, I don't think anyone is missing it.

 

[Nubbe]

Case 1:
Apollo's Advance skill ignored Doorman's cart push.

Case 2:
His ultimate passes trough a whole building


playing against apollo is generally unfun. He ignores multiple game rules and skills. fix it.

I think i might have the answer for some of this, for case 1 he actually parries the cart with his 2 ability (you can tell by the distinct sound)
and for case 2 his ultimate movement maybe "curved" around the edge of the building because his ultimate travels in a straight line and has forced length so it cant be stopped early by structures


I do agree it is very difficult and a bit unfun to fight against him.

 

[VictorKain]

I think i might have the answer for some of this, for case 1 he actually parries the cart with his 2 ability (you can tell by the distinct sound)
and for case 2 his ultimate movement maybe "curved" around the edge of the building because his ultimate travels in a straight line and has forced length so it cant be stopped early by structures


I do agree it is very difficult and a bit unfun to fight against him.

he can t parry echo shard cart twice, he has one parry. but thanks you for trying. It may not happend all the time.

 

[x-trem007]

I personally prefer slow shooting / sniper type of heroes / guns in games e.g. I really like to play Vindicta long range in Deadlock -> tried this dude... idk for me it does not "click". Kinda flashy, kinda makes your head go million miles a second but idk in most cases feels like spamming abilities than anything more than that.

Also I think you can counter Apollo really easy:

1. keep stamina up and dodge his lunges - sound / area of effect is kinda hard to judge (sometimes I avoid it completely, sometimes it just hits me even out of sight) still doable
2. be aware that most Apollos will just go all in on you - all abilities spammed including Ult and basically for them it's either they get a kill or die shortly after
3. add things like slowdowns / knockdown and you can pretty much take 1v1 unless soul difference is big
4. don't feed him
5. worst things worse by eternal or invulnerable to have plan B if you get ambushed
6. don't stay in your abilities e.g. Vindicta's flight or alike where you are basically stationary target

What I see in most cases - people especially on close range heros ego fight Apollo's in lane, feed them 3-4 kills, lose the lane and it kinda goes out of hand from there. Add to that typical follow-up of brainless 6v6 mid lane fights where Apollo can easily pick up multi-kills with his Ult -> bam you have 5-10k lead Apollo who will hunt you down preferably 1v1 but can take already 1v2s as well -> team does not adjust or continues to ego fight while shitting their pants and selling as soon as they hear Apollo sound queues.

Long story short (on not fed Apollos) - if you play long range shooter, they pretty much fucked if you have discipline to keep your distance. If you play close range hero -> play around obstacles and again basically fucked. Poke damage, bate out util, finish of or see Apollo running away in many cases with his ult

p.s. imo most people that struggle are ones that are linear and on super low sense -> can't follow up vertical movement. But they struggle vs good Lash or Holiday as much as vs Apollo.

 

[x-trem007]

Case 1:
Apollo's Advance skill ignored Doorman's cart push.
View attachment 86885

Case 2:
His ultimate passes trough a whole building
View attachment 86886


playing against apollo is generally unfun. He ignores multiple game rules and skills. fix it.

Ult passing through building is wild not gonna lie would probably trigger me as well

At the same time looking that there was just 2k difference in souls and how fast he took you down - main issue here is build. Dude just hacks you up in 3 lunges and that ult was just finishing touch, 100% he would have finished you even without it. Lack of sustain or spirit resist...shouldn't go down that easy with just 2k difference imo.

 

[darkmagiciansquirrel]

Complaining about Apollo is a self-report. Buy Counterspell and he's barely an issue, buy Slowing Hex and he literally can't do anything but M1 for the duration. His ult will automatically trigger Reactive Barrier if it's not on cooldown and will absorb just about all of the damage if you're not desperately behind him in souls. If you're struggling against Apollo it's because you're feeding him, not counter-buying, and/or playing like an ape against him in-lane.

He didn't Advance through the cart, he Riposted it.

His ult does not "go through" buildings - in the clip you posted, he squeezed around the corner and shot in a straight line past it to clip the Graves at the edge of the hitbox. By my estimation he just barely caught it. His ult is incredibly inconsistent and 9 times out of 10 deals pathetic damage, so again, if you're dying constantly to Apollo it's really just a you issue.

"Not fun to play against" =/= broken.

 

[VictorKain]

So people cant read now days. The problem is not countering him. It s he has a clunky hit box. And spell, items and ability seem to pass through him when there is a clear hit sound clue and visual.

I didn't complain the hero is hard to counter because i m noob and can't after 2000 hours play the game.

I m reporting his hitbox is bugged, ability's don t register correctly and he has an unfair advantage. Because i have more that 2000 hours since alpha days and i know clunky hitboxes because i was there when Abrams had phantom invincible frame in charge or Shiv hitting you trough 3 walls with dash from 15m.

Also op saying the same, yes he can counter cart and ult pass around walls but it s unfair that you need items too counter him, plus he has clunky hitbox, plus ult pass trough and around 2-3-4 walls.

It s to much. Imagine you can t hide from ult behind cover, that s paige ult. You can t cancel his ult during execution, that's Yamato ult. You can t stun or displace him with abilities because clunky hitboxes, that's mina hitbox on steroids. Can counter any of those abilities. You can t interrupt his 3. The 3 can touch trough walls also.

It s to much. Like he is fun hero and can be counter with ez but if i need to buy 3 items to play against him because my ability can t connect or i can t hide behind cover like all other heros...

He is ignoring a lot of basics mechanics.

 

[x-trem007]

Like he is fun hero and can be counter with ez but if i need to buy 3 items to play against him because my ability can t connect or i can t hide behind cover like all other heros...

Not gonna lie this in combination of 2000h sounds like you just want to brute force everyone with the same default build.

From my limited <300h in the game I kinda think this game at a higher levels is all about strats and counter strats less so about aim. I would guesstimate that priority list goes like:
1. strat / anti-strat
2. movement / dodging
3. aim mechanics

As said in my comment above - Graves got totally destroyed by 3 lunges (basically lost 3/4 of health). Imo clear sign that build was totally off for countering / taking Apollo 1v1.

So for you same as anyone else there are clear 3 choices vs Apollo (or to be fair any other hero):
1. follow during the game what enemies buy and counter-buy accordingly
2. ignore point 1, go with your build but then see which heroes you can take 1v1 and which you MUST avoid and/or take 1v2 or even 1v3
3. ignore point 1 and 2 = just get rolled over as soon as you have opponent that is not afraid of your build -> complain in forums

Yes, I agree that if Apollo's Ult teleports him through walls and applies damage on the other side = that is broken and has to be fixed.
If his abilities somehow interfere with incoming damage (does not seem to be the case for me tbh) = yes that needs to be fixed. But this might be also server issue which I think is a big issue in Deadlock, Valve probably not spending top $$$ for free to play beta testing. Fair game.

Still all of the above is 90% people inability to counter Apollo builds aimed to decimate nubs, 10% is game mechanics and stuff imo.

 

[VictorKain]

Not gonna lie this in combination of 2000h sounds like you just want to brute force everyone with the same default build.

From my limited <300h in the game I kinda think this game at a higher levels is all about strats and counter strats less so about aim. I would guesstimate that priority list goes like:
1. strat / anti-strat
2. movement / dodging
3. aim mechanics

As said in my comment above - Graves got totally destroyed by 3 lunges (basically lost 3/4 of health). Imo clear sign that build was totally off for countering / taking Apollo 1v1.

So for you same as anyone else there are clear 3 choices vs Apollo (or to be fair any other hero):
1. follow during the game what enemies buy and counter-buy accordingly
2. ignore point 1, go with your build but then see which heroes you can take 1v1 and which you MUST avoid and/or take 1v2 or even 1v3
3. ignore point 1 and 2 = just get rolled over as soon as you have opponent that is not afraid of your build -> complain in forums

Yes, I agree that if Apollo's Ult teleports him through walls and applies damage on the other side = that is broken and has to be fixed.
If his abilities somehow interfere with incoming damage (does not seem to be the case for me tbh) = yes that needs to be fixed. But this might be also server issue which I think is a big issue in Deadlock, Valve probably not spending top $$$ for free to play beta testing. Fair game.

Still all of the above is 90% people inability to counter Apollo builds aimed to decimate nubs, 10% is game mechanics and stuff imo.

yet you don t understand it.

you give the "buy items" speech, wich is right for 90% of the roster, but he is in the 10% where you can t with all hero's deal with it without investing to much. You go about a isolated video from op. He is bugged and unfair. if you wanna go after op viddeo, the counter is 0.3 second, he got more thant that. He got hit by cart push and still parried after? it s not ok. Yeah you are right but not actually about appollo, just general mechanics and hero + gameplay.

 

[x-trem007]

yet you don t understand it.

you give the "buy items" speech, wich is right for 90% of the roster, but he is in the 10% where you can t with all hero's deal with it without investing to much. You go about a isolated video from op. He is bugged and unfair. if you wanna go after op viddeo, the counter is 0.3 second, he got more thant that. He got hit by cart push and still parried after? it s not ok. Yeah you are right but not actually about appollo, just general mechanics and hero + gameplay.

sorry but clearly our experience differ.

I have had 0 issues playing against Apollo no matter current state of the hero and the only major issue so far which is true to basically every hero = some low IQ players on your team feeding them too fast and keep trying to 1v1 him all game.

So far in all of my games where my team does not roll over enemy team from lane stage it has always been the case that 1-3 enemy heroes just get out of control one way or another and you MUST build vs them to contain them and have a fighting chance. Otherwise e.g. people die 1-2 times vs say Apollo -> see he does all the damage via spirit and abilities -> they keep investing into damage or bullet protection -> try to go "who can hit harder" and in most cases fail as this hero is ahead in souls.

I just yesterday had a game where one dude built godlike Abrams, you could not kill the thing unless you stunned him like 3 times in a row = dude had massive regen and ability reset item = regenning and stunning us into walls / insta killing time and time again. Yet we agreed to buy anti-heals basically all team and got 2 knockdowns and curse = dude faced 1v3 the rest of the game, we won despite him having 100k+ player damage and something like 28 kills?

But in most game not only it is impossible to have an agreement with teammates because they hero ball / ego fight and to a lesser extent even have agreement to yourself to deviate from your usual / queued build.

p.s. also where comments about OP heroes / legends fall short - noone forbids you to copy the same build and play in this case Apollo. Yes you might not like to play him as I do, yet if you want to "win every game against Apollo" maybe that is your only way given we assume your argument about OP is correct. In any game I think so far where there were heroes, legends there were always some that are OP. Take Apex legends - extreme case where devs intentionally make legends OP to force people playing them or just lose badly because certain legends are without a doubt OP and only counter is to play those legends but better.

 

[VictorKain]

Did you play doorman, abrams or venator against him?

The problem is not the countering him, it s that his hitbox is bugged. If you play those hero, you will know that he evade by magic your stun when his teamates just next to him are stuned. he has one parry man, you play echo shard, boum, pass trough or touch the ennemies next to him or behinde?

You talk about gameplay and strategie, we talk about actual issues. You wanna talk about him, play those heros and tell us. I play haze just fine, because like you said, distance, but the moemnt i trow my knife, he is not sleep. in fact his teamate behinde him is sleept. That s a bug, that s not normal.

If you wanna check, go 61932479 on 25-30 min mark. I was venator i think or doorman going on tower for rune on left side, push him and calico on wall, only calico got stun. No parry, he used already.

So i should had buyed what, knockdown with slowing hex so i can lan a stun on a wall that i can land with other hero's? It s absurd and it should get look in to.

 

[x-trem007]

Did you play doorman, abrams or venator against him?

I have played Venator against Apollo. Apollo got into my traps so many times I even laughed at some point how easy it is

Doorman and Abrams is still on my "do I even want to play them" list I was thinking about investing into Doorman this week, but I think I will start with Mirage = just fits my game style better. But I will for sure not say no to him.

Abrams...hearing and seeing how OP he is and "easy to play"...not so much. If I play close range I take Drifter or Calaco, more fun yet harder to play.