Looking for the best Nurse Harrow build in Deadlock? This guide covers everything you need to know about Nurse Harrow, including her abilities, best items, ability upgrade order, playstyle, lane strategy, team fight tips, combos, strengths, weaknesses, and how to get the most out of her unique kit. Nurse Harrow is the newest support hero in Deadlock, combining sustained damage, healing, buffs, de buffs, and terrifying crowd control. Her unique kit allows her to weaken enemies with Leech Therapy, temporarily accelerate herself or an ally with Wretched Vapours, heal teammates using Healing Needles, and unleash her ultimate, Lurking Terrors, to frighten enemies and disrupt entire team fights.
Nurse Harrow is particularly interesting because her healing and damage are closely connected. Rather than sitting at the back and relying entirely on support abilities, she benefits from actively dealing damage, collecting leeches, and maintaining pressure throughout a fight. Her leeches provide long term ultimate benefits, while Healing Needles rewards accurate shooting and regular combat participation. Wretched Vapours temporarily delays incoming damage before applying a punishing crash, something that must always be considered when using this ability.
The key to playing Nurse Harrow effectively is balancing aggression with support. You need to deal enough damage to sustain your resources, collect your leeches whenever it is safe, keep your teammates alive with Healing Needles, and choose the right moment to unleash your ultimate. As Nurse Harrow has only just been released, her optimal build is still developing. Early recommendations point toward a flexible combination of healing, Spirit Power, cooldown reduction, weapon damage, and survivability.
Deadlock Nurse Harrow Build
The best general Nurse Harrow build currently focuses on healing, Spirit Power, weapon effectiveness, cooldown reduction, and survivability. Although she does rely heavily on her weapon, Nurse Harrow is not a traditional gun focused damage dealer. Her abilities reward active participation in fights, and her effectiveness depends on how well she combines weapon attacks with her leeches and healing syringes.
A balanced build allows Nurse Harrow to maintain consistent damage while providing meaningful support. You want enough weapon damage to replenish Healing Needles charges reliably, enough Spirit Power to improve your abilities, and enough defensive utility to survive when enemies try to focus on you.
Early-game items
Strong early-game options include Extra Health, Extra Regen, Extra Stamina, Extra Spirit, Mystic Regeneration, High-Velocity Rounds, Rapid Rounds, and Mystic Shot.
These items provide a combination of survivability, lane sustain, mobility, weapon damage, and Spirit scaling. Extra Health and Extra Regen help Nurse Harrow survive aggressive lane opponents, while Extra Stamina makes it easier to reposition and escape dangerous engagements.
Extra Spirit is useful for strengthening her ability damage and improving the effectiveness of her kit. High-Velocity Rounds and Rapid Rounds can help her maintain weapon pressure, which is particularly important because dealing damage helps replenish Healing Needles charges.
Mid-game items
During the mid game, Nurse Harrow benefits from Improved Spirit, Improved Cooldown, Duration Extender, Superior Cooldown, Bullet Life steal, Spirit Life steal, Reactive Barrier, and additional weapon damage items such as Burst Fire.
These items help her scale into longer fights while making her abilities more effective. Improved Spirit increases her ability damage and can strengthen the offensive side of her kit. Cooldown reduction allows her to use Leech Therapy and Wretched Vapours more frequently, while Duration Extender can improve the uptime of relevant effects.
Bullet Life steal can provide additional sustain when you are consistently landing weapon attacks. Spirit Life steal is another option when your damage comes primarily from abilities, although the value of each life steal item depends on the damage you are dealing and the match situation.
Late-game items
Late-game options include Boundless Spirit, Spiritual Overflow, Superior Cooldown, Transcendent Cooldown, Spirit Burn, Leech, Improved Spirit, and high-value defensive items suited to the enemy team.
Boundless Spirit provides substantial Spirit Power, allowing Nurse Harrow’s damaging abilities to scale into the late game. Superior Cooldown and Transcendent Cooldown can help her access important abilities more frequently, while Spirit Burn can add further pressure against opponents who struggle to escape prolonged engagements.
Spiritual Overflow is worth considering if your build benefits from its combination of weapon and Spirit-related bonuses. Leech can also complement an aggressive playstyle by supporting your ability to sustain yourself through combat.
Defensive items become increasingly important when the enemy team has strong burst damage, crowd control, or heroes capable of diving into the backline. Depending on the match, you may benefit more from survivability and resistance than from purchasing another purely offensive item.
Best Nurse Harrow Build Order
A strong general Nurse Harrow build can start with Extra Health, Extra Regen, Extra Stamina, Extra Spirit, High-Velocity Rounds, Rapid Rounds, and Mystic Regeneration. From there, transition into Improved Spirit, Improved Cooldown, Duration Extender, Bullet Life steal, Reactive Barrier, and additional weapon damage.
In the late game, prioritize Boundless Spirit, Superior Cooldown, Spiritual Overflow, Spirit Burn, and defensive upgrades according to your available souls and the state of the match.
Nurse Harrow’s item choices should change depending on whether you are winning lane, struggling to keep your teammates alive, or finding yourself targeted during team fights. If your damage is inconsistent, consider improving your weapon effectiveness. If your leeches are producing strong results but your abilities are not hitting hard enough, prioritize Spirit Power. If you are constantly forced out of fights, invest in survivability and sustain.
Her ability upgrade priorities should generally favour Leech Therapy early because collecting leeches provides lasting benefits. Healing Needles is also a major priority for a support-oriented playstyle, while Lurking Terrors become increasingly valuable when you need to disrupt team fights. Wretched Vapours should not be ignored, but its upgrades are more situational.
The most important thing is to build around Nurse Harrow’s strengths: sustained combat, resource generation, healing, enemy de buffs, and crowd control.
Nurse Harrow Abilities Explained
Leech Therapy
Leech Therapy is one of Nurse Harrow’s most important abilities and the foundation of her scaling. She throws a jar of leeches that attach to nearby enemies, dealing Spirit damage over time while reducing the duration of their buffs.
Once the leeches have finished feeding, they crawl back toward Nurse Harrow and can be collected. Picking them up heals her for the health drained and permanently grants additional health regeneration and fire rate. Her leech stacks make her increasingly effective as a match progresses, giving her a strong incentive to participate in fights and collect the leeches she generates.
Leech Therapy has a base cooldown of 30 seconds and an initial radius of approximately 6.5 metres. Its upgrades can allow leeches to drain stamina, reduce the ability’s cooldown, provide additional Spirit Power per collected stack, increase its radius, improve its Spirit scaling, and raise the maximum number of leech stacks.
This makes Leech Therapy much more than a straightforward damage ability. It is a source of damage, sustain, permanent progression, and additional value for the rest of her kit. The biggest mistake is treating Leech Therapy as a disposable damage spell. Its lasting benefits make successful casts increasingly valuable, particularly when you collect the returning leeches consistently.
Wretched Vapours
Wretched Vapours is Nurse Harrow’s unusual buff and delayed-damage ability. She cracks open a vial and releases ethereal vapours onto herself or an ally, triggering a temporary rush followed by a crash. During Spectre Rush, the target gains increased action speed and temporarily delays incoming damage. Instead of immediately taking that damage, the target accumulates looming spectres. When the rush expires, Spectre Crash begins, slowing the target’s actions and applying the delayed damage with an additional damage penalty. This creates an important decision-making mechanic. Wretched Vapours can help an ally move, attack, and act more quickly during a crucial engagement, but the delayed damage can become dangerous if the target cannot recover before the crash.
How to use Wretched Vapours:
Apply the rush when an ally needs to reposition quickly or make the most of a short damage window.
Use it on yourself when you need additional action speed to escape, pursue an opponent, or contribute more damage.
Coordinate the rush with aggressive pushes rather than activating it without a clear purpose.
Pay attention to the delayed damage and make sure the target can survive the eventual crash.
Avoid applying it to a teammate who is already critically low unless you are confident they can survive the delayed damage.
Combine it with Healing Needles to help an ally recover during the rush or prepare for the crash.
The biggest mistake is focusing entirely on the benefits of Spectre Rush. The crash is an important part of the ability, and ignoring it can turn a successful engagement into a disastrous one.
Healing Needles
Healing Needles is Nurse Harrow’s primary direct healing ability and one of the main reasons to play her as a support-oriented hero. When activated, she loads her weapon with a clip of syringes that heal allies instead of functioning like ordinary bullets. Dealing damage helps recover healing charges, while collected leeches gradually replenish them. Reloading spends a charge to obtain a fresh clip, and unused syringes can be partially refunded. The ability can also be recast to put the syringes away.
Each healing shot restores approximately 25 health before scaling and other modifiers. Accurate shots are valuable, with headshots providing an additional healing bonus. Healing Needles creates a distinctive gameplay loop: Nurse Harrow must participate in combat to maintain her healing resources, then use those resources to keep teammates alive. Hiding away from every fight can leave her with fewer opportunities to replenish charges.
Lurking Terrors
Lurking Terrors is Nurse Harrow’s ultimate ability and her most distinctive crowd control tool. She opens her bag to unleash the horrors stored inside, dealing Spirit damage over time to enemies in front of her. Enemies who look directly at Nurse Harrow build up fear (similar to the status in LoL) . As their terror increases, they lose access to stamina and movement abilities, making it harder to escape. Once terror reaches its maximum, they flee in fear. Enemies who look away take reduced damage unless they are already feared.
The ultimate has a base cooldown of approximately 200 seconds, making it a significant commitment. Its upgrades can reduce the cooldown, increase its damage and slowing effects, extend the channel duration, and eventually grant Nurse Harrow immunity to damage while channelling. Collected leech stacks also increase the duration of the fear effect, making Leech Therapy an important part of preparing for stronger ultimate engagements.
Nurse Harrow Ability Upgrade Order
Nurse Harrow’s ability upgrade order is still developing because she has only recently entered the game. However, an early recommended approach is to prioritize Leech Therapy for its lasting benefits while unlocking the rest of her kit early enough to provide healing, utility, and crowd control.
A practical general upgrade order is:
- Unlock Leech Therapy.
- Unlock Wretched Vapours.
- Unlock Healing Needles.
- Unlock Lurking Terrors.
- Invest additional points into Leech Therapy.
- Improve Healing Needles to strengthen your support capabilities.
- Upgrade Lurking Terrors when you need stronger team fight disruption.
- Improve Wretched Vapours according to how frequently you use its buff and healing interactions.
- Continue upgrading Leech Therapy to improve its scaling and maximum leech stacks.
- Invest remaining points into Healing Needles and Lurking Terrors according to the needs of your team.
This approach gives Nurse Harrow access to her full kit early while prioritizing the abilities that contribute most consistently to her performance. Leech Therapy is a strong early priority because its permanent bonuses reward successful casts and collections throughout the match. Healing Needles is particularly important if your team needs reliable support, while Lurking Terrors offers substantial value when you need to interrupt enemy engagements.
How to Play Nurse Harrow
Nurse Harrow should be played as an aggressive support who combines ranged damage with healing and crowd control. She is strongest when she can remain involved in fights, deal consistent damage, collect leeches, and use her healing resources at the right moment. Unlike a traditional backline healer, Nurse Harrow cannot simply ignore combat and expect to provide unlimited support. Her abilities encourage her to remain active, and her weapon plays an important role in maintaining her healing economy.
A typical engagement begins with Leech Therapy to weaken an opponent and start generating long-term benefits. You can then use your weapon to maintain pressure and replenish Healing Needles charges. If an ally needs additional action speed or temporary protection from incoming damage, Wretched Vapours can help them make an aggressive play or reposition.
Healing Needles should be used whenever an ally needs meaningful sustain, particularly when healing can keep them in the fight. When enemies commit to a major engagement, Lurking Terrors can disrupt their movement and create an opportunity for your team to push forward.
The key is to avoid treating Nurse Harrow as either a pure damage dealer or a passive healer. She is most effective when she switches naturally between both roles. Deal damage when your team is healthy, heal when teammates need support, and use your ultimate when its crowd control can change the outcome of a fight.
You should also learn when to disengage. Collecting leeches and maintaining pressure are valuable, but not when doing so means dying to an enemy ambush. Nurse Harrow’s long-term progression rewards good decisions, not reckless aggression.
Nurse Harrow Weaknesses
Nurse Harrow’s weaknesses primarily come from her reliance on positioning, resource management, and careful ability timing. Although she can heal allies and temporarily delay incoming damage, she is not invulnerable. If enemies catch her out of position or force her to retreat before she can contribute damage, she may struggle to maintain her healing resources.
Leech Therapy also requires follow through. If you repeatedly fail to collect the returning leeches, you lose much of the ability’s long-term value. Attempting to retrieve them in dangerous positions can create further problems.
Wretched Vapours is another potential weakness because its crash can leave the target vulnerable. Players who focus only on the initial rush may underestimate the delayed damage and slower actions that follow. Using it without considering the target’s health or escape options can turn an advantageous situation into a disadvantage. Healing Needles requires accurate shooting and sensible resource management. Missing shots or healing teammates who do not need immediate support can reduce the effectiveness of your limited charges.
Lurking Terrors also requires good positioning. Its effectiveness depends on the direction enemies are facing, and opponents who turn away can reduce the damage they receive. Its long cooldown means that using it without achieving meaningful disruption can leave you without a powerful team fight tool for a considerable period.
Finally, Nurse Harrow can struggle when enemies focus on her before she has the opportunity to support her teammates. Her healing and damage are valuable, but they cannot compensate for consistently poor positioning. Understanding when to engage, when to retreat, and when to prioritize survival is essential to playing her well.
