Ivy Air Drop In Deadlock: How The Flight, Bomb, And Ally Carry Work

Short answer: Air Drop is Ivy’s ultimate. She takes flight with an ally or a bomb, drops them to create an explosion, and gives Ivy plus her ally an outgoing-damage buff when the flight ends.

Image	Ability
	Air Drop Ivy grabs an ally or carries a bomb, takes flight, then drops for an explosion and outgoing-damage buff window.

Current Mechanics

Deadlock.one’s current Ivy data lists Air Drop with an 85-second cooldown, 21-second duration, 3.5-second interrupt cooldown, 115 explosion damage, +20 percent outgoing damage, 20-meter explosion radius, and 8-second buff duration. When used on allies, the cooldown is reduced by 25 percent.

The tooltip also carries two practical warnings. Taking damage briefly disables the ability, and a lifted ally cannot attack while carried and deals 20 percent less damage. Air Drop is powerful, but it is not a free “make teammate happy” button. Bad lifts can ruin an ally’s timing.

Upgrade Path

• 1 AP: on flight end, give 300 barrier to Ivy and the ally, scaling with Spirit.
• 2 AP: enemies hit are slowed by 40 percent for 3 seconds.
• 5 AP: enemies hit are silenced for 3 seconds, and damage/barrier scaling increases.

The upgrades move Air Drop from rotation tool to teamfight weapon. T1 makes the landing safer. T2 makes the explosion harder to ignore. T3 turns the drop zone into a silence threat, which is where the ultimate starts deciding fights instead of merely entering them.

Key Patch Changes

Valve’s March 6, 2026 gameplay update rewired Air Drop. It removed cast time and made recent damage disable the ability for 3.5 seconds; reduced cooldown from 100 to 65 seconds; raised duration to 21 seconds; increased bomb radius to 20m; added the +20 percent outgoing-damage buff; removed default knockup, slow, and barrier from the bomb; and reworked the upgrade tree.

On March 10, 2026, Valve reduced Air Drop’s damage scaling, T1 barrier scaling, and T2 slow. The March 21, 2026 update raised ally cast range to 22m, stopped damage-over-time effects from disabling Air Drop, increased cooldown from 65 to 85 seconds, and added the 25 percent cooldown reduction when used on allies.

How To Use It

Use Air Drop to change where the fight is, not just to arrive late to the fight everyone already lost. The Dapper Rat’s April 2026 Ivy guide frames Ivy as a hero who can take looser macro positions because Air Drop lets her rotate quickly. That is the correct instinct: the ultimate is part taxi, part bomb, part bad news over the skyline.

With an ally, communicate or at least read their body language. Some allies want the delivery system. Some were about to secure a kill and did not ask to become luggage. Without an ally, use the bomb to start a fight, split a formation, or stack damage with Entangling Thorns and Stone Form.

Counterplay

Damage Ivy before she takes off, spread before the drop, and track whether she has the slow or silence upgrades. If Air Drop is only T0, it is mostly damage and positioning. At T2 and T3, the landing becomes crowd control, and standing in a neat little group becomes a donation.

Against ally carries, punish the landing zone. Ivy has to put the teammate somewhere. If your team can predict the drop, the dramatic entrance becomes a scheduled arrival.

Lore Context

Ivy is the gargoyle who learned family from the Arroyos and spent years protecting Spanish Harlem. Air Drop makes that protective streak loud. She literally picks someone up and flies them out or in. It is rescue, initiation, and a very direct reminder that gargoyles were never designed for subtle entrances.

Sources

Current mechanics and the ability icon were checked against Deadlock.one’s Ivy page and the Air Drop modal. Patch history was checked against Valve’s March 6 gameplay update, the official March 6 forum thread, and the March 21 update. Video context came from The Dapper Rat’s How To Play Ivy guide.

For the broader Ivy file, see DramaLock’s Ivy lore guide and the current NekitBrokin Ivy build breakdown.