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Nurse Harrow Deadlock Guide: Abilities, Leeches and How to Play Her

Written byMax CalderDeadlock journalist

Published6 min read

Three taped photos of Nurse Harrow from her Deadlock hero cards

Nurse Harrow is the last City Never Sleeps hero, a healer who drains enemies with leeches and turns their health into her own power. Here are her abilities with numbers from the game files, how leech stacks grow her through a match, how to play her and the tricks hidden in her kit.

Who is Nurse Harrow?

Nurse Harrow arrived on October 20 as the sixth and final hero of City Never Sleeps. She runs the Marble Hill Possession Ward and treats possession with leeches, vapors and syringes. The game files class her as a Marksman, and her hero card tags her Strict, Terrifying and Savior. Valve rates her complexity 1 of 4, its easiest grade, but most of her value comes from keeping teammates alive, so she plays closer to a support than her class suggests.

Nurse Harrow release art with her syringe gun and medical bag
Nurse Harrow's release art.

Base stats

Nurse Harrow's base stats
Health
730
Weapon damage
14.9
Per shot
Ammo
11
Move speed
6.8 m/s
Health regen
0
Grows with leech stacks

Nurse Harrow's gun

Code Blue fires 2.6 shots per second for 14.9 damage each, about 39 damage per second before items, with 11 shots and a 1.9 s reload. Damage starts to fall off at 20 m and bottoms out at 58 m. Headshots pay less than on most heroes, since her crit bonus is 40% lower. The gun matters less for its damage than for what it feeds: every hit on an enemy hero refills Healing Needles, and every leech she collects makes it fire 5% faster.

Nurse Harrow abilities

Abilities and upgrades (tiers cost 1, 2 and 5 points)
  • Leech Therapy30 s cooldown, 6.5 m radiusThrows a jar that releases four leeches. They latch onto enemies nearby, deal 23 spirit damage per second and eat 0.65 s of an enemy's buff duration every second. When they finish feeding they crawl back, and picking one up heals Harrow for the health it drained and permanently adds 0.6 health regen and 5% fire rate. Stacks cap at 10, and a quarter of them are lost on death.
    1. Leeches drain stamina and give it to you when you pick them up
    2. 10 s shorter cooldown, +4 spirit power per leech stack
    3. +1 m radius, better spirit scaling, +8 max leech stacks
  • Wretched Vapors40 s cooldown, 13 m rangeCast on yourself or an ally for a 4 s rush: every action is 25% faster, and incoming damage is held back as specters instead of landing. Then comes a 4 s crash: every action is 20% slower, and the specters still left deal their held damage plus 30%. Healing removes specters first, so any heal during the rush or crash cancels that damage before it lands.
    1. 15 s shorter cooldown, +7 m cast range
    2. +1 s rush, +20% healing effectiveness
    3. +15% rush speed, and the cast cleanses non-ultimate debuffs
  • Healing Needles1 charge, refilled by damage and leechesLoads Code Blue with a full clip of syringes that heal the allies they hit for 25 per shot, 15% more on a headshot. Reloading spends a charge for a fresh clip, unused syringes come back as part of a charge, and recasting puts them away. Charges refill as you hurt enemy heroes and slowly on their own for every leech stack you carry.
    1. +1 max charge
    2. +20 heal per shot, each shot restores 0.6 stamina
    3. Better spirit scaling, each shot extends the target's non-ultimate buffs by 6%
  • Lurking Terrors200 s cooldown, 7 s channelOpens her bag for 7 s, dealing 60 spirit damage per second to enemies in a half circle in front of her and slowing their move speed and fire rate by 30%. Enemies who look at her build terror over 1.3 s and cannot use stamina or movement abilities while it builds. At full terror they flee from her for 2.2 s, plus 0.1 s per leech stack. Enemies facing away take half damage unless they are already fleeing. Harrow walks at 3.5 m/s while channeling.
    1. 50 s shorter cooldown
    2. +20% move speed and fire rate slow, +30 damage per second
    3. +3 s channel, better spirit scaling, immune to damage while channeling

How leech stacks work

Leeches are the engine of the whole kit. Every jar can bring back up to four, and each one you pick up stays with you for the rest of the match, up to 10, or 18 with the last Leech Therapy upgrade. Losing a quarter of them on death makes staying alive part of the build.

  • +0.6 health regen and +5% fire rate per stack, so ten stacks add 6 regen and 50% fire rate.
  • +4 spirit power per stack once Leech Therapy has its second upgrade.
  • Healing Needles refills by 0.15% of a charge every second per stack, on top of what your damage earns.
  • Lurking Terrors makes enemies flee 0.1 s longer per stack.

How to play Nurse Harrow

  1. Throw Leech Therapy into every trade where enemies stand close together, then walk over the leeches as they crawl back. Stacks are permanent, so early jars pay off all match.
  2. Fight with Code Blue first and switch to Healing Needles when a teammate needs health. Shooting enemies is what refills the needles.
  3. Use Wretched Vapors to let an ally commit to a fight, then heal them during the crash so the held damage never lands.
  4. Open Lurking Terrors facing the enemy team from a spot they have to look at. The terror only builds on enemies looking at you.

Nurse Harrow tips and tricks

  • Melee refills needles fastest. A light melee on an enemy hero restores six times as much charge as a bullet hit, and a heavy melee twelve times as much. Hits on troopers and neutrals count for only 35%.
  • Vapors as a panic button. Cast it on yourself when you are focused: damage during the rush is held back, and any healing you get before the crash cancels it.
  • Heal through the crash. Every syringe that lands on a Vapors target clears specters first, so a few needle shots during the crash erase the extra 30% damage.
  • Leeches shorten enemy buffs. Each attached leech eats 0.65 s of buff time per second, so a jar on enemies who just used an active item or a barrier cuts it short.
  • The third Lurking Terrors upgrade makes you immune to damage for the whole 10 s channel, which turns the ultimate into a safe front line for your team.

How to fight Nurse Harrow

  • Look away from Lurking Terrors if you are not fighting her. Terror only builds while you face her, and you take half damage with your back turned.
  • blocks the terror and the fear, and debuff resist from items like shortens them.
  • Burst an ally of hers when Wretched Vapors ends. The crash adds 30% to the damage held back during the rush.
  • and cut the healing from her syringes and leech pickups.
  • Kill her early and often. A quarter of her leech stacks go with every death.

Can you play Nurse Harrow in Ranked?

Yes, for a limited time. New heroes skip the usual 15 Standard wins for a limited time after they arrive, but they do not count toward the three ranked heroes you need. Once the window closes, Harrow needs 15 Standard wins like anyone else. Her healing rhythm is easy to learn in a few Standard games or a session in the sandbox.

Nurse Harrow trivia

Her files call her simply Nurse. Wretched Vapors is stored as an adrenaline rush, and its animation as an ubercharge, the name of the Medic's charge in Team Fortress 2, while Lurking Terrors is filed under fear. Her gun, Code Blue, is named after the hospital code for a life-threatening emergency.

Valve's release post counted over 110 million votes across City Never Sleeps. 22,194 players voted only for Harrow, one of them cast exactly 1,000 votes for her, and Valve says her voters won more often than any other hero's.

FAQ

Yes. Healing Needles turns her gun into a syringe launcher that heals allies for 25 per shot, Wretched Vapors protects an ally for 4 s, and leeches heal her for the damage they drain.

Lurking Terrors, a 7 s channel that damages enemies in front of her and makes anyone looking at her flee in fear. Its first upgrade cuts the cooldown from 200 s to 150 s.

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