In general, the invention is directed to techniques for reducing deadlocks that may arise when performing fabric replication. For example, as described herein, a network device includes packet replicators that each comprises a plurality of resource partitions. A replication data structure for a packet received by the network device includes packet replicator nodes that are arranged hierarchically to occupy one or more levels of the replication data structure. Each of the resource partitions in each of the plurality of packet replicators is associated with a different level of the replication data structure. The packet replicators replicate the packet according to the replication data structure, and each of the packet replicators handles the packet using the one of the resource partitions of the packet replicator that is associated with the level of the replication data structure occupied by the node that corresponds to that particular packet replicator.