Deckard Cain Build Guide “Stay a while and read our guide.”

Deckard is a Healer specialized in single-target healing, with the possibility to prepare Healing Potion on the ground for later usage, and crowd control, usually used as follow-up to your Tank's engage.

Strengths

• Strong and efficient single-target healing output
• Powerful area of effect crowd control
• Access to Emerald for healing reduction

Weaknesses

• Weak against burst damage
• No access to Cleanse or similar tools to remove crowd-control effects
• Struggles when facing high-mobility Heroes

Healing Potion Build

Recommended

Level 1

Level 4

Level 7 ?

Level 10 ?

Level 13

Level 16

Level 20 ? ?

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Deckard's Healing Potion Build increases your sustain healing as well as your crowd control and utility.

Super Healing Potion at Level 13 is great for long (that take a while to end) and static (that happen in a given area) team fights because, combined with Safety in Numbers at Level 16, provides a high amount of sustain healing.

Ancient Blessings Build

Advanced

Level 1

Level 4

Level 7 ?

Level 10 ?

Level 13

Level 16 ?

Level 20

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Deckard's Ancient Blessings Build increases your burst healing as well as your crowd control and utility.

Ancient Blessings at Level 13 is particularly effective when your team's plan is to quickly take down an enemy Hero as it increases the damage output of all your teammates and heals them as they deal damage via Basic Attacks.

Similarly, Scroll of Stone Curse at Level 16 provides a solid amount of burst damage. When your team needs more peeling, replace it with Horadric Staff and use your Basic Attacks on whoever gets too close to yourself, without compromising your position.

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Deckard Cain synergizes with

Scroll Of Sealing makes Deckard excellent at following up on Heroes that can provide their own source of reliable crowd control (for example Johanna) and similarly good at setting up enemy Heroes for allied skillshot-based Abilities (such as Kel'Thuzad).

Deckard Cain is countered by

With little in the way of mobility, Deckard struggles against Heroes who can easily engage on him, especially if they are ranged.

Heroes who have access to Unstoppable effects have easy life against Deckard as they can ignore all his offensive Abilities. Similarly, Cleanse effects (for example Intercession by Whitemane) are good against Deckard because they basically deny his main strength: crowd control.

Deckard can make up for his weakness to burst damage by taking short fights, however, the enemy team will usually still have an edge during them.

Deckard Cain's stronger maps

Deckard Cain's average maps

Deckard Cain's weaker maps

Deckard tends to do well on Maps that feature many choke points, where he is able to get value from Scroll Of Sealing and his Heroic Ability: Stay Awhile and Listen or Lorenado. Battlegrounds with a lot of wide areas (such as Hanamura Temple) will obviously make this characteristic harder to exploit.

The way Healing Potion works is particularly good when contesting powerful Objectives that take a long time to be secured (for example Shrines on Infernal Shrines). Having to move too much on the battlefield means you will get less value out of the potion-stocking aspect.

• Potions created by Healing Potion last until consumed. Casting Healing Potion beyond the limit of 5 will destroy the oldest Potion.
• Horadric Cube has a short flight time, but can still hit enemies running directly away from Deckard if the targeting reticle is centered.
• Scroll Of Sealing can be used in two ways: after any crowd control effect or right before Stay Awhile and Listen.
• Stay Awhile and Listen has long cast time and channel time that will block you for a few seconds. Use it from a safe position and, when in danger, press [R] again to stop channeling it.
• When you do not need it for peeling or to contest a Capture Point, Lorenado can be used to push enemies towards your teammates, and more importantly, inside the area of Scroll Of Sealing while it is activating.

Deckard's multiple crowd control Abilities give him a niche as a Healer who thrives in aggressive team compositions that have the ability to follow up with heavy loads of burst damage, especially if accompanied by Heroes who can setup for him.

Deckard's only healing Ability, Healing Potion, has the unique ability to be thrown on the ground instead of being only usable on Heroes, allowing allied Heroes to pick them whenever they want. Being able to set up some of them ahead of time is useful to mitigate his weakness against burst damage.