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Deckard Cain Build Guide “Stay a while and read our guide.”
Welcome to our guide for Deckard Cain, a Healer in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
Deckard Cain's Overview
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.
Deckard Cain's Strengths and Weaknesses
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
Deckard Cain's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Healing Potion Build
Recommended
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 it,
combined with 
Safety in Numbers at Level 16,
provides a high amount of sustain healing.
Ancient Blessings Build
Advanced
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.
ARAM Build
ARAM
Deckard's ARAM 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 it,
combined with Safety in Numbers at Level 16,
provides a high amount of sustain healing.
Deckard Cain's Synergies and Counters
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 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.
Deckard Cain's Tips and Tricks
- 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 Cain's Role in the Current Meta
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.
Changelog
- 20 Sep. 2023 (talents page): ARAM Build added.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (this page): ARAM Build added.
- 07 Jul. 2022 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 07 Jul. 2022 (this page): Builds updated.
- 17 Jan. 2022 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 17 Jan. 2022 (this page): Builds updated.
- 26 Aug. 2021 (talents page): Talent Build page updated.
- Builds updated.
- Descriptions improved.
- New layout.
- 26 Aug. 2021 (abilities page): Abilities and Strategy page updated.
- Descriptions improved.
- Tips and Tricks improved.
- New layout.
- 26 Aug. 2021 (this page): Introduction page updated.
- Builds updated.
- Descriptions improved.
- Synergies and Counters improved.
- Maps improved.
- Tips and Tricks improved.
- New layout.
- 27 Oct. 2020 (talents page): Talent build reviewed and updated.
- 07 Sep. 2020 (talents page): Talent build reviewed and updated.
- 30 Aug. 2020 (this page): Role in Current Meta section updated.
- 19 Jul. 2020 (talents page): Talent build reviewed and updated.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (talents page): Description for Scroll of Identify and Morenadoes! updated.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (abilities page): Description for Fortitude of the Faithful reviewed.
- 13 Dec. 2019 (this page): Added a note about current Anomaly.
- 16 Oct. 2019 (talents page): Talent builds and recommendations reviewed and updated.
- 16 Oct. 2019 (abilities page): Abilities section reviewed following the 2.48.2 update.
- 16 Oct. 2019 (this page): Guide updated.
- 06 Jun. 2018 (talents page): Talent recommendations updated.
- 29 Apr. 2018 (this page): Main build updated.
- 24 Apr. 2018 (talents page): Guide created.
- 24 Apr. 2018 (this page): Guide created.
More Healer Guides
Elitesparkle is a multiple times Master player in Europe who plays Heroes of the Storm since its release. He is an active member of the community who likes to teach new and veteran players all he knows about his favorite game. He also produces more teaching content on his Tips of the Storm page on Ko-fi.
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