Dehaka Build Guide “Collect their Essence!”
Welcome to our guide for Dehaka, a Bruiser 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.
Dehaka's Overview
Dehaka is an aggressive Bruiser with a strong map presence.
Powerful self-sustain
from Essence Collection makes him very
hard to kill.
Dark Swarm enables him to break apart enemy
formations during fights, while his brutal single target
crowd control can incapacitate key targets.
Dehaka's Strengths and Weaknesses
Powerful on demand self healing
Can
Drag enemies out of position
Cannot be body-blocked while using
Dark Swarm
Can avoid incoming Abilities with
Burrow
High map mobility via
Brushstalker
Lacks a reliable gap-closer
Susceptible to kiting
Drag and
Isolation are difficult skillshots
Limited mobility when
Brushstalker is on cooldown
Dehaka's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Standard Build
RecommendedDehaka's Standard Build will be a good option in every game. It gives him
good survivability through Level 1 and 4 Talents, and good crowd control
from Feeding Frenzy and
Elongated Tongue.
Hero Stalker is exceptional against melee Heroes, but sometimes
you can be easily kited by rangeds.
One-Who-Collects
should be the choice against many ranged Heroes. At level 13
Primal Rage
is excellent with
Tissue Regeneration, while
Primal Swarm
can be an option if you are being focused and forced to use your essences early, increasing
the damage dealt by your team. The standard Talent for Level 16 is
Elongated Tongue,
but
Tunneling Claws will be great against heavy
crowd control. Furthermore,
Pack Leader
excels when you are getting focused and need some extra resistance to survive in fights.
Enhanced Agility Build
SituationalEnhanced Agility build is excellent if your enemies can easily run away from
the usual Dehaka build. The extra movement speed from Enhanced Agility
will allow you to reach them. This build has more mobility in exchange for less
self-sustain, and should only be picked in maps with
many vents or bushes, since it is very dependent on those.
For this build we recommend going
for Elongated Tongue at Level 16. With the extra movement
speed and
Drag Talents, Dehaka will become a a great
threat towards enemy backliners. However,
Tunneling Claws can be a great addition if enemies have
good control to interrupt your movement towards them.
Dark Swarm Build
BeginnerDark Swarm build excels against heroes reliant on Spell Damage and melees.
This build will be more impactful against less experienced players,
since those will mostly group up in order to kill Dehaka, but will end up
just giving him lots of essence stacks.
When your team is ready to fight, position yourself to apply
Dark Swarm to multiple enemy Heroes. Use Dark Swarm
constantly to deal damage. This will increase all damage affected enemies take,
once you have
Primal Swarm.
Tunneling Claws allows you to continue applying Dark
Swarm if you become rooted or slowed, and will also allow you to escape when
needed. This is important, because it makes it much safer to position
aggressively to get the most out of Dark Swarm.
Dehaka's Synergies and Counters
Dehaka does well with Heroes who can help him get within range of enemies easily. This can be done by crowd-controlling or pulling potential targets towards Dehaka. When Heroes can accomplish this, they can also follow-up when Drag lands on an enemy Hero. Frontline Heroes with strong crowd-control work well to supplement the threat Dehaka brings into team fights.
One of Dehaka's drawbacks is his lack of a gap-closer, which makes him
susceptible to kiting from highly mobile ranged damage dealers. Heroes with
very high sustained damage can push through his healing to force him to play
passively. Heroes with knockbacks may not only cancel his
Drag and
Isolation, but will also
reduce his capacity to reach enemy marksmen.
Dehaka's Maps














Dehaka is great on large maps where his global presence can be abused to its maximum. This allows Dehaka to soak lanes away from an objective longer than other solo laners, and still show up on time to help his team secure kills. Dehaka struggles with fast Boss clears or Immortal races; so, maps that feature these as a main objective are less than ideal for him. He also lacks map mobility on maps that do not have bushes or vents that help him get to important areas.
Dehaka's Tips and Tricks
- Use
Dark Swarm to walk through enemies or teammates who are in your way; however, be mindful that you cannot body-block enemies while it is active.
Drag enemies out of position, under your turrets, or into the Abilities of your allies.
- Do not use
Drag instantly when enemy gets in range for it, or they will probably dodge. We recommend walking towards the hero while weaving Basic Attacks to only use Drag when you are almost sure you are going to hit.
- Maximize your map presence by evaluating options for
Brushstalker before it is off cooldown.
- Try to have
Essence Collection full and available for team fights. For healing outside of team fights you can fountain or hearthstone; use Brushstalker to get back into action quickly.
- Use
Isolation on important targets that are very dependent on their Abilities to survive.
Dehaka's Role in the Current Meta
Dehaka is a strong pick as a waveclear Bruiser. Although he has high health
and amazing regenerative potential, the absence of gap-closers makes him less
than ideal as a primary tank. Dehaka's kit makes him highly
disruptive in team fights. His ability to walk through enemies with
Dark Swarm allows for positioning
options which cannot be ignored by the enemy team.
Brushstalker
gives him unique opportunities to gank. It also allows
him to soak experience longer than other Bruisers or Tanks, and still arrive
to team fights and objectives on time. Dehaka is strong on teams that have
existing crowd-control Abilities that can setup
Drag and
Isolation. Reliably landing these abilities on key targets
is an important part of using him well.
Despite all his good points, we do not recommend getting Dehaka against many ranged Heroes or knockbacks. E.T.C., Raynor, or Sgt. Hammer can easily push you away when you are trying to engage, dealing much damage in the process. Dehaka is very dependent on his global pressure, he will lose most of his effectiveness if he is not able to abuse it. Therefore, it is better to not pick him him in maps like Hanamura Temple or Battlefield of Eternity.
Changelog
- 05 Nov. 2020 (talents page): Talents updated after recent balance patch.
- 31 Jul. 2020 (talents page): Builds and Talents updated to reflect current meta.
- 31 Jul. 2020 (this page): Builds updated.
- 25 May 2020 (this page): Updated Enhanced Agility Build.
- 07 May 2020 (talents page): Builds and Talents updated for May 6th balance patch.
- 27 Apr. 2020 (this page): Updated Introduction page to fit with recent Builds and Talents Changes.
- 27 Apr. 2020 (abilities page): Updated Ability descriptions and tips.
- 12 Apr. 2020 (talents page): Builds and Talents updated to reflect current meta.
- 15 Dec. 2019 (this page): Updated Role in the Current Meta to include information on current Nexus Anomaly.
- 18 Apr. 2019 (talents page): Talent discussion updated to account for balance patch.
- 18 Apr. 2019 (this page): Guide updated to account for balance patch. Removed references to "Warrior" class.
- 18 Apr. 2019 (abilities page): Updated to account for balance patch. Removed references to "Warrior" class.
- 29 Jun. 2017 (talents page): Talents page updated following June 28th balance patch.
- 16 May 2017 (this page): Guide updated following Dehaka rework in D.Va's release patch.
- 16 May 2017 (talents page): Talents page updated following Dehaka's rework in D.va's release patch.
- 14 Dec. 2016 (this page): Moved Dehaka to the new format, following its rework in Ragnaros patch.
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Derenash has been playing Heroes of the Storm since 2015 and has achieved Grandmaster in multiple seasons, peaking at Top 1 in Season 3 and 4 of 2018. He participated in the HGC Copa America in 2018 where his team had a strong victory. He is passionate about teaching others about the game, and streams often on Twitch in Portuguese, and you can find him in Wind Striders' Discord as well where he is happy to answer any questions in English or Portuguese.
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