Dehaka Talents

Level	Choices
1	? ? ✓
4	✓ ? ?
7	✓ ? ?
10	✓ ?
13	✓ ? ?
16	? ? ✓
20	✓ ? ? ?

Enduring Swarm is a situational Talent which makes Dark Swarm last a little longer, indirectly increasing your waveclear, and allows Dehaka to reduce incoming Spell Damage when using Dark Swarm.

When this Talent is paired with Symbiosis at Level 7, it becomes easy to have Dark Swarm active most of the time during team fights because its cooldown will be reduced when hitting enemy Heroes with it.

If you plan to choose Adaptation as your Heroic Ability, since it takes many seconds to heal you, you can pick this Talent for using it as a buffer for the delayed healing, to stay alive before the healing goes off.

You should pick this Talent when the enemy team can threaten you with Spell Damage and you should avoid picking it when they mostly deal Physical Damage.

Tissue Regeneration is a good Quest-based Talent that, as you collect Regeneration Globes during the game, provides a large amount of passive Health Regeneration, so that you can heal a bit without activating Essence Collection and thus consuming all your Essence, and increases the amount of Essence that can be stored, so that you can heal more on-demand during team fights or while in danger. Last but not the least, every Regeneration Globe collected will give you Essence, which is nice for preparing to fight.

Dehaka lacks access to Basic Attack mitigation Talents, so Tissue Regeneration is a good option if you are facing Heroes who can poke you with Basic Attacks. While laning, it can also be useful against heavy harassment Heroes (for example Zagara).

Due to the fact that it increases your maximum Essence, this Talent has great synergy with Primal Rage at Level 13 as it will increase Basic Attack damage even more.

Enhanced Agility is a strong Quest-based Talent that increases your mobility near bushes. First of all, it increases the duration of Brushstalker's Movement Speed bonus after leaving a bush. Secondly, collecting Essence increases the Movement Speed bonus.

Since it needs bushes, this Talent is great on Maps that feature a lot of them and is awful on Maps where they are scarce. The worst Maps for this Talent are Alterac Pass, Hanamura Temple, Volskaya Foundry, and Industrial District (ARAM).

Lurker Strain is a good Talent that applies a Knockback effect and a Slow to enemies hit upon emerging from Burrow, and makes Dehaka become Stealthed for a few seconds, and passively reduces Burrow's cooldown.

Other than for peeling and self-peeling, the crowd control component of this Talent can be used as a setup for Drag. Simply use Burrow near an enemy Hero, wait for it to end or reactivate it when they are in range, and then cast Drag towards them while they are Slowed.

The ability to become Stealthed is nice to have as it prevents enemy Heroes from hitting you with Basic Attacks until they reveal you with either a non-targeted damaging Ability or an actual revealing effect (for example Oracle by Tassadar).

One-Who-Collects is a good Talent that increases Dark Swarm's damage to Mercenaries and the amount of Essence you collect from Minions while laning. Normally a wave of Minions will yield 14 Essence, but with One-Who-Collects you can gather 21 Essence.

While this Talent will not help you in team fights as much as Hero Stalker, it will help you have more Health and more Essence collected before the team fight starts. One-Who-Collects is mostly recommended against compositions with many ranged Heroes because you will have a hard time stacking Essence through Hero Stalker.

Since it helps you to get Essence, this Talent is a great way to reliably stack up Tissue Regeneration or Enhanced Agility at Level 1 and completing the corresponding Quests sooner.

Hero Stalker is a good Talent that gives Essence when hitting enemy Heroes with Dark Swarm and increases the Essence gained from Takedowns. Takedowns happen when killing enemy Heroes, including enemy Heroes who die nearby (within 20 range) or within 5 seconds of damaging them.

The ability to get Essence from enemy Heroes has synergy with Primal Rage at Level 13 because, while fighting, you will eventually use Essence Collection to heal yourself, consuming all your Essence and thus losing Primal Rage's bonus.

Feeding Frenzy is a strong Talent that increases Drag's duration and lowers its cooldown when hitting enemies with Basic Attacks. Keep in mind that, due to the Gambit mechanic, the cooldown reduction provided will decrease when dying.

Paralyzing Enzymes is a situational Talent that adds a Slow and a healing reduction effect to Drag. These effects last as much as Drag plus 2 seconds, however, the healing reduction effects can be extended via Basic Attacks.

We find this Talent useful when playing a team composition that relies on burst damage against Heroes with high burst healing (for example Ancestral Healing by Rehgar).

Symbiosis is a good Talent that allows you to keep Dark Swarm active much more, potentially through an entire team fight, increasing your damage output.

Thanks to the cooldown reduction effect, this Talent has synergy with the following Dark Swarm-related Talents: Enduring Swarm at Level 1 and Primal Swarm at Level 16.

In this section we discuss when and why to pick a given Heroic Ability. If you want to read how they work in detail and/or you are looking for some tips on how to use them, check them out on the Abilities and Strategy page.

Isolation is a strong Heroic Ability that can be used to render an enemy Hero useless in team fights for a few seconds while trying to kill another Hero, or to prevent your kill target from using survivability or mobility tools while they are taking damage.

You should pick this Heroic Ability most of the time because it offers a lot of playmaking potential. Remember to wait for someone else to engage and use it as a follow-up, otherwise you will waste it.

Adaptation is a situational Heroic Ability which can increase your survivability when playing against team composition that lack burst damage and thus cannot kill you during the delay before the healing goes off.

You should rarely pick this Heroic Ability because it has little to no playmaking potential. When affected by healing reduction effects, remember to use Burrow right before it ends, to remove the debuff before the healing goes off.

Ferocious Stalker is a strong Talent that adds a moderate Slow effect to Dark Swarm and, when having Brushstalker's Movement Speed bonus, drastically increases the damage done by Dark Swarm, which is a great boost to your waveclear.

Since it needs bushes, this Talent is great on Maps that feature a lot of them and is awful on Maps where they are scarce. The worst Maps for this Talent are Alterac Pass, Hanamura Temple, Volskaya Foundry, and Industrial District (ARAM).

Primal Swarm is a good Talent which reduces the Armor of enemy Heroes hit with Dark Swarm, causing them to take more damage from you and the rest of your team.

We find this Talent good when combined with Symbiosis at Level 7 because the cooldown reduction provided makes it possible to keep Dark Swarm active much more often.

Primal Rage is a good Talent that increases Dehaka's Attack Damage based on the amount of Essence stored. At 50 Essence, Basic Attacks deal 62.5% more damage. At 0 Essence, this Talent does nothing.

You should pair this Talent with Tissue Regeneration at Level 1 so that you will have some self-sustain outside of consuming all your Essence, to increase the maximum Attack Damage, and to regain Essence faster after consuming them.

You should also pair this Talent with One-Who-Collects or Hero Stalker at Level 4 to regain Essence faster after consuming them. While Essence Claws at Level 20 has synergy with Primal Rage too, it is not mandatory.

Elongated Tongue is a strong Talent that increases the number of opportunities to land Drag by increasing its range, making running away without sidestepping less effective to avoid it.

Tunneling Claws is a good Talent that adds a ton of playmaking potential to Burrow by increasing Dehaka's Movement Speed during its effect instead of reducing it.

When in danger, this Talent helps you survive by allowing you to pop out from Burrow in a safer location. Sometimes this Talent can also be used offensively, so that you can emerge behind an enemy Hero and bodyblock them.

Pack Leader is a strong Talent that gives a lot of Armor when in a bush and shortly after leaving one, something that greatly increases Dehaka's survivability on Maps with many bushes and barely does anything on other Maps.

We find this Talent underwhelming when paired with Enduring Swarm at Level 1 because Armor does not stack. We only recommend this Talent in combination with Enhanced Agility at Level 1.

Since it needs bushes, this Talent is great on Maps that feature a lot of them and is awful on Maps where they are scarce. The worst Maps for this Talent are Alterac Pass, Hanamura Temple, Volskaya Foundry, and Industrial District (ARAM).

Contagion is a strong Talent that makes Isolation jump to any enemy Hero near the main target but it reduces the damage dealt to them (including the main target).

This effect can be devastating to enemy teams who fight close together, or on Maps that require fighting in tight spaces. Even landing Isolation onto 2 enemy Heroes can win a team fight.

The key to using Contagion well is patience. Wait for an opportunity to land an Isolation that will hit a target that is very close to at least another enemy Hero or, alternatively, wait for the enemy team to engage and then use Isolation to counter-engage after they group for dealing damage.

Change Is Survival is a strong Talent that drastically increases the amount of healing provided by Adaptation and reduces its cooldown by a considerable amount.

Healing reduction effects (for example Mortal Wound by Xul) are not a problem because, thanks to the cooldown reduction, you will always be able to use Burrow right before Adaptation's healing goes off to remove them.

Essence Claws is a decent Talent that gives you increased self-sustain in the form of Essence for Essence Collection when hitting enemy Heroes, and applies a Slow to your targets.

The ability to get Essence from enemy Heroes has synergy with Primal Rage at Level 13 because, while fighting, you will eventually use Essence Collection to heal yourself, consuming all your Essence and thus losing Primal Rage's bonus.

Apex Predator is a situational Talent that allows Dehaka to use Brushstalker, his global Ability, way more often. Furthermore, it slightly reduces Brushstalker's cast time, which may occasionally make a difference between using it in time or too late.

With this Talent, Dehaka can easily contest Objectives that are split or scattered all around the battlefield, or be able to relieve his Structures from Catapults' pressure in the late game. While this Talent greatly improves your macro, it comes at the cost of team fight power, so it is rarely a good choice.