It's Cooler39140 here, and I welcome you to my Dehaka guide. It's been almost a year since I changed this guide, and now I'm feeling ready to sweep the dust of the past. He's changed a fair bit since the last time, with Burrow now having movement speed as baseline, on top of talent changes. But despite all odds, I'll play him, because he is this powerful warrior who can carry games easily if played well. Enjoy the lecture! :)

Your Q ability is Drag. It's a short-ranged skillshot that grabs the first enemy hit, stunning and dragging it for 1,75 seconds. Getting silenced or stunned during the Drag effect cancels it.

Your W ability is Dark Swarm. After casting, you start to deal damage to each enemy near you. While active, your hero ignores unit collision. This can be used during Drag or Burrow.

Your E ability is Burrow. Upon casting, your hero burrows into the ground, giving you Statis and Invureable for 2 seconds. During that time, you cast cast Dark Swarm and Essence Collection.

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Your D ability is Essence Collection. Nearby enemy minions grant 2 essence when dying, and Hero Takedowns grant 10. Upon casting, your hero heals himself for each point of Essence he has collected. He can store up to 50 Essence at the same time (60 with Essence Devourer).

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Your first ultimate is Isolation. After a little delay, your hero throws biomass that delas damage to the first enemy hero hit. The enemies hit by Isolation are silenced and slowed by 30% for 3 seconds, they also have their vision greatly reduced for 6 seconds.

Your second ultimate is Adaptation. Upon casting, your skin turns blue for 4 seconds. After that time, your hero heals for 100% of the damage taken during that period of time.

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Your Z ability is Brushstalker. Upon casting, Dehaka burrows to target bush after a brief delay. After another brief delay, your hero comes at target bush. The ability has global cast range and replaces your mount.

It's not a bad talent, but it is situational. This can ensure you will stay longer if the enemy team comp deals tons of spell damage. It does increase Dark Swarm's duration, though, so it's technically also a damage talent, but still gate-kept by providing Spell Armor.

This is ultimately the talent that you will pick most of the time due to it's versality. It lets you store more essence, it grants you passive regen, it lets you solo lane better with the globes giving you essence. All in all, a very good talent.

Ok, now I find this talent actually good at some point. The increased movement speed can let you escape or gank better. I prefer to pick this talent with another tank, less often when I'm a solo tank, but only on maps with bushes near objectives, like Braxis Holdout.

Man, how far the talent had gone. From merging Stealth and Knockback, reducing cooldown of Burrow to 14s, and now dealing damage on top of Burrow letting you move as a baseline? Easily the most overloaded talent right now, but it gives you safety and disruption.

I actually used this talent before I started to love Hero Stalker a lot more. It's a lot safer than that talent, but a lot less powerful if your team can snowball the game. What it has, however, is bonus Mercenary damage on W, which improves Dehaka's teamplay at taking those before the first objective.

Hero Stalker is preferably the go-to pick most of the time. It increases the amount of essence you get from Hero takedowns to 20, which lets you snowball further. Also, it now allows your Dark Swarm to grant an essence when damaging an enemy hero - good for more survivality.

It's obvious you should go for this on AA Dehaka build, but even then, this talent is incredibly powerful simply because you have your Drag more frequently, and so you can grab more of your foes.

This talent is actually nice; not a go-to option, but still a nice one. I usually tend to pick this talent against mobile enemies and the enemies that can kite Dehaka out, because against those, you don't AA them often, and the added slow now keeps them at bay. It also grants damage, too.

Well, I eventually stopped picking this talent because of Feeding Frenzy, which is more powerful. Still, you can never go wrong with this talent, and it synergises so well with other talents for Dark Swarm.

This was my go-to ability before the rework, and it's still revelant as a great disruption tool in your kit. If you need to counter something like Mosh Pit or to get the enemy faster and make them regret playing against you, go for this heroic!

This heroic sucked before the rework, but now it's great! It's now a lot better way to self-sustain more. The boost to 100% is a huge difference. It now also has 60s cooldown, which lets you tank for much longer!

A very good talent that you don't feel bad taking. It gives you better teamfight damage and better Mercenary clear. Sure, having to heal with Essence loses the buff, but at this point you should shrug off your shoulders and be glad to survive.

This one is obviously good if you planned to go the Speedy Sanic build, because it will increase your damage potency from your gank. Otherwise I recommend to not even think of it.

This talent got some nerfs, but its still a talent hard to pass up if you don't plan going on AA Dehaka. It provides tons of damage increase that can swipe teamfights.

It's hard to pass up the increased range on your Q, because it can grab key targets you wouldn't normally catch, and so reducing the risk that comes with dragging the right foe.

Previously, it was only after taking this talent that you could move while Burrowed. Now it's baseline for 50% of your movement speed, but this talent now essentially gives you 25% increased movement speed, letting you escape further than before or set up Lurker Strain with better success.

I haven't tried out this talent yet, but it helps you being the main frontliner for your team on maps with a lot of bushes to sneak in and out of. Otherwise, the other talents are better in more situations. It also grants attack speed, so a tad more damage overall.

I haven't really taken this talent at all, simply because there aren't enough situations for me where an AoE Isolation is needed. If it is, though, it can do wonders sometimes.

Having Adaptation every 20 seconds is absolute nuts, and you might sometimes benefit from increased healing. Just the reduced cooldown makes your hero so strong at tanking damage for your team in the late game.

If I gave up on bashing "Change is Survival", I'll bash this instead. I can't find a reason to pick over anything else. I don't say that less CD on your Brushstalker is bad for more global presence, it's the fact there are better talents to consider.

Guess I love this talent now for Dehaka! It's a must for AA build, but you can always pick it for other builds aswell! The slow allows for easier Drags or more damage from Dark Swarm, and the granted essence can sometimes save you! My new go-to talent. ;)

Early Game

Right after the game starts, there is a 90% chance everyone in the match will go mid lane and try to achieve first blood and gain a small experience lead. Luckily, you're one of the best heroes at securing kills thanks to your Drag. Just remember to pretty much never use your Z button just to get earlier inside the bush. While it grants early information about the enemy team's position, you're still not a main tank, and without essence, you will likely die or at least be forced to back off way too early.

Next stop in your early game is laning. Dehaka is one of the strongest solo laners in the game. While he's not on the power level of Sonya or Hogger in terms of laning, he's still very powerful. Soaking experience is very important in the early game, but if you have made cold calculations, use Brushstalker (either utilize its passive or active) to another lane and ambush your prey. I can guarantee you will at least force the enemy to retreat. Just remember to have some essence backed up when something goes wrong.

Dehaka is a hero that grows stronger with talents, with lvl 4 being the first one. Hero Stalker is ridiculously good at snowballing the game further and will ensure you will contribute to teamfights for more time. Lvl 7 talents also improve Dehaka quite a lot. You can never go wrong with either a CD reduction on Drag/ Dark Swarm or a longer duration on your Q.

Mid Game

This is the time at least every team will have their ults. And yours can do some incredible work. Isolation will disable one of the enemy's threats for a long time with it's silence, slow and vision reduction. Adaptation will be great if your team needs frontline for more time, and the enemy team can often drop you to low health.

At this point, you are also much better at clearing camps, especially if you took Primal Rage at lvl 13. Try to take some camps by yourself and then Z to join the rest of the fight, or help your team with that task. You'll generally try to stall with taking the camp until some seconds before the objective spawns so the enemy team has to make more complicated decisions.

You're pretty weak if your team falls behind at this point, because you can be kited easily. Even if, you can still try to set up some kills with your Drag to try to get closer to the same experience as the enemy team. Just watch out for CC, and if your Q won't help your team get even, soak lanes and get camps.

Late Game

Dehaka is alright in the late game, but his toolkit starts to dimminish a bit, because the later the game goes, the more the action will be focused on either team's base, exposing Dehaka's lack of range and mobility outside of bushes. But that doesn't mean that he cannot contribute to late game teamfights, as your Drag is still deadly, and one pick can lead to a long death timer. This is also the time where your level 20 talents give you even more bulk, so you can withstand fights for a longer period of time. Still, you're not a main tank, so be mindful when becoming your team's meat shield.

I want to thank everyone who was glad to check out my guide! While it wasn't updated for quite a while, I still hope it's good for you, and you've learnt something from it. Check this guide for new changes. For now, see you next time!

PS: Btw, if you want to link dehaka's Adaptation, just type "adaptation dehaka" in [this box]. Otherwise you'll get Adaptation - one of Kerrigan's talents.