Some tweaks on Dehaka i would love to see

General Discussion
1

ill start by saying Dehaka is a super fun character to play, both defensively or aggressively. he fits well with most comps and most maps and feels pretty well rounded too !overall his kit is great !

but there is a few things id love to see tweaked on his talents.

level 1 :

Enduring Swarm : (removed )
Primal hunter : ( Quest )
every 50 essence collected provides “essence collection” 5 additional mana over 5 seconds.
reward : damaging an enemy hero with Dark Swarm reduce the cooldown of burrow by 0.3 seconds and BrushStalker by 1.25 seconds. ( limit 10 stacks/completion)

Enhanced agility : small change
base talent : remain the same
repeatable quest : instead of increasing the brushstalker movement bonus by up to 2% up to 20%. it instead increases the base movement speed.

Level 4 :

Lurker Strain : new functionality
increases the duration of burrow by 1 second and allow dehaka to do Basic Attack while burrowed to any selected target with 5.5 range or less.

level 13 :

primal swarm : new functionality
any enemy hero within Dark swarm have their armor bonus reduced to 0. armor is returned to normal as soon as dark swarm ends or that they leave Dark Swarm’s radius.

level 16 :

Tunneling Claws : added functionality
Dehaka also gains invisibility while burrowed.

Pack Leader : removed
Lurking Predator :
Dehaka gains invisibility while within bushes and when leaving up to 0.50 seconds.

the primal hunter quest would be for having dehaka play around more with the brush stalker and burrow those are two very nice abilities and would love to see more out of it. also the fact that it recovers a slight about of mana and later a moderate amount, allows dehaka to fight longer without having to go back heal.

the Lurker strain change is simply to reflect more on what lurkers do, they attack from underground. if you ask any SC players what is the mean features of lurkers compared to any other zerg units, they will likely say, its one of the very few units in the game capable of attacking while burrowed. no one is going to say " lurkers are special because when they are burrowed, you cant see them if you dont have detection !" . every zerg unit that can burrow can do that. allowing dehaka to attack would simply make a better fitting name.

primal swarm is to give a nice armor removing tool rather than a vanilla “remove X armor” this one would have the potential to technically remove 0 armor on a non armored target , but would have the potential to completely strip Deathwing or Garrosh from their armors . it would all be based on the enemy targets.

tunneling claws, its simply so that the enemy can just follow you as you move around while burrowed.

Pack Leader always felt a bit weird for me, not 100% why , but it just felt off.
the idea of dehaka waiting in the bushes and ready to hop on an unsuspecting target crossing through it and having them unable to see what was attacking them in the first place felt more awesome but also plays mind games with the enemy since they have to be wary of something they cannot see.

those are just a few things i would had loved to see changed, then again its just based on personal taste so it doesnt mean it would be properly balanced or anything, but just some silly ideas i wanted to share and get out of my head :smiley: !

6 Likes
2

While I do think Dehaka needs improvements. I doubt they will ever give any hero a static move speed buff.

Love this. :+1:

This feels too narrow. And worse than what we currently have.

I think “Elongated Tongue” should give some other bonus, As just increasing the length of drag isn’t good enough, and is only picked because all the talents on the tier are bad.

4 Likes
3

the idea was to get back to the original speed buff dehaka has before his first rework.

i think its a matter of personal tastes though , would you rather a faster temporary speed ? ( 140% ) or would you prefer a faster permanent speed ( 120%)
personally i prefer the permanent rather than the temporary but i can deffintely see some people prefering the current version and theres no problem in liking it either.

thank you :smiley: !

the idea was that yes if used on an unarmored target it would be useless, however used on a armored target, like tanks . it would completely strip away all their armors for the duration which ( in my mind anyway ) can be quite powerful if timed right.

4

I’m assuming the amount of times you have to collect 50 Essence is 10 (same as other existing talents)?

I totally do not approve Dehaka permanently gaining 20% movement speed.

Here is my idea:

  • Lurker Strain receives the following changes…
    • No longer reduces the cooldown of Burrow
    • Radius of effect increased from 3 to 3.5
    • Knockback distance increased from 2.5 to 3
    • Now receives additional functionality…
      • Gain 25 Essence when emerging from Burrow

Lurker Strain has to compete with two talents that offer Dehaka additional sustain. The problem this talent has is that it offers absolutely no form of sustain to help Dehaka in combat. The best way to fix this problem is to give Dehaka Essence as soon as he emerges from Burrow. Expending Burrow for the sole purpose of gaining Essence can be a viable strategy as long as you play it safe for the next 20 seconds.

The only time you take this is if you are playing against Garrosh.

Current functionality is just fine. I do not approve.

We don’t have to fix what isn’t broken.

This talent’s current functionality (not yours) is too attached to bushes and is very underwhelming for a Level 16 talent. Here’s my idea to make it be able to compete with the other amazing two talents (yes I saw your idea):

  • Pack Leader now receives new functionality…
    • Increase vision range by 50% and gain the ability to see into bushes (enemies inside are only visible to you). After Dehaka has been out of combat for 6 seconds, instantly gain Stealth when inside a bush and retain it for 10 seconds after leaving.

It plays along with Dehaka’s fantasy and makes it really scary to fight him when he has quick access to bushes. Remember he has to give up +20% Q range and movement while in E.

1 Like
5

I like infinite scaling but on mana? Ehhh might not be needed as much compared to damage or health

6

While I get the idea you’re going for here, I’m going to say a hard NO on making Dehaka of all characters a hard counter to Garrosh/DW. I even see you mention it. Also it would make Dehaka a hardcounter to lots of tanky heroes Storm tier armor talents. This doesn’t make any sense from what Dehaka should be doing imo.

It’s basically a talent that is super niche, and would make Dehaka a hard counter to a few heroes.

Hard counters that target 1-2 heroes is not healthy for the game. Having heroes with hard counters towards abilities (Ana’s anti-healing grenade, Varian’s shield breaker) is FINE! But this is basically targeting Garrosh and Deathwing only. And that is not okay.

It’s like if they gave Genji a talent that removed a scrap from enemy heroes for each of your auto-attack projectiles hit. It is hyper-targeted.

I think if you just made it give half of it’s bonus as MS once quest completed it might be okay.

But 20% MS on level 1 given he has drag seems really strong. And even with my “maybe” suggested change, the ability feels a lot less “Dehaka” to me.

Perhaps it could make sense to give him even more extra duration on Bushstalker once you reach 10 stacks? Or have burrow generate a bush when you pop up for a game tik or two? (.0625-.125) (iirc the game tiks at .0625 seconds, might be different rate.)

no.
nope.
never.
toxic.

:100:%

they probably just forgot to add the endpoint for the reward.

So it would be doable 10 times, assuming it works like the rest of his quests.

I don’t think the talent really fits Dehaka, given it’s pure focus on mana. But tying a mana element into his Tissue Regeneration might make sense (reward also gives you a couple extra mana regen per second?).

1 Like
7

Some do get base move speed buffs from talents, like Falstad (though only when trait is active after picking Aerie Gusts), Arthas (at 20 with Deaths Advance, constant passive), Raynor at 13 (permanent 8% passive buff even without casting Inspire).

I might have forgotten some.

1 Like
8

isn’t that too much for a bruiser that is already has THICC healing and pretty strong CC?

Holy moly, i didn’t know he had spikes…but imo, this change makes it worse.

interesting…but won’t it be too strong against Uther?

Oh…this is kinda OP.

Without any channel of invisibility? Oh…that’s kinda OP too :face_with_monocle:

1 Like
9

It’s fine to have counters. Uther needs a nerf anyway

1 Like
10

it makes his burrow an actual escape at lategame. Even with the movement it has, because enemies can still see where you’re going it isn’t ideal for escaping/repositioning.

1 Like
11

is that not a big nerf to garrosh lol.

1 Like
12

If possible they could code to armor granted from other sources🤷‍♂️ Or maybe nerf the ability to half the bonus

1 Like
13

you’re assuming correctly, my appologies i didnt specified it . i just fixed , thanks :+1:

but that would make him a fast zergy yoshi :open_mouth: !
that was also how his first iteration of Enhanced Agility used to function before his first rework .

your idea in deffintely interesting ! we would probably need to change the name though becasue it really bothers me something making a reference to lurkers ( zerg units that attacks from underground) cannot attack from underground :sweat_smile:

my idea was more on the offensive side but your idea is a really nice defensive option with the aditional 25 essence, which can very likely help to complete quests much easier im guessing !

garrosh would be the most obvious pick against it for sure.
in the game curently we do have a fair bit of heroes that can have between 25-50 armor quite often, Artanis, Blaze, Muradin, Diablo ,even other like illidan can get quite large amount of armor ( up to 75 spell )

it would deffenitely be situational and not to be used in every game , but it could certainly get strong value.

its all fine if you dont approve, im just here throwing some crazy ideas lol :laughing:

im currious where you find an issue with that one though , its litteraly a small buff helping on survival :thinking: too much buff maybe ?

i also thought having some vision play with the bushes but your idea on that is much better ! 6 seconds before invisility seems a bit high and the 10 seconds for leaving, wouldnt be better to tone those down a bit ?

wasnt meant to be infinite , like vitriuz pointed out , i has forgottent o pus the 10 stack limit. my bad on that one lol

you’re right , i was trying to think outside the box and give a spin on armor we dont currently have and i guess i really went way too far with it lol

good point !
when i wrote that i was mainly thinking of the first version of dehaka where his base speed was what increased. i still pick current enhanced agility but i was definitely missing the first one.

but lurker ! :open_mouth:

its not really a pure focus on mana since the big reward was the cooldown reduction on burrow and brushstalker , mana was something i thought of after so that dehaka would use spells to kill stuff and get health from that after , like a cycle.

he does have good healing but its normally tied to his essence which gets used up completely onced activated. unless you go tissue regeneration , dehaka is deffintely not as tanky.

you think so ? i thought it would synergise well with its other dark swarm talents and give him some good offensive options if ever needed.

he lacks honor…

think like valeera’s ult but only for bushes, ( which are significantly smaller and way more specific in locations) . 0.50 could likely be dropped to 0.25 but the idea of maybe fighting you cant always see ( but you know where about it would be ) sounded appealing to me , i would always have a small doubt and would make me think twice before wondering into bushes without making sure they are safe first with using a spell or something.

i realised my wrong on this one :sweat_smile:

1 Like
14

Invisibility is complete invisibility. If you play stealth heroes, you will know how incredibly strong this condition is.

I don’t believe this talent needs any changes at all because having a mobile stasis on a 20 second cooldown with the ability to regenerate your entire HP bar (from Trait) makes you ridiculously difficult to kill.

15

Thematically it is cool and sorta-kinda fits the “adaptation” thing.

But in gameplay terms, dehaka burrows and attacks you canceling your objective channel over a wall.

I think for such a talent to exist, the hero would need a full rework or be a new hero, in order for it to be balanced in their whole design.

Make sense?

:man_facepalming:
IDK how I missed that part of the ability lol!

Still seems like a lot of mana, but I get where it is going!

1 Like
16

I also should note, I think that such a talent at level 20 could make sense. A storm talent countering storm talents.
(now, if it makes sense on Dehaka is a different discussion).

1 Like
17

I think this talent should still stay. It gives him a decent way to mitigate a lot of damage. And gives him the option to keep burrow open as a secondary escape method. This talent synergizes well with Tunneling Claws as previously you would need to burrow to avoid big bursts of damage, and now are more resiliant against it.
Not to mention that Symbiosis can provide him much better upkeep of this armor bonus. Each time dark swarm chargers, it can trigger 8 CD reductions per hero hit. Even if he manages to stick to just 1 hero, thats enough for a 3.2sec reduction (which is 32%).

If it should get a buff, i would add the essence aspect on it.
Each 50 essence collected increases the armor by 1 (up to 15 bonus armor).

15 armor might not be a lot, but at the high base value this essentialy translates to 2/3 of the damage being protected, this 15 effectively causes enemies to be forced to deal 3x the damage instead of 2x the damage for similar damage.

Its a niche talent, but a strong one in that niche.

This converts it to something like a teleport, although delayed. While i think this talent by default, even if it underperforms, already has a good feature (that they can chase you should in most fights not matter if you can burrow back into your team for protection).

I would say that if change should purely be decided by its winrate. If its near the 50% (even if its negative at 48%), it shouldnt change. Note that its a talent that less skilled dehaka players will also take as its a good escape mechanism, and this might cause its lower winrate.

In also think that Essence Claws (lvl 20), is relatively weak. The CC itself can be helpful, but is given at a stage where its alternatives are generaly providing much better use.
In many cases even if the ulti upgrades wont be helpful, Apex Predator is enough to quickly put pressure on other lanes, or hearth for full health and get back into a lane.

Being able to chase a target as dehake doesnt realy help since it cannot chase any hero that has a dash or blind. Let alone it not being his task in the first place. Only its essence gain could work, but its not reliable enough.

2 Likes
18

I mean, 3 seconds of range AA’s is fine, but…does it even fit his role? I know it’s a good stuff to “poke” because of 3 seconds and with primal rage it will deal decent damage but still…not sure.

Garrosh: spare me plz!

1 Like
19

Yes, but none of those compare to giving the speed buff up to 20% permanently as Lvl 1 talent. A hero always moving at 120% speed sounds like release Samuro. And we all know how that went.

As I remember, it only increased the uptime of Brushstalker. The passive move speed was added later, and was capped at 10%

Enhanced Agility (Trait)

  • New functionality:
    • Quest: For every 50 Essence you collect, increase your Brushstalker Movement Speed bonus by 1%. This can stack 10 times.

But Deathwing does it without even being on the map :slight_smile:

3 Likes
20

does anyone besides Dehaka mains want multiple heroes that can do this? :stuck_out_tongue: