I want to talk about how ridiculous Dehaka is

Lets be clear - i haven’t bought Dehaka. In fact i have never played him at all.

But since today i feel like Dehaka is specially made for handicapped people. Had a game today on lock and load where i played Artanis and afterwards I watched the replay. I have never seen such easy mode play in starcraft.

My ally got Dehaka killed half a dozen times despite Artanis’ guardian shell. And he did not make other units… literally zero army units, only drones.

If he is killed he just sacrifices 4 drones and revives immediately?! I mean wtf is this? For a measly 200 minerals? Even Nova costs 500 minerals to instantly revive. And if she wants to teleport somewhere, it also costs money. My ally even died twice killing expansion rocks because we had diffusion mutator… but who cares? It’s almost for free.

He bought every single unit upgrade (for whatever reason - i have no clue), and still had 10 000 minerals and 3000 gas on the bank when we took the final lock. As a comparison, i had 2500 minerals and 600 gas… and i spent 13 000 resources on army while he spent 0. I got my expansion up 4:30 minutes earlier and mined a lot more… and still he got 320 kills while i had 380. I mean seriously… WTF?

He did not play a strategy game… he played an RPG. Even Abathur looses biomass when units die… Dehaka looses nothing, not even time.

And on top of all that, at the end he sais “gg so ez”. I don’t know what to say really.

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You can carry brutal and some brutal+ with dehaka at level 5. Not just complete, but CARRY.

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Great… i feel like there are multiple tiers of commanders in coop.

It feels weird playing with that kind of disparity in the game…

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don’t think about it too hard mate, if you ever do get around to playing dehaka though he’s pretty fun. Not strategy game fun though haha…

He didn’t played RPG, because you know, no roleplay was involved.

I think this one would’ve earned you multiple downvotes in the previous version of the forums, and will likely prevent you from getting good replies here. The fact you don’t like a commander is one thing, but saying it was made for handicapped people… that’s simply an insult to everyone who likes Dehaka - and I’m not talking only about liking to play him, but also liking his design ideas, even if you don’t play him that much. So yeah, great way to start a topic.

Guess you’ve never seen Tychus or Zeratul… or even Stukov pre-nerfs. Or a really good Nova.

So he was a noob, or didn’t want to bother with making units… that’s a playstyle too, you know… and it’s rather admirable when someone manages to pull it off successfully (not sure it was the case in your game, just saying). Yet, later on you say you had diffusion mutator so… dying that much might not be a sign of bad gameplay, but a consequence of the mutator.

Ok, since you haven’t played Dehaka, here’s some info… earlier levels cost indeed 4 drones to revive, but the number increases as Dehaka gains levels. To revive a lvl 10 Dehaka you need ~8 drones and for level 15… erm… many… ask around, check wikis or w/e for information, I don’t know the exact number. So the comparison to Nova is more or less flawed. Then again, Nova is a far better hero early on than Dehaka, she can destroy encampments right from the get-go due to her abilities, while Dehaka… not really.
As for teleporting, Dehaka’s skill is on a cooldown like his other skills, so you can’t simply jump from here to there all day long. And yeah, Nova’s teleporting over the map costs minerals… but why don’t you compare it to its zerg counterpart, the Brutalisk? That’s also free, I think it has a lower cooldown, and, like Nova, the Brutalisk is far stronger than Dehaka early on. I don’t see you bit**ing about Abathur…

I do that sometimes (the all-upgrades stuff) just for fun. But that’s besides the point. On the other hand you say he had “x ammount of resources” when the game ended. That would be some good info, except L&L is one of those maps with flexible completing time, so your game might’ve been 10 minutes or 30 minutes long. As for resources or kills… I bet I could achieve the same thing with Nova or maybe even Kerrigan solo… and again I don’t see you bit**ing about those 2. It’s called hero-only/solo play… it’s a thing, get over it, it can be done with other commanders, not just Dehaka.

And that’s the thing people like about Dehaka - mostly - the RPG side of it, the leveling up your… erm… standing-upright-salamander into a ferocious fire-breathing T-rex (which can’t be outrun in high-heels). If you don’t like the RPG side of it, ok, but saying it like you’re surprised or outraged by the fact someone played a commander the way it was intended (and advertised) to be played means you missed the whole point of commander diversity and playstyles.

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Had a few of those specimen too.

Saying hero-only is viable. Probably.
But ive had only bad or mediocre players pull of a hero only strategy. And those games are more stressful for me as an ally. ALWAYS.

Like, that kerri solo player i once faced when the enemy was a sky terran on oblivion express. Me as h&h luckily had both calldowns ready when the double trains hit and the kerrigan was just chillin her Azz waiting for her revive meanwhile :slight_smile:
Basically its better if this player leaves at the beginning. You get the hero just aswell plus all the ressources they wouldnt spend.

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It’s a viable playstyle particularly if he uses calldowns.

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Dehaka isn’t even the strongest commander, so get out of here with that nonsense. He wasn’t even a top choice for aggressive recruitment (last weeks mutation). Yeah, he stomps regular brutal, but so does every other commander if you know what you are doing.

In terms of mutation viability, Dehaka trails behind Abathur and Zeratul by far. There used to be a chart listing weekly mutation solos by commander. As you can guess, Abathur was the only one to solo them all, and Zeratul was able to solo all but one. So in terms of mutation soloing, let’s say:

S tier: Abathur
A+ tier: Zeratul

After that you had Kerrigan, Raynor, Vorazun, Dehaka, and some others. They had probably 10-15 less mutation solos than Abathur, and Zeratul. (I don’t know exact numbers these days). So then let’s say:

A tier: Dehaka, Raynor, Vorazun, Kerrigan, etc…

It’s debatable that Dehaka is even a top 3 commander behind Zera and Abathur in terms of mutation solos. Raynor (thanks to LiLArrin) could easily be up there with Zeratul. Maybe Vorazun will be up there as Ancalagon has been tearing up the mutation solos with her recently.

My point is, Dehaka is strong but he has limitations and he isn’t even the strongest commander for mutations by far. You play vs missile command as Dehaka; I hope you end the game fast because you are about to get f@&$&$. Fast, cloaked, speedy props? You can’t get detection fast enough. Double-edge on Oblivion express? Yeah good luck having enough dps with swarm or creeper hosts to finish the trains. Want to solo the heroes mutator (I’m sure it can be done tho)? Most of dehaka’s units suck at tanking so it’s easy to watch your army get wiped by amon’s heroes. Oh yeah mutas can tank, but they hit like a wet noodle after the nerfs. Dehaka has his limitations

If you want to resort to calling Dehaka players handicapped, I’ve seen tons of people just queue up Artanis for mutations because he has a safety net if you mess up. One could call Artanis and noob crutch for mutations. But name calling doesn’t achieve anything. We just all want to play the commanders that are most fun for us and enjoy the co op game mode.

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Dehaka is strong, no doubt. But, like other’s have said, he’s not even the strongest. Nevermind that playing him on a workable level (not properly. We’re just talking good enough to not get rolf-stomped) requires enough micro to bring some commanders near peak performance. I can do way better with Mengsk, Stet, or Fenix - not quite as fast, but much stronger once things get going.

Part of why your partner was so resource-rich is because Dehaka has no true resource dump. Other commanders (being basically everyone) can dump floated minerals into cannons, crawlers, etc. Dehaka’s building cost supply. All of them. So once your army is maxed, there’s nothing you can build unless you lose units. He can’t even mass production structures as an end-game insurance policy. I always wind up floating a ton of resources at the end of Dehaka games. That’s just how the commander is built.

As for the hero unit - he performs exactly as intended. He’s weak as all hell in the beginning of the game. Maybe comparable to a slighly beefier Ghost, or a marauder with fun abilities. But by the endgame he’s squashing Ultras. He’s a primal zerg, that’s what they do.

And my guy, based on what you’ve said, your Dehaka partner wasn’t the best and had to deal with a muta that counters him pretty hard. Most Dehaka players don’t waste time rock slapping, they go eat units and level him

Any dehaka that waste time on attacking buildings or rocks is a bad dehaka

Deep tunnel for brutalisks is only 10 seconds (60 for Dehaka). And requires no vision, not even fog of war. So you can literally go anywhere on the map where ground units can path. Just another reason why Aba is op.

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Dehaka can play like that because half of the resource he gain (essence) is by killing enemies and it doesn’t matter who killed the enemy. Abathur has similar mechanic and it had always been shown that this mechanic is hugely broken in higher difficulties.

More enemies you kill the more resource you gain is simply against what makes starcraft great. It is the RPG element of warcraft3 and it is clearly a game breaker.

However, CO commanders are always advertised as “game breaker”. You have free units or superweapons that don’t cost resource to use in other commanders too, although without a mechanic that makes your late game automatically stronger.

It’s paid to get content so it is what it is.

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Dehaka is basically two commanders in one in terms of power.

Dehaka himself can be played without any army and he is enough to do any brutal content.

Dehakas army (without Dehaka himself) is also extremely powerful and easily a match for any Amon brutal army.

So yea Dehaka is incredibly overpowered in terms of how much power he can field.
When you take into account his simple base/economy and very powerful calldowns - he is easily top 3 strongest commanders.

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I have seen many times Kerrigan solo the whole map with hero unit herself and Omega Worm.

Also, not merely 4 drones, the bigger Dehaka is, the more Drones he needs to revive, at max level, he needs 12 Drones.

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Loosing a brutalisk actually has a decent cost for Abathur. It costs him 50 essence on everage plus the unit cost. And he may not even be able to immediately replace the brutalisk when there is no other unit with 100 biomass available.

On the other hand loosing dehaka has bascially no cost at all. The dude i played with could have lost his dehaka 10 additional times, and it would not have put any noticeable dent in his bank… and neither in his performance, since he can revive immediately anyway.

I mean yeah, Abathur is powerful… maybe even the most powerful commander. But his playstyle is nowhere as easy and forgiving as Dehakas is. And i have a lot more respect towards an Abathur ally, who actually micros his brutalisks around the map and maybe a few vipers with his main army, than Dehaka player, who just spams Dehakas skills and calldowns and the rest is only a-move.

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Dehaka is waaaay to overpowered because of 3 reasons.

  1. Supreme Calldowns - 360 Cooldown is short especially when Dehaka and army can wipe the floor with most them. Make them 420 or 450 seconds.

  2. Psionic Booms - Whenever Dehaka eats Psionic Units, he deals splash damage that is DOUBLE the power of his normal attack. Just have them as powerful as his attack.

  3. Dehaka’s Initial health - Make it like 450 so players can play him more carefully in the initial round.

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Nonsense. Early Dehaka attacks slowly and doesn’t hit hard. Lowering his hit points would just make it take slightly longer to reach Godzilla, and not curb his overall power at all.

His cooldowns are among the best in the game, no arguing that. But it’s offset by other considerations, like clunky detecting and virtually no static defense.

Eating psionic characters is amazing, but it’s just part of his kit. It has an effective cooldown since it’s based on devourer, and I don’t think it’s any crazier than a dozen other very strong abilities other commanders have.

The only balance issue that I think should possibly be addressed is Abathur, as he’s clearly overrepresented for mutations. But besides that, co op isn’t verses. There’s no reason to do this kind of strict balancing, especially with mutators bringing a level of randomness to the game that strongly favors particular commanders. Everyone gets a time to shine, and we also get a huge variety of playstyles to enjoy.

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To the OP: man why are you sweating this? Are you extremely upset that he got nearly as many kills as you, when he seemingly didn’t have to work as hard? Why does this interfer with your fun? You got kills, it sounds like you did a lot of work, enjoy a game well played and remember that a lot of the essence he collected came from your kills.

Alternatively, play as Dehaka and see if you still think he’s OP. I’m betting your tune is going to change though.

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Sorry if your favorite commander seems to be built towards low skilled players.

The use of that term “Handicapped” was not an accident.

I hope you understand that handicapped has multiple meanings - otherwise refer to a dictionary.

Lets say you play chess with someone… but since you are much better at chess, you both decide that your partner gets 2 additional queens instead of rooks.

What would you call the action to introduce an imbalance in the pieces of each side? Its called “a Handicap”.

A handicap in the game disadvantaging you, to balance out the handicap in the skill of your partner disadvantaging him.

So yeah - people who can only win using dehaka or tychus most likely are not very good at playing starcraft in general.

Sure - totally agree with… it’s playstyle.

What i DO NOT agree to - and what you seem to implicit in your statement - is that such a playstyle and skill level should be able to have any chance of success in a brutal game - let alone Brutal+ and higher.

It’s perfectly fine to have bad skill playing starcraft. But on ladder you would probably play on gold, silver or bronze league in that case - NOT on master.

On coop it seems to me, gold level players can basically play on master level… all you need all you need is to pick tychus or dehaka.

Would it seem fine to you, if people could go from gold-league to masters, just by switching from one race to another?

Yeah Tychus is similar to Dehaka in that regard.

Nova actually has units that you need to micro. And her instant revive is not as ridicilously cheap and neither is her teleport free. Even her airtrike costs ressources.

Zeratul was cannons were OP… and they were nerfed. He seems fine to me now.

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