Dehaka Primal Aggression
by JR Cook - 8 years ago show comments
Dehaka has been in the nexus for some time now, showing the power that the primal zerg can bring to a team. Now that players, myself included, have had time to perfect certain builds with him, I present to you one of my favorite aggression builds I use on him.
Mount
Dehaka cannot use a mount. Instead he is able to dig, like Abathur to any brush/vent on the map. This is a great skill that can be utilized to set up ganks at weird moments for your opponents.
Trait Essence Collection
Hero kills will give you 10 essence and creep kills will give you 2 essence. Dekaha is able to store up to 50 essence. What can this essense be used for? Healing! This can be used during drag and burrow.
Abilites
Q Drag
Acting like a frog, Dehaka throws his tongue out and latches onto to the first target it hits dealing a base 166 damage and stunning the target 1.75 seconds. The best part of this ability is you can re position your enemy wherever you want them. Drag enemies away from your squishies or vice versa. Go hog wild!
This is a great ability. Not only does it do a fair amount of damage over time, starting at 62.40 a second for 3 seconds this also removes any collision Dehaka might encounter that isn’t a wall. This ability also works well with his next skill.
E Burrow
You dig into the ground. And you enter an Invulnerable state for 2 seconds. That’s it. It’s an underrated ability in his kit. This will disjoint heroics that target you. Triple tap, pyroblast. You can also pop your trait to regain health while you’re burrowed.
Ultimates
This launches a blob at an enemy doing a base 208 damage, not to mention silencing them and slowing them by 30% for 3 seconds. The extra benefit is that they can only see a very short range around them for 6 seconds. You know, because a Zerg just spit a Dilophosaur blob in your face.
This skill lets you heal for 60% of the damage you’ve taken during the 5 seconds while its active. This is potentially a self ancestral healing. This combos with burrow so you can recover that health safely. Use this wisely in large team engagements and you’ll almost never die.
The Build
Level 1 Enhanced Agility
Face it, you’re slow as molasses in January. You have global presence, but you can never mount up. This will allow you to get up to an extra 15% movement speed. It can be just enough to run that person down before they mount back up.
Level 4 Hero Stalker
25 Essence means that you’re going to cap your Enhanced Agility much quicker than you normally would. Also this is still the go to talent to keep your sustainability high during team fights where you get a pick-off.
Level 7 Symbosis
Just staying on one person during Dark Swarm for its duration reduces its cool down by an insane amount, but in clumped up team fights you’re going to get repeated Dark Swarms off for a deceptively huge amount of damage, sometimes enough to turn around a team fight. Don’t take this talent lightly, its -really- good for extended team fights.
Level 10 Isolation
I really want to love adaptation, but its not bringing what it should to the table. Isolation is going be great for shutting down those annoying heroes, like healers, big ability damage dealers. Spit in their face and run them down.
Level 13 Feroucious Stalker
This talent sounds really bad on paper, but the 60% movement speed buff it brings after you brushstalk means you absolutely will get in someone’s face the instant you pop out of brushstalker, this is such a great talent for running someone down who’s stayed in your lane for too long for an easy drag and Dark Swarm.
Level 16 Elongated Tongue
Paralyzing Enzymes is also absolutely fantastic. This is the only talent tier for this build where its absolutely situation based. Both talents bring amazing things to your kit. Either a deceptive drag range with Elongated Tongue, or extra chase down ability with the other.
Level 20 Apex Predator
Now you’re absolutely absurd at this point. Every 10 seconds you have the option for a 60% movement buff, on top of global presence. You have unparalleled chase down ability at this point. Use this to set up those key pick offs on heroes that can keep you from pushing the core.
Strategy
Be absolutely aggressive with this build. Every time you drag is off cool down, start looking for a pick off or an opportunity to get a lot of damage on a hero that is even remotely out of position. Dragging them only puts them farther out of position. With Dehaka, you can get an absurd amount of first bloods in a party bush at the start of the game. You have incredible natural regen with all the essence you will be collecting and that only gets more ludicrous after you reach level 4 and take Hero Stalker.
During team fights, knowing when to burrow to help your essence health recover out is going to be key. You never want to wait until you’re about to die to pop that 50 essence. When you’re at about half health is more than ample to start that extra massive sustain you bring to fights. If team fights are bunching up tightly, make sure to abuse dark swarm to walk about the battlefield freely and put as much damage as possible on to enemies, preferably the squishier targets. If you can drag a healer out of position in a team fight, so much the better for your team. As the game goes on, you become more and more of a threat due to enhanced agility, constantly getting stronger, and your other talents coming into play.
If you are against teams with people who play far back, go with the elongated tongue, if you are against a team that has high mobility, give paralyzing enzymes a try for that extra slow after the drag. But once level 20 rolls around, you should be an absolute menace to anyone on the other team that even thinks about poking their head out in a lane by themselves. Especially on small maps, on Dragon Shire you are a nightmare. The ability to snag a shrine from the other team and then stalker top and take the other shrine means the enemies have to commit people to those shrines to prevent you from taking them, putting them weak in other lanes and giving your team a numbers advantage. Always get in your enemies faces with this build and show them the primal fury of the Zerg!
