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Deckard Cain Build Guide “Stay a while and read our guide.”
Welcome to our guide for Deckard Cain, a Healer in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
Deckard Cain's Overview
Deckard is a Healer specialized in single-target healing,
with the possibility to prepare 
Healing Potion on the ground for later usage,
and crowd control, usually used as follow-up
to your Tank's engage.
Deckard Cain's Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
Strong and efficient single-target healing output- Powerful area of effect crowd control
- Access to
Emerald for healing reduction
Weaknesses
Weak against burst damage- No access to Cleanse or similar tools to remove crowd-control effects
- Struggles when facing high-mobility Heroes
- Unable to provide Unstoppable frames
Deckard Cain's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Sapphire Emerald Build
Recommended
Deckard's Sapphire Emerald Build increases your burst healing as well as your crowd control and utility. Due to its nature, this Build excels in short team fights.
Sapphire at Level 1 can be used to engage
for your team and/or as a setup 
Scroll Of Sealing.
Emerald at Level 7 should be used on the kill target,
so that the Healer will not be able to save them.
Thanks to the Shield it provides, Potion of Shielding
at Level 4 helps you keep alive whoever is being focused by enemy Heroes.
Horadric Staff at Level 16 can be used to peel
for allied Heroes and/or counter-engage.
Ruby Emerald Build
Situational
Deckard's Ruby Emerald Build increases your sustain healing and utility at the cost of crowd control. Due to its nature, this Build excels in long team fights.
Ruby at Level 4 is best used on multiple enemy Heroes when they
are surrounding allied Heroes, to spawn more Lesser Healing Potions near your teammates.
Emerald at Level 7 should be used on the kill target,
so that the Healer will not be able to save them.
Field Study at Level 1 increases your Spell Power,
which not only increases your damage done with Abilities but also your healing done.
Safety in Numbers at Level 16 further increases
the value you get from your Basic Abilities by reducing their cooldown.
Sapphire Ruby Build
Situational
Deckard's Sapphire Ruby Build provides a balanced mix of sustain and burst healing, crowd control, and utility. Due to its nature, this Build excels against 3 or more melee Heroes.
Sapphire at Level 1 can be used to engage
for your team and/or as a setup Scroll Of Sealing.
Ruby at Level 4 is best used on multiple enemy Heroes when they
are surrounding allied Heroes, to spawn more Lesser Healing Potions near your teammates.
Kanai's Cube at Level 7 is a good defensive tool usable
for reducing the effectiveness of dive Heroes.
Scroll of Stone Curse at Level 16 can be used to
deal damage to enemy Heroes who tend to group while figthing.
ARAM Build
ARAM
Deckard's ARAM Build increases your damage against enemy Heroes who tend to group. This damage scales as the game goes and spikes at Level 16. We find this Build particularly effective when there is another Healer in your team.
The synergy between Scroll of Identify at Level 1
and Scroll of Stone Curse at Level 16 allows
you to deal a lot of damage to enemy Heroes who get caught inside
Scroll Of Sealing.
Cube Mastery at Level 7 lets you do that more often.
Deckard Cain's Synergies and Counters
Deckard Cain synergizes with
Scroll Of Sealing makes Deckard excellent at following up on
Heroes that can provide their own source of reliable crowd control
(for example Johanna) and similarly good at setting up enemy Heroes
for allied skillshot-based Abilities (such as Kel'Thuzad).
Healing Potion is extremely easy to use for healing allied Heroes
without mobility, so they are great to have on Deckard's side.
For the same reason, you should avoid picking high-mobility Heroes
and/or dive Heroes.
Deckard Cain is countered by
With little in the way of mobility, Deckard struggles against Heroes who can easily engage on him, especially if they are ranged.
Heroes who have access to Unstoppable effects
have easy life against Deckard as they can ignore all his offensive Abilities.
Similarly, Cleanse effects (for example 
Intercession
by Whitemane) are good against Deckard
because they basically deny his main strength: crowd control.
Deckard can make up for his weakness to burst damage by taking short fights, however, the enemy team will usually still have an edge during them.
Deckard Cain's Maps
Deckard tends to do well on Maps that feature many choke points,
where he is able to get value from Scroll Of Sealing
and his Heroic Ability: 
Stay Awhile and Listen
or 
Lorenado. Battlegrounds with a lot of
wide areas (such as Hanamura Temple)
will obviously make this characteristic harder to exploit.
The way Healing Potion works
is particularly good when contesting powerful Objectives
that take a long time to be secured (for example
Shrines on Infernal Shrines).
Having to move too much on the battlefield means
you will get less value out of the potion-stocking aspect.
Deckard Cain's Tips and Tricks
- Healing Potions created by Healing Potion last until consumed. Casting Healing Potion beyond the limit of 5 will destroy the oldest Potion.
- Horadric Cube has a short flight time, but can still hit enemies running directly away from Deckard if the targeting reticle is centered.
- Scroll Of Sealing can be used in two ways: after any crowd control effect or right before Stay Awhile and Listen.
- Stay Awhile and Listen has long cast time and channel time that will block you for a few seconds. Use it from a safe position and, when in danger, press [R] again to stop channeling it.
- When you do not need it for peeling or to contest a Capture Point, Lorenado can be used to push enemies towards your teammates, and more importantly, inside the area of Scroll Of Sealing while it is activating.
Deckard Cain's Role in the Current Meta
Deckard's multiple crowd control Abilities give him a niche as a Healer who thrives in aggressive team compositions that have the ability to follow up with heavy loads of burst damage, especially if accompanied by Heroes who can setup for him.
Deckard's only healing Ability, Healing Potion,
has the unique ability to be thrown on the ground instead of being only usable
on Heroes, allowing allied Heroes to pick them whenever they want.
Being able to set up some of them ahead of time is useful to mitigate
his weakness against burst damage.
Changelog
- 14 Oct. 2024 (talents page): Guide reviewed.
- 14 Oct. 2024 (abilities page): Guide reviewed.
- 14 Oct. 2024 (this page): Guide reviewed.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (talents page): ARAM Build added.
- 20 Sep. 2023 (this page): ARAM Build added.
- 07 Jul. 2022 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 07 Jul. 2022 (this page): Builds updated.
- 17 Jan. 2022 (talents page): Builds updated.
- 17 Jan. 2022 (this page): Builds updated.
- 26 Aug. 2021 (talents page): Talent Build page updated.
- Builds updated.
- Descriptions improved.
- New layout.
- 26 Aug. 2021 (abilities page): Abilities and Strategy page updated.
- Descriptions improved.
- Tips and Tricks improved.
- New layout.
- 26 Aug. 2021 (this page): Introduction page updated.
- Builds updated.
- Descriptions improved.
- Synergies and Counters improved.
- Maps improved.
- Tips and Tricks improved.
- New layout.
- 27 Oct. 2020 (talents page): Talent build reviewed and updated.
- 07 Sep. 2020 (talents page): Talent build reviewed and updated.
- 30 Aug. 2020 (this page): Role in Current Meta section updated.
- 19 Jul. 2020 (talents page): Talent build reviewed and updated.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (talents page): Description for Scroll of Identify and Morenadoes! updated.
- 05 Apr. 2020 (abilities page): Description for Fortitude of the Faithful reviewed.
- 13 Dec. 2019 (this page): Added a note about current Anomaly.
- 16 Oct. 2019 (talents page): Talent builds and recommendations reviewed and updated.
- 16 Oct. 2019 (abilities page): Abilities section reviewed following the 2.48.2 update.
- 16 Oct. 2019 (this page): Guide updated.
- 06 Jun. 2018 (talents page): Talent recommendations updated.
- 29 Apr. 2018 (this page): Main build updated.
- 24 Apr. 2018 (talents page): Guide created.
- 24 Apr. 2018 (this page): Guide created.
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Elitesparkle is a multiple times Master player in Europe who plays Heroes of the Storm since its release. He is an active member of the community who likes to teach new and veteran players all he knows about his favorite game.
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