Deckard

Deckard Cain, the Last Horadrim, is a Healer Hero from the Diablo universe. As an avid scholar, Deckard Cain has dedicated his life to the pursuit of knowledge. He has been an advisor, storyteller, and friend to Sanctuary's greatest Heroes, guiding them through peril time and again. When Deckard speaks, it's wise to stay awhile and listen.

Background
Deckard Cain, or Cain the Elder, is a returning NPC from previous Diablo games. He narrated the reveal trailer for the Eternal Conflict event, and provided voiceovers in regard to treasure goblins at the start of matches held during said event.

Cain is the last surviving member of the original Horadrim, an ancient order of mages charged with trapping the Prime Evils within Soulstones and guarding them thereafter; his ancestor, Jered Cain, had led the party that pursued and captured Diablo. Cain acts as adviser and guide, accompanying the player's character through each act of the games and providing a great deal of the lore to be found in-game.

Cain remains in Tristram for the entirety of the first game, standing next to the fountain in the middle of town, where he provides his wisdom and identifies items for a small fee. In Diablo II, he is rescued by the player character from a gibbet next to that fountain, and travels with the player throughout; he continues to identify items for the player. In Diablo III, he is rescued from the ruins of Tristram's Cathedral as the Skeleton King Leoric, reanimated by the "fallen star," sends his guards to attack him. Directing most of the major quests of Act I, Cain is fatally wounded by the witch Maghda and her Dark Coven, who seek the "fallen star" (revealed to be the fallen archangel Tyrael) and his broken sword, recovered by the player. Cain's last act before dying is to use his Horadric magic to reforge the sword, and determine it is angelic in origin. At the cinematic leading into Act II, Cain is cremated on a pyre in the graveyard outside the Cathedral.

Heroes of the Storm Comics
Deckard is exploring Dragon Shire when the forces of the Raven Lord accuse him of hiding a girl from them. Said girl, Orphea, turns out to be a powerful magician of some sort and the two of them travel to the court of Raena, the Lady of Thorns and a powerful Realm Lord. There, they warn her of the Raven Lord’s designs on her realm and the rest of the Nexus.

She is initially reluctant to get involved due to her own problems with a curse that's turned her husband to stone and is now slowly afflicting her. When Cain explains that her people are already in danger and that the Raven Lord has already set his eyes on a new realm which would give him more power than her, she rallies her armies and allies to defend King's Crest and oppose the Raven Lord's forces in his plans to conquer Alterac Pass.

Later, the Lady of Thorns, despite being deeply injured, confronts the Raven Lord and opens a portal, urging Deckard Cain to lead her people to safety. Raena then succumbs to her curse and is turned to stone.

Gameplay
Deckard is a burst Healer who excels at preparing the battlefield before a fight and can cripple enemies with crowd control. Deckard's only healing Ability, Healing Potion, has a high healing-over-time output and the unique ability to be used "on the ground" to allow allies to heal at their leisure. Being able to set up several Healing Potions ahead of time is crucial to Deckard's ability to deal with burst damage.

Strength

 * Healing
 * Area Denial
 * Debuffing

Weaknesses

 * Mobility
 * Silences
 * Limited waveclear and general damage output

Abilities

 * See Data Page for a table of scaled values at key levels.

Development
Deckard was intended for inclusion in Heroes of the Storm as of April, 2014.

When being worked on, Deckard originally had an "explosive magic" set. However, the developers felt that this wasn't true to the character. Rather, they found that abilities that were tactical and strategic were a better fit. The Horadric Cube originally worked differently. Here, Deckard would place it on the ground, 'throw' abilities into it, and thus change how they worked. It was found that putting the cube on the ground limited players' decisions, where they were constantly casting on the single point.It was shifted to its current form. His E ability was originally Identify (an ability of his from the Diablo series). In this form, he would channel the ability against an enemy hero, which would reveal them and reduce their armor. When it came to playtesting however, it didn't seem to fit, given that the channel ability was a 'destructive ability' that didn't match his nature as a scholar. Scroll of Sealing was created as the replacement, which better fit Deckard's tactical playstyle.

During an interview, Matt Villers talked about the difficulties of adapting the iconic character in a MOBA: "There were concerns in adapting Cain for sure, it was fun to try and tackle that. As is the cast with most heroes we started in earnest on him about a year ago, and he took the standard six to nine months of development time. We needed to create a version of Deckard that could stand up to these characters, which is basically how we approached his design. It's less destructive, and more about how he can be clever and strategic. I really like his super potion, where if you leave your potion for a while it heals for more, and the Ruby talent upgrade spits out a bunch of tiny potions if you hit them with a cube. It's great!"

He expanded on how he got his two heroics, a sleep debuff brought on by a magical scroll reading (Stay awhile and Listen), and a tornado of books (Lorenado): "We knew right away we wanted 'stay awhile and listen.' But we initially tried giving him the ability to use heroics of other Diablo heroes and thought 'that's not really Deckard.' Then we had this idea called 'The End Times,' where he would summon a meteor strike at his location and leap out of a town portal unharmed in a comical fashion, which started to work but in testing kind of fizzled. We found that people wanted to run into the enemy team and call the strike which didn't make sense for a support. Then we pulled Lorenado in, which was in the Diablo III April Fools joke for the Archivist class and it worked!"

During the PAX East in April 5, 2018, Deckard Cain was announced as a playable Hero.

Trivia

 * Deckard Cain was announced to be the next healing hero in the game on April 5 during PAX East 2018.
 * Deckard Cain is just called 'Deckard' in-game and not 'Cain'. According to Matt Villers: "We always have many opinions around the office on how to shorten hero names, and Deckard was no exception. I think in English the name 'Cain' by itself conjures a more rough image, so Deckard felt like a better fit."
 * However, his full name appears on the battlefield when Deckard is controlled by AI as well as in ping messages (e.g. "Deckard Cain is on the way.") and on the MVP screen.
 * Deckard made his debut in Diablo (December 1996).
 * His book debut was fifteen and a third years later, in Diablo III: The Order (May 2012).
 * Deckard is voiced by Micheal Gough.
 * Deckard Cain was the narrator of the reveal trailer for the Eternal Conflict event, and provided voiceovers in regards to treasure goblins at the start of matches held during said event.
 * Deckard Cain's design is a blend between his appearance in Diablo II (light blue cloak and white beard and well kept appearance) and Diablo III (overall posture, holding a cane, and carrying tomes and scrolls).
 * Due to his age, Deckard often has to pop the joints in his dorsal vertebrae before hearthing or exiting combat stance.
 * One of Deckard's gag quotes references the Horadric Cube and the uses of footstools.