How does one plays pugna

[Simurgh the persian]

I am seriously in love with this hero but I don't know what role he fits in and how to actually build him and can someone help and aslo can someone tell me when should I and when I not pick him

[ナルゴ]

Support
Blast Towers
Win teamfights with Netherward
Spam your ult to both steal life from enemies, and heal allies.
Win

glimmer cape, forcestaff, aether lens, mek, aghanims, blood stone are all good on him

Check out the pugna in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL43k2MFWuM

[Deepbluediver]

He's mostly used as a hard-support/pusher, kinda like Shadow Shaman though with more teamfight and less CC. I have occasionally heard of Pugna going mid but that usually involves hard carrys in both your other lanes and Pugna ganking a lot, so it's more of a high-skill and high-risk/high-reward strategy.

[Danger Dwarf]

Blast your load all over the enemies and their towers, and suck or blow your enemies and teamates to win.

In all honesty though check out Nargo's video link and the http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/hero/pugna-1 guides if you want to get more information about the hero. Although I still believe that he's a niche pick over something you want in most games just as fair warning.

[Deepbluediver]

Originally posted by But Nobody Came...:

Although I still believe that he's a niche pick over something you want in most games just as fair warning.

Yeah, I'd say this is an accurate statement. He's good to counter a few specific heroes like Lina or CM in ways that don't require your entire team buying BKBs.

[vongogh]

He is a good anti spell caster. His ward can bring Invoker down to maybe around 50% hp from his own spell spam for example.

Like necro has the minus HP regen aura, his ward does minus mana regen, I like to put it down in trees to annoy laners, so they can't spam spells as much.

Decrypify is a nice combo with Jugg's Blade Fury, it adds slow, and so you can help a lane partner Juggernaut secure kill. It's also a good defence vs right clickers, PA, Slark, Ursa, Jugg, but only if he isn't doing blade fury.

Don't use decrepify on a target everyone is hitting, that is a noob move obviosuly, because you just helped the other team. I remember more than one game where I was PA, and the team Pugna kept using decrepify on my target, then using his own spells, target can TP away, they can just juke away, that's just a noob move, don't decrepify on your carry's target.

[Reiteration6]

Rush Aghs. On Pugna more than any other hero besides maybe Mirana, Aghs is essential. His ult is just way too good with Aghs. After that get a Dagon. It might not seem like the best item on the face of it, I know, but Decrepify gives 60% bonus magic damage at level 4, which makes it a lot more advantageous.

In the early game you'll want to max Nether Blast first, and you should if you're winning your lane, since it helps you push early... if you aren't winning, though, then maxing Nether Ward instead can be a much safer play; buy a Soul Ring or Void Stone and just spam the ward constantly, somewhere that your opponents will be in range but unable to attack it, if possible (in trees, ideally). Not only does this sometimes dissuade them from ganking, due to the knowledge that they'll be taking damage from the ward if they do, but at level 4, the ward also drains 6 mana per second, which at that point in the game can actually be seriously annoying.

If you don't have a support on your team then you'll probably also need to buy the courier and wards, which is fine, but I'd strongly recommend doing nothing more than that. Whilst it's true that Pugna can, technically, be played as a hard support, the same could also be said for literally every hero in the game. Obviously, some heroes, like Io, are better hard supports than others, though; and Pugna most definitely falls into the 'other' category, there; there's a reason why Icefrog doesn't class him as a support, y'know.

He's also not a carry, though that should go without saying. Whilst it's true that his int gain is the tied highest in the game (with Invoker, at 4.5), his attack speed is awful, so you really don't want to bother trying that, trust me.

I hope this overly lengthy comment has been of some help to you.

[The_Technomancer]

You called? I've been playing him for almost 300 games straight (http://www.dotabuff.com/players/90738308/heroes?metric=played). No one tends to play him because of the pugna cycle. The cycle goes: Play as a pos 5 or rush dagon>Do terribly then assume he is a bad hero>don't practice to get better with him>repeat for infinite buffs due to unpopularity. It's what I see most pugna in my matches do. They either get so far behind and become completely useless or rush dagon for a troll build because of decripify, and even then they forget to use decripify. This makes people assume he's a terrible hero and move on.

The most supporting he can reliablym do without becoming completely useless, is buying observers through out the game and restoring health and mana with drain, urn, and arcanes. That's why pos 4 is as supporting as he can get because he's way to greedy to drop further. Having items ranging from aether lense and octarine to glimmer cape and eul's can make him a nuisance to the enemy by either tearing through health very quickly, or making focusing his allies impossible.

I play him as a snowballing core (as you can see from the aether>blink>veil spam on my dotabuff) to constantly deal damage and apply pressure on towers. My absolute worst pugna games are often caused by a team that's too passive; even trying to constantly fight a snowballed enemy team would give pugna a better chance to pull the game back a bit and be more fun than playing passively or turtling.

As for picking him I usually go him every game mainly because even if my enemies have heavy counters to pugna like nyx/nightstalker, they often don't focus me in fights which makes their counters kind of pointless. The biggest counter to pugna is his own team. Picking him with a group of heroes who are 90+% physical damage will ruin everything you could do. Decrip is Pugna's most important spell as it's his only natural disable and as the core of his damage.

Netherblast without decrip is just another nuke while lifedrain becomes to easy to break, plus escaping from him is as easy as walking away. In a team of mostly physical damage he either lessen's his power a lot, which can work if your allies have excessive lockdown, or he cuts his team's damage off which can make getting a kill hard at points, especially if bashes were your team's main source of stun. Basically, in standard pubs is fine as long as your team isn't all late game carries (anti, medusa, spectre, chaos, etc.) so make sure to have at least one ally nuker to work with.

I'll go over items the basics of items, AGHANIM'S IS CORE. I typically build wand>arcanes>urn to cover my health AND mana problems while also getting a 200 HP boost, then I just rush aghs. Aghanim's is Pugna's primary source of health in the mid game. It can put him over 1k health easily and even above some other semi tanky heroes. The damage increase and cooldown reduction on his ult are also very valuable and allow him to move health around the fight as well as prevent anyone from going back to base after a fight. Quickly focusing down squishy supports who didn't buy to many health items or carries who try to fight to early will be your main job in fights.

Anything after aghs is can change a lot. Aether lense and blink can stop you from getting to close to the fight. Glimmer, eul's, and ghost scepter will make it difficult to focus yourself and allies. I obviously prefer the aggressive build of aether>blink>veil, mainly because pubs are centered around snowballing, but also because most pub players attack the first person they see in fights. Being so far back with blink and aether will prevent the majority of attacks from focusing you as long as you heal your allies just enough to keep them in front of you. Remember to move that health around.

Tips:
-Aghs is core.
-Place natherblast under someone first then instantly decripify. It's faster and less noticable until its to late.
-Nether blast will insta kill ranged creeps when maxed for the first 20 minutes or so, aether lense will increase this time. You can also kill ranged creeps with one auto attack at level 3 blast.
-Aether lense increases nether ward's cast range so you can hide it deep into the trees.
-Whenever you see ♥♥♥♥ about to go down (like an enemy casting a spell that COULD be more than harassment) drop your ward immediately.
-Always, always, always play aggressively and tell your allies to as well. Heal them regen them with urn, arcanes, and ult to prevent them from leaving a push. Pugna's name means "fight" in Latin so I suggest you do it.

Here's my standard guide I use in case you're interested: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=435683319 though I do still recommend making your own to adapt to your playstyle. Good luck with him.

[ナルゴ]

wait, are you that same pugna spammer in /vg/?

[The_Technomancer]

Originally posted by Nargo:

wait, are you that same pugna spammer in /vg/?

No, I don't go there.

[Simurgh the persian]

Thx man I personally love would sceptre because of ganking potentional it provide me which allows me to move around map very quickly get a gank off and push towers

Originally posted by The_Technomancer:

You called? I've been playing him for almost 300 games straight (http://www.dotabuff.com/players/90738308/heroes?metric=played). No one tends to play him because of the pugna cycle. The cycle goes: Play as a pos 5 or rush dagon>Do terribly then assume he is a bad hero>don't practice to get better with him>repeat for infinite buffs due to unpopularity. It's what I see most pugna in my matches do. They either get so far behind and become completely useless or rush dagon for a troll build because of decripify, and even then they forget to use decripify. This makes people assume he's a terrible hero and move on.

The most supporting he can reliablym do without becoming completely useless, is buying observers through out the game and restoring health and mana with drain, urn, and arcanes. That's why pos 4 is as supporting as he can get because he's way to greedy to drop further. Having items ranging from aether lense and octarine to glimmer cape and eul's can make him a nuisance to the enemy by either tearing through health very quickly, or making focusing his allies impossible.

I play him as a snowballing core (as you can see from the aether>blink>veil spam on my dotabuff) to constantly deal damage and apply pressure on towers. My absolute worst pugna games are often caused by a team that's too passive; even trying to constantly fight a snowballed enemy team would give pugna a better chance to pull the game back a bit and be more fun than playing passively or turtling.

As for picking him I usually go him every game mainly because even if my enemies have heavy counters to pugna like nyx/nightstalker, they often don't focus me in fights which makes their counters kind of pointless. The biggest counter to pugna is his own team. Picking him with a group of heroes who are 90+% physical damage will ruin everything you could do. Decrip is Pugna's most important spell as it's his only natural disable and as the core of his damage.

Netherblast without decrip is just another nuke while lifedrain becomes to easy to break, plus escaping from him is as easy as walking away. In a team of mostly physical damage he either lessen's his power a lot, which can work if your allies have excessive lockdown, or he cuts his team's damage off which can make getting a kill hard at points, especially if bashes were your team's main source of stun. Basically, in standard pubs is fine as long as your team isn't all late game carries (anti, medusa, spectre, chaos, etc.) so make sure to have at least one ally nuker to work with.

I'll go over items the basics of items, AGHANIM'S IS CORE. I typically build wand>arcanes>urn to cover my health AND mana problems while also getting a 200 HP boost, then I just rush aghs. Aghanim's is Pugna's primary source of health in the mid game. It can put him over 1k health easily and even above some other semi tanky heroes. The damage increase and cooldown reduction on his ult are also very valuable and allow him to move health around the fight as well as prevent anyone from going back to base after a fight. Quickly focusing down squishy supports who didn't buy to many health items or carries who try to fight to early will be your main job in fights.

Anything after aghs is can change a lot. Aether lense and blink can stop you from getting to close to the fight. Glimmer, eul's, and ghost scepter will make it difficult to focus yourself and allies. I obviously prefer the aggressive build of aether>blink>veil, mainly because pubs are centered around snowballing, but also because most pub players attack the first person they see in fights. Being so far back with blink and aether will prevent the majority of attacks from focusing you as long as you heal your allies just enough to keep them in front of you. Remember to move that health around.

Tips:
-Aghs is core.
-Place natherblast under someone first then instantly decripify. It's faster and less noticable until its to late.
-Nether blast will insta kill ranged creeps when maxed for the first 20 minutes or so, aether lense will increase this time. You can also kill ranged creeps with one auto attack at level 3 blast.
-Aether lense increases nether ward's cast range so you can hide it deep into the trees.
-Whenever you see ♥♥♥♥ about to go down (like an enemy casting a spell that COULD be more than harassment) drop your ward immediately.
-Always, always, always play aggressively and tell your allies to as well. Heal them regen them with urn, arcanes, and ult to prevent them from leaving a push. Pugna's name means "fight" in Latin so I suggest you do it.

Here's my standard guide I use in case you're interested: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=435683319 though I do still recommend making your own to adapt to your playstyle. Good luck with him.

[Apocalypse]

Originally posted by Deepbluediver:

Originally posted by But Nobody Came...:

Although I still believe that he's a niche pick over something you want in most games just as fair warning.

Yeah, I'd say this is an accurate statement. He's good to counter a few specific heroes like Lina or CM in ways that don't require your entire team buying BKBs.

I would pick pugna against carries that doesn't have a strong stun, or teams that cannot chain stun you. But chain stunning a Pugna is probably not a good idea either.
I don't know, I think is is pretty good against a lot of line ups.

EDIT: He is a very good offlaner too.