Get over here! - A general guide to Pudge

A guide to Pudge, containing skill build, items, hooking and gameplay!

Introduction

This guide to Pudge covers everything you need to know about him, from skill builds to gameplay. It is based on my experience, plays and i'm still getting better with it! If you have any suggestion on what to add be sure to write it in the comments! (This is my first guide).

Skills and skill build

Ok, first of all, lets talk about his skills!

Meat Hook

"Launches a bloody hook at a unit or location. The hook will snag the first unit it encounters, dragging the unit back to Pudge and dealing damage if it is an enemy."

Your signature skill, with dozens of uses: ganking, initiating, saving allies, hook enemies when they're fleeing, etc. Be creative! You can also cancel your hook by pressing "S" (default) while he is throwing the hook. This is VERY useful to hook people, i use it all the time! The damage taken is pure, meaning that it will always deal FULL damage.

Distance: 700/900/1100/1300
Damage: 90/180/270/360
Cooldown: 14/13/12/11
Manacost: 110/120/130/140

Rot

"A toxic cloud that deals intense damage and slows movement--harming not only enemy units but Pudge himself."

Your second skill, that also has many uses: midlane harassment, last hitting, slowing enemies, dealing damage while dismembering, etc. The damage taken is magical, so if you use BKB the damage is zero! And a hood also helps. You can deny yourself with Rot if you're low health, it's a matter of skill, timing and luck.

Radius: 250
Slow: 20%
Damage: 35/60/85/110

Flesh Heap

"Gives Pudge resistance to magic damage, as well as bonus strength that increases each time Pudge kills an enemy Hero or it dies in his vicinity. Flesh Heap is retroactive, meaning it can gain charges before it is skilled, which then become active."

Pudge's tank/snowball ability. You don't need to kill the target, you just have to be near it when it dies. On level 4 with 20 "stacks" you have more Strengh than a Heart of Tarrasque!

Range: 450
Magic Resistance: 6%/8%/10%/12%
Strength Bonus: 1/1.5/2/2.5

Dismember

"Pudge chows down on an enemy unit, disabling it and dealing damage over time. Lasts 3 seconds on Heroes, 6 seconds on creeps. *Chanelled."

With Meat Hook to Rot, this shouldn't be difficult to pull off. It also disables BKB targets and has a low cooldown, so waste their BKB!

Range: 160 (nearly melee range)
Damage per second: 75/125/175 (+1.0× strength with Scepter)

Skill Build

• 1: Rot
  
• 2: Meat Hook
  
• 3: Meat Hook
  
• 4: Rot
  
• 5: Meat Hook
  
• 6: Dismember
  
• 7: Meat Hook
  
• 8: Rot
  
• 9: Rot
  
• 10: Flesh Heap
  
• 11: Dismember
  
• 12: Flesh Heap
  
• 13: Flesh Heap
  
• 14: Flesh Heap
  
• 15: Stats
  
• 16: Dismember
  
• 17-25: Stats

Item build

Starting Items

• Tango
  
• Stout Shield (Can be traded for a Quelling Blade if versus an easy melee mid)
  
• 3 Iron Branches

Alternative Starting Items

• Tango
  
• Salve
  
• Stout Shield/Quelling Blade
  
• 2 Iron Branches/3 Iron Branches

Tango helps regenerating, the Stout protects you from harass and the GG branches will help you with mana, health, etc.

Early Game Items

• Bottle
  
• Boots of Speed
  
• Magic Wand (optional)
  
• Urn of Shadows
  
• Smoke of Deceit (optional for ganks)

Be sure to have a ward on at least 1 rune, you'll get an advantage if you get rune control. Boots are standard. Urn helps you with Mana regen and healing. (Build the items on this order in all sections!)

Core Items

• Force Staff
  
• Arcane Boots / Phase Boots / Power Treads
  
• Black King Bar / Hood of Defiance (or both)

I started building Force before "advanced" boots as an advice from a friend of mine, it works well, as it gives you mana, an escape mechanism, increasing hook distance, etc. My boots of choice are Arcane, but you can get the others depending on the situation (Phase for chase-ability and zero collision with creeps, Treads for mana and health when toggling)

Late Game/Situational Items

• Boots of Travel
  
• Pipe of Insight
  
• Heart of Tarrasque
  
• Blink Dagger (since 6.79)
  
• Aghanim's Scepter
  
• Assault Cuirass (Against PHYSICAL DPS only, and if you're doing well!)

You can build those in the order that you want, it really depends on your needs.

Gameplay

Picking

I generally just ask "mid" during the pick phase and wait for their pick. You don't want to go mid against an OD or an Cold-Snap Invoker, those are his hardest counters (most mids do counter Pudge, just be smart and turn your disadvantages into advantages).

Laning

I reccomend not going for the 0:00 rune and blocking the creeps. Be defensive if you're being harassed and don't be TOO greedy for last hits. This is the only time in the game where you need creep score (you'll get kills mid game - late game). If your enemy is below 2/3rds of their HP, go offensive and rot-harass them to finish off with a close-range hook, be sure to keep distance from the creeps! Start ganking as soon as you hit 6 or 7, and keep doing rune control! A few hook spots in the ganking phase:

Mid game and late game

In those phases enemies will be backing off most of the time, so don't be greedy for kills or you're dead if they gank you! Participate in pushes, stay with your team, etc.

Mid-lane opponents

In this section we will cover Pudge's worst opponents and easiest foes. The higher the threat (in the list below), the more difficult it is to play against that mid. (Threat "meter" goes from 1 to 10, where 1 is an easy mid and 10 is the hardest mid)

Hero	Threat
Ancient Apparition	3
Anti-Mage	4
Bane	4
Batrider	6
Beastmaster	3
Bloodseeker	5
Brewmaster	6
Clinkz	7
Clockwerk	5
Dazzle	3
Death Prophet	7
Disruptor	4
Dragon Knight	5
Drow Ranger	6
Earth Spirit	6
Elder Titan	4
Ember Spirit	7
Enchantress	5
Gyrocopter	6
Invoker (Q/W)	9
Invoker (Q/E)	7
Kunkka	7
Lina	4
Lion	4
Lone Druid	6
Luna	6
Magnus	7
Medusa	6
Meepo	6
Mirana	5
Morphling	4
Necrophos	4
Night Stalker	6
Nyx Assassin	6
Outworld Devourer	9
Puck	5
Pugna	4
Queen of Pain	6
Razor	5
Rubick	3
Shadow Demon	3
Shadow Fiend	4
Shadow Shaman	3
Silencer	7
Skywrath Mage	5
Slark	6
Sniper	6
Storm Spirit	7
Templar Assassin	5
Timbersaw	7
Tinker	5
Tiny	6
Troll Warlord	6
Vengeful Spirit	3
Viper	7
Warlock	3
Weaver	5
Windranger	4
Witch Doctor	5
Zeus	5

Other mid heroes are way less likely to appear (some heroes on this list will appear more than others, for instance, you are most likely to find a QoP than a Witch Doctor. Some may even not appear).

Hooking tips

1. Training

Lets start with the most obvious. You will only get better if you train. Even if it's bot matches or lobbies with friends, it's what you need to do. Here's[weneedwards.com] a good online tool to learn. Remember to hook a bit ahead of your target if they're moving.

2. Hook stopping

Pressing "S" will stop the hook during it's animation. You'll use that if the target is moving to a certain direction and you'll release the hook when you're sure to hit.

3. Watching players replays

It's nice to see people like Dendi behave with Pudge, this will help you with more information and more gameplay. Here's my Pudge dotabuff (please note, my accuracy is not 100% and will vary depending if i'm tired or somenthing, i'm training! I hit most hooks in some games, and in others not so much.):
http://dotabuff.com/players/100919491/matches?hero=pudge&game_mode=&match_type=real

4. Force Staff hooking

Just use your Force in yourself by pressing 2 times the hotkey (self-casting) and throwing the hook like normal, it's not too hard to get the hang of it! Also works with blink but you gotta aim. Useful to chase, go in front of some creep/ally that is blocking you, etc.

5. Predicting and being unpredictable

To land a hook, you gotta predict where the enemy will be, and most of the times he won't know you hit him, so that's why you have to be unpredictable.

[76561198058479883]

I'd say wery good but I don't get the danger scales by what you make them.Example: Pretty much sniper is like 1-3 scale of danger because he is "Squishy hero" pudge's hook pretty much should take him out easy followed with a rot or dismember if you want to be sure for the kill.And actually the mid danger scale depends more on the enemy skill and map awareness if they never see you going to get runes it could be so easy to take out harder scaled heroes.And for invoker too about the skill if he doesn't remember any good spells like tornado,ghost walk,etc... he should be an easy pray for pudge.Hoping you will update the scales somehow try out with pro friends in lobbies why some heroes are harder for pudge to kill and not and stuff...Great guide though thanks!

[Grandpa Blast]

Oh, forgot to mention however i love the guide :).

[Grandpa Blast]

You forgot about Q/E Invoker. Counters pudge quite well, probably a threat 8 but depends on the invokers skill.

[76561198079797029]

i use this strategy in d1 now in d2

[๖ۣۜ❤❤❤ۣۜLuna♥]

ty

[RedSpade]

I was 1st on the map tanks to this guide! :)

[......]

nice ty

[ACT IV: CRUSE *****]

First time played pudge and won with this guide !
Thanks mate !

[76561198108856250]

254467796098790

[Fantasy]

nice