A Guide to Pudge the Butcher

A Guide to Pudge the Butcher

Pudge the Butcher
Author:spyAfterMath

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Synopsis
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At first view, Pudge may look like a late game hero due to his "Flesh Heap" ability, but that is not the case. Pudge is one of the most effective assassins in the game. Having 3 high-damage skills, he is a force to be reckoned with.

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Hero Background
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An undead behemoth seemingly impervious to even the most potent magic, this starving abomination roams the battlefield, continually in search of unwary prey. It is said his victims catch only a glimpse of his monstrous frame as they are dragged them through the shadows, bleeding profusely as a jagged hook etches deeper in their flesh. Wails of agony echo in the distance, only to be drowned out by the Butcher's maniacal laughter as he severs their limp bodies with his great maw. Unspeakable horrors ensue in a deathly silence, a dreadful omen for what is to come.

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Hero Stats and Skills
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* Affiliation: Scourge
* Attack Animation: 0.5 / 1.17
* Damage: 52 - 58
* Casting Animation: 0.3 / 0.51
* Armor: 2
* Base Attack Time: 1.7
* Movespeed: 285
* Missile Speed: Instant
* Attack Range: 128 (melee)
* Sight Range: 1800 / 800


Meat Hook
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Launches a bloody hook at a unit or location. The hook will snag the first target it encounters, dealing damage then dragging the victim back to the Butcher.
Level 1 - Deals 100 damage. 400 range
Level 2 - Deals 200 damage. 600 range
Level 3 - Deals 300 damage. 800 range
Level 4 - Deals 400 damage. 1000 range
[Note] The hook has a 125 aoe collision size. Meat hook will snag invisible enemy heroes and will deal damage, and will snag allies but will not deal damage. The stun Meat Hook does is not applied to invisible units and allied units.


Rot
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Pudge releases the disease and filth inside of him, dealing intense damage and slowing surrounding enemies while hurting Pudge as well.
Level 1 - 25 damage/sec
Level 2 - 50 damage/sec
Level 3 - 75 damage/sec
Level 4 - 100 damage/sec
[Note]Rot will damage both enemy units and Pudge. Do not use rot to farm or you will be a susceptible target to ganks.(You should not be farming in the first place) Rot damages in 0.25 second intervals. Rot cannot be turned off when silenced


Flesh Heap
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Pudge is made of innumerable rotting corpses, giving him extra protection against spells as well as the chance to add more to his bulk.
Level 1 - 4% Magic Resistance, .03 str per creep or .9 for heroes
Level 2 - 8% Magic Resistance, .06 str per creep or 1.2 for heroes
Level 3 - 12% Magic Resistance, .09 str per creep or 1.5 for heroes
Level 4 - 16% Magic Resistance, .12 str per creep or 1.8 per hero


Dismember
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Chows down on a target, causing excruciating pain. Lasts 3 seconds. 

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Skill Build
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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/Stats
11 - Dismember
12 - Flesh Heap
13 - Flesh Heap
14 - Flesh Heap
15 - Flesh Heap/Stats
16 - Dismember
17+ - Stats

This is the basic cookie-cutter build, and i think everyone will agree with this build.

Rot is taken at level 1 for the 20% slow for a potential first blood, or to escape. Taking Meat Hook at level 1 is not advised because i dont think youll be hooking anything at 400 range.

Meat Hook is maxed out first because it is main nuke and pulling the enemy towards your position is a great strategical advantage. This also allows you to single out a target enemy hero which is what makes Pudge an effective assasins in contrast to Nerubian Assasin, which cannot effectively gank in a group of heroes.

Flesh Heap could be skipped at level 10 for the additional 2 stats. One level of Flesh Heap is very minute. Max out Flesh Heap after level 11 because you do not want to miss out mid-game or else you will take a lot of damage from Rot.

Dismember is taken whenever possible as most ultimates. Dismember may not deal as much damage as most other ultimate skills but using it in conjunction with Rot will shred any agility or intelligence hero faster than you can type "OMGWTF".
Aghanims Scepter now works for Pudge and grants larger damage and leeches off the damage done by dismember. This will help you regenerate the damage dealt by Rot, and other skills.

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Item Build
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Start off with:

and a couple of

Bracers are your friend because it will give you more HP and some Mana.
Null Talismans are purely optional, and that is only if you spam hooks, which you should not.

Core Items:

Bottle will cover Pudge's Mana Intensive skills and will cover some of his HP loss during ganks. It will also allow Pudge the ability to store Runes.


Bracers offer cheap survivability and will pretty much give Pudge enough HP to use Rot without being in the red.


Boots of Travel will give Pudge enough mobility to gank almost all the time but the tradeoff is that it is very expensive to be farmed early. If you are having a hard time farming, Phase Boots is a good alternative because it gives armor and Phase will make you lose collision while using Rot.

Extension Items:

Bloodstone is a very good item on Pudge because it gives him everything he needs: HP, Mana, Regeneration. If Pudge nets a kill, he gains more regeneration, which will happen a lot if you are good enough. It also heals allies for 450 HP/400 Mana when you die, which will probably happen in team fights, and you will gain experience and vision where you died.


Heart of Tarrasque will give you the tanking power and enough regeneration to regenerate the HP lost from Rot. Do not pass up the opportunity to get HoT whenever possible, since there are almost no other item that will provide better bonuses as HoT save for Bloodstone.


Hood of Defiance is not a core item because Pudge can operate quite effectively without it so this is an extension item since it will increase your survivability with nukers and will reduce the damage from Rot. HoD + Flesh Heap will render enemy nukers only half as effective as they are on other heroes without bonus Magic Resistance.


Aghanim's Scepter is super optional although it increases 10 to all stats and some HP and Mana and also increases your damage to Dismember and leeches off of it, I doubt you'll want this if you operate with an ally.


Items to Avoid:

Power Treads makes the first item to avoid. Why? Because although it gives +10 to a desired stat, the attackspeed is wasted since Pudge will not be attacking most of the time. Phase Boots is cheaper and will give him better survivability.


Rot + Lifesteal = Immortal? Never. Lifesteal is for physical attackers with huge damage and fast attackspeed, none of which Pudge qualifies for. The armor is good, but the Dominate Ability and Lifesteal is wasted. Skip this item.




Any weird DPS item. It is a big F*CKING NO to Pudge. Pudge does not have enough agility to utilize the DPS bonuses from these items. If you want to own with physical attacks, use Rikimaru or something.

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Techniques
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Laning - Lane with preferably a ranged disabler. This will help you Hook better and will allow you to zero in and get the kill. This will also allow you to be in the safe zone from harassments, as Pudge has a very small armor due to his poor agility so cheap shots will hurt.

Ganking - To gank agility and intelligence heroes with small HP, you can either hook, rot, dismember and chase if thats not enough, or bring an allied disabler to make it easier. Ganking High HP heroes such as Centaur Khan, etc., is harder so bringing an ally will definitely pay off.

Runes - Regeneration is good as it will help you recover both HP and Mana in between ganks.
Haste is good because you can easily utilize Rot.
Invisibility is good if you are level 6 and up, where you can just rot+dismember an enemy hero. Otherwise, give it to an ally instead.
Double Damage is bad because Pudge has low agility and armor, meaning that he will attack slow and if ever he does attack, it puts him in a very deadly spot for being counter attacked because his low armor offers almost no protection against physical attacks.

Team Fights - Pudge can fulfill many roles in team fights. One, just at the break of a team fight, he can hook an enemy disabler(Earthshaker/Enigma) before they can do chaos to your team. Next, he can interrupt channeling enemy heroes such as Rylai, Rhasta, Bane Elemental with Meat Hook and Dismember. If Pudge survuves, he can pick off fleeing enemy heroes with Meat Hook or slow down enemy heroes that are trying to get away with Rot.

Meat Hook - Meat Hook is a very hard skill to utilize, but dont worry, I've placed a link to download a map made by the person who inspired me to play Pudge in a different level, Bengal_Tigger. It is kind of old, but the drills are not outdated, as Meat Hook hasnt changed at all since the early versions of DotA(Except for the damage type change. It used to deal Magical Damage). Meat Hook is a nuke, and it will drag the first target it snares to the position of The Butcher. This is your key skill and this is what makes Pudge a very effective assassin. You can force your enemy towards your position so you can easily use rot without having to run towards the enemy. This skill is also a good counter to those pesky blinkers(and Mirana), as they will be forced back to the Butcher once hooked.


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Good Allies
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Ranged Disablers
Rhasta, Lion, etc. will make ganking a breeze. Rhasta can shackles an enemy hero making it easier to hook, and Lion's Impale serves the same purpose.


Omniknight
Omniknight definitely deserves a spot on Good Allies because he can heal Pudge and deal a ton of pure damage, and Repel Pudge to prevent Pudge from taking damage from Rot. 20 Seconds of Rot equals to 2000 potential damage. Guardian Angel will ensure Pudge wont die easily in team fights and ganks. The only tradeoff of such a great ally is that Omniknight will not increase Pudge's effectiveness in ganking which Pudge's role will revolve around, and Omniknight is a melee hero, which will be a burden during the laning period.


Rylai
Rylai also deserves a spot on Good Allies because of several reasons. One, Frost Bite will help you aim Meat Hook. Two, Crystal Nova will help you chase. And last but definitely not the least, Brilliance Aura will always keep your mana up, ensuring unlimited ganks as long as Rylai is alive.


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Worst Enemies
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Nerubian Assasin
NA is your worst nightmare. He will shut you down early off with Mana Burn. You cannot kill him easily because of his Impale. And his Vendetta will deal a huge amount of damage to Pudge due to his low armor. Avoid NA during the laning period and you will have no problem.


Your best friends are your worst enemies. They will disable the **** out of you. Rhasta's Mass Serpent Wards will deal a large amount of damage to Pudge due to his low armor. Lion's Mana Drain will render Pudge useless. Avoid these guys if you are laning, and watch out when ganking.


Natural Tanks
These guys are tough to bring down, and will probably kill you before you can Rot them to death. Always approach with an ally to back you up. On a side note, Tidehunter's Gush will bring your armor down to negative early game, which will be torment to Pudge from physical attacks.


Doom Bringer
You cannot kill him single handedly. He has high HP, high base damage, a powerful ultimate, and a low-cooldown nuke to boot. Always watch out when using Rot, because once doomed, You will not be able to turn Rot off during the whole duration Doom is active.


Silencers
You cannot turn Rot off when silenced. Silencer and Traxex will do large damage to Pudge just from Orb-Walking, so always make the first move because they are fragile.


Pudge hates wards. He cannot operate if enemies know what he's up to. Knowing how to counter-ward will remedy the situation although you will need a ranged ally to take out wards on top of cliffs.
Practice Your Pudge:
Credit to spyAfterMath. Too bad he is busy with WoW since 2008. What a waste of a good player. :/

This guide is finished, although i might add more screenshots to help new players fully understand