General DiscussionHooker Alert! O-God's Guide To Pudge, The butcher | Guide Competition...

WARNING: Wall of text alert, if you're here for the guide, stay, if you're here for the color, then... read. =)
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Hello, my screen name is O-God and today i'll be teaching you all i know about my personal favorite hero pudge, keep in mind that english is not my native language so any grammatical error or spelling error could be commented about.

[Color=#008000]Pros[/color]
1. Good hero-killing combination of abilities
2. High strength, and able to gain more with Flesh Heap
3. Abilities are useful in team situations
4. Hook can win games by initiating fights
[Color=#ff0000]Cons[/color]
1. Unimpressive agility and intelligence
2. Low armor
3. Low movement speed and attack rate
4. Melee hero
5. Weaker towards the late game
6. Abilities are often not enough to kill an enemy without help

Abilities and Skill Builds
[Color=#ff0000]1.Meat Hook:[/color]
Pudge's bread & butter spell. It's pretty straightforward. You launch it at a target, it damages the unit, drags it to you. It applies a mini-stun to the target, so it can be used to stop teleporting and other channeling spells

Notes:
Goes through siege creeps, any type of terrain, trees, wards (Serpant, Plague etc...) and buildings.
Single target spell, you can't snag more than one unit.
Deals Pure type damage. It is not reduced by magic resistance or armor.
Invisible units can be hooked. Damage is applied but not the mini-stun.
The tip of the hook is what matters. Units can pass through the "chain" of the hook without being affected.
When used on an allied unit, only the drag effect applies, it does not cancel teleportation or other channeling spells.
Can be used while in Ethereal form.

[Color=#ff0000] 2. Rot [/color]
Again, nothing complicated. Upon activation you slow and damage enemy units around you (only damage is applied to you, not the slow) for as long as you want. Keep in mind that it can kill you.

Notes:
Deals Magical type damage. It is reduced by magic resistance.
The damage is dealt in 0.2 second intervals.
Rot can be activated while using Dismember without interrupting it.
Invisible units are completely affcted by this spell.
Cannot be deactivated while Pudge is silenced.
Can be used to deny yourself. (very important)

[Color=#ff0000]3. Flesh Heap [/color]
Additional:
This is what makes Pudge a good tank in the later stages of the game. Whenever you directly kill a hero OR a hero dies within a 450 AoE weather or not you assisted, your Flesh Heap counter increases by 1.

Notes:
Spell resistance stacks with other items.
The ability is retroactive, meaning the strength gain will be adapted once you level up flesh heap.
The Flesh Heap counter starts as soon as you pick Pudge, so the kills you get before leveling Flesh Heap still count toward the final number.

[Color=#ff0000]4. Dismember [/color]
Pudge's ultimate spell. You'll be using this in combination with Meat Hook and Rot. It can be used to interrupt channeling spells, even against units that are magic immune. It can also be used to help you deny yourself. (More info below)

Notes:
Deals Magical type damage
It will disable magic immune units, but the damage isn't applied.
Invisible units are equally effected.
Dismember is a channeling spell.
Can be improved by Aghanim's Scepter
Scepter version heals Pudge the same amount as it deals damage.

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

Explanation:
Level 1 Rot is a lot more useful than a Level 1 Meat Hook. Here are a few reasons why:
Rot has a constant 20% slow on all levels.
Excellent tool for a First Blood attempt.
You can deny your enemy a First Blood attempt.
Meat Hook's 90 pure damage is negligible, it only takes 4 seconds of Level 1 Rot to deal 140 damage (105 after reduction).
Meat Hook's range is also negligible. The 600 range won't have much of an impact unless you're laning with Techies (More Info in Allies section).

With all that in mind, you will primarily be leveling up Meat Hook, because it scales greatly. Rot will take 2nd place.

Side Note: You can use Healing Salve while using Rot without interrupting it, this only applies to the first 3 levels of Rot. The reason for this is, because Healing Salve is interrupted only by damage sources that go over 20 damage. While level 3 Rot deals it's 85 damage in 5 intervals every 0.2 seconds, so it deals 17 damage per 0.2 seconds.

Why Flesh Heap at Level 10?
By level 10, you'll already rack up enough kills and assists so that Flesh Heap will actually make a difference in your survivability. Leveling it early on is a waste of a skill point, as other spells are much more valuble at early levels.

Dismember is taken whenever possible because it plays an Important part in Pudge's combo. It scales nicely throughout the game and will almost always ensure that you get a kill.

Roles:
Pudge is often played as solo mid because the fast exp gain will help him to gank and roam earlier and get a better start
Additionally you can sidelane pudge (not recommended) but he will not get a fast lvl 6 up, only do this you you have a 5 man stack

[Color=#ff0000]Starting Item Choices [/color]
Gauntlets of strength X1 150
Three GG branches 150
One salve 115
Tangos 125
All in all = 540G
Pretty straightforward, 3 branches for wand, gauntlets for urn later, and healing items, because pudge always gets harassed to hell in mid lane
Optional
Quelling blade 225
3 GG branches 150
Tango 125
Salve 115
All in all = 615G
This is my personal starting items, again, 3 branches for wand, but i swap the gauntlet for quelling blade as it helps more in last hitting and can be used effectively by cutting trees to gain access to spots the enemy won't expect.
Early game
Boots - Obviously, everyone needs this, but the upgrade to this is very debatable
Power treads - Are ok, aspd is just icing on the cake, can toggle if you want 8 str or int
Phase boots - Meh. Personally i don't like them, ms is nice, but the atk dmg is just wasted, but everyone gets them nowadays
Arcane boots - My personal favorite on this mana hungry fat guy, this plus bottle = you gonna be hooking for a while
BoT - Dear god, this is just overkill if you get this very fast.
Tranquil Boots - If you're rushing scepter, why not

Bottle - Self Explanatory, you need this for regen and runes

Magic wand - ever wish you had enough mana to launch that 140 mana hook? now you can.

Urn of shadows - Hook Rot Dismember almost guarantees a kill, and guarantees a half hp pudge after, try to get this to lessen the dmg.

Mid Game

Force staff - Mobility is boss, extra int and regen are icing on the cake

Blink dagger - since the 0 mana update, this has become more useful to str heroes, and pudge is no exception, blink dismember hook is OP

Ghost scepter - For those pesky right clicker like drow or pa

Hood of Defiance - personally i don't like this, it's not worth anything to pudge anymore, but hey, if enemy team has 5 magic casters, get this.

Late game

Aghanim's Scepter - This item (if you're owning) just devastates opponents, with the heal and the bonus dmg what is not to love

Ethereal blade - You have a ghost scepter, so why not? this ensures they can't move and aghs dismember just hurts a lot more

Bloodstone - Hp, Mp, Regen, Less Cd to death timer

Pipe - Magic dmg control

Situational

BKB - Pesky magic users

Drum - Ms plus str plus AS

Shiva's - as slow, MS slow, armor, int, what's not to love

Laning:

Middle lane
When you get used to Pudge and have some solid confidence in your hooks. You should be able to dominate most heroes in middle lane. However, there are some heroes that you might have trouble dominating. Here is a small breakdown of the heroes you won't be able to kill easily, that are likely to be on the middle lane:

Heroes with escape mechanisms:
Akasha , Morphling, Mirana, Magina, Puck etc...
These heroes will be extremely hard for you to kill until level 5, with some exceptions that I will mention. Heroes that have an escape mechanism that has an animation which shows you the direction in which they went can give you a chance to hook them back, but this is highly risky and should only be attempted after you are very confident in your movement-reading skills.

When you get to level 6, you can kill most of these heroes if you are faster than them (and possibly if they have slightly higher lag than you).

Note: If laning aginst Puck, you can easily predict where he's going to end up since his Orb is very slow.

Heroes with good harassing spells:
Huskar and Viper come to mind. The key here is to not let them lower your HP. Don't lose patience just because they're not letting you farm that much. You depend on your level, not your items. As soon as you see an opening, take it and take them down.

Heroes with disables:
Lion, Rhasta, Invoker, Vengeful Spirit, Obsidian Destroyer etc...

These heroes will be extremely hard to kill until level 6, but even then, it might be tricky, unless you can drag them to you tower. I'll explain how to do this later...

High HP heroes:
Don't even bother without help. Heroes like Dragon Knight can't be killed at all by Pudge, even if you chase them for a while. DK has a stun, a nuke, high armor and an ultimate that can destroy you very fast. Avoid trying to kill these heroes without a disabler ganging them.

With all that being said, let's begin with the strategy on how to secure kills...

In my experience, it is much easier to play as Pudge while on The Sentinel middle lane.

Problems:

If you go mid lane, and no one buys a courier, you basically lost the lane, since you can't get your items
And did i mention? his armor is crappy as hell, even doom has more armor than him now.
Getting ganked = Almost a sure kill for the enemy, unless support has warded and is always rotating
If the enemy team has warded the whole map, don't worry, there's a wonderful thing called smoke of deceit for that.

[Color=#ffff00]Knowledge[/color]

How to use Meat Hook

Never target the hero directly. Always target the area around the hero and you will successful land a hook every time.

Important note: Some units can be hooked even shooting completely outside their model. Keep this in mind when you don't have a clear shot at a target.

Immobile targets
Units can't attack and move at the same time (not even orb-walkers) use this to your advantage. Cast hook at the beginning of the attack animation of your enemy, that will ensure that they can't move while the hook is flying.

Moving targets
Units that move are very easy to hook. Keep the following things in mind:
The hero's movement speed and plan your hook acordingly. Check if the hero has a movement speed altering spell on him.
Keep your allies' spell cooldowns in in mind, you don't want to miss your hook just because an allied hero slowed them or stunned them. In the case that you are 100% sure that the hero will be slowed and/or disabled, wait for your ally to cast his spell.
Always calculate the position where the Hero is going to be, and cast your hook there, never directly at the hero.

Mind games
Good players will always try to evade your hooks. Some run in a zig-zag pattern, some try to wait for you to hook, and move out of the way. There are solutions for both problems.

Zig-Zag pattern
depending on how widely they're moving from side to side, either predict the next point where they're going to be and shoot there, or shoot a straight line between those points.

Waiting for you to hook first
Some players test your patience and just run in a straight line and wait for you to cast the hook, and then easily dodge it.

There are a couple of ways to solve this. One is gambling.
If you're going to gamble, instead of using the standard technique for moving targets, try to predict where the hero is going to dodge your hook. You basically have a 50% chance of guessing.

The other situation is if a ramp or some other form of terrain is involved, like a tree.
As demonstrated in the picture there is a certain point when heroes are walking on ramps or around trees where they have to follow a certain motion, because of how the Warcraft 3 engine is built. Use these points to your advantage, when you can be almost 100% sure that the hero has to pass through there and wait for the last second.

Fog hooks
Some heroes will try to run away into the Fog of War in hopes that they can run away. You can effectively bring them back by predicting their movement. Much like hooking a moving target, try to compensate for what you can't see. Calculate their movement speed, the terrain they're walking on and hook where you think the hero will be.

Blind hooks
These only require luck and experience.
These are done mostly by hooking into areas where heroes have a chance of being in, without you actually seeing them go there. An example would be, when they're defending their 3rd tower (doesn't matter which lane) and you know they'll be hanging around that area, but since it's uphill, you don't know for sure where they are. You go to the side of any lane and simply hook in the general area of the tower. Some other places can be:
Secret shop
Side shop
Roshan
Rune spots
While tower-hugging
While they're defending any 3rd tower.

But keep in mind, if you try to blind-hook, and miss. You might lose your element of surprise if by chance, there was a hero there, but you missed him only slightly. So I suggest not using blind-hooks as a normal means of getting kills.

[Color=#008000]Allies[/color]
Dark seer - Surge plus ion shell on pudge with rot..... OP as hell, scary scary combo
Omniknight - Repel = No dmg from rot, Guardian angel = No physical dmg
Rubick - Telekinesis him right into your hook.

[Color=#ff0000]Enemies[/color]
Naix - N'aix will rip you apart so fast, it'll make you cry like a little girl. It's not even funny. If you're in in a team fight, and N'aix needs to heal, he'll use you as a portable fountain. The only thing you can do to him is stop him for 3 seconds with Dismember, and hope your team destroys him before he uses Rage.

Huskar - If you and Huskar are the same level early game (preferably level 7) you can take him out without much problems. Just wait for him to use his ulti on you, then autoattack him and throw a meat hook to his face. thank him for helping you kill him, and be on your way. But trust me on this... In late game, you'll be food for him. No matter how much HP you rack up he will take it down in 5 seconds, much like N'aix.

Silencer - He will shut you down completely. Rot does not dispel Curse of the Silent, so you'll be forced to use your hook, and you don't really have mana to spare early on. You're better off switching lanes.

Doom - If he uses Doom on you, while you're using Rot, make sure you're next to an ally and ask them to deny you, because you will die almost every time

Rubick - He should have a special mention here. He doesn't really have anything that counters Pudge in a big way, but there is one thing you should always make sure you do when playing against him. As soon as you cast Meat Hook or Dismember make sure it's followed by Rot, this is crucial. You do NOT want him stealing your Meat Hook. Rubick has no casting time, so his Meat Hook is a lot better than yours.

Nyx Assassin - The only reason this hero is deadly to Pudge is because of his 3rd spell, Spiked Carapace. A skilled Nyx Assassin player can anticipate your hook timing, activate his spell and counter you heavily. With his 3rd spell, he can not only evade the 360 pure damage, but also return it to you, also stunning you, and possibly even killing you. So watch out for these.

Misc.
Quelling Blade
This is one of my favorite items for Pudge. You should definitely consider buying it for Pudge since it's cheap and it opens up hook oppertunities that people will never expect. Always use the QB while the enemy can't see you, otherwise this will ruin your element of surprise.

Suggested Material:
Watch Dendi's Pudge at the pro level
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk6UejMWBEo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajQuCZx-yx8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGSi1YTA-E

First of all, if you're even reading this, I appreciate it greatly.
I really hope you learned something from this guide. Pudge is a very fun hero to play and the feeling of hooking a hero that's about to escape is very rewarding. This is not a definitive or absolute guide on how to play this hero. This guide is a just a collection of my experience throuhout my years of playing DotA.

If you are a newer player, please don't feel bad if you always miss the hook, Also, don't pay much attention if a random stranger starts flaming you for missing a hook, or not taking an oppertunity to hook. Pudge is one of the hardest heroes to play, and chances are, they don't know how to play him at all. It's very easy to criticize.

This guide was put together and written in about 3 hours, so please feel free to add suggestions to it. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.