pudge items

By Bengal_Tigger Version 6.37 — 6.49

FOR MORE GAMING INFORMATION CLICK ME

I believe nothing major has changed in 6.50…few tweaks to Bottle I think…please notify me if anything is significant…will be checking myself…

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Why Pudge?

I’ll give you some more great reasons in a second. But right now, you should take a look at these videos and maybe you will start to understand the excitement of this fabulous Hero.

First Pudge Video Second Pudge Video Third Pudge Video Summary of the First Three Most Recent Pudge Video

Can’t believe your eyes? Can’t wait to start doing that yourself? Great! This Guide can help you a lot, so let’s get started.

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Contents

1. Description
2. Overview of Abilities
3. Skill build
4. Item build
5. Overall Strategy
6. Specific Strategy
7. Screenshots
8. Placing Observer Wards
9. Best Allies, Weakest Enemies and Toughest Enemies
10. Replays and the Practice Your Pudge map

1. Description

He’s back, and he’s as ugly and fat as ever.
Strength: 25 + 3.2

Agility: 14 + 1.5
Intelligence: 14 + 1.5

625 hp
182 mana
52-58 damage
1 armor

285 movespeed
1.46 base attack time
Attack range of 128 (melee)
Pros

1. Fabulous hero-killing combination of abilities
2. High strength, and able to gain more with Flesh Heap
3. Abilities are useful in team situations
4. Simultaneously a tank and an assassin

Cons

1. Unimpressive agility and intelligence
2. Low armor
3. Low movement speed and attack rate
4. Melee hero
5. Can become weaker towards the late game

With more cons than pros, why would you play this Hero? Because, frankly, the pros are damn good if you know what you’re doing.

2. Abilities

Meat Hook

[T]

Launches a bloody hook at a unit or location. The hook will snag the first target encounters, dealing damage then dragging the victim back to the Butcher.

Level 1 – 400 range, 100 damage.
Level 2 – 600 range, 200 damage.
Level 3 – 800 range, 300 damage.
Level 4 – 1000 range, 400 damage.
Meat Hook was stealth nerfed in 6.46 and now deals physical damage. This means it is reduced by armor, and will deal considerably less damage in the later stages of the game.

Rot

[R]

Pudge releases the disease and filth inside of him, dealing intense damage to and slowing surrounding enemies while hurting Pudge as well.

Level 1 – 25 damage/second.
Level 2 – 50 damage/second.
Level 3 – 75 damage/second.
Level 4 – 100 damage/second.

Flesh Heap

[F]

Pudge is made of innumerable rotting corpses, giving him extra protection against spells as well as the chance to add more to his bulk. Adds 10 times as much “bulk” if the kill is a Hero kill.

Level 1 – 4% magic reduction, .03 Str bonus per kill.
Level 2 – 8% magic reduction, .06 Str bonus per kill.
Level 3 – 12% magic reduction, .09 Str bonus per kill.
Level 4 – 16% magic reduction, .12 Str bonus per kill.

Dismember

[D]

Chows down on a target, causing excruciating pain.
Lasts 3 seconds (on heroes) at all levels.
Channeling.

Level 1 – 75 damage/second.
Level 2 – 125 damage/second.
Level 3 – 175 damage/second.

3. 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. Stats
11. Dismember
12. Flesh Heap
13. Flesh Heap
14. Flesh Heap
15. Flesh Heap
16. Dismember
17. Stats
18. Stats
19. Stats
20. Stats
21. Stats
22. Stats
23. Stats
24. Stats
25. Stats

Meat Hook

This is quite possibly Pudge’s best ability, and by far the most fun to use. It’s what makes the Hero. You want this maxed early so that you can kill heroes with your amazing combination of Hook + Rot + Dismember. I’ll explain how to use it later, but you can get a kill with Hook at level 5 and start owning with the combo at level 7.

Rot

This skill serves several purposes. For one thing, you can chase a hero with Rot early and net a potential First Blood kill, and for another you need it to effectively kill heroes at all stages of the game. Definitely get Rot early, though, because the damage is most significant then and you won’t be getting kills without it.

I took Rot at level 1 because level 1 Hook is a piece of crap, but level 1 Rot provides the full 20% slow. A very small issue in any case, but level 1 Rot is more likely to be useful for getting first blood on a stupid enemy.

Note: Some people say to use Rot for last-hitting creeps. One word: DON’T! At least not early on. You don’t have hit points to spare. Rot drains your health very quickly, and it’s easy enough to get last hits with a little timing. I would only start to use Rot on creeps when you have a Heart or something and the creeps start coming in waves of 10 or so.

Flesh Heap

You don’t need this early, because the benefits are minimal. You won’t be farming fast enough early on for the Strength bonus to really come into play, and the spell resistance isn’t as good as it sounds. A 300 damage nuke will normally reduce your hit points by 225 due to Hero spell resistance. With level 4 Flesh Heap, it will reduce your hit points by about 191, a difference of only 34 hit points. More importantly, you need Hook and Rot early to get your kills. That said, Flesh Heap is definitely worth getting later on, as the Strength you can add with it is terrific. It is Flesh Heap that makes Pudge strong late game as well as early.

Why didn’t I start getting this at level 10?

You aren’t doing serious farming at this point, so the unit kill bonus isn’t helpful. 4% magic resistance does almost nothing for you. The only thing you would get is the 0.3 Strength bonus per Hero kill that comes with the extra point in Flesh Heap. There simply aren’t enough Hero kills happening for it to make a difference of more than a point or two to Strength. +2 to all stats is much more useful at that stage of the game, especially for the bonus it provides to your mana pool, which is still quite low. You do want to start on Flesh Heap at level 12, though, because you want it maxed by late game as you will be doing lots of farming then.

Dismember

This is a great ability. The stats on it are pretty poor – a 3 second channeling disable that deals only 225/375/525 damage, but it’s actually terrific on Pudge. You can Dismember a hero and turn on Rot immediately after, forcing the hero to take a large amount of additional damage. And you don’t even have to turn Rot on beforehand – it can be done while Dismember is channeling. Dismember is essential in the Hook + Rot + Dismember combination and works great to disrupt annoying channel spells like Life Drain and Freezing Field. It’s also very good in ganks, and has a very short cooldown. In short, a multipurpose ability that is essential to Pudge’s combo. Like most Ultimates, you should get this whenever you can.

There is more information regarding the use of these abilities in Specific Strategy, section 6.

4. Item Build

Basic start

 Ancient Tango of Essifation
 Circlet of Nobility
 Chicken

Pudge is not a bad Hero to get a Chicken on. If your allies don’t get a Chicken, you can get one for the team, along with a set of Tangos (you’ll bring more with the Chicken if you need them) and a Circlet, which you’ll turn into a Bracer later. You could instead get 2 Branches and 2 sets of Tangos if you’d like. Not a huge deal in any case; basically saves you a little gold now but costs you a little later. (If an ally gets a team Chicken, then get 2 Circlets and 2 Tangos.) The Tangos provide enough regeneration (hopefully) to get you through the early game until level 7 when you can get your Bottle and start ganking. If they don’t, you can always ferry some more with the Chicken as I already said.

Core Items

 Empty Bottle
 Boots of Speed
 Bracer x2
 Boots of Travel
 Observer Wards (get a bunch)

• Empty Bottle is the first and possibly most important item here. Get this as soon as you can! It’s basically unlimited flasks/clarities, and is easily refilled with Boots of Travel. Bottle lets you kill multiple heroes without much damage to your hit points or mana.
• Bracers – I have replaced Vitality Booster with Bracers because they provide better bonuses for roughly the same price and can be built with small pieces. It is unlikely that you will complete your Heart in a game, and in any event the Bracers will serve you well for a large part of the game, hence Vita Booster isn’t really worth going for until much later.
• Boots of Travel is key – good chasing with RoT – no one gets away. You don’t need Boots of Travel to successfully chase with Rot, but if your enemy is smarter than, say, a turnip, he will juke you and he may escape the radius of Rot. Pudge is slow, remember? A little bonus movement speed goes a long way towards making sure enemies don’t escape. The teleport is also extremely useful for getting around the map.

  Note: If you are farming well, you can buy the Boots of Travel before the Bracers. Bracers will usually fit nicely after Bottle/Boots of Speed, but keep in mind that you are not obligated to get them before the BoT.

• Observer Wards are extremely useful because they can spot unsuspecting heroes for your hooks and Runes for your Bottle. They can also see ganks on you or allies, and are just generally very useful items. You always see them in league games, and there’s a reason for it. Knowing the enemy’s location and the location of Runes are two very powerful things. Make sure to Ward the Runes so you can keep refilling your Bottle. Use Sentries if the enemy has Wards that you’d like to take out.

  Also note that I sometimes get an early set of Observer Wards, right after my Bottle/Boots or sometimes after a Bracer or two but in any case before the rest of the core. This is often worth doing because you are already ganking and you will enjoy the surveillance on the runes. I recommend putting one Ward in the lane of your choice (often mid lane, on the enemy’s hill) and the other on a Rune, or put both on the Runes.

• You can also add Clarities to your build in addition to the Bottle to get some extra mana regeneration. This is in addition to the Bottle, not instead of the Bottle! The Bottle is your main source of regeneration. I don’t find that I need Clarities much, so they are not part of the official build.

After the Core

 Platemail
SITUATIONAL:  Hood of Defiance

Platemail – Pudge has very low armor, so the Platemail will give your Effective Hit Points (EHP) a huge boost against physical attacks. If you are against a team that is going to be hitting you with physical attacks, go for the Platemail as your next item. If they have more spellcasters, you can delay your Platemail until later, but you will eventually want one. I’d say to usually get it right away and go for Assault Cuirass to draw fire, but it’s situational. More on that later.

Hood – Against spellcaster teams, you may want to buy Hood as soon as you can after the Core is complete. ONLY DO THIS IF YOU ARE ALREADY DRAWING FIRE (or if the enemy has an insane amount of AoE, I suppose). This item is very situational. AoE aside, enemy spells will generally be targeted on lower-hit-point, higher-DPS heroes – especially if you’re busy buying all this spell resistance. Please, before you buy this, think about the enemy team and the way the game is going. Are you likely to get hit by spells, or not so much? Against smart enemy teams, Pudge won’t draw much fire.

Hood can now be bought after points have been placed in Flesh Heap, so you don’t need to make such an immediate decision any more.

Note on Shiva – I was considering adding this item in as a tentative option, but if an enemy hero gets near you later on, you still have Rot and Dismember to keep them there. The aura on Shiva is good, but the intellect is wasted – I’d go with an Assault Cuirass instead. Accordingly, scroll on down to the late-game items.

Late-game items

 Assault Cuirass
 Heart of Tarrasque

If the game runs long, we can really turn Pudge into a tank. Pudge can get a lot of Strength late game by farming with Flesh Heap. If you already have Platemail/Hood/whatever, Heart is the best tanking item to buy.

But first, I would go for an Assault Cuirass. Buy a Platemail if you didn’t before, and complete this item (assuming no one else on your team already has one). I admit that the attack speed bonus isn’t great for Pudge, but it synergizes decently well with the bonus damage from Flesh Heap and will help your DPS a lot more than buying damage would. Obviously you get armor (from the Platemail) on your Cuirass, and that’s really good for you. Here’s the best part. You’re this huge tank that doesn’t really do much for your team besides initiate fights. Well, guess what – now you’re a big threat! The auras are incredible – a Chainmail for your entire team, a negative Chainmail for theirs, plus attack speed for your team? NICE! So now the enemy team is going to want you out of the picture, and you may end up drawing some fire, which is great because it takes the heat off of your carry Hero and lets him own.

Then buy your Heart.

Honestly, it’s unlikely that you will get either of these items. Pudge spends most of his time ganking and does not wind up with much gold because he hasn’t farmed. That’s okay. If you do a good job assassinating heroes early-mid and keeping the enemy team down, you can easily support your team later on by using Hook to initiate, even if you don’t have good tanking gear.

Accordingly, the item build stops here. In the rare case that a game runs long, just improvise. Butterfly could be good, I don’t know.

Note for 6.42 Aegis – If your team kills Roshan, please let your carry hero have the Aegis. Don’t take it.

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Why Bottle as opposed to just sapphire waters, tangos and clarities?

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VS.

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1) Bottle is unlimited. You can and will use it late into the game. Using all three charges gives 600 hit points and 285 mana, or the equivalent of about 1.5 waters and almost 3 clarities, which cost over 250 gold. Using those numbers, Bottle pays for itself after only three refills. And that’s only looking at the amount refilled.

2) Bottle’s regeneration is over 3 seconds. This is huge. It’s very quick, which means you can use it immediately if you notice a vulnerable Hero but lack the mana to turn a combo on him and snag a kill where you would have missed one trying to use a Clarity potion. Furthermore, if you are low on hit points and an enemy has just nuked you, he could chase you until his nuke cools down and finish you with the nuke. But with Bottle, you can regenerate a quick 225 hit points before it’s up and survive.

3) Bottle can also capture runes. I mention that you should get Observer Wards. Put a Ward or two over the runes, and you can use Bottle to grab them. A stored rune can provide a key combat advantage that the enemy will not see coming. Using a Rune also returns 2/3 of Bottle.
What about Gem of True Sight?

You have to make this decision on your own. It’s very difficult to give black-and-white information about when a gem should be bought, and by whom, and who should carry it.
Spell resistance on items and Flesh Heap

It USED TO BE THE CASE that if you buy spell resistance items, you must do so before getting ANY points in Flesh Heap if you want the spell resistance to stack. However, this is no longer the case. This means that if you decide, much later, that you want Hood because the enemy team’s nuking combo is still powerful even late-game, that you can go ahead and buy.

In case you were wondering, the math works out like this:

Resistance with Planeswalker’s Cloak – 36.25%
Resistance with Flesh Heap – 37%
Resistance with Cloak and Flesh Heap – 46.4%
Resistance with only Hood – 47.25%
Resistance with Hood and Flesh Heap – 55.9%

5. Walkthrough Strategy:

Pudge’s role is that of the assassin-support-tank, a rather unique role. He is a predator for a large part of the game, then becomes an initiator support Hero that uses Hook to take out dangerous enemy Heroes before the team fights actually start. He can also help tank in a long game. If he is played well, he will destroy the enemy team early game and practically guarantee a huge late-game edge regardless.
Early game – Levels 1-7

At first, you basically sit in your lane getting last hits. If you’re soloing, it’s probably a pub/TDA game but try to tower hug anyway (or just kill your noob enemies, tee hee). If you’re laning with an ally, use Hook in combination with an ally’s spell to kill enemy Heroes in the lane and chase with Rot for the finish. Very intuitive stuff.

Once you get your Bottle, the lane dynamic changes. Unless you’re laning with an excellent ally, you will likely have been harassed a whole bunch and basically been dominated in the lane. Last hits weren’t easy, but you got enough for your Bottle. Now it’s your lane. You’re low on hit points? Use the Bottle once to pick some up, and a Tango if you have any left. If it’s a solo lane, you’re probably about level 5. Enemies aren’t expecting you to Hook yet. Throw one while the enemy is farming. If you’re solid on hit points and the enemy can’t do much to you, chase aggressively with Rot and try to kill him. If you’re semi-solid, turn on Rot and hit him once, then turn off Rot and back away. If you’re low on hit points, just immediately back up after the Hook unless you want to try to bluff by turning on Rot and hitting him once – which can work great but is risky if the enemy can disable. In any case, the enemy takes some damage and you can begin to control the lane. Another drink from Bottle puts your hit points and mana near full and you can be more aggressive with the last hitting, making it easy to get your Boots. You see, the enemy Hero will have to play defensively now because you can kill him with another Hook and appropriate follow-up. If you can do this, great. Then free-farm the lane until he gets back, and you’ll probably get level 7 and Boots with no trouble. If you can’t kill him, you should still be able to farm your lane pretty effectively.

Soloing: A solo lane is very effective on Pudge. If he hits level 7 when other heroes are still only level 5, his combination will be that much more devastating. If you know you will be able to control your lane, or at least survive until Bottle, try as hard as you can to get a solo side lane.

Usually you can put up a pretty convincing argument for solo. Explain that if you can get experience quickly you’ll be able to get your combo ready that much faster, and you’ll let someone else solo at level 7 or 8. You will, too. At level 7 or a little after you’ll start roaming and an ally can have the lane. People usually mind a lot less if you offer to give them a turn in the solo lane after a certain time.

Not Soloing: Soloing is really for easy games only. Pudge is a melee hero and is fairly awful at lane control, so in a serious game you will be destroyed if you try to solo. In fact, in a high-level game you should always lane with an ally, preferably a disabler or slower because combinations involving Hook will be devastating and preferably ranged because two melee heroes together in a lane is always a bad idea. With a good ally hero, you can definitely start using Hook at level 3 of the ability, or possibly even level 2 of the ability depending on how good your ally is at nuking/disabling/slowing. One small thing: You don’t want to hit level 7 too late, so in a mid-level game you can try to solo and call an ally if you need help later, or start off laning with an ally and have him go gank another lane at level 5 while you get some quick XP to get you to level 7.

Mid game – Levels 7-14

I usually leave my side lane at about level 8 – that is, somewhere between 7 and 9. Depends largely on how well I’m doing in my lane and how big a threat the rest of the heroes in the game can become if I let them farm longer. Anyway, ask your allies if you can have middle lane at this point, and hopefully they will agree. You don’t even need an ally mid to get kills. Basically just camp the cliffs on either side of your first mid tower and hook heroes from the river up to those cliffs, where you can Rot + Dismember for an easy kill. See Specific Strategy section for more about how you go about doing this. The idea is that you are roaming around the map pouncing on low-hit-point heroes. For example, after successfully killing a hero mid, you can leave mid lane briefly, take a drink from your Bottle to refill the health and mana you lost doing your combo (health lost only from Rot, they will usually be dying before they can hurt you) and run off to another lane to gank or backstab a hero. Then return mid for more hooking on the cliffs. I never sit in a lane again until level 16 or so, if I can help it. It’s always running around looking for kills. Also, make sure to repeatedly kill a late-game hero that quietly farms. It’s often easy to overlook these heroes and you’ll pay later on for ignoring them.

What if they have wards?

Well, I’ll get to this in the last section of the guide (counters to Pudge), but basically you have two options. The first is starting Flesh Heap at 10 instead of 12 and spending time farming up Strength instead of going after heroes. This is, of course, boring. So, a better solution is to buy counter-Wards (Sentries, or possibly a Gem that you mostly keep in base when not killing Wards with it) and keep assassinating heroes. Because that’s why you’re playing Pudge. You love killing heroes.

Abuse the runes

This is a good time to reiterate that you should be taking full advantage of your Bottle. In between ganks, travel via the rivers and pick up ALL runes you see with your Bottle (unless a nearby ally could put it to better use, in which case notify him of it). Be sure you use those Wards on the runes to constantly be aware of which runes are where. With runes returning a full Bottle after being used, you may not need to fountain trip for quite a while. (And if you do fountain trip, refill your Bottle, then use it immediately and refill it a second time. That heals you faster and cuts down your fountain trip time.)

One more thing. You may realize at some point that your combo is starting to lose its effectiveness and that you really need your Boots of Travel. Stop ganking and go farm a lane for a bit. If you delay the Boots of Travel and try to do more ganking and supporting your team, you’ll often have trouble getting them at all if things don’t go perfectly.
Late game – Levels 14-18

Support your allies. Use Hook + Dismember to instantly take out the most dangerous enemy before a team fight starts (it’s hard to expect your combo alone to kill them at this point in the game, but your allies can pound the enemy hero during the 3 second Dismember), giving you a quick advantage. It’s important to know who that is. It can often be someone with an AoE ulti or AoE disable, like Enigma or CM. Or, it could be the enemy team’s carry hero – the Clinkz/Viper/whoever that spent all game farming and deals 500 damage per hit. He’s a terrific choice because, like the name suggests, he’s supposed to be carrying his team. If he’s dead right off the bat, the enemy team will lose. Another way to think about it is to imagine all possible groups of 4 enemy heroes and leave the least dangerous foursome alone. Sometimes you will only have an opportunity to Hook one Hero who is NOT the carry or anything, but do it anyway. 5v4 is really good. Anyway, after you do this Hook and quick kill, the enemy team will often not sit back and defend at a tower, but charge in to try to save their ally. It will frequently be too late and your team will win the 5v4 and be able to mount a serious push that you would not have been able to do if the enemy had defended properly at a tower. So, initiate the fights.

Incidentally, you often won’t level past 18. Hence the 14-18. If you level more, then good for you.

In a very long game, you may be able to tank for your team. Tanking is really easy because you don’t have to do any work, so I won’t talk about it. Use Rot if you can, but it has a small radius so don’t get in too far trying to get yourself in melee range of enemies.

Moving on.

6. Specific Strategy:

This is where you find out exactly how to kill a hero, as well as use your skills more effectively.

Rot 

Chasing

- As mentioned in the Early Game section, Rot can be used to chase a running hero while causing damage. There is an excellent tactic you can use when doing this. Rot slows by 20%, so you can quickly run next to or slightly ahead of the running hero and attack them once. During this time they will push back in front, but will still be under the effects of Rot. Do not attack a second time, but instead continue chasing until you are level with them again and can attack again. This is an easy way of increasing overall chase damage dealt.
Ganking

- Rot is also very good for ganking enemies. You can continually slow the target hero while your allies pound him. Just remember not to attack unless you’ve drawn up alongside the enemy hero (or unless you have Boots of Travel), or else he might get out of range.
Farming

- Rot should never be used to farm. Repeat: DON’T FARM WITH ROT. In the early-mid game it will drain too many hit points to be worth using – and you are not farming in the early-mid game, you are assassinating. Later on, it will only push your creeps farther into enemy territory, which makes you vulnerable if you keep farming the lane. If you’re killing enemy creeps quickly to protect a tower, that’s different. But for farming, don’t use Rot.
Suiciding

- Rot can also be used to Suicide. If you’re in trouble and think you’re going to die, try turning on Rot, timing it just right so that Rot kills you instead of the enemy. This denies them gold and experience and also frustrates them. Plus, it maintains any kill streak you had. And you get a bonus to Strength if you have Flesh Heap because technically you killed a Hero!
Caution

- Doom and Silence prevent you from turning off Rot. If you are caught with Rot on when one of these skills is cast upon you, it can mean taking a LOT of extra damage and dying in a situation in which you would otherwise have easily lived. I recommend not using Rot at all when fighting a Doombringer with his ulti cooled, unless you are sure he is going to be silenced or disabled and unable to Doom you.

Flesh Heap 

Denying

- Allied units used to add strength when killed. This is no longer the case. You only receive strength from enemy units killed.

Dismember 

Combination

- Dismember is a basic element in your bread-and-butter combo of Meat Hook + Rot + Dismember. While chasing with Rot, you can Dismember for bonus damage, making your kill easier and, if used to finish them off, can deny the chance to stun you or Sunder you or something awful. Dismember is also terrific in team situations, providing 3 full seconds for your allies to beat up on the unfortunate hero.
Avatar

- Dismember goes through Avatar. It doesn’t deal damage, but it does hold the hero for 3 seconds. Extremely useful in team situations when an enemy has magic immunity.
Casting Range

- Dismember’s casting range isn’t actually melee. It’s slightly longer. Why is this important? Well, it means you can Dismember a hero that isn’t RIGHT next to you. This can be useful if you’re trying to land Dismember for allies or something, but it can also be very bad if you are trying to hurt them with Rot because they will be out of range. If you do Dismember them out of Rot range, please notice that they aren’t being hurt by Rot and turn Rot off to save yourself some hit points. But it would be better if you didn’t Dismember them out of Rot range in the first place. So, make sure you chase a little extra with Rot before Dismembering so they will definitely be in proper range. Also, if you Hook an enemy (and they don’t have Blink or a disable of some kind) give an order to chase for a second with Rot just to make sure you stay close to them while you are hitting the hotkey for Dismember.
Caution

- Don’t Dismember Roshan. It does practically nothing to him. And “Mmm…Fresh Meat…” can actually be a tip-off to the other team and they will be there before your allies even get a chance to yell at you for being so foolish. That really happened to me once. It was unpleasant.

Meat Hook 

I will break down this section into subsections for easy reference.