Pudge is a Dota 2 hero who is both entertaining and difficult to master. Heꦺre we will teach you how to play P🌼udge so that you can be more effective in games.
Pudge is a lot of fun to play with because of his abilities, which allow him to do things that other heroes can't. Dota 2 is all about positioning; Pudge with ⛄Meat Hook𒈔 can drag them out of a safe position and kill them before the fight even starts.
What makes Pudge difficult is successfully hitting an enemy with Meat Hook. To do so, you must practice this ability frequently. On the other hand, This guide will instru⛄ct you on how to approach the laning phase and item selection but first let us introduce you to this hero's abilities.
Pudge's Abilities
Meat Hook:
Launches a hook in a straight line in front of him, snagging the first unit it comes into contact with and dragging it to Pudge. If t꧒he unit is an enemy🌼, it deals pure damage to it. You can also use this ability to drag your allies to safety. By hooking enemies, you can also cancel channeling spells.
At levelꦇ 1, this ability costs 125 mana and deals 150 damage. It deals 360 damage at max level and consumes 140 mana. There are two talents available for the Meat Hook ability, one reduces the cooldown, and the other increases its damage.
- Tip: Hooking runes will not cost any mana.
Rot:
When Pudge uses this ability, he creates a toxic cloud around him꧋self, which damages and slows any enemies within its radius. It also ca🎐uses damage to the Pudge.
Aghanim Scepter: If you equip this hero with an Aghanim Scepter, the radius and damage of this ability are increased by 225 and 100, respectively. Additionally, It will also add a 25% heal♊th restoration reduction to this ability.
Flesh Heap:
This ability grants you bonus strength whenever a hero dies within a 450-radius or whenever you kill♔ a hero within a✨ 1600-radius radius of yourself. Additionally, this ability increases your resistance to magic.
Strength bonuses per death are 1.5/2/2.5/3. You also have a talent that increases it b𓂃y 1.5. The numbers for magic resistance are 12%/14%/16%/18% in each level, which is a pretty big deal.
- Tip: By destroying illusions or even Arc Warden's Tempest Double, you cannot gain bonus strength.
- Tip: Each time you kill meepo, regardless of how many clones are nearby, you gain only one bonus strength.
Dismember:
Pudge chows down on an enemy unit, disabling and damaging them over time. While this is happening, Pudge will be healed for the amount of damage dea💯lt by this ability.
Aghanim shards: This item🍬 reduces Dismember's cooldown by 10 seಌconds and allows you to use it on allies. When used on allies, it swallows and heals them for 6% of their maximum HP. This ability scales with hero strength.
If you purchase shards, an Eject ability will appear between Flesh Heap and Dism𝔉ember. It gives 𝓀you the ability to eject swallowed ally whenever you want.
Skill Builds For Pudge
The skill builds for Pudge are the same acr🍃oss al🌱l roles.
Pludge's Talent Tree
Unlike Skill Builds, the Talent Tree꧋ varies depending on yourꦕ role. The image below shows the most popular Talent Tree for Pudge.
Difficult Matchups For Pudge:
Anti-mage: When you hook him, he can easily escape using blink ability. He can use Counterspell to avoid Pudge Dismember ability. On the other hand, due to Counterspell's passive magical re✨sistance, he takes less damage from Rot and Dismember abilities.
Necrophos: His Heartstopper Aura and Reaper's Scythe make him an excellent counter to tanky heroes such as 🙈Pudge.
Slardar: This hero's Corrosive Haze a🌊bility significantly reduces ꧑armor, making Pudge vulnerable.
Dazzle: Dazzel's Shallow Grave a𒀰bility can almost always save someone you're attempting to kill. Additionally, his Bad Juju ability reduces armor.
Legion Commander: If Pudge uses 𝔍Dismember on an ally, Legion Commander can negate the spell by pressing the attack o🌺n that ally.
Strong Matchups For Pudge
Crystal Maiden:Pudge's Hook can cancel the Freezing Field, even if she uses a Glimmer Cape prior to activating ultimate. A🌄dditionally, her slow movement speed and low HP pool make her an ideal target fo♊r Pudge.
Drow Ranger: Due to her Marksmanship ability, she wishes to avoid fighting close to enemies, but Pudge can Hook and Dismember her befor🔴e she can use Gust or Shadow Blade.
Sniper: He pre✃fers to maintain a safe distance from opponents, but Pudge can easily hook him and close the gap. 🔥He also has a low HP pool.
Zeus: This hero deals a high amount of damage and can be challenging to deal with if you cannot reach h🐷im. As with Sniper, he wishes to maintain a safe distance between himself and his opponents, but a good Pudge player can easily gank Zeus.
Shadow Shaman: While channeling Shac𓆉kles' ability, he must stand still, allowing Pudge to hook him easily.
Pudge's Best Allies:
Techies: Pudge can hook enemies into the mines.
Outworld destroyer: His Astral Imprison🅰ment can set up a hook if timed 🐽correctly.
Blood Seeker: His Rupture discourages enemies from moving, which makes iღt easier for Pudge to Hook them. Additionally, if Pudge Hooks them, they are pushed toward Pudge while 𝓰taking significant damage from Rupture.
Pudge's Gameplay
Pudge's abilities have a decent cooldown and a high dam꧅age output, making him an ideal ganker. Additionally, he has a large HP pool that grows with each kill, also making him a perfect tank. While y🌜ou may have seen Pudge in each of the five positions, we believe he is most effective in the midlane, soft support, or offlane positions.
Using Pudge In Early Game
Easy Matchups
Midlane: If you play as a Midlaner and your opponents are weak in front of you, bully and harass the opposing Midlaner to the maximum extent possible. Get all the last hits and denies. Force the opponent Midlaner to ask his supports to help him. Putting pressure on Midlane will make other lanes easier for your cores, even a🍌t the start of the game.
Soft Support: If you a💙re ꦕsoft Support, don’t just sit in the trees and wait for a chance to hook someone. Be active, help your Core to deny creeps especially ranged creeps - Harrass enemy heroes whenever you can.
- Use your Meat Hook as much as you can on enemy heroes because it deals a lot of damage, even at level one. Additionally, you can use your Meat Hook to prevent enemy support from pulling creeps to side camp.
Offlane:෴ As previously stated, bully the enemy Core and force him to leave the lane. Bear in mind that you must collaborate with your Su🅺pport to eliminate enemy heroes. Keep an eye on other lanes and use Teleport to help them if a big fight breaks out.
Hard Matchups For Pudge
Midlane: Survival should be your top priority as a Midlaner. This is because Pudge can be more effective in a match with more levels than with more items. You can earn gold later in the game by joining and killing sideline heroes. You can also aggro melee creeps into your ra♌nge creep, allowing for safer last hits and easy range creep d💟enial.
- If your opponent has a bottle, try to contest the runes as much as possible; this forces them to buy regen and makes their game a little more difficult.
Soft Support: As a Soft Support, do the following:
Use a sentry ward to blocꦅk the enemy's small camp and drag a creep wave between your tier 1 and tier 2 towers. It provides your Offlaner with a free creep wave and last hit.
Instead of stealing your offlaner exp in the lane, pull the large camp and 🍸earn your exp from that.
Offlane: As an offlaner, you must complete all of the tasks listed in the Midlane section (except for purchasing a bottle) ꧑and then ask your Support to do the tasks listed🐬 in the Soft Support section.
- Again, we urge you to do everything in your power to stay alive in the lane because your abilities are more important than your items at this stage.
Using Pudge In Mid Game
Midlane: This is your opportunity to showcase your full po🍌tential. If you had an easy lane, you have two options: pressure an opponent Midlaner further by requesting a gank from your Supports or gank sidelan💜es to make space for your other Cores.
- You can do both in a difficult matchup, but we recommend the latter because your ally core is in a 1vs2 situation, which may result in his death.
Soft Support: In an ea🦂sy matchup where you forced the enemy Safelaner to the jungle, you can either leave your Offlaner to gain solo experience or ask Hard Support to join you to find and kill the enemy Safelaner in the jungle.
- If your Offlaner can stay alive in a tough matchup, let him play solo and then help other lanes, but if he can't, stay in lane and Hook him to safety when he gets into trouble.
Offline: In an easy matchup, you can ask your S💟oft Support to leave the lane and then collaborate with your teammates to destroy the enemy's tier 1 tower. Additionally, you can switch lanes with your Saflaner to provide him access to safer farms along with ancient creeps.
