Pugna

This is stupid long but it is how I play pugna.

Your build is going to depend very heavily on who you lane against. If you are laning against very heavy int users then you need to put a point into nether ward at level 2. Your priority is to max Nether blast first while also grabbing your ult at level 6. If you are laning agains melee guys or carries then you want to put both points pre-level 6 into decrep. It's a pretty incredible escape and offensive tool.

After level 7 you should alternate points between decrep and ward unless the enemy team is very heavy in melee or casters. But, you should have both spells available to you by level 7 no matter what. Remember nether ward can kill several heroes outright based on some of the ultimates. It should be placed often and in every team fight. If you have placed nether ward at the start of a team fight then you aren't playing hime correctly.

People will tell you pugna is a support and they will flame you if you don't play him that way, but I'm going to tell you something... Pugna should never be played as a true support. Yes, you should buy wards if it calls for it, yes you should let a hard carry get last hits, but remember you are very very very gold dependent. It's ok and necessary for you to let hard carries get last hits if you are laning with them, and here is why. Level 4 nether blast will wipe a creep line in almost one hit until about the 22.5 minute mark. If you are struggling in gold be the guy that bounces from lane to lane and wipes creep lines back to tier 2 towers before bailing. It is remarkable how quickly pugna can push a lane by himself. The gold off those lane pushes will quickly allow you to get the gold you need. Not to mention if some hero decides to come save the lane and 1v1 you.. you are probably going to kick his ass with the WQR combination.

Item builds: Rush the scepter. I don't care what people say. Rush the scepter. If you are lucky you can get the scepter at the 10-12 minute mark and you will own the game for the next 15-20 minutes. My first purchases are scroll, mana bottle x2, tango, branches x2, and courier if no one else is ready to purchase. After that, it is straight to scepter. Everyone will give you shit for not buying boots but fuck them. Pugna is one of the 10 fastest heroes in the game and can get away not buying boots for the first 15 minutes of the game. Expect to be ridiculed for this, especially if you aren't playing well.

Now, this is where I go off the deep end on my item build. People have given me so much shit for this but I learned a long time ago that managing both health and mana as pugna with items was a waste of fucking time when you have a spell that absorbs health and will give you mana when at full health. I soon realized that if I am always at full health then I can always be at full mana with my life drain spell. Naturally I decided that my very next item should be heart. If I play pugna well then at the 25 minute mark I have 2500-3000 health and an almost limitless supply of it.

The heart served two huge purposes for pugna. Pugna is pretty fucking squishy, and if he gets caught in a series of crowd control spells then he is fucked. If he sits at <2k health most carries or heavy nukers can stun pugna to death. That's really important when facing pugna because if pugna gets his chance at you then you probably arent going to kill him and if you aren't smart enough to run then he is going to kill you. Sitting at 3000+ health is going to put in a place where no hero can kill you through their stuns in a 1v1 and most 1v2 situations. You will be able to outlast all of their crowd control spells and then blast, decrep, and life drain them. Most enemies will stick around thinking that they can kill you because your health is so low when in reality they can't because decrep shuts them down for 3.5 seconds and adds to your health gained from life drain. The great thing about pugna and life drain is that pugna is in the bottom 20 or so heroes used so almost no one knows how to play against them. It usually takes enemy nukers 30 minutes to realize that they cant outlast me and that green blast coming from the woods if doing an enormous amount of damage to them and stealing all of their mana.

Back to my original point about why manage health and mana when you should only manage one. Heart will regen your health very quickly if you are low and not being hit by an enemy hero which means even if you mana is low all you need is 225 mana and a hero willing to come at you to regen a large portion of your mana. Heart will get you to full health and then you can just snipe at heroes behind creep lines to rebuild your mana pool. It's pretty amazing.

Boots... I know I said boots were shit for pugna earlier but they really aren't. You need to get boots. It is a total judgement call on when to get them. If you are having to move around a lot and go from lane to lane then you need to get boots. Sometimes I buy them in the first 10 minutes and sometimes I don't get them until the 30 minute mark and I decide I want boots of transportation.

So now to the main question of how do you play pugna. And the answer is to be as selfish as you want. Pugna is the only hero I have played that really lets you do your own thing. You can push a lane by yourself, you can solo, you can support, you can mid lane, you can 1v1 and sometimes 1v2, and if the team is bad 1v3. Play pugna however the fuck you want to. But realize heroes that can stun or silence your ass are going to wreck you. Spirit breaker is tough. Huskar is impossible to kill. Im not kidding. You aren't going to kill huskar unless you are playing a really really bad huskar. If you are laning against huskar ask to switch because he is going to wreck you so hard and make you wish you never fell in love with pugna. I hate that big blue avatar looking bitch. Spirit breaker can fuck you up but once you get heart spirit isn't tough. Once you get heart, pugna will win almost every 1v1 battle. Lifestealer can be a bitch. Drow and sniper are super easy to kill unless they get the jump on you. If either of them get the jump on you and have the distance then you need to run away, because their dps is probably going to kill you. Especially drow with her silence. Basically any hard carry is going to get owned by you except for a late game pudge. Late game pudge is going to take a team to kill.

Disclaimer: Decrep is an amazing ability but can be the bane of your teams existence. If you are laning with or team fighting do not decrep the guy that every one is targeting. You can single handedly wipe your team by doing that. Remember when I said that no one plays pugna so the element of surprise can work in your favor because no one realizes that he can live forever. Well that unfamiliarity can apply to your team as well. I can not tell you the number of times i have decrepped the main target and the carries have no idea whats going and ulti a creep or auto attack a creep and basically give the target invulnerability and then have the team wipe because I saved an enemy hero. I have also saved an my carries and myself with decrep as well. It will just take time and experience to start using it well but it isn't hard to figure out. The exception is if you are laning with another int nuker because that combo can destroy lanes early game. Zeus pugna is a decent combo that will destroy enemy heroes early.

The very last thing i have to say is that in the very late game you can become less effective. This is when you become a support. Your life drain (thanks to a recent update) can heal your allies. With heart as an item you can heal your entire team after a team fight and only drop to half health that quickly regens. It's amazing. I have also healed a carry through a team fight. Dropping 300 health a second is a pretty stupid ability and I love abusing it. If you hang back in a team fight then heart wont be activated and you can keep healing while getting that massive health regen.

If you play pugna well you can routinely look at rounds ending with stats like 15-3-29 or 26-5-10. With loads of last hits and denies. Late game you should have so much gold that you don't even know what to purchase anymore and then you can get fun builds. I usually go boot upgrade then eye of skadi or situational items after heart.

I get a lot of shit for this build but I have a 55% win rate with pugna in pubs and pugna has a 44% win rate overall. It probably isn't the best build but its the one I enjoy the most. Remember, pugna can be played in a lot of ways and can even be played as a soft carry if played with the correct team.

/r/DotA2 Thread