Pudge-The butcher [hookless guide]

[BlackDePhiL]

Firstly I would like to state that This guide is not for competitive gaming! (at least not yet)
Do not try it in serious games without first consulting your team mates.

So why did I write a guide to hookless pudge? First of all I'm doing fulltime work atm so I don't get a lot of time to play DotA. (This guide was written on the train to and from work). Naturally as a consequence the good old hook accuracy drops a little bit in pub games, but a lot more in Clan IH games haha.

Determined to find an alternative playstyle to Pudge which is less skill-reliant (my hooking skill is quite subpar atm), I stumbled upon the good old joke guide in strategy root forum made by _____ (the name escapes me). I was intrigued. The new buff to fleshheap made me consider the possibility of playing a farmstyle pudge which benefits IMMENSELY from early game kills.

Now I have resolved to make a guide to hookless pudge which is of substantially higher quality and spread the goodness of the cbf-ganking farmstyle pudge to everyone here on DA for the lulz.

Skill Build

1. Rot
2. Flesh Heap
3. Flesh Heap
4. Rot
5. Flesh heap
6. Dismember
7. Flesh Heap
8. Rot
9. Rot
10. Stats
11. Dismember
Stats/Bite
22-25. Hook

Rot is taken at level one because it offers a lot of potential for first blood.
Flesh heap is maxed out afterwards for the high marginal increase in fleshstr increases.
Rot is maxed out after fleshheap because this is now your main way of dealing damage in fights.
Bite is maxed whenever possible because without Hook Pudge can support multiple uses of bite npnp with the extra stats.

Item Build

Laning Build vs Ranged Harassers
Stout Sheild, Tango, 2 Iron wood Branches

This build alleviates the problem of Pudge's naturally low armour - stout shield majorly reduces creep damage and softens the damage from ranged harassers.

Laning Build vs Melee
2 gauntlets of strength, 2 ironwood branches, Tango

This build allows you to last hit better against heroes who can't really own you in lane. (most melee heroes bar axe)

Core Build
Phase Boots, Hood of Defiance, 2 Bracers

Phase boots give Pudge much needed armour. Without it, Pudge is just a highly magic resistant ball of meat, with phase boots, he becomes a metal encased, highly magic resistant ball of meat.
It also gives Pudge burst MS which synergises very well with rot to catch up to those pesky runners. Also, the ability to walk through creeps and heroes to bite straight away is of undeniable value.

Hood synergises very well with rot. With a hookless pudge build, rot is the main damage dealer, thus Hood reduces self damage to Pudge from rot greatly, whilst giving Pudge respectable HP regen to lanestay.

Two bracers are there to buff general stats, most importantly STR for more raw hp and last hitting damage.

Luxury Build
Phase Boots, Hood of Defiance, 2 Bracers, Assault Curaiss, and Heart of Tarrasque

After core build get heart first. With heart, Pudge can now perma-rot. His presence in team battles is now massively increased. If you do not attack Pudge and kill him, he will sit there forever and slow your team by 20%, block your heroes with his fat body, and deal 100dmg/sec to heroes.

After heart get assault. With this massive increase in armour, Pudge is now truly unkillable. And now he can kill you with his flailing meathooks of fury, empowered by a massive increase in STR and fleshstr.

Strategy

Mentality
Obviously, with the removal of hook from Pudge's arsenal, his role in the team shifts completely. Pudge with hook is an assassin foremost, aiming to isolate members from the other team and kill them quickly before the enemy team can react and help. After this initial hook which either hit/missed, Pudge's role is now to land a bite, tank some stuns, and continue rotting to chase and attract focus fire, tanking until he dies. A hook Pudge is classified as a Assassin/Tank similar to Nerubian Assassin, but with more HP. Pudge is expected to lane normally early game until he gets boots + bottle, and go on aggressive ganking sprees to keep down the other team.

A pudge without hook however, loses out on his early game weapon. Not having the instant 400 damage nuke means that enemies now take a lot longer to kill. The most feasible method of killing for hookless pudge early game is to sneak behind fog/forest, come from behind, and bite a lone hero. Then you have to chase after the weakened hero using rot, animation cancelling with normal attack whenever you can.

The addition of early flesh heap means that Pudge should now be aiming to solo a lane, last hitting and denying all the creeps he can, to make up for the loss of his early game ganking power with increased gold income and fs bonuses. Pudge is now classified as a farming carry/tank. The extra levels of flesh heap gives Pudge more spell resistance, so he becomes that little bit harder to kill, and you should use that to your advantage.

What this means Do not go ganking. Farm middle/short lane all day.

Credits: bey0ndanapir0s , dota official site

[happy_moment]

A rotless pudge is a useless pudge ... any hero played without his spells loses his effectiveness