Pudge

Pudge

The Dire

25 + 3.2 14 + 1.5 14 + 1.5

Level 1 16 25 Hit Points 625 1575 2449 Mana 182 494 910 Damage 52-58 102-108 148-154 Armor 0.96 4.32 8.8 Attacks / Second 0.67 0.81 1

Movement Speed 285 Turn Rate 0.5 Sight Range 1800/800 Attack Range Melee Missile Speed Instant Attack Duration 0.5+1.17 Cast Duration 0.3+0.51 Base Attack Time 1.7

Pudge the Butcher is a melee strength hero who typically uses his abilities to gank heroes or initiate battles, which can lead up to him becoming a late-game tank. His signature ability, Meat Hook, arms Pudge with a hook that pulls important or weak targets out of the enemy team to upend an impending clash or finish off fleeing heroes. He is usually built as a ganker due to his passive that increases his Strength for every kill he has accumulated or been in vicinity of for the entire game. He is also equipped with various debuffs that make his job easier, such as a slow and a channeled stun.

Bio

Pudge, the Butcher Play "Nothing better than a nice raw liver." Role: Durable / Disabler Lore: In the Fields of Endless Carnage, far to the south of Quoidge, a corpulent figure works tirelessly through the night--dismembering, disembowelling, piling up the limbs and viscera of the fallen that the battlefield might be clear by dawn. In this cursed realm, nothing can decay or decompose; no corpse may ever return to the earth from which it sprang, no matter how deep you dig the grave. Flocked by carrion birds who need him to cut their meals into beak-sized chunks, Pudge the Butcher hones his skills with blades that grow sharper the longer he uses them. Swish, swish, thunk. Flesh falls from the bone; tendons and ligaments part like wet paper. And while he always had a taste for the butchery, over the ages, Pudge has developed a taste for its byproduct as well. Starting with a gobbet of muscle here, a sip of blood there...before long he was thrusting his jaws deep into the toughest of torsos, like a dog gnawing at rags. Even those who are beyond fearing the Reaper, fear the Butcher. Voice: John Patrick Lowrie (Responses)

Gameplay

Pudge is a high health destructive tank that can finish off lone heroes easily and quickly. His first and trademark ability, Meat Hook, allows him to grab a solitary target, dragging it off to meet its doom in the ravenous form of the Butcher. One of the most iconic skills of DotA, Meat Hook takes a vast amount of practice to perfect. It is also a hard ability to master due to its high versatility, like hooking for units hidden in the fog, hooking enemies with different movement speeds or pulling allied heroes out of potentially fatal situations. Pudge's second ability Rot is his primary source of damage over time, dishing out large amounts every second. Due to the first and second skills, Pudge is a constant threat and distraction in the early levels, possessing one of the highest short term damage outputs in the game. Pudge's ultimate, Dismember, allows him to grasp a unit tightly and devour it, holding it within range of the noxious fumes of Rot. In mid to late game, Pudge's trademark combination includes hooking a foe away from its allies, Rotting and Dismembering. Pudge also has a passive Flesh Heap, which grants him both magic resistance to complement Rot and strength gain which is achieved passively upon enemy hero deaths in his vicinity. This hulking monstrosity is a force of gargantuan destruction in the hands of a competent player, and enemies may quickly find themselves unable to take on the behemoth with his enormously high health potential.

Abilities

Meat Hook Q T Ability Affects Damage Target Point Units Pure Launches a bloody hook at a unit or location. The hook will snag the first unit it encounters, dragging the unit back to Pudge and dealing damage if it is an enemy. Distance: 700/900/1100/1300 Damage: 90/180/270/360 14/13/12/11 110/120/130/140 Won't deal damage or mini-stun. The Butcher's hook is a symbolic nightmare, its curved blade a frightening reminder of his slaughterous intent.

Notes: The hook travels at a speed of 1600 The tip of the Meat Hook is what drags the units to Pudge, so touching the Meat Hook in any other part than its tip will not trigger its effect. The Meat Hook can only pull units when it is being extended. If the hook touches a unit as it retracts, nothing will happen to the unit. Meat Hook applies a mini-stun, interrupting any casting. Allied units will be dragged too, but neither the damage nor the mini-stun will be dealt to them, also it will not interrupt channeling. Meat Hook will pull cycloned, magic immune and invulnerable targets but will not mini-stun nor deal any damage to them. Invisible units can be hooked normally. Meat Hook can go through cliffs, trees, structures and siege creeps.

Rot W R Ability Affects Damage Toggle Enemies Magical A toxic cloud that deals intense damage and slows movement--harming not only enemy units but Pudge himself. Radius: 250 Slow: 20% Damage: 35/60/85/110 A foul odor precedes a toxic, choking gas, emanating from the Butcher's putrid, ever-swelling mass.

Notes: Rot can be activated while using Dismember without interrupting it. Deals damage and slowing effect to invisible units. If Pudge is silenced or stunned while Rot is active, he will not be able to deactivate it until the control effect wears off. Pudge can deny himself using this ability. Rot on level 1-3 won't disable a Healing Salve. Rot is not deactivated when Pudge is Hexed.

Flesh Heap E F Ability Affects Passive Self Gives Pudge resistance to magic damage, as well as bonus strength that increases each time Pudge kills an enemy Hero or it dies in his vicinity. Flesh Heap is retroactive, meaning it can gain charges before it is skilled, which then become active. Range: 450 Magic Resistance: 4%/8%/12%/16% Strength Bonus: 0.9/1.2/1.5/1.8 Illusions will gain the magic resistance, but will not gain the bonus strength nor extend the range that the original Pudge can gain bonus strength. Heroes killed directly by Pudge's illusions outside of the 450 range will also not give Pudge bonus strength. The Butcher gives new meaning to the words ‘meat shield.’

Notes: Magic resistance stacks with magic resistance granted by items. The ability is retroactive, meaning the strength gain will be adapted once you level up flesh heap.

Dismember R D Ability Affects Damage Channeled Enemies Magical CHANNELED - Pudge chows down on an enemy unit, disabling it and dealing damage over time. Lasts 3 seconds on Heroes, 6 seconds on creeps. Range: 160 Damage: 75/125/175 (+0.75× strength*) 30 100/130/170 Damage is blocked. Adds a strength-based damage bonus, and heals Pudge equal to the damage dealt by Dismember. ‘When I'm through with these vermin, they'll be fit for a pie!’

Notes: Dismember actually has a channel time of only 2.95 seconds. Dismember will continue to deal damage and stun a target if it becomes invisible as well as giving Pudge and his team vision of the invisible target. Dismember is a channeling spell. Improved version heals Pudge, the heal is independent of the damage. Pudge's response when Dismembering a hero is heard by all other heroes across the entire map. Dismember can target couriers, but won't do damage since couriers are magic immune. Total damage : 225/375/525 (+2.25× strength*).

Recommended items

Explanation: Starting Items: When choosing starting items with Pudge, remember that Meat Hook has high mana cost, and Rot has high health cost. Pudge players often start more than one salve to make up for this. Early-Game : A Bottle is a typical pick for Pudge, as it helps supplement his low mana pool, and allows him to use runes while ganking. Core: A common build with Pudge is an early Hood of Defiance, since the 30% magic resistance it offers lowers the self-damage taken from Rot. Phase Boots and Arcane Boots are both recommendable items, for positioning and mana respectively. Situational: While a Pipe of Insight may not help Pudge significantly more than a Hood of Defiance, it is a powerful teamfight item, and easy enough for Pudge to pick up. Heart of Tarrasque not only adds to Pudge's strength, but also gives a percent-based health regeneration passive which helps keep his health full between fights. Aghanim's Scepter gives a vampiric effect to Dismember, helping Pudge stay in the fight longer. Shiva's Guard will give a large mana pool as well as reducing the effectiveness of enemy autoattacks. Force Staff is a cheap positioning item which can allow Pudge to land his Meat Hook with impunity. Drum of Endurance is recommended because of the swiftness aura, which helps both Pudge and his team with positioning. Unmentioned: Due to the gank-heavy nature of most Pudge playstyles, many players opt for an Urn of Shadows to provide health regeneration. A Black King Bar is also a frequent choice, as it can prevent enemies from interrupting Dismember channeling, as well as preventing self-damage from Rot.

Tips

• Meat Hook to Rot to Dismember is the standard combo.
• Meat Hook is hard to master but extremely versatile; it can be used to:
  • Pull a fleeing enemy into a gank, or back into one if they blinked away.
  • Pull a lone hero into your team to make any resulting teamfight 4v5.
  • Pull an allied hero out of a dangerous situation.
• However, in case the enemy has some sort of game-breaking skill (Echo Slam, Epicenter, Requiem of Souls, Sanity's Eclipse etc.), it's usually better to avoid hooking at all to start teamfight, lets you set up a perfect initiation for the other team. The reason is after you hook someone and your team converge on you to kill the target, you will act as a beacon for those skills, especially if they have a Blink Dagger.
• An easy way to land a Meat Hook is to walk up to your enemy slow him with Rot and finish him off with a Meat hook, while they are slowed.
• Hiding spots and hooking positions: [1].
• Don't be afraid to use Rot to escape from a chasing melee hero. Toggle it quickly on and off to apply the speed debuff to them, with minimal damage to yourself.
• If you are Dismembering and have not used Meat Hook, make sure to not shift queue it because it can easily be dodged by running to the left or right.
• If you have Aghanim's Scepter and are low on health you can Dismember a creep to quickly restore a lot of HP.
• Blink Dagger cannot be bought on Pudge. If it could be, Pudge would be able to blink to an enclosed area, pull enemies(or allies) to him with Meat Hook, then blink out, leaving his foe potentially trapped. However, he can still do that with Force Staff. Force staff breaks trees. But you can still go to an enclosed space such as a high cliff and hook an enemy there. The main reason Blink Dagger is not allowed is because you can hook then blink, pulling the target who's hooked 2500 units back.
• Pudge can do a fountain hook (hook the target to the fountain) with the help of Chen's Test of Faith, Wisp's Relocate, or Keeper of the Light's Recall if Pudge's timing of hook was correct, added by Dismember to prevent the target escapes from fountain attacks if the target has high HP.
• Pudge can use Rot to deny himself, committing suicide and preventing the other team from receiving gold and experience for his death; killing himself in this way does not, however, reset his killing spree, resulting in the other team receiving more gold for killing him if he continues his spree.

Trivia

• In DotA, if Pudge was invisible, Rot would not do any damage nor slow, and also would not affect paused units (such as those that were under the affects of Chronosphere).
• Pudge references Scorpion from the Mortal Kombat series in two of his Meat Hook lines ("Get over here!").
• Pudge's DotA character is based of off the Butcher, an infamous dungeon boss in the game Diablo. The most notable similarity is that the Pudge from DotA gets the exact same "Fresh meat!" sound file as the Butcher from Diablo, which was the only line uttered by him. As such, the Pudge of Dota 2 acquired a few similarities with the Diablo Butcher.
• Pudge's line "Keep calm and carrion!" is a play on the World War 2 British Propaganda phrase "Keep calm and carry on".

Update history

February 07, 2013 Patch

• Fixed some ability Backswing timing issues ( Kunkka, Clockwerk, Timbersaw, Meepo, Pudge, Spirit Breaker, Sand King, Riki, Nyx Assassin, Lion, Pugna, Shadow Demon, Batrider).

January 10, 2013 Patch

• Fixed being able to get units stuck using Refresher.

September 21, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Updated Enchantress' and Pudge's textures.

September 13, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added new attack animations for Pudge.

August 22, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Updated Pudge's model and textures.

August 15, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Updated Pudge's textures.

July 26, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added teleport start and end animations for Earthshaker, Pudge, Night Stalker, Shadow Demon, Tidehunter, Tinker.
• [Undocumented] Added Haste Rune Run animations for Night Stalker and Pudge.

June 28, 2012 Patch

• Fixed a bug that was sometimes causing Pudge's Dismember to do an extra tick of damage.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Pudge to deal damage without hurting himself by quickly toggling Rot.

May 17, 2012 Patch

• Fixed Meat Hook interrupting channeling spells if the target is magic immune.
• Added additional dialog for Earthshaker, Pudge, Storm Spirit, Shadow Fiend, and Doombringer.

April 26, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Updated the hero selection portrait.

April 20, 2012 Patch

• Fixed bug with Pudge and Aghanim's.

April 19, 2012 Patch

• Fixed Nightmare dispelling on self damage (e.g. Rot).
• Fixed Dismember damage happening one second too late.

April 12, 2012 Patch

• Reduced the delay before being able to issue orders after Meat Hook.
• Fixed Pudge's Meat Hook and Mirana's Arrow not hitting Spirit Bear.

March 22, 2012 Patch

• Fixed some abilities having incorrect durations against creep heroes (like Dismember).

March 15, 2012 Patch

• Fixed being unable to hook Nightmared targets.

March 08, 2012 Patch

• Made Pudge's hook conform to terrain for more accurate visual read.

February 16, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Pudge has a new animation upon getting a kill.

January 12, 2012 Patch

• Flesh Heap now has a overhead notification when strength is gained.
• Made Pudge's Rot way less subtle.

December 01, 2011 Patch

• Fixed Rot doing continuing to do damage after you die.

November 17, 2011 Patch

• Fixed Dismember lasting too long on Roshan.
• Fixed Meat Hook interrupting allied channel abilities.

October 27, 2011 Patch

• Fixed cases where Hook would drop the pulled target to a lower level if your target was near a ledge.

October 13, 2011 Patch

• Dismember channel will now correctly break if dispelled by Tidehunter's Kraken Shell.
• Fixed Force Staff (and other forced movements like Pudge's Meat Hook) not triggering rupture damage.

September 29, 2011 Patch

• Changed Pudge's hook to pull back units he kills with it.

September 09, 2011 Patch

• Meat Hook now properly gives 500/500 flying vision for 4 seconds at location where a unit is hooked.

August 06, 2011 Patch

• Fixed Meat Hook not working on magic immune units.

August 04, 2011 Patch

• Updated Pudge's Icons.

August 02, 2011 Patch

• Made radius of rot more static/representative of actual rot radius.
• Made rot debuff effect have a more distinct palette, with a hit effect and constant blood for recipients.

July 01, 2011 Patch

• Fixed Rot toggling to not proc Magic Stick/Wand charges.

June 24, 2011 Patch

• Fixed toggling Pudge's Rot (and item/ability toggles in general) not breaking invisibility.
• Disabled Blink Dagger for Vengeful Spirit and Pudge. Disabled Quelling Blade for Kunkka.

May 20, 2011 Patch

• Fixed Pudge's health not updating when upgrading Flesh Heap.

May 05, 2011 Patch

• Hooked up Pudge's new Rot animation.

March 03, 2011 Patch

• Fixed Pudge's hook animation getting stuck on if Pudge gets interrupted before his action phase ends.
• Fixed Mirana's Arrow and Pudge's Hook to not miss nearby targets.

February 09, 2011 Patch

• Can no longer hook ancients/roshan.

January 30, 2011 Patch

• Fixed bug with spamming Pudge's Rot, and adjusted its tick interval to 0.2 from 1.0.
• Fixed cases where creating a linear projectile directly on yourself would cause it to get stuck. This includes fixes to Fissure, Ghost Ship, Dragon Slave, Arrow, Impale, Waveform, Illusory Orb, Meat Hook, Burrowstrike, Wave of Terror, and Power Shot.

January 27, 2011 Patch

• Fixed incorrect manacost on Meat Hook.

January 18, 2011 Patch

• Pudge's hook now interrupts the hooked unit.

Balance changelog

6.72

• Rot's damage increased from 25/50/75/100 to 35/60/85/110.

Gallery

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  Christmas artwork

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  Concept Art

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  Pudge in-game

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  Pudge in Model Viewer

See also

• Pudge responses