Dota Hero Guide – Pugna The Oblivion
December 28th, 2009 by James | This article was viewed 20,492 times.
Table of Content
Prologue of a Dota Player- Pugna in Detail
- Skills
- Item Builds
- Playing Method
- Replays
- Updates
- Conclusion & Comments
- Reference & Credits
1. Pugna in Detail
Pugna The Oblivion is one of the easiest hero to use in Dota, especially when the opponent have no stuns or disable skills. From early to mid game, most heroes (except for a few tanks) are food to Pugna. The reason newbies feel it is tough to play Pugna is probably because of his extremely fragile HP. Pugna’s inability to contribute to a team also makes him the least favourable hero to choose during tournaments.Version: 6.64 | Range: 600 | Movement speed: 315
Str: 17 + 1.45 | Agi: 16 + 1 | Int: 26 + 4
Damage: 45 – 53 | HP: 473 | Mana: 338 | Armor: 1
Hero Effectiveness: Early & Mid GameType: Solo Killer
Primary Damage: Skills
Gank: Poor
Solo-able: Yes
Ease of Use: Excellent
2. Skills
Nether Blast (Active)Creates a blast of exploding pulses from the Nether Plane, dealing damage to units and buildings.Cooldown: 5.5 seconds.
Comment: Like its description, this is Pugna’s main skill for early game (At least until you get a dagon). It deals damage to buildings too so the 450 tower gold is easy to obtain. Damage comes in effect after the blast animation.
Decrepify (Active)Pugna casts a powerful banishing magic on a unit. The unit is sent to the ethereal plane for a small period of time, reducing its movement speed by 50% and rendering it unable to attack. It takes 44% extra damage from spells.
Cooldown: 13/11/9/7 seconds.
Nether Ward (Active)Summons a Nether Ward that prevents enemy heroes from regenerating mana and can cast Mana Flare, which deals damage to enemy heroes as they cast spells.
Lasts 25 seconds. Each level increases the area of effect of the Ward’s Mana Flare, the Mana Flare damage, the negative mana regen and the hp of the ward.
Cooldown: 35 seconds.
Life Drain (Active)Pugna summons a very powerful draining magic that absorbs the life essence of an enemy unit.
Lasts 9 seconds.
Cooldown: 22
Scepter Upgradeable: Increases life drain and removes cooldown.
2.1. Skill Builds
Max out Nether Blast. You only need 3 levels for decrepify, because 3 seconds is more than enough to cast a blast and dagon. The rest of the skill points should go into Life Drain and stats. Leave Nether Ward until you think that your contribution to the team is declining.3. Item Builds
Now there are debates over non-dagon Pugna and Pugna with Dagon level 1. I am not going to follow them, I have played Pugna with the same method for 5 years now and my method still works.Your item should start with (according to priority)
if you think you’re getting nuked badlyWhy do I even tell you what item to buy at the start? This is due to the fact that possessing the correct starting item gives you the “edge” over your opponent. The chicken will help you transport all your things over so that your trips to the fountain can be reduced.
Your end item combination as a killer (according to priority) should be
or 
or 
and 
There are 3 options to choose for your sixth item, to get Boots of Travel before or after the sixth item is totally up to you. Orchid if there are enemy worth silencing, Assault Cuirass if you need tank, Buriza if you need more physical damage. Usually I would go for Orchid because it amplifies damage on the affected hero as well. This increases my ability to support in late game.
The reason I am getting Dagon first is because of the amount of extra damage it provides. At level 1, it is 576 extra damage (when used with decrepify). At level 5, Dagon gives 800 damage, 1152 with decrepify, which is huge amount of damage. If you can complete Dagon level 1 before early game ends, massing up gold for the 4 upgrades (about 1350 * 4) is pretty easy because all you do is kill hero when you see them.
Scepter upgrades your Life Drain (level 3) to 250 HP/s and eliminates cooldown, that’s why it is the second most important item to keep you alive in the game. The last thing any melee hero wants is you sucking up their HP when they are on the brink of killing you.
Guinsoo is just an item I buy for almost every INT hero. For this hero it is delayed.
Heart gives you more HP so that you have time (before you’re dead) to use Life Drain at the end of the game when AGI and STR heroes gets quick in wielding their swords at high damage.
Otherwise, you could go for…
Many people argue that Pugna with Dagon is not a really good choice because of the low HP. I say it is because the opponent has too many stunners and disablers, making Pugna nearly impossible to hunt people even with the HP heal from Life Drain.
In this situation, your best bet is to get as much HP as possible and be a tank + support for your team. Scepter gives you bonus HP allowing you to survive better at early game. As you complete your Heart, life will be easier as you quickly farm for Guinsoo and Shiva’s Guard.
If you farm fast enough for the first 4 items, your support for the team would be enormous, making you extremely reliable given that your opponent’s DPS does not kill you in a few seconds. Not a strategy I would use though, but this is a second option you might want to consider.
4. Playing Method
Like I have said earlier, Pugna is a very easy hero to play but also very soft. Your first item should be Dagon and you should max it at level 5. The amount of damage you can deal is 1152 (Dagon) + 468 (Blast) = 1620. With Dagon’s fastest cooldown at 24 seconds at level 5 and uses only 100 mana. At this stage, nobody wants to go near you during mid game.However you must bear in mind that your killing window is only about 3 seconds, anything more than that is too dangerous as you might get killed by enemy heroes. The gif image below is how fast you should kill a hero.
Also as you can see I did not go for Bracers (which I think is a waste of gold) because I know how to spot opportunities. Sometimes weak enemies are baits and should not be engaged using Pugna due to his fragile HP. The idea is to stay alert and don’t rush with Pugna.
Normally it is impossible to decrepify and attack the decrepified hero. However, there is a catch for that skill (is it a bug? I have no idea).
Get a orb effect item such as
and 
. Other orb effects such as Satanic or Diffusal Blade does not work though, I don’t know why. But if you want to attack your opponent despite him still stuck in the etheral dimension, I suggest including Desolator into your item list. Because at late game this will provide you with the best offensive opportunity after you have used all your skill combos.4.1 Farming
Nether Blast at level 4 is a very good skill against ranged creeps, the blast will definitely kill them in one go. It is a farming skill that you can definitely spam around with the short cooldown. You can even use it for towers, it deals huge amount of damage so last hitting the tower is fairly easy.Otherwise, you should always practise last hitting creeps. Pugna gives extremely high INT increase every level ups, that gives you a significantly large amount of damage so last hitting creeps should be fairly easy with Pugna.
4.2 Early Game
Try to solo for early game. This is due to the fact that the time you can kill people is early until mid game. So, try your best to solo and farm for Dagon. Solo gives you the level and farming advantages over all other 4 heroes.Occasionally you could nuke opponent hero with your high attack damage at early game. This can be done by weakening them to a point that you can finish him with a Decrepify + Nether Blast combo. Nether Blast is your best bet to kill people when you don’t have a Dagon yet.
Also, break towers with Nether Blast so that you get the 450 gold. Most of the time, you want to do that when you are 400 gold away from getting Dagon. Because if you break the tower too early, you are vulnerable to ganks earlier in the game.
4.3 Mid Game
By this time you should have at least Dagon level 1. With that you can roam around with Decrepify + Blast + Dagon, most of the time it will kill AGI and INT heroes even with full HP.Also watch out for the 40 second Dagon cooldown and don’t get greedy.
4.4 Late Game
By now you should know that your Decrepify + Blast + Dagon (DBD) combo does not work without first lowering their HP to a certain degree. This is when your Nether Wards comes into play, it helps you damage your opponent when they cast a spells under the influence of the aura.Don’t be surprised, the Ward deals quite an amount of damage that you can never imagine. Having said that, late game is the last place you want to be when you play Pugna. It is always advisable to end the game at 30 – 40 minutes when you are using Pugna.
Sometimes when dealing with DPS heroes such as Phantom Assassin at late game, your DBD combo does little damage to her. At that instant, before doing the combo, you might want to Life Drain first then only do the last blow with BDB combo. Pay extra attention to the huge critical numbers too.
Alternatively, you could also decrepify opponent hero (or yourself, but not advisable) so that they can’t do physical damage on to you. Hopefully in those 3 seconds, you can escape to a place where ally heroes will be able to help you out.
4.5 Backing Up Team Mates
Pugna is a terrible backup. There are only 2 things you can do when your opponent is on the verge of killing your team mates. You can either, kill him with your combo or decrepify the fastest one and run together.Of course, if skill and HP permits, you can block the enemy like how you block creeps while decrepifying him. In that position he is unable to move beyond your point and is stuck between killing your team mate, killing you and escaping. This throws him into a state of confusion and if he hesitates a tad longer, your other team mates will arrive and back you up, possibly killing the charging hero.
4.6 Things to Watch Out
Stuns, Voodoos, Shackles, Swap and all disable skills. These extends your engage time with enemy which is always not a very good position to be in. Pugna is an “in and out” type of hero.Any kind of heroes with the above ability should be kept a certain distance unless you are very confident to kill him.
5. Replays
Here’s a replay on how I used Pugna with my Dagon method.6. Updates
In 6.65, the decrease of time delay of Nether Blast’s damage to come into effect is very noticeable.7. Conclusion & Comments
As you can see it is a pretty straight forward hero to play. As long as you stay away from trouble and sneak into battle with your Decrepify + Blast + Dagon combo, your opponent will be shocked at the amount of damage you are capable of dealing.Please note that I am also human and am still learning. Hence, if you have a better method of using Pugna you can share them with me. Thanks for reading my Dota Hero Guide.
8. Reference & Credits
- Images and real skill names are from dota-allstars.com
- Main Pugna photo are from kong113 in Photobucket.
- Thanks to Rz3r-Sapphire for his invaluable team playing experience and knowledge.
- Thanks to -Winds- for his brotherly support.
- Thanks to KahEe for her superb editing.
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