Pugna has been a really quiet hero these days. I don’t often see Pugna in the field, even if I see people playing Pugna, I often wonder why they do not pawn despite the number of AGI and INT heroes the enemy has. With all the buff on items such as Dagon and Scepter, Oblivion has become a hero that is capable of achieving Godlike easily. And to be honest my method of playing this hero has never changed since 5.84. Thus, my first guide will be on Pugna.

Table of Content

Prologue of a Dota Player

1. Pugna in Detail
2. Skills
3. Item Builds
4. Playing Method
5. Replays
6. Updates
7. Conclusion & Comments
8. 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 Game
Type: 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.

Comment: This is Pugna’s best magic support skill. Usually you commence a kill with dicrepify. The 44% extra damage from spells is extremely useful.

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.

Comment: Not really useful when you are owning, but very useful at later stage of the game whereby you are supposed to support the whole team by punishing enemy as they cast spells.

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.

Comment: Basically you just activate this skill and suck HP out of your enemy. Scepter has now made this skill with 0 cooldown which is a very huge buff to Pugna.

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 badly

Why 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.

If she’s (Mirana) not dead with red HP, you might want to use Life Drain and kill her. If Mirana still has half HP left, you might want to consider escaping because the whole team is coming after you now. Not to mention the double damage being activated by her.

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.

This is my first guide for Dota Heroes Guide. If you would love to follow up on my updates on other heroes, do subscribe to AhWee.com’s RSS feed.

My journey into the world of Dota Allstars gaming kicked off in year 2004. Since then, I have been an extremely loyal Dota player even until now, which is almost 6 years later. I felt ashamed to say this, but I have grown with the development of the game, whereby more than a quarter of my life has been spent mastering the game.

As I recalled back at all the hours spent on playing the game, it felt like I had not accomplished anything in life. Thus, I realized that I should put all the knowledge I learnt from the game to good use, by writing guides for every single hero in Dota Allstars.

My Little DotA Background

In year 2004, the latest version was the 5.84. It was extremely buggy and my first hero was Drow Ranger vs. my cousin’s Medusa. I could recognize all my own confusions back then by looking at some of my friends play now. I was a noob (newbie) and my brother’s suggestion to use frost arrow for higher damage did not help either. I lost of course, which was not much of a surprise as not many get to enjoy the taste of winning in their first Dota match.

I can still remember being jeered as a noob and was attacked repeatedly in a 5 v 5 match the next day. It was then I told them, “Instead of insulting me, why don’t you teach me how to play?”. A few taught me but many left the game.

After a week of training, I was asked to play 1 v 5 with my cousins. At that time my favourite hero was Sand King, I owned all of them but sadly I lost the game because I did not push early enough.

That week alone created a chain reaction that triggered all my interest in the game. I daresay that I am extremely good at the game, but not the best though, never once did I enter any DotA competitions before. This is probably due to my fear of the intense tournament pressures.

Because I am so good and yet I am still not in any competitions; these contributes to the lack of success within me. However, by writing guides that reflects all my experience and knowledge in Dota, (hopefully) it can bring some enlightenment to current newbies that are capable of or planning to play in tournaments.

The guide that I am writing will be a Dota Hero Guide; it will lay out some examples on how to use the hero like how I have been using it for the past 6 years. My guide might not be perfect, but if you think it is far from what you expected and happen to know a more effective way of using the hero, do share it with me.

You will also realize that most of my guides focus on self-development and not much on team strategy. Many people will argue that team strategy is more important than self-development. However, I believe that if you want to contribute to a team strategy, you must first develop individually in order to contribute. If you can handle yourself well, you will be able to adapt into any team strategies thrown onto you.

If you are currently a WCG tournament player, I presume that you have very little to learn on an individual level from the game of DotA. However, if you’re still new to the game and would love to seek more knowledge at a pro level, prepare yourself for a real treat.

By the way, I can’t believe my editor protested at the amount of articles I will be writing about in the next few months.