Pudge

Pudge 25 + 3.2 14 + 1.5 14 + 1.5
	Grants the following bonuses per point of attribute:
	+22HP and +0.1HP regeneration; +1 main attack damage
	+0.17 armor and 1 attack speed
	+12MP and +0.05MP regeneration; +0.1% base magic resistance ;
L0	Base Hero Values
L1	⤷ + Base Attributes
L15	⤷ + Attribute Gain
L25	⤷ + 6 levels of Attribute Bonus
L30	⤷ + 7 levels of Attribute Bonus
	All values shown are without talent bonuses.
Attack Animation	0.5 + 1.17
Gib Type	Default
Internal	Not Provided

Pudge the Butcher is a melee strength hero feared for his incredible gank prowess. Though he may not look like it, he is one of the strongest solo-killing gankers in the entire game, with one combo of his three active abilities proving more than sufficient to kill fragile enemy heroes in the early and midgame. His signature ability, Meat Hook, which requires intuition, precision, and good timing to land, is thrown out in a straight line a long distance away. If it snags a unit, it will drag it back to Pudge, dealing enormous damage to it if it was an enemy. It thus serves as a powerful ganking and initation tool, and also has the utility of being able to save an endangered ally. He can then follow up with his ultimate, Dismember, which deals further damage to the target over a few seconds, as well as disabling it. During this period, he can toggle on his Rot to damage his enemy further while hurting himself as well, and use it to slow and finish off the hero if he or she survived the initial assault. To supplement his killing power is Flesh Heap, which provides him some magic resistance to reduce the damage he takes from Rot as well as from other enemy spells. The scariest aspect of Flesh Heap though is that it provides him permanent Strength with every kill that he participates in, giving him the potential to permanently increase his vitality (and physical damage) to monolithic proportions, thereby becoming a formidable tank.

Bio

Pudge, the Butcher

▶️ "When I'm through with these vermin, They'll be fit for a pie!"

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:

[[Voice actors#|]] (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 abilities 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 abilities, 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

▶️QT

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Ability
N/A

Affects
Units

Damage
Pure

Launches a bloody hook toward 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.

Cast Animation: +

Cast Range: 1000/1100/1200/1300

Max Travel Distance: 1000/1100/1200/1300

Hook Search Radius: 100

Damage: 90/180/270/360

14/13/12/11

110/120/130/140

The Butcher's hook is a symbolic nightmare, its curved blade a frightening reminder of his slaughterous intent.

The Meat Hook travels at a speed of 1600.

The hook can hit units up to 1100/1200/1300/1400 range away (1000/1100/1200/1300 travel distance + 100 search radius).

Fully affects invisible units. Can also hit and drag invulnerable units, but won't damage them.

The search radius is centered around the hook's tip. Getting close to other parts of the hook has no effect.

Can only affects units while extending. Cannot affect any unit while retracting.

Cannot hit buildings, wards, couriers, ancient creeps, Roshan, siege creeps, Warlock's Golem, Primal Split spirits and hidden units.

The hook flies through impassable terrain and trees. It also can drag units over them.

Hooked enemies are fully disabled for the entire pull duration. However, spell immune or invulnerable enemies are not disabled, and can attack, turn and cast spells or items.
- Allies are never disabled. They also can freely act while being pulled by the hook.

Pudge is disabled during the cast backswing of Meat Hook.

Hooking a unit onto impassable terrain gives the unit free pathing for 5 seconds.

When the hook hits a unit, it provides 500 radius flying vision at the unit's location upon hit for 4 seconds.

Rot

▶️WR

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Ability
N/A

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Magical

A toxic cloud that deals intense damage and slows movement--harming not only enemy units but Pudge himself.

Cast Animation: +

Radius: 250

Damage per Second: 35/60/85/110

Move Speed Slow: 20%/22%/24%/26%

A foul odor precedes a toxic, choking gas, emanating from the Butcher's putrid, ever-swelling mass.

Rot does not interrupt Pudge's channeling spells upon toggling.

The damage to self is magical aswell, so it can be blocked with spell immunity. It also is lethal, so Pudge can deny himself with this ability.

This allows most cancelable consumables to persist through the first 3 levels of Rot, since its damage is too low to cancel them.

The area damage does not depend on the self afflicted damage. The area damage is still applied even when the damage on Pudge himself is blocked.

The slow is provided by an aura. This aura debuff lingers for 0.5 seconds, even if rot is toggled off.

Rot deals 7/12/17/22 damage in 0.2 second intervals. The time intervals are set for the whole game when Rot gets toggled the first time.

Every 0.2 seconds, Rot checks if Pudge has Rot active, and if that is the case, Pudge and all enemies which have the slow debuff from Pudge are damaged. Therefore:
- It is possible to rapidly toggle Rot on and off several times to drastically reduce damage dealt/taken while still maintaining the slow.
- Enemies that get out of range can still can get hit by 2 to 3 damage instances, as long as Pudge has Rot active.

Silencing or disabling Pudge does not turn Rot off, not even when hidden.

Flesh Heap

EF

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Ability
N/A

Affects
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 leveled, which then become active.

Enemy Death Radius: 450

Magic Resistance Bonus: 6%/8%/10%/12%

Strength Bonus per Death: 1/1.5/2/2.5

The Butcher gives new meaning to the words ‘meat shield.’

The magic resistance stacks multiplicatively with other sources of magic resistance.

Increases Pudge's total base magic resistance to 29.5%/31%/32.5%/34%.

Only gains stacks from kills made with Meat Hook or when an enemy hero dies within the radius.

Pudge does not gain stacks if an enemy hero denies themself.

Does not gain stacks by killing heroes with other sources outside the radius (e.g. with Urn of Shadows, Shiva's Guard, etc.).

Each Stack effectively grants Pudge 19/28.5/38/47.5 health, 0.03/0.045/0.06/0.075 health regeneration and 1/1.5/2/2.5 attack damage.

The number of stacks and amount of strength gained can be seen on the status buff icon.

Upon leveling Flesh Heap, all stacks adapt to its new level.

Upon gaining a stack, a red "+1" appears above Pudge's head, indicating that he gained a stack.

Dismember

▶️RD

128x128px

Ability
N/A

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Magical

Pudge chows down on an enemy unit, disabling it and dealing damage over time. Lasts 3 seconds on Heroes, 6 seconds on creeps.

Cast Animation: +

Cast Range: 160

Hero Max Channel Time: 3

Non-Hero Max Channel Time: 6

Damage per second: 75/125/175

Own Strength as Damage: 0% (100%*)

30

100/130/170

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade:

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!’

Dismember fully disables the target as long as it's channeled.

Checks for invisibility on the target once upon cast. If it is invisible (this includes fade time), it will also provide True Sight over it.

However, since Lua error in Module:Ability_ID at line 61: Could not find Cargo data for "Permanent Invisibility"., Moonlight Shadow and Spin Web do not have fade time, but have fade delay, they are not registered as invisible units upon cast, so Dismember will not grant True Sight over them.

Deals damage in 1 second intervals, starting immediatly upon cast, resulting in up to 3 (6 against non-heroes) damage instances.

Can deal up to 225/375/525 (450/750/1050 to non-heroes) (+ 300% of Pudge's strength when having Aghanim's Scepter) damage to the target (before reductions).

Dismember cancels almost every position changing effect upon cast.

The heal added by Aghanim's Scepter is independent of the actual dealt damage. It will always heal for 75/125/175 + 100% of Pudge's strength per interval.

Can heal up to 225/375/525 (450/750/1050 from non-heroes) (+ 300% of Pudge's strength when having Aghanim's Scepter) health when fully channeled.

Treats Lone Druid's Spirit Bear, Visage's Familiars, Warlock's Golem and the Primal Split spirits as heroes and ancient creeps and Roshan as creeps.

Pudge's Dismember responses are global and audible to everyone, even through the Fog of War.

Recommended items

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Equipment

Pudge/equipment

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 AoE initiation ability (Echo Slam, Epicenter, Requiem of Souls, Sanity's Eclipse etc.), it's usually better to avoid hooking at all to start teamfight, lest 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 abilities, 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 can be bought on Pudge. If you hook a unit onto an unpathable ledge, the unit gains free pathing for 5 seconds.
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.
Keep in mind that the range on Flesh Heap is relatively small. However, you will still gain a charge by killing a foe out of range if the final blow is delivered by Meat Hook (i.e. with Meat Hook damage). This is the only exception to the Flesh Heap range restriction, as you will not gain charges by killing enemies out of range with others methods, such as with Urn of Shadows or Dagon. Therefore, you should use these methods in last resort only, when impossible to last hit an escaping enemy with Meat Hook (because of mana or creeps blocking the path for example).
Due to Pudge's gank-heavy playstyle, an Urn of Shadows is useful for providing health regeneration.
A Black King Bar is also a frequent item choice, as it can prevent enemies from interrupting Dismember channeling, as well as preventing self-damage from Rot.
Use Rot after casting Meat Hook if there is an enemy Rubick, as he can use the Hook against your team, who may not expect to be hooked at all.

Trivia

Pudge's line upon landing a hook on an enemy ▶️ ▶️ ▶️ "Get over here!" is a reference to the character Scorpion from the Mortal Kombat franchise, who also has a hook ability which pulls his enemy towards him. He uses the same line upon hitting his enemy with it.
Pudge's line ▶️ "Keep calm and carrion!" is a play on the World War 2 British Propaganda phrase "Keep calm and carry on".
Most of Pudge's Dismember cast lines (▶️ "Fresh meat!") are a reference to The Butcher from Diablo, a title from Blizzard Entertainment, who also says ▶️ "Fresh Meat" as the player meets it the first time.^[1]
- In DotA1, the exact same sound is used by Pudge upon casting Dismember.

Update history

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Balance changelog

Template:Update History

Replaced abilities

Flesh Heap (pre 6.64)

EF

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Ability
N/A

Affects
Self

Pudge is made of innumerable rotting corpses, giving him extra protection against spells as well as the ability to add more to his bulk.

Magic Resistance Bonus: 4%/8%/12%/16%

Strength Bonus per Hero Kill: 0.9/1.2/1.5/1.8

Strength Bonus per Non-Hero Kill: 0.03/0.06/0.09/0.12

The Butcher gives new meaning to the words ‘meat shield.’

This ability got reworked in the 6.64 gameplay patch.

This ability is not retroactive. This means the strength bonus will not adapt to the spell's level upon leveling it up and kills made before learning it don't give strength.

The magic resistance stacks multiplicatively with other sources of magic resistance.

Increases Pudge's total base magic resistance to 28%/31%/34%/37%.

Only gains strength from kills made by Pudge, including denying allied units.

Each hero kill effectively grants Pudge 17.1/28.5/38/34.2 health, 0.27/0.036/0.045/0.054 health regeneration and 0.9/1.2/1.5/1.8 attack damage.

Each non-hero kill effectively grants pudge 0.57/1.14/1.71/2.28 health, 0.0009/0.0018/0.0027/0.0036 health regeneration and 0.03/0.06/0.09/0.12 attack damage.