Pugna: What is he?

For several versions, I've been wondering what is Pugna's role, since he was one of my favorite heroes to play in Dota 1. He doesn't seem to snugly fit into any of the five roles.
He doesn't scale well enough into late game to be an ideal carry because his damage skills are static, and also because the damage he gets from int doesn't scale at all because Life drain is channeling, but he can be quite an early pusher with secure farm, still a massive gamble.
He is rather fragile to be a solo mid without the snowball or carry potential for it, and he doesn't use Bottle that well, but he does have decent solo vs solo laning presence.
He can be a support due to the life drain change, but he's quite item and level dependent.

With the newest Pugna guide that came out, suggesting him as an offlane solo, and the experiments of (not me this time but..) my friend, Offlane Pugna is a possible new "standard" way to play him? 330 movespeed is very high, and he actually goes well with Tranquil Boots because Life Drain will be your primary source of mana restoration, which will be easy when you're at full health. However, unlike Enchantress, who has found a place in the offlane, he's not that great at trading blows with supports or sustaining himself until he gets to level 6, and he's still quite fragile to being killed. I tried it out in a game, with moderate success, in that I died a bunch of times in lane, but still contributed to the ganking phase, but the game was not scored, so I don't have a dotabuff link.

The other role that seems to have been getting expansion is the support Pugna role, given how he can heal people with his life drain, and that his other spells are not as mana intensive, so he can still contribute without too much farm. Glimmer Cape gives him a good, cheap, core item to protect an ally and then heal them, or protect himself so he can life drain without any real risk, since it can be cast while he channels.

Or alternatively, some view him only as a pickup for his Nether Ward, since he's such a good Mage killer, and that you pick him only as a counter, and you will force him into whatever role is necessary as long as you get the nether ward. That is a possible way to look at him too.

What do you think? What is Pugna's main role to you?

Go miderino, spam Nether Blasterino, farm creeperino, junglerino, occasional enemy miderino, get fasterino Mekansmino, get your teamerino togetherino and push some towerino, get all Tier 2rino before minute 20ino...

Still lose because you've got 4 ******s in team and can't even solo kill because skeletons can't into disabling(cry evritiem when I play Clinkz). I dunno how can he be viewed as an offlane with his garbage HP, though support players are often ******ed enough to leave a carry laning solo against something like that and go "help their team"(recently I've been literally left solo by my support as Riki against Viper(and then they wonder why enemy team has 2 mids in it xD)), so in that cases this will work ofc but you cant know for sure if enemy support is stupid or not.

You can offlane with anything in pubs. But besides this Pugna has nothing that makes him an offlaner. He has no way to trade hits with supports, so no way to avoid getting zoned out. Besides he's really a free kill, ultra squishy hero with no escape.

He's good in the safe lane in competitive because in a pushing lineup it doesn't matter that your safelaner is not a proper carry. You're aiming for the <30 minute GG anyways, so anything that makes your 5-man stronger in the mid game is good to take. In solo queue pubs...never in ten thousand years.

He's a good solo mid in pushing lineups. But then it kind of requires you to have a coordinated team to 5-man at the 10 minute mark, again, bad in solo queue, but good in coordinated teams. However a mid Pugna *can* rush an early Blink Dagger and actually focus on hero kills as much as pushing, so it's still viable to go play mid Pugna in uncoordinated games. Kind of the same thing as mid Dragon Knight, just like DK, Pugna can be built either as a ganker or as a pusher so you can carry your team through the mid-game even if they have no idea what they're doing.

He *can* be a viable support, but that's mainly because of Nether Ward and Decrepify. Actually the heal from Life Drain is much better on a core Pugna, because it requires the hero to have lots of mana regen to sustain it, and preferably an aghs as well.
Support Pugna is extremely situational because you need
1) A laning partner with high nuke damage to take advantage of Decrepify in lane (e.g Shadow Fiend, Gyrocopter, Morphling)...
2) Enemy heroes having high mana costs for Nether Ward to be useful. So support Pugna is mostly good as a counterpick because of the ward.
If you fall behind with Pugna he's kind of a walking ward so better make sure that the skill is game-winning.

TLDR : Legit solo mid, extremely situational support, and safe lane only viable in tryhard push strats in coordinated 5-stacks.
And as much an offlaner as Crystal Maiden is. But then, you can win games with offlane CM xD

I'm convinced that he's going to become a fully fledged support within a patch or two, because that's the direct the Frog is pushing.

Right now, he's in a weird place. Because push isn't back enough for him to be a really viable 1 position, and I think the mid lane is still a little hostile for him, so he kinda gets forced into a similar role to support Jakiro - A support who lets you pressure towers more easily, as well as some team-fight damage. He's worse in lane than Jakiro, but balances it out by being a more aggresive tower pusher.

With Alchemist being so popular however, I expect some kind of resurgance, because being able to get early Guardian Greaves + Ag's is really damn scary on the hero in any position. Not to mention the gradual resurgance of push/split push, and the fact he synergises with Alch's nominal timing window means it's all good.

Or maybe like offlane with a Lich. Since dual lanes are becoming a big thing as well.

I don't know, I think there's a lot of room to experiment with the hero and find a place.

He's kind of a niche hero whatever his role, since to pick Pugna you not only need to have the right team (pushing-oriented, magic damage oriented), and you need to be playing *against* the right team (anything that relies on magic since Pugna is the real Anti-mage in dota, and better also without long range stuns, silences or counterpush).

IMO the question is more "when is Pugna a good pick in pubs outside of 5-stack full push tryharding" than "what is his role". He can fit several roles so I don't really think his role is a problem, you can always find a decent role for him...the real question is the kind of games where he's actually good.

You can try dual offlane with Keeper of the Light for maximum Nether Blast spam. (and Decrepify sets up Illuminate pretty well).

I'd agree he's in a weird place right now, no solid role. Early push is still kind of off the table, so he doesn't make much sense as a #1 unless the opposition is ridiculously greedy, and your team is willing to push hard.

Mid #2...kind of. He's a reasonable laner, benefits a lot from fast levels and jungle farm. Drops off pretty hard though compared to a lot of mids. Could work with a transistioning #4 like WK or Gyro maybe.

Greedy support #4...kind of. He really needs quite a lot of farm and levels to be reasonably effective, so you need to look at synergising with nukers, and doing a lot of stacking/clearing camps.

I'd agree Nether Ward is the big draw for me - I'll play him as a #4 if the opposition rely on a lot of squishies with expensive abilities - e.g. Lich, Skywrath Mage, Enigma etc. Funny watching them melt themselves.

you can just play him safelane if you get a good pushing team, no problem at all.
mid also fine.
in a pushing aggro tri as a farmer while meanwhile your solo safe gets a bit more is also strong.

or if your old C9 crazy you go play him support.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1845375874

More of a situational utility support, somewhere between Ancient Apparition or Shadow Demon.

Spells+slow damage buff if running as safe tri-lane position or countering hero that relies on physical attacks/nukes. (Whacks Late game Autocaster like Outworld Devourer pretty hard in teamfights).