Dem Puckers

So after seeing S4 play Puck in Starladder, I was inspired to play the deformed butterfly midget again. I'm completely out of practice, but I managed to beat mid against QoP (I can't beat a competent Shadow Fiend yet, so I'm gonna have to work on that), and despite some extremely sloppy plays on my part, I've managed to win the few games I've played thanks to my friends.


Though I am a little out of tune with the hero, with enough practice I believe I can turn it into a pretty strong mid that can take on nearly all heroes in the pool. The buff to his early Illusory Orb really does wonders for Puck and makes it more likely for him to snowball.


So what do you all think? Is puck a really strong hero in this meta, or is the notion merely a ruse spread by Alliance fanstraights?

SO STRONG.

Like literally so strong.

Viable.

Meta.

Pucking insane.

I don't think the hero is especially strong, I just think Alliance know how to work around it, and play-making mids fit the entire set-up of the team. When your offlaner is essentially your one position, it's not that shocking to see a play-making mid over more conventional cores.

The fact that s4 knows the hero as well as basically anyone is just another factor that makes it super good.

The buffs Puck got didn't really change that much? Like his lane got better because the hard opponents faded out, but he still has all the same issues outside the lane.

I agree with your points. With the mana cost reduction on Illusory Orb and the absence of many counter-picks, Puck's early game just got easier. I'd argue that the early game is the most crucial phase for Puck, because a good Blink Dagger timing almost certainly determines whether he'll snowball or feed, so making his early game stronger pretty much improves his mid game as well, so he can afford items to cover his weaknesses against silences and instant stuns.

HE IS GREAT OKAY

Actually he can win most if not all mid match ups and honestly Phase Shift is pretty insane in the extremely nuke heavy, one shot right click meta.

He does fall off in the late game though, and Glimmer Cape really hit him hard. If yo have a late game carry with a BKB he isn't gonna do great. Best comboed with a Doom I think to counter this.

Puck is actually a pretty good gem carrier, I think he sticks around enough to make use of it.

Pick Puck (there I some joke here hidden somewhere)
Go mid
Win lane
Get Blink
Gank Folks
Get aghs
Win game
Type in all chat: Puck You

Piss out!

I'm not sure Puck even got buffed as a mid hero this patch. I think the orb change is just a tradeoff for the heavy Bottle nerfs. Mid Puck maxes orb anyways, sure it looks like he can spam orb more, but then rune control is less important because bottle gives less HP and mana, and bottlecrowing is all but dead. I honestly think it balances out. Add to this the fact that there's an outworld devourer or a Templar Assassin mid in every other game these days and they pretty much crush Puck.

The big change to Puck IMO is the fact that Illusory Orb is now a value point. Skilling it only increases the damage, but if you only want the Blink part of the effect, you still get it at level 1. This means that you can change the skill build and go 1/4/2 or even 1/4/3, and be that evasive laning hero who's constantly harassing while being impossible to catch. You don't need a dagger to make use of high level Phase Shift BTW, only using it with orb is already super strong.

So yeah 1/4/2 Puck FTW, offlane Puck with Phase Boots FTW because offlane Puck doesn't use orb to farm, maybe even support Puck because the hero is way less level-dependent and can trade hits really well with e.g a 1/2/1 build...but mid Puck is still the same really.

The I always find hard about Puck is justifying him over QoP. Because they are pretty similar heroes; Strong mid-laners whose in game job is to snowball and disrupt other lanes to create space.

The issue is, QoP for the most part does it better. She's a little worse in the lane match-ups (Well, in ranged ones. She's much better against Melee's), but she's better at solo killing, brings way more damage, and actually scales well because of her attack animation and cooldowns.

Sure, Puck brings more control than QoP, but he farms more slowly, he's more farm dependent early on, he's a little worse at farming, squishier and he has awful scaling unless he gets super far ahead. Sure Puck can initate as well, but if you wanted a good initating mid Batrider is miles better.

In a pub enviroment I'd almost always favor QoP over Puck unless I absolutely need a mid who brings some level of control.

Thanks for the insight, I'll be sure to take this into consideration when playing in the dank depths of pubs. I'll probably still find myself choosing Puck over Queen of Pain more often when playing with friends because I have more fun playing Puck than QoP (probably because I've already spammed the hell out of QoP in the past).