Lineups utilising pudge

-When do you pick him
-When do you not pick him
-Mid mathups
-Friends and Foes



guys can i get some help?

Heres an opinion. If you are in pubs, go reck face

And if u r pro, pls dont ask this question. Its of no use. Pudge is not even a situational pick imo. He is simply someguy whose job is done by other heroes better than he does.
Take brewmaster for example. He takes out the whole team in terms of crowd control. You just cant stop the panda wreaking havoc and spreading chaos. On the other hand pudge is hard countered by wards and a well coordinated team. He will never get those kills to become fat like hell.

I grant you that dismember and hook go through bkb but they are single target disables that require you to hook. Further it means that pudge is also disabled with the enemy because of channeling. Pudge diesnt build a bkb so ulti can be disrupted and if the enemy wasn'their carry then u just lost the game.
Take a bane for example, this guy with aghanims cannot be attacked upon, his stun goes thru bkb and still burns mana. He also has the power to disable another person and take away the enemy carries attack damage.
. How about disruptor? He catches enemy in one wrong spot, the poor guy is reckt. They tp to tower, glimpse back to base son! He provides better lane presence with his q as harass and has one heck of an ulti. Talk about rosh fights he will get rampage.

In contrast a pudge thrives on chaos on uncoordinated team, lack of vision, lack of counterganks and expects the eney to flee away while he is just ulting on a friend, the time he is most vulnerable.

I will go so far to say that evem a spectre can lane against him mid. And if the guy is ranged, GG.

In competitive the point of a solo mid is not to gank the sidelanes, the point of a solo mid is to have good teamfight presence in the early-mid game in order to push down some towers.

In competitive people play pushers and initiators mid, not gankers. That's why you see a ton of Brewmaster, Razor, Death Prophet, Lycan etc. Now you even see a lot of Venomancer mid. And that's why Invoker mid always goes for the Furion build with Necronomicon and not for Euls.

The only thing that Pudge does well is snowball by ganking the sidelanes, however there is no such thing in competitive. He will just get ganked by roaming supports and feed first blood before the game even starts and be useless when the enemy team gets 9-minute mek and starts 5-mannning.

So yeah, for the mid lane you need good early/mid game fighting heroes, and late game scaling is always good as well in the current patch. No snowballing gankers allowed : Mids are not gankers, actually most of the time they are the ones getting ganked.

The meta is anti-fun :C

I think, contrary to popular belief, the meta is fun and discourages skill. Dota is now being marketed to masses. Tuere is this biggest joindota event starting from January to November which will be bigger than the international.

Skills are now guaged on the parameter of mistakes rather than precision point teamfights. carries are being watered down so at the end we get different heroes with same capability but different approaches. All you can see from this comeback dota, one mistake and a turnaround is imminent. You can take two things with this. The devs dont want predecided matches and the other that they want topsy turvy games so that it boils down to the very end of the match to decide who is the winner. That my friends, makes for an engrossing viewing and enraptures the veiwers.
On player front, they are simplifying hero operations and interaction. You can see that with earth spirit rework. I wont be surprised when the day comes they make meepo playable for the masses or of pudge hooks are made point target. Such works lie way ahead but i can ponder over them.

Ah, and one more thing. Expect more hero releases with ultis that are OP on paper.

okay guys... can we get on the topic?

Lineups utilising pudge?

There are none.
He makes non sense in well coordinated teams, imo.

Well I think they should make his hook longer at low levels and he probably can fit somewhere like a roamer or in some dangerous dual-lane. Like would his hook be long enough he could easily roamnt the map or just stand behing the trees frightening the opposition, but sorry, enjoy your 0.00000001 mm hook scrub.

While I would agree with a lot of the comments, especially about pro-level plays, Pudge can still be an effective hero in the right line ups.

For me, he's massively more reliable when your team has setup stuns = easy hooks. Even a good slow can go a long way. If your Pudge can frequently be hooking, he can put the fear of god into the opposition, and start snowballing.

I think he also brings some good things even late in the game - Meat Hook is such a strong almost "reverse-initiation" ability, the only thing like it really is Blink Dagger Skewer, which is much more risky, or Nether Swap, which is basically suicide here. Being able to drag one enemy hero into the middle of your team and disable them can quickly make it 5v4.

I have to agree with some of the comments though - he's a really weak 1v1 hero against most opponents (ones without a slow/stun/escape he can potentially kill - e.g. Tinker or Shadow Fiend), but is level dependent enough to really need a solo slot.

However, be aware, the meta can change, heroes can find new roles, and there are things he can do to counter his "ez fix" counters - wards can be removed with sentries, or avoided with Smoke of Deceit. A missing Pudge is still a threat.

Sando, could you lists few heroes that pudge can fight in mid?