Everything Can Work: Support Pugna
Image by Matt Gretton
Core Pugna is currently one of the strongest heroes in pubs: his win rate in the Divine+ bracket is approaching 53% this month. At the same time, his popularity is still pretty low, indicating that while the hero might be strong, he does require a lot of knowledge to realize correctly.
The hero wins most of his games from a core position. Despite the nerfs to Decrepify cast range, Nether Blast is still a great tool for guaranteeing the last hit on a ranged creep in the middle lane, while Decrepify still works in melee matchups. We are not going to talk about core Pugna, however. Instead, we are discussing the hero as a position four support in the current meta.
Scaling Supports
We’ve already touched on the topic of slower meta in one of our previous blog posts and highlighted how scaling supports are a priority right now. Well, Pugna is one of the better scaling supports in the game for multiple reasons.
Decrepify is an amazing save in the later portions of the game: the game no longer solely revolves around physical damage in 30+ minute matches, but auto-attacks are a primary source of teams’ DPS at this point in the game nonetheless and Pugna makes sure at least one of your teammates can survive through initial disables.
Nether Ward also scales incredibly well: the mana loss on it works well against most heroes, while the damage aspect should not be underestimated either. Even when the enemy cores get their BKBs, you can guarantee some extra damage on enemy supports. Heroes like Skywrath Mage, Crystal Maiden, and Lion all suffer greatly from it.
Finally, there is Life Drain, which works wonders as a healing spell. It has a respectable cast range and a very low cooldown, which can allow a smartly positioned Pugna to heal and save her ally, then replenish his own resources by draining an enemy, and then go for yet another heal. This heal also scales pretty well, since armor and magic resistance on heroes tends to increase over time.
Lane Dominance
Right now Pugna is often played as a position three offlaner: the hero still gets farm priority and some experience, while being annoying to the enemy core through Decrepify. As a position four hero Pugna can be as annoying, perhaps even more so.
Decrepify can not only mess with the enemy's last hits, but can also be used to great effect when contesting creep pulls. Since teams can no longer aggro the waves as easily as they did in the previous patch, at least until minute five, pulls are incredibly important for lane control. Pugna excels at it, by being able to make an enemy hero untargetable by auto-attacks, hence preventing any pulls by the enemy support or ensuring his own pulls work as intended.
Add to it the ability to guarantee the last hit on a ranged creep, some chip damage here and there through Nether Blast, high movement speed and an option to slowly drain mana from the opponents and you get a hero that works wonders in a lot of different matchups and can be picked relatively early without fearing the consequences.
Itemization for scaling
Players are often critical of support players who do not build save items, but Pugna is an exception since the hero already has two skills that can be used as saves in his arsenal. Because of that, typical Glimmer Capes and Force Staffs should usually be skipped in favor of Aether Lens, at least as the starting item.
The Lens massively increases Pugna’s ability to heal his allies and then replenish his own HP. It also helps when you need to use Decrepify on your teammate, since the cast range nerfs were pretty brutal. Finally, it allows you to position your Nether Ward better, sometimes providing options that would be impossible otherwise, such as placing the Nether Ward deep into the treeline.
There is also an argument to be made about early Tranquil Boots, maybe even multiples of those, but we would definitely advise against the latter option. Disassembled Arcane Boots into Aether Lens, with Tranquils after that, seems like a better idea in most games. Pugna is already quite speedy and the extra regen is definitely nice, but it most likely won’t work in a fight, unless you have perfect positioning or a way to increase your own cast range.
Perhaps you could also try to make Holy Locket work on Pugna, but once again, we would advise against it and going for more conventional save items after Aether Lens is generally preferable. Alternatively, you could go for aura items or some extra disables, but you will have to use your own judgement for your particular games: in Dota your itemization should always be flexible.
Closing Thoughts
Pugna is one of the most interesting heroes in the game and one that requires a lot of understanding. This might not be as pronounced when the hero is played as a core, but as a support your playstyle will feel very similar to Oracle, who is notoriously known for being one of the hardest heroes to master.
Unlike Oracle, however, Pugna is much stronger in lane, can provide more damage and has the ability to push towers and outpush the creeps. We feel the hero fits better into a less coordinated pub environment and recommend everyone interested to give this character a try.
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in other news, holy locket doesnt actually work, if you test it in demo mode.
I'd like to get better with Pugna, I've seen him played a lot as support these past few weeks in pro games and he's impressively annoying. ...I just tend to feed a lot with squishy heroes, because I'm such a warding bro.
"Unlike Oracle, however, Pugna is much stronger in lane, can provide more damage"
Oracle could kill anyone just at level 3 with 3 second nuke and undodgeable root and on top of that provide a lane sustain
On the other hand, Support pugna is more of "Someone picked mid TA so ill just swap" kind of situation. Also stronger as counter pick than an actual pick it self.
Pugna can never be a core. He is simply too squishy with short cast ranges. Aether lens is definitely a must, and after that most go for an agh. Veil of discord, once a great item, has been nerfed to only provide extra magical damage. A force staff would always be useful in almost any situation.
Pugna IS played as a core most of the time in high MMR, and Aghs is less valuable ever since ult CD got reduced from 22 to 7.
Something not mentioned in the article is that as a support you can go euls first item instead of aether first item - as a support, you might have to if there are enemies like Kunkka or Spirit Breaker that you need to protect yourself from.
two big ommissions/errors - as above statede holy locket is 'broken' for life drain, secondly pugnas ulti can give mana, soo many games i have to baby ppl about how the ulti work, early tranquils (especially when you get a mango tree drop.) in close to 10-14 seconds you can give a core about 1000 mana and then top yourself up to full HP also if done with efficiency *cores full HP and not taking any 2hp or so damage from lane creep or neutrals* - the core only needs to be still responsive for 5 seconds usually is enough.
I agree with most of the stuff - however rushing Aether lens isnt a good idea most of the games, before tranqs atleast
Clarities got buffed recently, and are enough to sustain mana early as a support. Tranqs regen can be indirectly shared thru Life Drain - and Life Drain gives mana too if the ally reaches 100% hp. Tranqs stack completely, 3 tranqs = 60 straight hp regen, can succ allies in fight while not dying yourself.
Wasn't support pugna already a thing in competitive? OG has been running that since 7.26 paired with a hard carry like spectre. You get tranquils aether lens and lots of hp (usually bracers) and your role during team fight is to just plant nether ward, then stand far away to decrep and / or life drain ur ally. It was successful enough on OG that some teams would first ban pugna against them
I play Pugna all the time, have 64% winrate on it. The best position for Pugna (except mid) is 4, with not greedy 3 in duo on lane. Or 3 pos with some fat 4 with me like Pudge.
The main problem is that Pugna is really afraid of stan and mute. On pos 3-4 you can't really be sure that the opposite team wont pick some toxic for Pugna heroes, like Drow Ranger with silence, bane or ogre magi with a lot of control.
On the other hand, if enemies have no effective control (we dont afraid of control like Frostbite on CM), Pugna can win solo, with no resistance.
About laning - Pugna becomes really annoying on level 4, and on level 6 you MUST do 2-3 kills on lane or mid.
Best way to play 4-3 pos Pugna - just buy Lense, (keen optic and Telescope - very good), Aghanim, Kaya/Sange, Tarrasque and tranguile boots - with this built you can stay in battle forever, deal A LOT of damage and extremely good save your teammates (with Tarrasgue you can be a Fountain to your boyz in the middle of fight)
BTW it's great, that Pugna is underrated. It allows players like me to abuse this hero, and the other team just dont know what to do with me, lol.
I tried the multiple tranquil boots + aether build a couple times, I can tell playing it as a utility support you'll want to build other items after your second tranquils. Filling up the inventory with it just sounds like overkill.
Your TI9 predict sucks