Puck/Counters

Bad against...

 * Nyx Assassin can take advantage of every one of Puck's weaknesses. His entire skill set is very effective in countering Puck.
 * Because is such a slow moving projectile, Nyx Assassin can simply walk into the orb and activate, stunning Puck and setting up an easy . This can be circumvented by using  while the orb is traveling, however, that means that Puck cannot use Phase Shift to dodge any other skill nor use it to safely blink away from a fight.
 * Puck is an intelligence hero that likes to build intelligence items such as, , and . This makes that much more deadly against Puck.
 * An ill-timed can easily set himself up to be stunned by.
 * Pucks low base armor and below average agility gain means he is always susceptible to.


 * None of Puck's abilities have any damage-over-time components, meaning that is a valuable form of defense against Puck's lane harassment.
 * deals pure damage and spills over instantly. Puck cannot reliably dodge the damage with.


 * A Lycan with can always run down Puck and kill him very quickly due to his low armor. It is important to abuse as many cliffs and trees as possible to escape from a Lycan.


 * Unless Puck is facing the direction he wants to blink while in, the and  combo consistently ticks many times over several seconds, making it very difficult to use  towards other direction. Puck's slow turning rate makes this even worse.


 * 's silence is almost completely worthless against Wraith King, due to him having only 1 active ability.
 * Wraith King's only active ability,, is strong against Puck if it hits, because it applies a damage over time on top of stunning and doing impact damage, disabling Puck for a while, and Blink Dagger for even longer. It is very important to avoid getting hit by this spell when playing against Wraith King.


 * Hard lockdown such as can end a Puck's life quick. A puck stunned for longer than 3 seconds usually ends up dead.
 * As the type of hero that spams spells, counters Puck very effectively. Phase Shift is Puck's main survivable ability, and Time Dilation effectively triples its cooldown.
 * If not silenced, can easily undo the damage dealt by Illusory Orb, Dream Coil and Dagon. Furthermore, the invulnerability granted by Time Walk allows Faceless Void to safely break the Dream Coil link without getting damaged and stunned by it.

Others

 * and : and  can be thrown wherever Puck used Phase Shift, making Puck an easy target if they don't have Blink Dagger or is on cooldown. Puck is also very susceptible to Riki's high attack damage when attacking from the back. Glimpse also prevents Puck form escaping.
 * : Arc Warden can place a wherever Puck used Phase Shift, ensuring it to hit. He can double this up with his .  is also an instant spell (and therefore unavoidable) with a heavy slow and damage over time, diabling Blink Dagger for a long time.
 * : Generally strong against every spell caster, Puck fully relies on their skill set and is barely a thread when silenced. does not only punish casting spells, it also disables Blink Dagger for a long time.
 * : Jakiro has 3 damage over time spells, 2 of which are from debuffs sticking on Puck and 1 cutting of an entire area, making it easy for him to disrupt blinks. is also strong against Puck, as he can cast it towards Puck durig Phase Shift, who then gets instasntly stunned once Phase Shift ends.
 * Heroes with spell immunity or pseudo-blinks which provide invulnerability:, , , , , ,  and  have spells which allow them to easily escape Dream Coil.
 * ,, , , : These heroes are too tanky for Puck to burst down. Also, all of them have spells which can deal with and shut Puck down reliably.

Items

 * None of Puck's spells pierce spell immunity except for Aghanim's Scepter upgraded Dream Coil, so is extremely effective at shutting down this hero.
 * A is also a good counter, as without the ability to Phase Shift, the hex duration is often more than enough time to kill Puck.
 * is also strong against Puck for the same reason as Scythe of Vyse. Also, heroes who usually build this item have decent or very strong attack damage, to which Puck is weak against due to the low armor throughout the entirty of the match.
 * Since Puck mainly survives by avoiding damage, and not by tanking, blocking or negating it, any source of instant damage is strong against Puck, making a decent counter as well.

Good against...

 * All of Puck's damaging spells deal AoE magic damage, which focuses on Terrorblade's low health pool and ignores his armor.
 * Puck's spells are also great at quickly clearing all of Terrorblade's illusions. Even a single Illusory Orb is enough to drop their health very low, allowing creeps, towers or allies to finish them off very quickly. Waning Rift and Illusory Orb together are usually enough to clear his illusions.
 * Waning Rift prevents Terrorblade from casting at low health.


 * While disallows Phase Shift from being cast, Puck can still use  normally
 * Puck has both, Waning Rift and Dream Coil available to stop the channel, regardless of whether or not Crystal Maiden has a Glimmer Cape, as both spells fully affect invisible units.


 * Mirana's spells are laid out to assassinate enemies. Puck can easily avoid the slow moving, and also can avoid with Phase Shift, since the meteors have a delay.
 * If Puck casts either Waning Rift or Dream Coil in the area, Mirana cannot away.


 * Sniper has no spell which shuts Puck down. He lacks a silence to prevent spell casting and a stun to disable, allowing Puck to act instantly against Sniper.
 * Sniper's main strategy is to attack his enemies from safe distance., combined with Blink Dagger makes it easy for Puck to get to Sniper. Due to his low health, he is also easily nuked down by Puck.
 * The status debuff placed by on its target makes it very easy to avoid it. Puck has 2 (3 when having dagger, 4 when having Eul's Scepter of Divinity) to disjoint or dodge the projectile, making it a bad spell for finishing of Puck.


 * Although Phoenix has many ways to disable Blink Daggers, the high cooldown of all of his spells makes them not as reliable for this though. Also, his spells cost him a lot of health to use, making it easy for him to get nuked down.
 * Waning Rift prevents Phoenix from using to refresh himself, giving Puck's team time to finish Phoenix off, or allow Puck to burst him down.
 * Dream Coil prevents Phoenix from using without consequences. Waning Rift and Dream Coil are also able to cancel his, which is his main source of damage in the late game.

Others

 * Low health spell casters:, , , , all rely heavily on their spells and are fragile heroes. They all also have avoidable spells, allowing Puck to get to them and quickly burst them down.
 * Mass summoning heroes:, and  are all able to mass-summon units, which Puck is able to clear with Illusory Orb and Waning Rift instantly, due to their summons having low health and no magic resistance.
 * Melee heroes that get kited easily have hard times dealing with Puck without any lock-down, as Puck is one of the most mobile heroes. Heroes like, , and  may have problems to get to Puck without proper initiation items. They also lack reliable lock-down, as their disables are easily avoidable for Puck, or are just a soft disable.

Works well with...

 * A Dream Coil initiation can keep multiple targets in AoE to lead into a Black Hole and Midnight Pulse combo, further leading to lock down and heavy damage initiation.
 * Vice versa, a good Black Hole allows Puck to hit multiple enemies more reliably with all its spells.


 * Invoker has many AoE spells which deal a lot of damage if the enemies stand within them. Dream Coil allows Invoker to hit multiple enemies reliably with his Chaos Meteor, EMP and many other AoE spells.
 * If an enemy decides to wait for Dream Coil to expire, Invoker can use Deafening Blast to force them out of the leash range and break the leash, triggering its stun and break damage. Especially when Puck has Aghanim's Scepter, this combo can disable an enemy for a very long duration.


 * Again, Dream Coil serves as a great setup. It prevents enemies from spreading to avoid Paralyzing Cask to jump between them. It also prevents enemies from escaping Witch Doctor's dealdly Death Ward. Especially when upgraded, this a very strong and potent combo.
 * Maledict is a great way to amplify burst damage dealt to enemies. Together with all of Pucks' nukes, Maledict can burst down even the tankier heroes.


 * Supernova usually has it difficult landing its disable and most of its damage on enemies. Dream Coil makes this possible. The coil also protects the Supernova, since enemies cannot walk up to it to destory it, because then the leash would break.
 * It also comboes well with Sun Ray, allowing Phoenix deal much more damage. It also allows Phoenix to apply all his other debuffs on multiple enemies.
 * Phoenix usually builds a Veil of Discord, an item Puck usually does not want to build, from which Puck benefits quite well.


 * Kunkka is a hero who benefits a lot from allied set ups. His Torrent and Ghostship have big delays and are easy to miss. Dream Coil allows Kunkka to reliably land his spells. It also makes it possible to hit more targets with Tidebringer.
 * If Puck does not have a blink yet, Kunkka can help out with X Marks the Spot, marking Puck, who then jaunts into enemies, uses Waning Rift and eventually Dream Coil, and then pull him back out with the Return sub-spell.

Others

 * Every hero that deals lots of AoE damage greatly benefits from a Dream Coil set up. Examples are, , , , and . Due to its long duration and large area and relatively low cooldown, Dream Coil counts as one of the best set-up spells.
 * Since Puck only deals burst damage, any hero that can amplify damage works well with Puck, like, and.
 * Puck is very susceptible to silence, any hero that can remove silences is a good ally for Puck, like and  (who can also remove stuns),  and.

List of heroes that counter Puck, and list of heroes that work well with Puck.