Pugna/Counters

Bad against...

 * Since Pugna relies on his teammates for protection, it is fairly common for Anti-Mage to get multiple kills with a single use of his on Pugna if he's missing a considerable portion of his mana.
 * Pugna's massive mana pool will result in Anti-Mage's almost always dealing the bonus damage from the mana burn.
 * negates a large amount of Pugna's damage, as most of Pugna's damage comes from his spells.
 * can be used to get out of a bad situation, and Pugna has no way to prevent him from casting it.


 * Clockwerk loves to low health, immobile targets like Pugna.
 * Pugna's Life Drain gets immediately and repeatedly (if an was purchased) cancelled due to, especially if Pugna is trapped inside.
 * Clockwerk also loves to build, which will deal more damage to Pugna than Clockwerk due to Pugna's low health pool.
 * Finally, both and  can allow him to finish off Pugna out of range of his Nether Ward.


 * Life Drain does not instantly kill the illusions from
 * and can easily interrupt the channeling from Life Drain.
 * makes it harder for Pugna to keep his distance between Chaos Knight.
 * Nether Ward barely deals any significant damage on Chaos Knight as Chaos Knight's abilities do not cost a lot of mana
 * The overwhelming damage of Chaos Knight and his illusions will do a quick work on Pugna's poor HP pool, or safely remove the Nether Ward from the battlefield.


 * Luna can deal constant damage to Pugna through the low-cooldown Lucent Beam and her right clicks.
 * will be always canceled by if Pugna does not have.
 * can be suicide against Luna due to and.
 * is rather weak against Luna because unlike other heroes who rely on magical damage to damage or kill enemies, yet have very high mana costs, she does not have abilities that cost a lot of mana and Luna mostly uses her abilities to initiate a teamfight or to finish off fleeing enemy heroes.
 * Luna is a common carrier, which allows her to protect herself against Pugna's only-magical damage output.


 * Due to Pugna's incredible intelligence growth and terrible strength growth, Nyx should always be able to take you out with his combo, with or without an added . will deal a large amount of damage in particular, especially in the late game.
 * is also a great tool versus Pugna. A good player will wait for you in until you farm a creep wave with Nether Blast and reflect it back at you as their initiation and setup for.


 * All of Pugna's damage is magical, which can get blocked by 's 100% magic resistance.
 * Oracle has two abilities that apply a dispel, which can easily remove Decrepify on his ally or Oracle.


 * Though Life Drain instantly destroys illusions, Phantom Lancer creates way too many for Pugna to handle.
 * A good Phantom Lancer will also dodge your Nether Blast with.
 * Phantom Lancer is the most natural carrier to burn Pugna's very large pool of mana away and deal a large amount of damage in the process.


 * Puck easily dodges the and the Pugna  with his, which is why he can easily avoid his strong magic damage
 * The Puck's silence from the ability allows her team to easily cope with the Pugna, which cannot be said about the Pugna, because with the Puck it will be easy to avoid such an attack from the
 * The Puck's combo: +  +  doesn't have a huge amount of damage to feel the damage of the Pugna from, however, it may be quite enough to kill the Pugna solo at an early stage of the game with


 * Sniper's huge range makes him an unviable target to use Life Drain on, forcing Pugna to risk playing out of position to use it on Sniper.
 * Sniper's can be used to provide vision on Nether Ward, and his range allows him to easily take it out.
 * A clumsy Pugna may accidentally boost Sniper's and  damages if he recklessly uses Decrepify on himself or his allies.


 * Pugna is a very fragile hero who can easily get caught and killed by Storm Spirit's long range initiation.
 * This is especially true if he has or.
 * Pugna has no disables that can prevent Storm Spirit from escaping.
 * Even though requires high amount of mana, Nether Ward is ineffective since Storm Spirit is invulnerable while using it.
 * Storm Spirit's other abilities cost very insignificant amount of mana for Nether Ward to be effective.


 * If Ursa uses, Pugna's Life Drain is next to worthless against him, due to Ursa taking 80% less damage, therefor Pugna heals by only 20% of the damage that the spell normally deals.
 * It also dispels Decrepify, Even if you wait until he casted it, he can still dispel it with Shard upgraded
 * Ursa also commonly builds . With his high Attack Speed from . he can easily cancel Life Drain
 * If Decrepify is defensivly casted, Ursa can still cast Earthshock both to slow you, and to deal amplified magic damage. He also commonly builds a
 * If Ursa jumps on you with a he can easily wipe you out with Overpower.
 * Ursa's can destroy a full health  and still have a few swipes leftover, Also Ursa's low mana spells means he takes negligible damage from the Nether ward anyway.
 * Ursa is also a common carrier, using it to both amplify his damage, but as his primary way to catch fleeing heroes
 * Pugna is also the primary target of Ursa, due to him being both quite squishy, and a serious threat to his team, Ursa prioritizes the weakest link as stacking damage will quickly demolish them, allowing Ursa to safely switch heroes

Others

 * Any hero that can blink on top of him makes a good threat to Pugna.
 * Heroes with large health pools. Pugna's ultimate becomes essentially useless as it takes so long to deal damage that the fight is over before he kills anyone.
 * Similarly, any hero that will sneak up on you could kill you before you have time to react.
 * Any hero with a stun negates Pugna's main source of damage, Life Drain.

Items

 * allows for someone to quickly escape a Life Drain for a very small mana cost. With quick fingers, Force Staff can also be used to dodge Nether Blast.
 * and both reduces Pugna's damage output considerably.
 * will render Pugna unable to do anything, and Pugna's only tool against is a defensively-used Decrepify.
 * is great versus Pugna as he hates being jumped on because of his extremely fragile nature.
 * can block Life Drain and Decrepify. However, Pugna's Life Drain has a very low cooldown, which allows him to easily waste 's spellblock, and render it's owner vulnerable to other single-targeted abilities. Also, will not trigger when the Life Drain cast is refracted by  upgraded Nether Ward.
 * can be used to reflect Life Drain and Decrepify.
 * can be used to dispel Decrepify.
 * allows heroes reliant on right-clicks to have their next five attacks deal magical damage that can affect Pugna even while under the effects of Decrepify when activated, which can make Pugna weak even against heroes he naturally counters.
 * dispels Decrepify and can be used to dodge Nether Blast.
 * silences Pugna making it unable to do much and if hit will make it weaker by doing less spell damage. The silence duration should be more than enough to kill him as he doesn't have that much health.

Good against...

 * Amazingly, Enchantress has even lower health than Pugna. Though she does pack quite a punch through, she can't use it if she is under Decrepify.
 * Pugna's Magical DPS is way greater than the heal from, which will also harm her quite a bit if she's next to Nether Ward.


 * Enigma's abilities have a huge mana cost, meaning that will deal a lot of damage to Enigma.
 * Pugna can heal allies trapped inside thanks to.
 * can easily kill Eidolons, especially when Enigma is pushing.


 * Decrepify is the perfect tool against until he gets a, and even then he will probably waste a couple of slashes before he uses it.
 * Without an extra disable, Pugna's high movement speed makes it impossible to chase him with.
 * Unlike some other carries like or, Juggernaut's spells cost a hefty amount of mana and he will seriously get hurt by Nether Ward. Don't forget the damage from the ward is inflicted before the spell immunity is provided by.


 * Pugna easily copes on the line with the Keeper of the Light push with his, and in addition to , the Keeper of the Light is not able to throw on creeps for a long time, so Pugna earns more gold and a level on the line


 * Nether Ward can punish Timbersaw, as Timbersaw is a spell-caster with low cooldowns. Furthermore, Timbersaw usually appears in the midst of battle, placing himself in range of Nether Ward's Mana Flares.
 * Timbersaw has no stuns or silences to stop Life Drain. Since all of Pugna's Spells are magical, the damage can be devastating to Timbersaw.
 * Decrepify can further increase all the magical damage done to Timbersaw, bypassing the enhanced physical resistance he can get from.


 * Leshrac needs to be close to target in order to do damage, Pugna can outrun Leshrac with ease due to his superior movement speed.
 * can also be hard to land on Pugna for the same reason.
 * Leshrac uses huge amounts of mana to do damage, Nether Ward forces him to either not contribute in a fight or kill himself in the process.


 * Decrepify prevents Legion Commander from attacking allies during, regardless if it's used on her or on the ally.
 * Pugna can easily cast Decrepify, Nether Blast and Life Drain on Legion during the 4/4.75/5.5/8 seconds of duel


 * Decrepify prevents Shadow Fiend from attacking for its duration, potentially preventing him from getting a kill.
 * Nether Ward can do heavy damage to Shadow Fiend if he tries to cast his and his.


 * Decrepify prevents Faceless Void from attacking trapped allies inside, wasting a large portion of its duration if Faceless Void can't dispel it.


 * Because Invoker relies on casting a large amount of spells to contribute to fights, Nether Ward can force him to not cast anything at all or take a large amount of damage to cast spells.


 * Due to the high mana cost of his spells and the low cool down of them, Nether Ward can seriously damage Skywrath Mage if he isn't careful.
 * Skywrath Mage's fragility makes him very susceptible to Pugna's high burst damage.


 * Troll Warlord can't switch targets at will, in order to build stacks, which makes it easy to use Decrepify in order to save allies
 * During, Pugna can easily use Nether Blast, Decrepify and Life Drain on him

Others

 * Up to a certain extent, Decrepify can make life miserable for a ton of right-clicking carries. With an Pugna will have 78% up-time on it (minus cast times), and if Pugna take the lvl 20 talent +2s Decrepify Duration, it increases to 100% up-time(minus cast times).
 * Special mention goes to who simply loves to  on top of Pugna. If Pugna is not already dead, Decrepify and Life Drain combo will easily burst her down.
 * Heroes who are reliant on physical damage will be nullified by Decrepify:, ,.
 * Nether Ward will be problematic for heavy nukers and spammers like, , and , but Pugna must not use Decrepify defensively against them as he will be helping them out more than anything.

Items

 * While can block Life Drain and Decrepify. Pugna's Life Drain has a very low cooldown, which allows him to easily waste 's spellblock, and render it's owner vulnerable to other single-targeted abilities. Also,  will not trigger when the Life Drain cast is refracted by  upgraded Nether Ward.

Works well with...

 * cannot be removed if Pugna casts on the target, making a very dangerous and potentially fatal combo.
 * and also have extremely deadly synergy with Pugna due to the slows and double casting.


 * Io and Pugna can gank easily for Decrepify provides a boost to his other spells, as well as Io's.
 * If Io is healing an ally with, you can cast Life Drain on Io to give it health, so Tether will heal its target for an absurd amount of health, useful to save an important ally.


 * holds an enemy hero long enough for Pugna to cast his spells. If she is losing a Duel, he can Decrepify the target or heal her with Life Drain.


 * A good opponent will always try to focus a Necrophos. Here's another ally who will take the enemy's initiation for you in order to help you get your spells off. Don't forget to help him out in return through a friendly Life drain, and hugely amping up the damage from, or at least protecting him from right clicks.


 * Here's an ally who will soak up the damage for you. Don't forget you can also restore her mana with Life Drain once she's back to full hp.
 * If your mana allows it, don't forget to spam Nether Blast while she tanks the tower for your team.


 * Decrepify can be used to protect and amplify the damage of all of Phoenix's abilities
 * Life Drain combined with can quickly heal the HP of an ally, and once its HP is fully restored, Pugna's life drain can heal its mana


 * Both Skywrath Mage and Pugna do very high magic damage and they both have ability to amplify each others damage by and Decrepify.


 * and hold enemy heroes in place just enough for Nether Blast and Life Drain to finish them off.
 * Decrepify lowers enemies' magic resistance, increasing the potency of.

Others

 * Heroes that can make good use of Decrepify for they possess huge amount of magical burst:, , , ,
 * Heroes with abilities that can keep targets in range of Nether Blast and Life Drain:, , , ,
 * Frontline heroes that aren't impaired much with a defensive decrepify applied on them:, , , ,
 * Any hero benefits from having his mana replenished by Life Drain, which can be done consistently later into the game, provided their HP is at 100%: ,

Items

 * grants Pugna invisibility so the enemy cannot easily interrupt Life Drain.
 * 's magical damage increases thanks to Decrepify's magic resistance reduction.

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

Pugna/Противостоящие