Pugna

Pugna is a ranged Intelligence Hero who possesses powerful abilities which give him great versatility and offensive capabilities. He has a high base Movement Speed and also has the highest Intelligence gain per level in the game, which gives him the highest base stat at level 25. Nether Blast is a powerful AOE nuke which also deals damage to buildings, giving Pugna good pushing capabilities and teamfighting presence. Decrepify can disable enemy carries or save allies from physical attacks, while amplifying magical damage done to the target. Nether Ward is an excellent teamfight ability which deals damage to enemies based on the manacost of abilities, making Pugna a counter to casters. Pugna's ultimate ability, Life Drain, is a channeling ability which saps enemy health and grants it to himself, somewhat making up for his low durability.

Tips

 * is handy for nuking or clearing creep waves and is his main source of damage early on. Consider maxing it first.
 * Last hit the tower with if it is at risk of being denied.
 * Due to its short casting range, try and learn the AoE of Pugna's, enabling you to hit enemies from max range, ensuring your safety.
 * When Blasting the tower, try to hit both lane creeps and any heroes around the radius to maximize the damage.
 * Always use during team clashes. It costs a mere 80 mana and can often deal more damage than 's ultimate during fights. However, it is easily destroyed, so cast the ward in hard-to-spot places to avoid an early detection from the enemy focus fire.
 * While it is a bit risky to use, given the 80 gold bounty at level 4, can be used to bait greedy heroes to get closer to your team.
 * Pugna's health and armor are among the lowest in the game, so it is wise to buff him up a bit by buying items like a, a or an.
 * In a tight spot, Pugna can cast on himself and teleport back to base with a scroll. This trick works best when being chased by heroes that cannot disable you and are trying to auto-attack.
 * can be used to amplify magical damage from spells and items. Items like, , and even can be purchased to blast enemies to oblivion.
 * is very strong for countering heroes with high physical damage such as or.
 * Make sure to max first if you are playing against spammy spell heroes, such as  or.
 * Hitting a together with only Level 1  may seem hard, so utilizing the delay of  by first casting it and then  during the 0.9 second delay is a good way to combo the abilities.
 * Building on Pugna lets you place 2 s at once. While the mana degeneration does not stack, a spell cast by the enemy causes 2 bursts of damage assuming that both wards are in range.
 * has a pretty large area of effect, which can potentially trouble spellcasters, as it can deplete their mana supply as well as be zapped by the ward's Mana Flare which deals damage based on the mana cost of the spell. Heroes with abilities that have very high mana cost should not use it as they can be killed by just a simple cast.
 * Make sure you are well within range when using on an enemy. Using it at maximum range, allows your target to easily leave the area and cancel the spell.
 * deals magical damage, which means it can be amplified by, thus increasing the health healed too.
 * is much more effective during the day, because the channeling is canceled if the target moves into fog of war. As such, having any units go chase the target can maximize the range.
 * also give Pugna armor and great regeneration through all parts of the game, including the late game, where it is possible to keep the regeneration and bonus movement speed since you will almost constantly be casting spells instead of auto-attacking.
 * can have great supportive uses as well, especially if you have . For example if your Carry is battling the enemy team you can begin draining your life into them from a good 900 range away to keep them fighting and then immediately heal yourself by draining another enemy hero or a creep.
 * Bear in mind that buying armour is more efficient than health on Pugna, because his restores his health, by purchasing resistances it causes this health to go down slower and gives him more effective HP. Consider items like Shiva's Guard, Mekansm over Bloodstone or Rod of Atos if they have a lot of physical damage.

Trivia

 * According to 's rival hero taunt, Pugna is composed largely of phosphorus. Being a skeleton, he would be made of the phosphorus-containing mineral hydroxyapatite, a major component of bone.
 * Several lines of dialogue reference being Pugna's pet at some point, and it is still unclear whether he was the wizard that Viper slew.
 * "Pugna" is a Latin word that translates to a few meanings, namely "fight", "dispute", or "conflict".
 * Pugna's unused response pugna ability decrep 02.mp3 "First, do no harm." is a reference to the medical principle "Primum non nocere", which is latin and translates into "First, do no harm".
 * In DotA, Pugna's title was Oblivion. While his lore and lines still mention "Oblivion" in Dota 2, this is now the name of his art of sorcery rather than his title.
 * Pugna is tied with for the hero with the highest intelligence growth.