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Many hands make light work.
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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 Mana Void on Pugna if he's missing a considerable portion of his mana.
- Pugna's massive mana pool will result in Anti-Mage's Mana Break almost always dealing the bonus damage from the mana burn.
- Counterspell negates a large amount of Pugna's damage, as most of Pugna's damage comes from his spells.
- Blink can be used to get out of a bad situation, and Pugna has no way to prevent him from casting it.
- Clockwerk loves to Hookshot low health, immobile targets like Pugna.
- Pugna's Life Drain gets immediately and repeatedly (if an Aghanim's Scepter was purchased) cancelled due to Battery Assault, especially if Pugna is trapped inside Power Cogs.
- Clockwerk also loves to build Blade Mail, which will deal more damage to Pugna than Clockwerk due to Pugna's low health pool.
- Finally, both Hookshot and Rocket Flare can allow him to finish off Pugna out of range of his Nether Ward.
- Life Drain does not instantly kill the illusions from Phantasm
- Chaos Bolt and Reality Rift can easily interrupt the channeling from Life Drain.
- Reality Rift 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.
- Earth Spirit does not fly a small distance on Rolling Boulder using Stone Remnant, which will be a big problem for Life Drain, since Pugna will stop receiving health from breaking the distance of the ability, which will give the Earth Spirit team a chance to kill Pugna, by the way, this also works well with Boulder Smash, which pushes the enemy and can annoy the distance
- Earth Spirit has excellent control with a small recharge on Rolling Boulder and Geomagnetic Grip, which can knock down Pugna`s Life Drain, as well as completely turn him off in a fight, because he is very dependent on his abilities
- Magic damage from Earth Spirit's abilities can be disastrous for Decrepify, as it will kill him very quickly, and if Earth Spirit collects Ethereal Blade in such a game, it can easily destroy Pugna in one Rolling Boulder hit
- Earth Spirit also turns out to be a strong decision against Nether Ward, because he experiences it with his large amount of health, and if he collects Heart of Tarrasque(and Bracerin early game)in such a game, he may not feel it at all and calmly control Pugna with his abilities
- Luna can deal constant damage to Pugna through the low-cooldown Lucent Beam and her right clicks.
- Life Drain will be always canceled by Lucent Beam if Pugna does not have Black King Bar.
- Decrepify can be suicide against Luna due to Lucent Beam and Eclipse.
- Nether Ward 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 Black King Bar 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 Dagon. Mind Flare will deal a large amount of damage in particular, especially in the late game.
- Spiked Carapace is also a great tool versus Pugna. A good player will wait for you in Vendetta until you farm a creep wave with Nether Blast and reflect it back at you as their initiation and setup for Impale.
- All of Pugna's damage is magical, which can get blocked by Fate's Edict'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 Doppelganger.
- Phantom Lancer is the most natural Diffusal Blade 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 Nether Blast and the Pugna Life Drain with his Phase Shift, which is why he can easily avoid his strong magic damage
- The Puck's silence from the Waning Rift 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 Decrepify
- The Puck's combo: Waning Rift + Illusory Orb + Dream Coil doesn't have a huge amount of damage to feel the damage of the Pugna from Nether Ward, however, it may be quite enough to kill the Pugna solo at an early stage of the game with Witch Blade
- 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 Shrapnel 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 Shrapnel and Assassinate 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 Orchid Malevolence or Scythe of Vyse.
- Pugna has no disables that can prevent Storm Spirit from escaping.
- Even though Ball Lightning 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 Enrage, 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 Earthshock
- Ursa also commonly builds Skull Basher. With his high Attack Speed from Overpower. 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 Nullifier
- If Ursa jumps on you with a Blink Dagger he can easily wipe you out with Overpower.
- Ursa's Overpower can destroy a full health Nether Ward 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 Diffusal Blade 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 Fury Swipes 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[]
- Force Staff 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.
- Glimmer Cape and Pipe of Insight both reduces Pugna's damage output considerably.
- Black King Bar will render Pugna unable to do anything, and Pugna's only tool against Black King Bar is a defensively-used Decrepify.
- Blink Dagger is great versus Pugna as he hates being jumped on because of his extremely fragile nature.
- Linken's Sphere can block Life Drain and Decrepify. However, Pugna's Life Drain has a very low cooldown, which allows him to easily waste Linken's Sphere's spellblock, and render it's owner vulnerable to other single-targeted abilities. Also, Linken's Sphere will not trigger when the Life Drain cast is refracted by Aghanim's Shard upgraded Nether Ward.
- Lotus Orb can be used to reflect Life Drain and Decrepify.
- Nullifier can be used to dispel Decrepify.
- Revenant's Brooch 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.
- Eul's Scepter of Divinity dispels Decrepify and can be used to dodge Nether Blast.
- Bloodthorn 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 Impetus, she can't use it if she is under Decrepify.
- Pugna's Magical DPS is way greater than the heal from Nature's Attendants, 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 Nether Ward will deal a lot of damage to Enigma.
- Pugna can heal allies trapped inside Black Hole thanks to Life Drain.
- Nether Blast can easily kill Eidolons, especially when Enigma is pushing.
- Decrepify is the perfect tool against Omnislash until he gets a Nullifier, 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 Blade Fury.
- Unlike some other carries like Slark or Phantom Assassin, 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 Blade Fury.
- Pugna easily copes on the line with the Keeper of the Light push with his Nether Blast, and in addition to Nether Ward, the Keeper of the Light is not able to throw Illuminate 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 Reactive Armor.
- Leshrac needs to be close to target in order to do damage, Pugna can outrun Leshrac with ease due to his superior movement speed.
- Split Earth 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 Duel, 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 Requiem of Souls and his Shadowraze.
- Decrepify prevents Faceless Void from attacking trapped allies inside Chronosphere, 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 Fervor stacks, which makes it easy to use Decrepify in order to save allies
- During Battle Trance, Pugna can easily use Nether Blast, Decrepify and Life Drain on him
- Pugna can turn out to be an effective hero against Dazzle due to the fact that he does not allow him to extend his Poison Touch with his Decrepify, which is why Dazzle cannot keep the enemy under prolonged deceleration.
- Pugna has a very strong ability against casters with a small health reserve - Nether Ward, which is why heroes like Dazzle will not be able to constantly throw their Poison Touch Bad Juju and Shadow Wave at enemies under the action of Nether Ward or will be forced to take a lot of damage
Others[]
- Up to a certain extent, Decrepify can make life miserable for a ton of right-clicking carries. With an Octarine Core 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 Phantom Assassin who simply loves to Phantom Strike 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: Riki, Wraith King, Juggernaut.
- Nether Ward will be problematic for heavy nukers and spammers like Skywrath Mage, Lina, Lion and Invoker, but Pugna must not use Decrepify defensively against them as he will be helping them out more than anything.
Items[]
- While Linken's Sphere can block Life Drain and Decrepify. Pugna's Life Drain has a very low cooldown, which allows him to easily waste Linken's Sphere's spellblock, and render it's owner vulnerable to other single-targeted abilities. Also, Linken's Sphere will not trigger when the Life Drain cast is refracted by Aghanim's Shard upgraded Nether Ward.
Works well with...[]
- Phantom's Embrace cannot be removed if Pugna casts Decrepify on the target, making a very dangerous and potentially fatal combo.
- Stroke of Fate and Soulbind also have extremely deadly synergy with Pugna due to the slows and double casting.
- Io and Pugna can Relocate gank easily for Decrepify provides a boost to his other spells, as well as Io's Spirits.
- If Io is healing an ally with Tether, 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.
- Duel 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 Reaper's Scythe, 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 Supernova and amplify the damage of all of Phoenix's abilities
- Life Drain combined with Sun Ray 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 Ancient Seal and Decrepify.
- Hex and Shackles 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 Ether Shock.
Others[]
- Heroes that can make good use of Decrepify for they possess huge amount of magical burst: Invoker, Lina, Lion, Tinker, Zeus
- Heroes with abilities that can keep targets in range of Nether Blast and Life Drain: Clockwerk, Disruptor, Magnus, Tusk, Warlock
- Frontline heroes that aren't impaired much with a defensive decrepify applied on them: Leshrac, Ogre Magi, Pudge, Shadow Fiend, Timbersaw
- 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%: Bristleback, Storm Spirit
Items[]
- Glimmer Cape grants Pugna invisibility so the enemy cannot easily interrupt Life Drain.
- Dagon's magical damage increases thanks to Decrepify's magic resistance reduction.
