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Tango
Iron BranchIron Branch
Boots of Speed
Tango
Iron Branch
Iron Branch
Ring of Protection
Healing Salve
Tango
Iron Branch
Iron Branch
Iron Branch
Gauntlets of Strength
Gauntlets of Strength
Enchanted Mango
Boots of Speed
Arcane Boots
Aether Lens
Tranquil Boots
Urn of Shadows
Bottle
Force Staff
Blink Dagger
Glimmer Cape
Hood of Defiance
Aghanim's Scepter
Eul's Scepter of Divinity
Blade Mail
Black King Bar
Ghost Scepter
Pipe of Insight
Heart of Tarrasque
Octarine Core
Guardian Greaves
Shiva's Guard
Boots of Travel
Linken's Sphere
Heaven's Halberd
Refresher Orb
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Hello everyone and welcome to the new, updated version of Impossible Brutality; also known as my guide to 
Pudge.
First things first I got some explaining to do:
When the update came out with all the new buffs to Pudge, the new Dismember, Aghanim's Scepter and Aether Lens I thought it was time to update my old Pudge guide from 6.83. So I started doing that and once I was a couple weeks into it I noticed I wasnt leaving any of the old stuff and pretty much remaking the whole guide. So I decided to change the name. Then I thought I might as well create a new guide because there is near nothing here left of the old version (except some numbers and spell explanations). But then I didnt want to release it as it's own guide, because I already said the other Pudge guide was like, the final version. BUT THEN I SAW THE COMMENTS ABOUT THE OLD STUFF IN THE GUIDE WHICH ISNT HERE ANYMORE, and the url said impossible brutality, so in the end, welcome to the NEW guide.
You can find the old one right here.
With that out of the way, I present my latest creation:
Pudge is as a whole and how many great players have very many different ways of playing him, I’ll try to encompass it here for readers to pick and choose their style or mix-&-match playstyles of other players. The way I play Pudge is very different from Sumail’s, and his style is very different from Slahser’s. Pudge in a particular scenario. My general advice for it is that if you have the experience and the mechanics, the right items are whatever items work for you. Pudge from someone else (opposed to trial & error, like back in the day) involves developing a sense of mechanical input from the player, what angles you prefer, how do you approach teamfights, which heroes will you focus and which ones you’ll avoid, etc. So in a sense, a big part of learning how to play a proper Pudge is gut feeling, and maybe a little contrived in theory but very intuitive in practice.
More than likely you are familiar with this, but I'm going to keep it in the guide anyway.
Pudge is a melee strength hero with the ability to displace enemies and allies, disable and nuke opponents through magic immunity and be a constant threat to the other team, especially if you are a support. So basically a cheap 
Batrider. Pudge is a bit forgotten, he doesnt really fit. However, on the right hands you can still be a monster in pubs and if you trust yourself, use it to grind mmr. By following these simple steps you will do like I did, and get to 6k mmr in a few weeks. Proof. Pudge can disrupt enemies at a 
Techies-tier level. He is a hero that really forces the enemies to stay on their side, reduces carry farming space and support warding options (and ganking routes). With good rotations and average farm, Pudge can be constantly setting the enemy carry back in terms of farm, he is a space creator. Pudge being an un-decaying roamer is his passive, Flesh Heap. Allowing him to maintain the threat throughout the game if you keep landing kills or taking part of teamfights, transitioning the ganking role to a more damage sponge/disabler hero, with the hook as a second option. However, with the new items around you can actually keep your hook relevant and even really scary to enemies up to the late game. Pudge is a hero that doesnt really have many cons, we can certainly say that he isn't as effective against certain heroes and strategies, but it does not fall into a shut-down hero. The pros are of course having an easy way to land kills and all the other things that a Pudge offers, and the con is that he is using a space in your team. Techies, sure he offers some useful stuff to the team, but would you rather have Techies or another hero that helps in more areas? Make the trade yourself. Is having Pudge on this team worth it?
Pudge is a very strong hero in a few areas, he has always been a sort of teamfight disable presence; but now he can pure-nuke damage dealer and also, hero displacement is one of the strongest capabilities in Dota (see 
Earth Spirit). Right now I think Pudge can be picked by a player that knows the hero well and played on a pro level without that much of a bite-on-the-*** of the drafter. Pudge. But first I'll go over the spells and some really cool stuff regarding the Meat Hook mechanics and interactions.
Ok, so I want to take a moment to talk about learning curves. Dota is a complex game, there are many skills you can improve at that’ll make you better at the game and more efficient at winning games. Knowledge, game sense, the amount of heroes you are comfortable playing, among other important factors build everything up.
But people nowadays, at least in the Dota player base, have forgotten about a really important part of getting better at the game; and that is just getting better at the game.
I am talking about (RAW MECHANICS). I am talking about being that weird guy at the corner of the arcade playing the same game over and over until he has all the top 10 scores; if you are that guy your ability to win games will skyrocket. A majority of high MMR players (talking 5k and up, and maybe even people at not so high MMRs like maybe 4k) advocate for a small hero pool, playing the same bunch of heroes or maybe a single hero over and over will not only make you better at that said hero (not exactly spamming, but having a focus group of heroes), but it will make you better at all the skills that surround it; really general stuff like looking at the clock more often will translate to any other hero you play; and it comes up from the necessity of learning that sort of thing when you are trying to in-depth your game in a hero in order to climb.
There’s no way around it, if you are the jack of all trades, you’ll be the master of none. And you know what they say, fear not the man who practices a thousand kicks, but the man who practices the same kick a thousand times.
Pudge is a strong hero on the hands of a player who understands the potential benefits of putting all the eggs on a single basket; if your mechanics are ****ing flawless then you are set for life.
Meat Hook is in my opinion the signature spell for not only Pudge, but for all Dota 2. If you are reading this guide you already know what it is and what it does, but here is everything in detail (and you'll probably learn one thing or two): Meat Hook is a ground targetted spell (of course), so you have to aim it. It's not as simple as it sounds though, there are 2 things you have to keep in mind when you time a hook. Meat Hook's animation is 0.3 seconds long. This animation is very natural though, and easy to get used to. It's not annoying as other casting animations like 
Midnight Pulse that really feel in the way of the combo (also 0.3 by the way). Use this casting animation to your advantage for cancelling a hook you already know is not going to land, preserve your mana; and you can also use it to bait people into thinking you'll throw it, baiting stuff like 
Phase Shift, Force Staff, even 
Manta Styles ocassionally. Meat Hook travels at 1600 units per second, at max level the hook has a 1400 range (included search range). So effectively we are talking about almost a second of delay from tossing the hook and going full range. Meat Hook has a backswing.
Telekinesis for instance) is that Meat Hook's actually scales with levels (gets longer as the hook range is longer). 0.43/0.46/0.5/0.53 to be exact. Aether Lens gives you a longer backswing time as well, as I mentioned.The cast range of Meat Hook is, across all levels, the same as the hook max travel distance. Makes sense. This also applies to the Aether Lens range.
You can use this to check if the hook you are planning is going to reach and how far is going to reach by mousing over the spell icon (as it gives you the cast range).
And the range it gives you is a little misleading as well.
So, how Meat Hook works is that, around the hook itself (hook hitbox to be exact) there is an invisible 100 radius search range. This means you can hit someone 1400 units away ideally, past the actually Meat Hook range. It also means that, combined with the not-exactly-top-down-camera that Dota has, you will come across some hooks that look like they should have landed and some really sketchy hooks that should have missed or hit something else.
Meat Hook does 3 things: Meat Hook deals 90/180/270/360 Pure Magic Immunity Piercing Damage. Damage is dealt only if the hooked target is an enemy. Meat Hook will catch anything, Hero or creep, ally or enemy. For the exception of: Observer wards and sentry wards, 
Animal Couriers, Ancient Creeps & Roshan, 
Warlock's Golems and 
Primal Split pandas and 
Supernova eggs. Meat Hook goes right through, ignoring them. Also Meat Hook cannot hit anything while retracting, only extending. When the hook stops at it's max distance is considered extending, and will hook into units. Meat Hook goes through all terrain as well as the hooked unit when being pulled back. Also if you happen to hit someone inside fog of war you will gain vision of the place where the hook connected. 500 radius flying vision for 4 seconds. Oh, and hooking a unit into impassable terrain gives them free pathing for 5 seconds (sometimes you can go past the 5 seconds with 3 seconds of Dismember and bodyblocking, but it's not reliable. Meat Hook also fully disables the hooked unit for the duration of the pull. This depends a lot on what is that you hooked, Meat Hook changes depending on what you hook. This disable includes everything, like a regular disable, the unit cannot turn, cast, move, etc. 
Eul's Scepter of Divinity.
Town Portal Scroll or an ally's, unless you perform this specific technique: Meat Hook works was changed about a year or so ago: Pudge. This allowed Pudge to do stuff like hook and blink back to take the hooked hero way further, or as you have seen, all the way back to base with test of faith. Pudge is. With this said, you can make the move the other way around. This means that if the hooked hero happens to be teleported out, from test of faith for instance, they will be brought right back to the position the hook was thrown from. Pudge you will be there as well. Pudge to "cancel" teleports of magic immune enemies and allies as well, because as he is not able to cancel them properly since he cannot disable allies/magic immune targets, he allows the teleport to finish while the target is mid-hook, and when the hook is back to Pudge, the target will be teleported back all the way back to Pudge. You can use this to cancel enemy TPs during magic immune abilities (not only BKB but 
Blade Fury, 
Rage, etc) with good timing. And also ally's but please dont do that to your friends.
Relocate.Wonky isnt it? In this next section I'll cover the how to use the Meat Hook in real situations, so far I've only explained the working of the spell.As you already know, Meat Hook as a casting backswing which basically disables you for a period of time right after you let go the hook (A.K.A. Fully casting it).
This bit of time is really short and it’s not going to get you killed in the middle of a fight if you happen to miss a hook or whatever, in fact, it’s a brief moment in which you are supposed to look if your hook is going to connect or not, that way you can see if you’ll be pre-casting dismember or shift-queueing it or whatever it may be (see next section).
Backswing time is one of the few moments the enemies may use as a window of opportunity without regarding cooldown to move around it. There’s ways to use this to your advantage and also ways around it in case you actually happen to miss a hook.
Here’s some stuff to keep in mind:
Rubick will try to get meat hook most of the time, and you can expect him to try and 
Spell Steal you as soon as he sees the hook thrown; otherwise he’ll get Rot which is the most common case. Rubick can only steal hook on the very small, fraction of a second window, which is Meat Hook’s backswing. You can pre-cast Rot during backswing, but obviously, it will only toggle on after backswing time; that’s why if you cast Meat Hook and press Rot at the same time, Rot will only turn on a bit later; doing this makes it so rubick only has the backswing window to steal meat hook, and not one instant more; so this is the second best way to not get Meat Hook stolen.
Force Staff[/color]. If you miss a hook but pre-cast Force Staff on yourself you’ll get pushed after backswing, making up for lost distance. This works best in conjunction with angling hooks, allowing you to get most of the hooks in which enemies have vision of you; which are the hardest kind of hooks. Meat Hook was reworked this was not; and you can extend your hook range with that. Allow me to explain: Force Staff on yourself, having it push you as soon as backswing is over; the hook range will start wherever you are standing after the push, but the original place of casting will be wherever you were standing before the push. Which is a little bit ridiculous but the hero, if the hook happens to connect, will fly past you and land on that place; you can use this to extend the reach of your meat hook and pull enemies further behind you. Force Staff does not disable you when you cast it on yourself, you can cast hook and cast Force Staff on yourself during the animation (not backswing, but cast point), and have the hook fly the normal distance but still bring the enemy hero behind you; I see a lot of people do this on accident, but it certainly come in handy for bodyblocking or whatever you may do with that extra distance.So this is something rather simple that a lot of guides and Pudge players will just summarize it as “[i]just shift queue it[/i]”; but I want to talk a bit about it just because.
I’m talking about chaining Dismember after Meat Hook, for the most basic combo, and the intended use of pudge’s skillset.
The reason it’s important to learn how to do a perfect Meat Hook to Dismember chaining is because there are many heroes who have instant escapes and stuff like that, and if you can’t chain it perfectly, kills will slip away from your hands I promise. Heroes like 
Mirana, 
Slark, 
Weaver with 
Time Lapse, among others, are good examples. And even not really escapes but spells like 
Berserker's Call will ruin your day.
There are two ways to do these perfect combos; the first is using shift queue and the second, which is easier to learn but a bit less consistent is with pre-casting.
+ When using shift queue it’s very simple, you must hold shift starting from right after you throw the Meat Hook, and while holding shift, cast Dismember on the hero (you can do this even before the hook hits), then release shift. Make sure you don’t click anywhere or cancel the actions because this kills the queue; just let it work. If the hook lands on the target hero, Dismember will be cast as soon as they enter Dismember cast range; which is on essence a pixel perfect chaining.
+ Pre casting is different. It works on the base that in Dota if you cast a spell outside the cast range, your hero will have that set as the next command and will walk towards the target and once in range, cast the spell. Pre casting use is very common on higher levels of play, and it’s used mostly for defensive casts, Eul’s and Hex. So if you are a support and you see the enemy 
Tidehunter or something on the edge of the teamfight and you know he’s gonna blink in and ult anytime, you cast hex on him (outside of range), and as soon as he blinks in (and gets in range), your hero will instantly hex him, or eul’s him or whatever, messing up the initiation.
The idea behind pre-casting dismember is that the hero comes to you via hook instead via blink.
One thing about it, if you pre cast while the enemy is too far (so say, before the hook even hits the target), Pudge will walk too far towards the target trying to use dismember and the hook will bring them behind you, and sometimes far enough for you to not be able to cast Dismember, and Pudge will turn and run that way and chase the hero, which is obviously far from a perfectly chained Meat Hook into Dismember combo.
The way you can do a pre-cast Dismember without messing it up is waiting for the hero to get hooked first, and after a bit, when it’s being pulled back, cast Dismember; even with Aether Lens range, if you count backswing and just waiting this small bit you’ll get it every time.
Back to back hooks are a (sorta) new thing that came in with the new Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade. I say sorta because you could do it with 
Chakra Magic before.
It’s what it sounds like, basically hooking the same person multiple times. Sick as **** I know, it’s the ultimate humiliation.
Meat Hook the easier it is to perform back to back hooks; here’s a starter list (all values assume Meat Hook and Chakra Magic are at max level): Octarine Core: 8.25 Seconds (Not short enough) Chakra Magic: 5 Seconds (Hard but possible) Aghanim's Scepter: 4 Seconds Aghanim's Scepter + Octarine Core: 3 Seconds Aghanim's Scepter + Arcane Rune: 2.8 Seconds Aghanim's Scepter + Octarine Core + Arcane Rune: 2 Seconds Chakra Magic: 0 Seconds Dismember; and with the 0 second ones you can perform double connections which is insane **** (you can do it with the 2 second one as well but it’s really difficult in actual matches).
Meat Hook. If it’s a squishy hero that’ll die from it then by all means try it; It looks brutal. Chakra Magic or arcane runes (because you’ll maybe not have them at a particular point), we’ll look at the best possible items you can have which is Aghanim's Scepter and Octarine Core, leaving you with 3 seconds for cooldown. Chakra Magic you can do back to back to back to back hooks without worrying about the buffing. That's the Aghanim's Scepter plus Octarine Core duo in a nutshell. Dismember is that since the hero is disabled and really close to you, there is not much room for you to angle them and it’s actually easy to miss. Enemies expect you to hook and will move randomly; you’ll see this mostly during the early game when you initiate with Dismember and enemies know for a fact meat hook is on cooldown. Aether Lens is that after backswing, the hook (and the hooked unit) is still in the air, but you can still walk around, allowing you to set your position up to chain the next hook. You can even use Force Staff and Blink Dagger while your current Meat Hook is still in the air.
Meat Hook into Dismember into another Meat Hook (you can do this just with Aghanim's Scepter, with the 3 secs of Dismember duration); you just have to watch that you don’t miss the second hook as it’s very easy to see it coming. Dismember instances so your main source of damage is not that one and you won’t be healing from it either. For example this next one, which is just a faster version of the standard one: Dismember's Strength scaling (back in the day even more with the other Agh’s damage on dismember upgrade). Pudge, similar to mine but a little bit more focused on utility over killing. His combo involves the use of Eul's Scepter of Divinity as well; which is an item I normally skip.
Meat Hook after the standard combo using the cyclone as the disable. Straight forward. Things to keep in mind: Aghanim's Scepter and Octarine Core for this, for the 3 second cooldown; which makes it super easy to connect. However, you can perform this only with the Aghanim's Scepter and the 4 seconds, takes a little bit of practice but it's only a second difference. HexOr does it like that (4 secs).
Refresher Orb and two dismembers, so look forward to that.Ok so this is one of the biggest things about playing Pudge that people tend to forget when reading the guide.
Most Meat Hooks are thrown either FROM or TO a target inside fog of war. In a real match you almost never have clear shots with vision, you must become the king of prediction, knowing where heroes are even if you can't see them, so that you can actually pull them to you.
It's very simple in essence; but it gets complicated really quickly.
Meat Hook mechanics (you may be new to the hero or maybe just rusty), you'll have to get through some levels of prediction or predictivive aiming. In reality this just means landing your hooks having the feel of where it's going to land considering cast point and travel time: Slark, as he may or may not 
Pounce as soon as he goes inside fog of war. Supports with Force Staff and whatnot, Mirana, etc; are all targets that require further ability to predict when and where they will cast these movement changes, in order to pull off a hook. Force Staff and other movements like that (even 
Sun Ray as a escape tool using terrain to create gaps between you and them. They are generally fairly easy to predict, but still, you'll want to remember they are able to, at least one, go around the map without following the paths. The king of this ******** is Batrider. Batrider doesnt give a **** he just flies wherever he wants and dissapears in ******** spots, he is the one of the most unpredictable heroes in the game to hook, AND he purchases Force Staff and Blink Dagger pretty much in all games. Meat Hook in their general direction. There is two ways I use to get these hooks consistently (at least a little bit more consistently than usual); the first one only applies to when heroes blink into the tree line (
Tinker comes to mind), and what you do is memorize the usual blink spots and hook there. Some of these paths are long and wide juke paths (like across dire top, between tier 1 and 2), and in that case there's a little bit more luck involved. Force Staff back a bit, and people tend to think closer is better for hooks (which is not always true).
Rot is Pudge's second spell and it's actually relatively simple, but there is still a handful of things to keep in mind. Let's look at what it does: Rot is a toggle ability, costs no mana and you can activate and de-activate it whenever. You can even use it without cancelling channeling abilities, so it's great for using your ultimate Dismember without worrying of cancelling it on accident. Rot deals 30/60/90/120 magical damage per second to everyone in a 250 radius around him. Including Pudge himself. Rot also applies a slow effect to units inside the radius (this of course does not affect Pudge). Slowing them by 27% of their movement speed. Rot's damage or slow do not pierce magic immunity. This is a good thing too. Pudge is silenced, disabled, muted, etc. Rot is not turned off, so watch out and not get 
Doomed with Rot on or you will get destroyed.
Rot has no cast point, at all. This means that actions such as walking or attacking a target will not be stopped, not even for a frame. You can be running someone down and turn Rot on and off without losing territory. Rot is lethal. You can use Rot to deny yourself if you need to, as the game progresses and you become tankier and more resistant to magic this becomes much harder to perform. A way to get the deny easier is to walk into a neutral camp with Rot on, this doesnt work on ancient camps or roshan though. Also, if you are being attacked by a single target you can wait for them to take your HP down to around 200-250, then turn around and use Dismember on them, just for the disable, and deny yourself easily. Rot is magic damage, the self damage is reduced with magic resistance, from items and also from Flesh Heap. Also with Black King Bar you can run around slowing and dealing everyone damage per second while taking 0 damage from it yourself.
Clarity, Bottle and Healing Salve) without cancelling their effects with Rot or it's first three levels, as the damage isnt enough for it to cancel them. With this you can run down someone and Bottle up yourself to resist through the Rot damage, if they do it you can just autoattack them and cancel it (since they are also slowed), and they can't really cancel your consumable as they would have to turn around. Rot's slow effect is considered an aura. This means it lingers for 0.5 seconds after they go out of the radius. Rot checks if Pudge has Rot active, and if that is the case, Pudge and all enemies which have the slow debuff from Pudge are damaged. Therefore It is possible to rapidly toggle Rot on and off several times to drastically reduce damage dealt/taken while still maintaining the slow and enemies that get out of range can still can get hit by 2 to 3 damage instances, as long as Pudge has Rot active. Rot for 3 things. Dismember. Hook someone, Dismember and Rot. The basic, most "intended use". Dismember, and to dish damage in a fight just by standing around. Rot for farming: The first one is to help you last hit, so when approaching to last hit double tap rot to get an instance of damage out with your autoattack swing, allowing you to CS a little bit easier, it does eventually damage you a bit so keep an eye on that. The second one is to take full creepwaves and jungle camps, so waveclearing and clearing the jungle; in order to do this I recommend you went Tranquil Boots. Rot's self damage does not cancel the Tranquil Boots effect, and even if you plan on taking damage from the creeps, you can drop the Tranquil Boots and do it like an 
Axe jungling.
Pudge's passive, and lets him scale as I said before. Pudge Strength. Pudge Magic Resistance. Rot yourself.
Legion Commander 
Duel damage counter). And the icon stays there throughout the match from the moment you put the first point in the skill. Something really important about Flesh Heap is that is retroactive, this means that even if you haven't learned the spell yet, the game will still count those as invisible stacks that will be taken into account the moment you get Flesh Heap and each stack adapts to your current level of Flesh Heap, so if you have a lot of stacks you will notice first hand how you get tankier every time you get a point in Flesh Heap. Pudge X amount of strength (2.5 Strength at max level). Pudge he gains a stack. Pudge doesn't have to participate of the kill at all, just have the hero die inside the radius. On the other hand Pudge gets a Flesh Heap stack EVEN if the hero dies outside of the 450 radius if and only if Pudge is the direct killer. Meat Hook kills give Pudge Flesh Heap stacks, works for any kills you get with Urn of Shadows' damage over time too obviously. And also, heroes that are denied (by any means) will not give a stack, even if in radius. Flesh Heap stacks only give you added strength and the magic resistance is flat! You dont get 12% Magic resistance per stack when maxed out, it is just flat. Pudge to scale into the late game is not just because he gets tankier as the game goes, but because of his Dismember damage plus heal.
Shadow Fiend's illusions interact with 
Necromastery stacks). Flesh Heap stacks isnt as passive as you think, you will get a guaranteed stack if you land the kill, but not necessarily if we talk assists, in fights I want you to really get in there in the middle of the fight and make sure you get those stacks, dont take every kill you see in the screen as a granted stack, 450 radius isnt that big at all.
Dismember is Pudge's ultimate and it's more like, part of the combo, rather than an amazing ultimate. With the recent changes it has become much more useful than for just disabling, the heal can turn around an early game engagement, and the fact that it lasts twice on creeps, combined with the fact that some neutrals have magic resistance now allows you to get into the jungle and heal up by a substantial amount by ulting a big neutral (taking 60%+ of your max Hp).
Black Hole, 
Fiend's Grip and 
Shackles itself. Pudge slang this is called "Biting" and it's used the most in the late game once Dismember's damage has scaled up considerably. The damage from Dismember is calculated with a flat value, plus a percentage of Pudge's strength stat. Dismember would only deal the flat damage and did not heal Pudge for the damage he dealt with it. The Aghanim's Scepter upgrade however, added the heal effect and the strength as damage (100% of the stat as damage). Basically they took the Agh's upgrade and put it on the spell itself, tweaking it down of course. Pudge a new Agh's upgrade, which upgrades Meat Hook instead. All these changes actually rework how Pudge scales into the lategame, and it is actually a big improvement allowing you to stay relevant more consistently, as opposed to before, where it would either mean you were snowballing and dominating the enemy team, or you were kind of useless past the 25-30 min mark.
Lone Druid's bear, 
Visage's familiars, Warlock's golems and Roshan are considered creeps for Dismember as well. Dismember that looks weird and broken. Keep this in mind because since you are moving heroes a lot with Meat Hook, getting those long range Dismembers is very common, and you have to remember to turn Rot off if the disabled hero is not in the area of effect.
Pudge and ended up with a lot of kills and so Flesh Heap stacks this will make you tankier and you will be scaling with damage. Which is great. However, as you'll see, your main damage output in these aggresive matches is not only Dismember like before, it's a combination of everything, including right clicks, but with a special focus on Meat Hook, with it's Pure damage. Dismember is still a bkb-piercing disable, so in the late game it doesnt even matter if you land a hook, walk up to their carry and Dismember them just like that, stop playing like a Pudge and focus on disabling with Dismember. (This is another good reason to pickup Blink Dagger but that's something I'll cover in a different section). Dismember also gives true sight of the unit being dismembered. The exceptions are 
Riki's permanent invisibility, 
Moonlight Shadow and 
Spin Web since these work on a fade delay instead of a fade time.As I always say, knowing your hero's role and how to behave in each stage of the game is really helpful towards learning a new hero, and personally I think this is specially important for a hero like Pudge that is so dependant when talking playstyle.
This and itemization come together; and you need both to properly succeed.
Shadow Fiend, Pudge (at least this patch) has the possibility of a cookie-cutter style build, which is the following: Arcane Boots (then dissassemble) Aether Lens Force Staff (can be Blink Dagger too but you may lack INT) Aghanim's Scepter Heart of Tarrasque Octarine Core Boots of Travel (or any other Boots to complete the remaining Boots of Speed.So let’s talk about the thing most people considered as the no-go for Pudge and that is his early game as a solo mid. He has a lot of stuff going against him here, and very few positives, so it’s all about standing your ground on those and avoid death at all costs.
Pudge is melee; has a small mana pool and pretty much only Meat Hook as a spell ( Rot is used differently) throughout his early game, plus, he has really low armor; and is not a particularly fast walker.
On the other hand, his starting HP is decent, as well as his base damage; which allow you to certain extent to CS once in a while by pulling aggro to your ranged creep.
The true basis of laning Pudge as a solo mid on higher skill levels and not falling flat on your face relies on you being able to test the waters with the enemy mid and see how they play and behave in their lane. See if they are overharassing and use that to make them miss CS, see if they are overextending to get hook opportunities, and so on.
For the most part you’ll go the first starting item build, and then according to what the enemy mid does, borrow starting items off of the other starting item builds and build up a safe base of items for you to take the big step and get your Aether Lens. Something to note is that in some specific games, skipping Aether Lens to double down in early game items to later go double utility (like Force Staff on top of Eul's Scepter of Divinity is completely viable if you manage to justify going with it).
If the enemy mid is ranged and bullying you off the lane, you might consider ferrying a Healing Salve and going for a casual stout shield; if they are spamming you off and pushing the wave you might consider getting a 
Magic Stick instead, and so on.
Note: Often times you’ll feel like you don’t really need to get one of these and you’ll want to save up for straight Aether Lens. Do not risk it, if you get killed you’ll regret it.
Meat Hook and a kill.Ok! In this section I'll go over the early game items. These are any items that are bought after the starting set. I mean, literally straight after starting items you put these items on your quickbuy and start working towards them.
Arcane Boots are mostly a step towards that early Aether Lens so don't get too attached. They sure are useful for that few minutes you have them, you can use Meat Hook more lightly, make up for any missed hooks maybe; gank with an ally and let them cast free spells.
Energy Booster and make new ones with the remaining Boots of Speed; you can then dissassemble those on the late game into Octarine Core, or you can make Guardian Greaves if you want. Aether Lens and Force Staff (plus Aghanim's Scepter later on), the Int will give you the mana back with natural regen. Pudge is not really a hero that spends a lot of mana if you think about it, in fights you'll use a bunch of hooks and that'll burn through your pool sure, you can go back to base and regen fully; but overall you'll only use mana whenever you have a kill opportunity.
Aether Lens is the first early game item and it's also the most expensive of them all. I'm going over it here as a really early pickup, but if you don't get it at this point for whatever reason, maybe you needed Urn of Shadows or whatever, you can surely get it afterwards, maybe before or after your first item. The point is that you want it, it's really good. Boots of Speed), get Arcane Boots with it, and then buy the 
Ring of Health and the recipe; so you can finally dissassemble the Arcane Boots and get Aether Lens working. This is usually from min 5 to min 7-8 depending on your matchup. Aether Lens is the anacondic range it gives to Meat Hook, but how you use this bonus range is a bit difficult to put into words; because of this I'll go over the other thing first, the 8% damage increase. Meat Hook: Aether Lens: 97 / 194 / 292 / 389 Meat Hook with Aghanim's Scepter: Aether Lens: 194 / 292 / 389 / 486 (486 Pure Damage on a 4 second cooldown; for reference, Level 3 
Sonic Wave is 470 Pure Damage on 135 second cooldown). Rot (per second): Aether Lens: 32 / 64 / 97 / 130 Dismember since it's damage varies a lot due to strength scaling. Meat Hook's range is increased from 1300 (1400) to 1500 (1600). (Extra search radius distance in parenthesis). Pudge player understands that this is such a huge upgrade (not necessarily to the range itself, but the amount of angles and hook positions it unlocks in the map is overwhelming) that it makes the item a straight core on Pudge. Seriously if your team is getting rolled, you included, but you got level 7 and Aether Lens, you still have kill potential. Aether Lens. Meat Hook's cast point and travel time, they will be past max range (1400) by the time the hook reaches it's target. Aether Lens this point is moved 200 units forward, which is more or less 0.5 secs worth of running; meaning that it will easily hook units 1450 away from Pudge. And since 1450 is more than a regular Meat Hook's range, people will not expect it to reach (even if they know you have Aether Lens), and once they see it pass the 1400 unit mark (which most players are able to eyeball just because they play against Pudge, it will continue going forward and at that point they can't outrun it, and they can't dodge it either, due to turn rates. The only way for them to dodge one of these hooks is to sidestep before the hook is past 1300-1400 distance. Pudge will be moving around as well, not only you. With that extra 200 range, if he is chasing you, he has time to fake a hook, or to fake a sidestep, or even better, to Force Staff your way and hook at the same time, making it pretty much impossible for you to reach in time. Pudge is 1400 units away, but if he is like say, 800 units away, he can fake his hook like 3 times before you are too far for him to hook, and a good Pudge will fake a couple hooks to bait you into turning to sidestep, and using your turnrate as a opportunity in which you are not running straight away from him, hence giving away the easier hook. Aether Lens actually increases the distance of your Blink Dagger. (both max range and overshoot range). Aether Lens is the natural follow up for starting build 1.
Tranquil Boots used to be my boot of choice, but that was before the whole Aether Lens thing came along. Nowadays I'll get tranquils if there is a lot of physical damage on the enemy team, as Pudge lacks the armor and really he is only weak to strong physical, Flesh Heap allows you to soak magic quite well. Aether Lens and put Force Staff on quickbuy, then, if I wanted to go either Force Staff, Eul's Scepter of Divinity, or outstraight rush Aghanim's Scepter I'd get the 
Staff of Wizardry; and if I wanted to go either Hood of Defiance or Tranquil Boots I'd get the 
Ring of Regen. Tranquil Boots are the natural follow up for starting build 2.
Urn of Shadows has lost popularity in my book as well, for the same reason as Tranquil Boots. You don't need all the tanking up and HP regen anymore, Aether Lens provide you with a solid +8 HP regen, and +250 Mana Pool which sets your stats for a while as I said. If you really need to heal up you can Dismember a neutral or a siege creep, and just move on. Urn of Shadows is a stronger heal that you can use on allies, and also enemies (though you probably won't need it to secure a kill). Urn of Shadows when I'm against a particular hero like 
Templar Assassin, or if I have an 
Invoker on my team to combo 
Cold Snap. Urn of Shadows is the natural follow up for starting build 3.
Bottle would get so trashed with nerfs, but whatever, there's already a way around it. Dismember and that you are trying to get Aether Lens early leave you with pretty much no reason to pick it up. Pudge ran as a duo mid along 
Io, both with Bottles and abusing runes to spam hooks and 
Spirits; similar to how a 
Tiny + Io dual would be played. Bottle nerf by using the charges on Io exclusively, hence multiplying the mana output, the mana excess on Io is used in Spirits.In this section I'll go over the main items that you'll be looking forward to purchasing right after those early game pickups. They mainly consist of mobility items to help land your hooks, but they can also be defensive utility items.
The big ones, Force Staff and Blink Dagger, are the main decision you will be taking regarding your mobility option; because of this I've dedicated a section to it, right after this one.
Here we'll see Glimmer Cape and Hood of Defiance as defensive options. Note: Purchasing one here does not necessarily discard the rest, you can have both Force Staff and Blink Dagger, and buying one of the defensive ones does not mean you will not need mobility. Common sense for this one.
Glimmer Cape is a weird combination of utility and defense. I get Glimmer Cape on matches where I need both the invis and the defense, so if I get Glimmer Cape I am usually losing the match and not have much stacks on Flesh Heap. The invis allows you to take less damage from all sources of magic damage, including Rot which is extra helpful, and it allows you to disable someone with Dismember with a little more safety and not get cancelled so easily. Remember you can cast this during the Dismember and it will not cancel it. Blink Dagger and Glimmer Cape and you didnt go Arcane Boots then you are going to be in serious mana problems. Also the invis is so short that it doesnt really suit for scouting purposes and other stuff you would regularly do with invis, its more of a "in the spot" usage. Also it has a rather low cooldown so if you still have mana you can use it twice in a fight. If you plan on using it defensively to extend into enemy territory always have a TP on you.
Hood of Defiance is a fantastic passive defense item, it's basically a more defensive Glimmer Cape without the utility factor (the magic shield it provides is usually just going to block some Rot damage and then dissappear, but if you manage to use it on-response to block a nuke, then great). Hood of Defiance provides you with big HP regen and 30% extra magic resistance. If you add up the 25% natural resistance, plus the 12% from Flesh Heap, plus the 30% from Hood of Defiance you are looking at 67% Magic resistance. With all that magic resistance you take almost no damage from Rot and people will have a real tough time taking you down (unless they do something like minus armor on top of heavy physical damage), and if you have a bunch of stacks on Flesh Heap you are not only tanky on magic resistance but tanky overall. Builds into Pipe of Insight, this does not add more magic resistance to the mix unfortunately, but gives you the active magic damage block and even more HP regen. Tranquil Boots + Pipe of Insight is amazing. Hood of Defiance. Blink Dagger vs Force Staff. Which one is better? Much depends upon the player...
Both items provide you mobility and they both cost the same amount of gold (2250). But they are both very different items, let me explain:
There are obviously core differences to both items:
Aether Lens give Blink Dagger 200 extra range. It also gives 200 extra range on Force Staff, but that does not apply to the push itself, but just the casting range of using Force Staff on others. Blink Dagger looks like the better pickup, but it isnt and I'll tell you why. Blink Dagger come to be irrelevant when we look at what Pudge needs in a mobility item. Blink Dagger has a lower cooldown, of 12 seconds. However, Meat Hook is on a 11 second cooldown, and you dont usually have to hook something one time after another, and if you do, you rarely need repositioning with something like a Blink Dagger. You will notice that it becomes a matter of combo uptime, and 20 seconds on Force Staff's cooldown is just enough for you to set yourself and prepare for another hook. Also, Dismember is on a 30 second cooldown, Blink Dagger's low cooldown doesnt really matter when you are not going to be engaging every 12 seconds. Blink Dagger, you can travel 1200 units, plus 1300 units from hook you can engage enemies 2500 units away. Now, in actual matches you never see a situation where you have to hook someone 2500 units away, even considering in a gank scenario where there are no allies or wards, you are looking to hook someone over 2000 units away, without vision. The travel distance of the Blink Dagger isn't really utilized by Pudge and it's not a make or break point like if you were playing an initiator like 
Magnus or something. In comparison 600 from Force Staff sounds pathetic, but it's enough to jump through terrain, close gaps and also to push yourself ahead of your allies so the hook isnt blocked. Blink Dagger to escape a fight already started, due to it's cancel on taking damage. In the video at the ending of this section you will see how I utilize the Force Staff to create terrain gaps that you couldn't with a Blink Dagger. Blink Dagger has to it's name. The instant travel can come in handy when timing hooks more quickly, however you can get used to Force Staff's delay and land hooks just as easily (like I did). The instant travel comes in handy when we are talking jump in initiation with Dismember. When you can just instantly jump next to the enemy carry and disable it with your Dismember, especially in the late game, it can be a really important move that the Force Staff doesnt cover as well as the Blink Dagger. Blink Dagger will likely be on cooldown during fights (you being attacked as I said Pudge focuses enemy fire a lot, and also cancelling your own Blink Dagger with Rot. Force Staff breaks trees is for it to be able to go through all terrain, to match the Blink Dagger. But when escaping as so, across only trees, you create a path for enemies to catch up, not really ideal. The Blink Dagger on the other hand can be used to blink in the tree line and Tp out without risking anything. Force Staff in the first place. Force Staff if not the strongest. As any damage taken will cancel your mobility, and Pudge is a hero well known for damaging himself. Force Staff allows you to avoid total gold loss and grants you the 10 Int even when the item is not yet finished. Force Staff can be used on allies and enemies too. Pudge players tend to forget is the fact that you actually have to cursor to aim a hook. Meat Hook. There is a certain mouse moving custom that you build when you only cursor where you move and hook, you start getting more consistent at landing hooks and so on. Blink Dagger and then quickly aim your hook, again moving your cursor to a point "B", leaves a lot of room for mistake, especially if the enemy you intend on hooking can see you, and will try dodging. Force Staff on the other hand can be casted by double tapping the key, this allows you to aim your hook even before using the mobility, allign your hero and use the Force Staff and hook simultaneously, for a more consistent mobility+hook combination. This is especially important when we try to hook in an angle, so not in a straight line, but move the foe to a third position. Force Staff is overall better. Blink Dagger is better for landing Dismember.
Aghanim's Scepter is the second big buff to Pudge that came with 6.86 (the first one obviously being Aether Lens). Meat Hook damage to 450 on Level 4. Meat Hook cooldown to 4 seconds. Pudge to late game damage by using his strength to add damage on Dismember (which is now built in, really weak though compared to what it was). The damage from Dismember is magical, so, reduced by spell resistance and furthermore, blocked by magic immunity. Meat Hook damage on the other hand, goes right through it. Aghanim's Scepter then, effectively (and with Aether Lens 8% bonus), provides Pudge with an almost 500 Pure Damage, Bkb piercing nuke on a 4 second cooldown, which is actually 2-3 in it's downtime considering cast point and backswing. Dismember, they will be low enough your your team to kill them off before they have time to get away from the center of the fight; better even, someone on your team stuns them, and by that time you already have Meat Hook up once again. Meat Hook into Rot and Dismember, followed by a second Meat Hook. For this you can cancel Dismember early or wait a bit before using the second hook, as it is relatively easy to miss those point blank hooks on Dismembered targets because they always expect it.
Anti-Mage, 
Juggernaut
Blink Dagger vs Force Staff debate, is up to personal preference. Pudge can get some extra uses out of the cyclone: Eul's Scepter of Divinity usage on HexOr's section.
Blade Mails when they dont play mid and lack the gold to go for items like aghs and such. In my opinion it's a bit more situational than what a lot of people think. Blade Mail is one of the few items you regularly buy on pudge that provide substancial armor, the other being shiva's guard. Dismembering an important enemy, that way if someone on their team wants to save them they have to trade some hp away. Blade Mail off cooldown, so heroes like Tinker and 
Lina will not solo gank you anymore if you play your cards right. Also, if you notice they want to bait the blade mail to wait it out, then you go aggresive and hook them or something. Invoker later game and stupid spells like 
Rupture become a way to dish damage on enemies. It's fun to put yourself inside the chaos meteors and see invoker panic away. For the rest of occasions you want to use the Blade Mail on response instead, wait for that 
Finger of Death cast animation instead of running around expecting people to hit a blade mail pudge.
Black King Bar is I think viable in any hero that does something during fights. The idea behind bkb on pudge is obvious: Rot self samage. Dismember. Black King Bar is part of a Dendi combo I'll go over in his playstyle section later on. Popularized by the fact he buys bkb probably twice as often as other pudge players.
Ghost Scepter is a "oh **** I forgot about ursa!" item for most people. I think it's one of those utility items like euls, though on the defense side. And I dare say I buy it a bit too often. Black King Bar then Glimmer Cape is the superior choice over Ghost Scepter, but I'll most of the time go Ghost Scepter not only because of the mana cost thing but because of how it scales later with 
Ethereal Blade, which is a really underrated item and a personal favorite of mine. Ghost Scepter as the opposite of a BKB, but with some overlapping on the usage. After the big spells and stuns are casted, using Ghost Scepter during Dismember is a good way to avoid major focus damage. Just remember you'll be taking a little extra damage from rot. Ghost Scepter is an amazing distractor. Allow me elaborate:
Mystic Flare or 
Life Drain while you use Ghost Scepter. Just dont be dumb with your uses.
Pipe of Insight and if you do you were probably ****ed anyway.
Pudge is that you tank up naturally. I dont like that much having it on my inventory taking up a slot, but the amount of HP it provides plus the ability to never go back to base as long as you have mana, and the fact that the strength only will make dismember deal and heal more damage makes it so I have to mention it. Pudge is that he is like Doom in that both get super tanky but have very low armor so their ehp is not that much more than their raw hp. Meaning that even if you have 4k hp, a Legion Commander with 
Desolator will kill you in 5 seconds. Juggernaut or 
Lifestealer (or Legion Commander), you are better off getting a Shiva's Guard. Heart of tarasque is for when you are up against those teams that have their kill potential on number advantage, so when their carry is not really being the tip of the spear on fights, or when they straight out have no carry.
Force Staff more frequently, blink dagger too. If you have Aghanim's Scepter it will reduce hook from 4 to 3 allowing you to perform some hook combos more easily. Octarine Core and bkb go together nicely mostly for the lifesteal part of it, so they cant cancel your healing from Dismember, but also because you can turn on your bkb and turn on Rot and walk into 5 people getting healed by Octarine Core lifesteal.
Shiva's Guard is an awesome item. People sometimes look at it as a AoE slow they dont need but it is in fact a really big helper in passive abilities Pudge needs.
Boots of Travel I think is a must on all heroes in the late game, the issue is: How late? Town Portal Scroll slot in my inventory, when I need to tp to places.
Linken's Sphere is not that common on pudge because bkb is overall a better alternative in most matches (being unnafected by rot is a big factor for that), but Linken's Sphere is a defensive item that works all around all the time, tanks you up and gives you huge regening allowing you to stay in the map unlimited time. Doom. So you put linkens on them. The big part of the item in this case is being able to protect some ally and having the awesome regen and stats for yourself.
Heaven's Halberd is another situational pickup against specific heroes. With it and Dismember you can keep a carry hindered for quite a bit, so dont forget to buy it if your team needs that peace time in fights. Ethereal Blade guy, but still, this is much cheaper, gives you strength and ehp in the form of evasion.
Aghanim's Scepter on Pudge made it so you don't longer scale the strength to Dismember damage fully like before, this was a huge nuking capability that was increased by ethereal blade ghost form. However, the item is still amazing on the right hands. Pudge is a hero that scales infinitely with strength, essencially making Ethereal Blade blast damage scale infinetely. The more you kill, the stronger the nuke gets. Ether blast nukes on some games start to average 500 damage, which is a huge nuke considering you also have Meat Hook's pure damage and the also scaling Dismember damage. Ethereal Blade gives Pudge something he can cast reliably and from a range, opposed to Meat Hook which needs a clear shot. But instead of a cyclone it's a slow, you can close a gap by slowing a hero from far away and then hooking them much more easily. Plus, as you know, you only get Flesh Heap stacks from heroes within a close radius around you and heroes you kill directly; ether blast is a way to secure those far away kills so they give you Flesh Heap stacks and you keep scaling. Ethereal Blade allows you to perform more cool plays. Flesh Heap stacks (which is usually the scenario for a an ethereal blade purchase) you also start right clicking for 250+ damage, agility from ethereal blade gives you a bit of attack speed so you can get into fights with no mana and rot on just right clicking supports. Also natural armor from agility.The offlane is a good alternative to the midlane because of what Pudge needs for a good laning phase.
Pudge as offlane has one goal, Get level 6-7 and start rotating. The time where you are in lane is actually fairly intuitive, avoid harass, stay in exp range as much as possible, when the creepwave comes pull it around the tower, get any CS you can and so on. Pudge you have to look at certain things: Pudge starting items are quite different. Gauntlets of Strength's main purpose is to allow you to use Rot a little bit more, to harass and last hit, and these are things you do not do as an offlaner. HP regen and armor is more valuable in scenarios like this, this is why I recommend the following: Tangoes or a Healing Salve. Ring of Protection Ring of Regen Tranquil Boots and these boots are the best for a Pudge that is going to be playing mostly defensive as you dont have the items for a more invasive playstyle. Pudge offlane revolves around two items, the first one being Tranquil Boots and the other being 
Soul Ring. These two items replace the Bottle one for HP and one for mana, as you wont be able to pick up runes as you would if you were midlane. You get the passive regen from tranquils and you use your Soul Ring before each hook and it basically pays for itself. Tango Ring of Protection
Sage's Mask Tranquil Boots and Soul Ring. The reason I don't recommend this is because you wont be using that mana regen as often, because you will only be wasting mana when an opportunity presents itself, and you will be using the HP regen much much more, to deal with harass to start off. Town Portal Scrolls and Smokes are much more crucial to offlane Pudge, it's defensive playstyle often results in lack of Flesh Heap stacks, you have to try help your team in other lanes every time you can, TP into enemy dives to even the playing field, and use smokes to gank mid, even if you dont land kills you will be helping your allies and getting stacks of Flesh Heap.THE OFFLANE PARALLEL POOL OF ITEMS. A fancy name for the group of items that look weird but are viable in a combination of the situation you are in a match and your lack of gold from playing offlane/getting rekt. Because of these situational sorta nature they won't be listed up these on the itemization display.
Decent items, but amazing in those situations.
Soul Ring is extremely useful in the right situations, and, if you play around the sacrifice Hp loss, only has one downside, and that is delaying a first bigger item like a mobility or aether lens. Pudge's big Hp pool into a mana free Meat Hook. Having 150 mana over the 140 cost. This is a replacement to bottle and arcane boots, instead having Tranquil Boots to fix for the sacrifice cost. On top of this, as a Pudge offlane you'll be killed or close to death many times during laning stage, using sacrifice when low Hp and with Rot toggled on is almost always a guaranteed suicide deny. Soul Ring + Tranquil Boots tandem is ideal for roaming between lanes, having no Hp or mana problems and extra movement speed; on top of it's relatively low cost and easy build up. It's arguably the best way of starting a game as an non-midlane pudge (so offlane or even roaming full time). Even the components alone help you out quite a bit during laning.
Power Treads are relatively underrated and if you are playing low level dota you may even get some bad looks from your allies for not having utility boots. But the idea is to have a little more stats, for more mana and hp pretty much. Urn of Shadows with Power Treads will tank you up pretty hard without Flesh Heap stacks. Bottle. Dendi still builds like this to his day but we'll talk about that on the right section.
Shadow Blade will get you flamed unless you are stomping, and it's a waste of money unless it's a very specific situation. Shadow Blade if there is no other invis in my team, and when enemies have really high map vision, with heroes like beastmaster and his hawks for example, or when lanes are very pushed back and enemy heroes are missing constantly. Think of Shadow Blade as a reausable smoke of deciet with no break range.
Silver Edge in the super late game, that way you can have another inventory slot that provides strength without sacrificing the invis utility.
Pudge has had their proper purchase ratio on the really high brackets of play; and it's mainly because it's a slot that provides decent strength, and adds to your movement speed. Paired with Tranquil Boots and euls you can go racecar Pudge and Rot people down.
Sange and Yasha in a situation where your team isnt losing, but you arent that present in fights; which helps you from the lack of Flesh Heap stacks and the strength from the SnY. Flesh Heap stacks (this is why it's more commonly seen in very high mmr matches, where kills arent that easy to come by as Pudge).
Dismember Pudge.
Assault Cuirass is a different version of an aura, different than drums of endurance but sharing a purchase phylosophy. Making Pudge the center of the fights due to his high hp and Rot to encourage disengament; AC's aura mainly helps your right clicking carry; but also fixes your low armor issue forever. In combination with Shiva's Guard you can become extremely tanky, even against your main weakness, physical damage.
Veil of Discord which is another underrated item that falls in the items that you should buy early but you dont want to delay mobility so you would buy it later on but it's effect isnt the same at that point" category. Rot's damage output and Dismember. Plus gives you a bunch of mana pool in the form of int, on top of a good, much needed armor boost. Veil of Discord viable. Examples, 
Zeus, 
Disruptor, Lina.With such a simple concept-mechanic hero, it is expected of players to put their own sort of style to their play. The following sections are about these styles, how they play Pudge and what items do they pick, and why.
Remember that after all, it's all about the same hero, and playstyles can only be that much different; it's mostly stuff regarding laning, item decisions, and the role in the team, which ranges from a roaming sort of role to a full on kill-focused mid laner.
Naturally I'll go over mine first so you guys can easily skip it... :(
Pudge is and has always been Meat Hook centered, I play solo mid and focus on disrupting farm and killing key heroes over being the aura carrier or a teamfight component. Bottle anymore. After the nerfs I think going for Arcane Boots first and bringing healing salves if I need HP regen is the way to maintain myself on the lane. Boots of Speed, a set of Tangos and two Iron Branches as starting items, then usually contest the bounty rune; if I'm outnumbered or their heroes are strong lvl 1, I just go back and bodyblock the mid creep. Dismember and knowing they only have a single spell to fend for themselves. The exception being if they are a 
Queen of Pain that went 
Blink level 1 or something along those lines. Aether Lens time. Arcane Boots into straight Aether Lens, then Force Staff and Aghanim's Scepter. Any item I see I need for a particular utility, like euls, or bkb, I'd buy between Force Staff and aghanims. I leave my boots on Boots of Speed unless I get a kill on a fat hero and turn them into either arcanes if I think I'm going Octarine Core or I need the mana; or into Tranquil Boots. Items after aghs are picked accoding to the match, but I default to Ethereal Blade, Octarine Core and Shiva's Guard. Force Staff over Blink Dagger mainly because of how I've formed muscle memory to aiming my mobility without using a ground target cursor; this allows me to focus more on hooks, and also escape deeper dives using terrain. Aether Lens is to kill the carry as many times as possible until the safelane tower is killed; in between the times he comes back I go for supports or junglers. If i'm going to kill the mid I generally buy myself a smoke. And always have tps so if the enemy mid ganks my bottom guys while I gank top I can to and help, since my effective range is already pretty long.The supamida has gone through a lot of changes with his playstyle through the years and through the patch changes.
Even if Pudge itself as a hero is much stronger now he doesnt play it as much anymore, and I blame the competitive meta for the most part.
I'll go over his current style first and more in detail, as the old dendi style isnt reall up to date anymore (one thing from it does carry over today's playstyle and I'll go over that last):
+ Dendi plays a super aggresive solo mid right from the start, capitalizing on the fact that he double downs on early game items and starting stats, using rot to land a couple right clicks on the enemy mid, then pulling the aggro to his ranged creep.
+ He does the classic Bottle stat build to this day, even if he doesnt go Bottle all the time. That's two gauntlet of strength (which he turns into an Urn of Shadows), three Iron Branches (he uses one of them with a Tango, and the other two he builds into a 
Magic Wand), and the Tango set.
+ Right after starting items he goes either Bottle or brown boots; he gets one after the other usually what changes is just the order. He rarely skips the Bottle.
+ Depending on the match he'll go Tranquil Boots, Arcane Boots, or Power Treads. Power Treads is like the middle ground, just stats to make Bottle a bit better with treadswitch.
+ His first big item is always a Blink Dagger, but he doesnt start building it until he has he finished boots, Urn of Shadows and the Magic Wand.
+ Right after Blink Dagger he either starts building a bkb, or if he went Arcane Boots he'll get Aether Lens and bkb afterwards. If he didnt go arcanes then he goes bkb first and then gets Aether Lens whole. The reason he does this is because he doesnt want to rely on hook in case they get initiated on he can jump into their carry with bkb and dismember him in the middle of the fight for the full duration, giving his team time to come in.
Dendi plays his Pudge as a pickoff once in a while but centers his role as an anti-carry disabler with ganking tools to help his team.
Blink Dagger, Black King Bar and a Refresher Orb. And he would dedicate his position to disable the enemy carry for as long as possible. Refresher Orb he can use his bkb again, turning a 5 second bkb into a 10 sec bkb, with 6 of those seconds dedicated to Dismember. Blink Dagger, Aghanim's Scepter, Octarine Core, Black King Bar & Refresher Orb; you'd have lower cooldowns on blink, hook is at 3 seconds, dismember, bkb itself and refresh. And you could hook a hero, pop bkb, dismember them for a full duration, hook them again, refresh, hook them again, then pop bkb for the second time, dismember again for a full duration, then hook one last time.HexOr plays a Pudge I really enjoy watching, mainly because he has a cool hook, but also because his playstyle is really hook centric like mine; he plays mid solo which I think is the most high impact if you know how to play it, and gives you the true killing power Pudge can achieve.
His signature style comes from the core pickup of Eul's Scepter of Divinity; and focused on displacement, sometimes going as far as purchasing duo mobility ( Force Staff & Blink Dagger).
He goes Arcane Boots first into Aether Lens, and then turns his remaining brown boots into Tranquil Boots. The reason he goes Tranquil Boots is because on top of the fact that he will be roaming enemy territory a lot, he wants the hp issue fixed on passive (for example, I fix my hp issue by dismembering neutrals in between ganks), and the extra movement speed for the roaming stacks up with the movement speed from eul's. Also, unlike dendi who goes any boot and has urn of shadows pretty much every game, he handles with the tranquil boots regen.
And my playstyle (Goo) is about killing killing and invading space, dendi's playstyle is all about teamfight disruption and creating bad situations for enemies,; and HexOr's playstyle is about going for the individual plays, disabling some specific hero, hooking low hp heroes instead of carries and so. Whatever has the potential to screw enemies over the most that's the objective, and he uses euls and mobility to take that objective as far as possible from the fight.
The main flaw in my playstyle is that if I fail to get kills throughout the game my teamfight contribution will be weak due to my aggresive itemization; this flaw doesnt exist in Dendi's and HexOr's builds; but they are not a huge ganking threat either, because their itemization isnt focused on that.
Here's a video of him playing. Even in rather old, his playstyle has remained near unchanged.
Slahser plays completely differently; to start off, he plays as a solo offlane, and has a parallel itemization.
The way he plays Pudge capitalizes on Pudge's early game, as he considers displacement is the strongest during laning, where dives are more easily punished.
With solo offlane he can get levels (but not gold, which he doesnt need much of for this build), and roam from early without taking the mid lane off a farming position.
Slahser's early game is based on two items: Tranquil Boots and Soul Ring, and so he purchases his starting items often with components of the two. The idea is that you get 5-6-7 in the offlane and with those two items pair yourself with an ally and roam using the range of hook while your carries farm.
It is the closest we have to a consistent roamer pudge position.
He doesnt side with either Force Staff or Blink Dagger so strongly and gets whatever he thinks he may need; this is probably because he doesnt play Pudge as much as a gold hoarder from ganks and needs to spend his gold a little bit more carefully than the previously mentioned players.
After mobility (if he did purchase any at all) he tends to go either Glimmer Cape or Blade Mail, depending on the enemy team.
Late game I've seen him pick up a lot of auras and utility over stuff like Aghs or Octarine Core, probably because he doesnt trust to be able to kill carries with more farm just from hooks and keeps himself as an aura carrier and damage sponge.
Slahser's playstyle is, in my opinion, the easiest playstyle to understand if you are not a pudge player; since it doesnt require you to land crazy kills on the enemy lina when playing mid as a melee itemless hero. Instead it's all about offlane and roaming ganks, which is a more universal concept.
Leaving Sumail's style for last because, even if he doesnt do this ALL the time, he is the player who does this the most in regular ranked matchmaking; so we could say it is sort of his style of play.
Sumail plays a duo mid with wisp and using double Bottle to dedicate the laning phase only to shut down the enemy mid, this means going deep with Rot and 
Overcharge, using the 
Tether movement speed to chase people down, and spam your mana with Meat Hook and Spirits.
Take a look by yourself:
This section is not done yet. I was going to finish everything and update the whole thing but this sections take a long time to make; I will update again including sections going over the mid matchups against:
- Templar Assassin
- Invoker
- 
Ember Spirit
- Queen of Pain
- Outworld Devourer
- 
Death Prophet
- Shadow Fiend
- Lina
- 
Puck
- Tiny
Pudge is a hero that isnt hard countered by anything as he messes with enemy positioning, and that isnt something you can really counter directly (with the exception of Time Lapse).
Puck: Pudge has a tough time dealing with Puck for several reasons, he can dodge Meat Hook with Phase Shift, you need Dismember to kill it and even then it's not guaranteed as he can escape any time with 
Illusory Orb, he has a silence (
Waning Rift) and during the early game a silence can mess you up because Rot toggling. And he is ranged, so tougher lane. Queen of Pain: For similar reasons, she is a very escapy hero and you need to time Dismember perfectly, and it's still not guaranteed a kill. Also she will destroy you mid, and you can't get farm back by killing her as you would with other heroes (like 
Viper, etc) because of the escape.
Storm Spirit: Storm has really high mobility when he hits 6 and becomes annoying to deal with then, but also before ultimates, Storm Spirit is a hero that's really scary at close range, and he also runs over melee heroes in the mid lane. Ember Spirit: Ember is one of the few melee heroes that messes with Pudge a lot, mainly because 
Flame Guard. Meat Hook goes through it completely (pure damage), but Rot doesnt, and if you want to kill the Flame Guard you are going to have to tank both Flame Guard and Rot damage's over time, and gets scary. Also I've seen Ember Spirit players dodge my hooks with 
Sleight of Fist but they aren't that consistent at it. Magnus: Magnus is a really scary matchup because he is basically better equiped than Pudge if we compare them as melee heroes, he has a way more mana-cost efficient nuke for the creepwave and as harass, and he can use 
Skewer to escape you and also to get you into tower range. This happens when you are both CSing and he turns around or kinda turns to the side, when you see that you have to retreat a bit or you'll get Skewered, and it hurts a lot because of Pudge's really low armor value.
Bounty Hunter: Invis escape and courier sniping. In a more deeper level, 
Track is the most annoying thing ever, because one of the things that counter Pudge the most is vision, and being Tracked is like running around with a enemy ward strapped to your forehead.
Spirit Breaker: He is very effective at countering ganks, so if you hook someone he will be quick to follow up. Also, he ganks mid. Weaver: Literally impossible to kill as Pudge, and even more when he gets Linken's Sphere.
Nyx Assassin: He scouts around, he can gank you early game, 
Mana Burn, etc. Also it happens that when you hook a Nyx Assassin they will immediately pop 
Spiked Carapace and it will either cancel your Dismember as soon as it starts or you will be stunned from Rot Aoe.
Silencer and outworld devourer: Both of this heroes screw you over by reducing your mana pool and mana in general, be careful around them. Especially Silencer as the pool reducing is permanent and he has multiple silences in his skillset.
Slardar, Axe, Juggernaut, 
Brewmaster, 
Chaos Knight, 
Clockwerk, 
Sven, 
Ursa, 
Wraith King, Legion Commander, 
Huskar, 
Bristleback, Lifestealer and sometimes Slark late game and Techies early game. Pudge is a hero that rolls solo a lot, but there are some good ally synergies with his set of skills.
Omniknight: 
Repel and Rot, Meat Hook and Dismember into 
Purification, 
Degen Aura and Rot. Its all there.
Bounty Hunter: Track vision and extra gold, invis scouting too.
Techies: Meat Hook + land mines, simple.
outworld devourer: 
Astral Imprisonment + Meat Hook.
Lifestealer: Meat Hook + 
Infest, 
Open Wounds + Rot.
Disruptor: Vision from 
Thunder Strike, 
Glimpse into Meat Hook.
Bloodseeker: Rupture + Meat Hook
That's all I have to say for now. The rest of non-guide stuff is up there on the preface.
On a separate note, lately, along Pudge, I've been spamming Slark; which was until recently a sort of new hero to me (in that I had never spammed him before), and I feel I've gotten really good at it mechanic wise (dispeling, disjoints, controlling dives, all that stuff).
The next guide, whenever that is, could be on Slark. Just saying.
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