How to win lane as Pudge?

I'm not a Pudge player, but after playing against many, some good, some bad, and seeing good Pudge players, I want to learn. His ability to create space for his team is quite good because just seeing a missing Pudge makes it a danger to farm anywhere on the map. I also play in low level pubs so wards are virtually non existent, good for a Pudge.

But the first step is, winning lane. Well first, with Pudge, what would you define as "winning"? He doesn't need farm so should I just aim to come out with levels? Now to my main question, how can you win middle as Pudge?(assuming I'm mid because while I think support Pudge can be pretty legit, pub players might not think the same). This question is aimed at situations when you're going against a ranged hero. He is slow, has no armor, and no harass against range. So what can I do?

Unless you're just next level against your opponent, there is no way that a Pudge will win a lane (mid I presume). He is played mid because you want to get experience asap to rekt other people. The best way to get last hits on him is to Aggro the creeps on yourself, and burst it down with your Rot. Im too lazy to explain how to aggro, but thats the best way for you to get last hits. Its pretty useful for offlaning too. Go check that on youtube, it's pretty useful for every cases of melee vs ...

ok

so pudge isnt about the last hits.

unless ur are facing a slippery bugger like qop or puck then your goal isnt to farm.

its to get levels and as much farm AS SAFELY AS POSSIBLE because your farm is heroes and you win the lane by making them scared to come back into it.

usually you have better kill potential at level 2. so basically.

go to lane make sure you block well. get xp to level 2 buy smoke send to yourself. back off outa vision smoke then hook them under tower... gg wp ez killz. rinse repeat till level 6. try and get all runes or as much as possible. gank with haste. scout with illusion. go in lane ans last hit with dd. bottle boots urn tranqs wand tp and SMOKES ... a whole lot of smokes. wards as well. if you get a kill and have 200 gold buy sentries and counter ward.

THE LESS THEY SEE YOU THE MORE YOU WIN

On slower less mobile heroes you can just walk up, rot on top of them while hitting then if they go under their tower hook them out and if that doesn't kill them finish them off with some more rot and a right click.

A lot of people have the misconception that pudge can only gank at level 6 as well, this is not true all you need to do is hook an enemy out of position with your team for an easy kill.

To win the lane as Pudge you need to get kills. That's the only way Pudge wins his lane. He'll always get out-harassed by...literally every mid hero that exists. But he has probably the best solo kill potential of all dota heroes, in the early game at least.

Getting levels isn't enough. Suppose you get your levels while e.g the enemy mid Magnus gets his levels as well. What is going to happen? On one side you have a solo ganker that's only truly useful in the early-mid game. On the other side you have a hero that when played well can win every teamfight for his team up to the ultra-late game. So essentially you'll have "lost" mid, because the enemy mid hero is way more useful than you. My point is, Pudge doesn't scale well. Every hero that doesn't scale well needs to snowball HARD and get a big early game advantage, or he drops off and becomes useless. So go get those kills.

Support Pudge IS legit. If you play at the level where people don't buy wards indeed people won't understand why. But that doesn't mean you can't do it, it can work really well and they won't say anything.

If you're up against a ranged hero, the only way to win the lane is to hook him and kill him. Luckily the huge majority of ranged heroes have no escape mechanism. Heroes like Sniper, Drow Ranger, Shadow Fiend, Troll Warlord etc are actually food to Pudge because they have no way to escape once you hook them. So you can kill them even at level 2. Hook them, follow them around with Rot and right-click if they fight back, ez first blood. You need to sit out of vision range to hook them, it's generally not that hard if they have no wards (there are a ton of spots, look at Pudge guides for details).

If you're up against a ranged hero WITH an escape, like Queen of Pain, or Puck, or Weaver, or Morphling...you're probably ****ed. There's no way you can kill these heroes until you're level 6, and even then it's not easy. There is one trick though, you need to shift-queue your Dismember. Hook the guy, and immediately press SHIFT and use Dismember on him. This will queue the skill so that they can't use their escape skill just after they get hooked. So if you have enough damage during your Dismember you can still kill them.

In general, Pudge loses his lane to most heroes. The strength of Pudge is in his ability to snowball from his early ganks.

However, your laning phase need not be an absolute disaster. A couple of things that can help you get your bottle early are a good block, and last hitting with rot.

Once you have your Bottle, grab a smoke (if you are in a tier where enemies buy observer wards), get the rune, and look for opportunities to gank the side lanes.

If your enemy mid laner is a squishy hero without an escape ( Sniper, Drow Ranger, Shadow Fiend, Lina, Pugna, Templar Assassin or Zeus), try to hand a hook, and rot-walk them to get a kill; that should usually win you the lane.

Am I the only one who doesn't lane with a Pudge? I stay in lane for like 0.001 seconds to get level 2 (hook + rot) and then I'm outta there! I like to play full roam Pudge. For the reasons stated above, Pudge cannot win a lane so why not help others win theirs?

Thanks for response guys! You guys pretty much confirmed my thoughts on the hero before. Might try support Pudge too. Also Hamstertamer, with the shift queue thing with Dismember, does that require quick cast to be on?

You dont win lanes as pudge.
Winning is not the objective.
Your focus is to get runes, get levels and safe farm.
If you see a good hooking opportunity, jump at it.
But dont constantly reposition yourself or you will alert the mid laner that you intend to hook.


Its psychology.

No, quickcast is a completely different thing. Quick-cast is about casting a targeted spell at your current position by pressing a key only once. Unless you're playing Meepo or something, don't bother about that.

No, shift-queuing is really about queuing your actions. Like if you keep the shift key pressed and you right-click point A then point B then point C, your hero will move to A then to B then to C without you doing anything.
On Pudge, what you do is that you throw your hook, press SHIFT, and then cast Dismember on your target. This way as soon as you're in range you will disable the guy, so that he can't blink out before your dismember is cast.