* Single-target disablers will have difficulty locking down a Chaos Knight with Phantasm active:
Bane,
Beastmaster,
Bloodseeker,
Clockwerk,
Doom,
Shadow Shaman.
* 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.
* Having many summons out will cause
Echo Slam to deal extra damage.
* Heroes with channeled abilities can be interrupted by a long-range Fissure:
Crystal Maiden,
Witch Doctor,
Bane,
Pugna,
Pudge.
*
Aphotic Shield effectively nullifies Primal Roar's single-target initiation on allies.
* Even being initiated by Primal Roar,
Borrowed Time can make Abaddon extremely difficult to kill.
Additional:
*
Primal Roar can be instantly dispelled by Aphotic Shield.
* The debuffs from
Wild Axes and
Poison from
Call of the Wild: Boar can also be dispelled by Aphotic Shield.
* 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.
Additional:
* 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 their ablities have very high mana costs, Luna 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.
* Both Jakiro's Ice Path and Liquid Frost can be used to cancel
Life Drain from either Jakiro or an ally.
*
Decrepify only makes Pugna even more vulnerable to Jakiro's magical damage, And it has no adverse effects on Jakiro himself.
*
Aghanim's Scepter upgraded
Macropyre can deal pure damage-over-time and pierce debuff immunity, which can discourage Pugna from even trying to use
Life Drain.
* Bear in mind, however, that
Nether Ward can do some considerable damage to Jakiro due to high mana costs on his abilities.
* Puck can dodge
Nether Blast and
Life Drain with his Phase Shift, easily avoiding Pugna's strong burst magic damage.
*
Waning Rift's silence allows Puck and its teammates to easily deal with Pugna, which cannot do the same to it, because with 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
Additional:
* 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
* Pugna only deals magical damage, which Anti-Mage is exceptionally resistant due to Counterspell.
* Anti-Mage can dispel
Decrepify with
Manta Style.
* Pugna has a very large mana pool. This allows Anti-Mage to constantly deal bonus damage to Pugna with Mana Break and devastate Pugna's entire team with Mana Void.
Additional:
* 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.
Additional:
* Pugna's squishiness and lack of mobility make him easy prey for a Hookshot initiation.
* Clockwerk's high health, low mana costs, and lack of reliance on Blink Dagger make
Nether Ward ineffective.
* Battery Assault shuts down
Aghanim's Scepter upgraded
Life Drain, as the repeated ministuns prevent Pugna from channeling for an extended length of time.
*
Frostbite kills boars instantly on the laning stage leading to either experience lead or disabling Beastmaster from using Boar
*
Crystal Nova nukes and slows down the attack and movement speed of Beastmaster's summons.
*
Freezing Field grants improved self armor, nukes and slows down Beastmaster and his summons.
* Pugna's low health and reliance on channeled abilities make him very vulnerable to Tusk, although Pugna can win in a straight up 1v1 later in the game.
* 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
Additional:
* 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
* Phantom Lancer creates way too many illusions for Pugna's
Life Drain to destroy, overwhelming him easily.
*
Doppelganger can dodge
Nether Blast or dispel
Decrepify.
*
Diffusal Blade is a common item for Phantom Lancer to burn Pugna's large mana pool and deals a large amount of damage in the process.
Additional:
* 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.
* Pugna is very reliant on his abilities for damage which Silencer can take advantage off. But he has to be careful around the
Nether Ward as Silencer's abilities cost a lot of mana to use.
* 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.
Additional:
*
Nether Blast's animation makes it easy to time Spiked Carapace for a stun.
* Pugna has the largest intelligence gain in the game, making him a prime target for Mana Burn.
* Pugna needs to channel
Life Drain, making him easy to hit with Impale.
* Spirit Siphon does a lot of magical damage, especially in the early game. This allows her to demolish low health heroes such as
Zeus,
Pugna, especially when combined with her other spells.
* Fragile heroes: Bounty Hunter has decent nuking capabilities with Shiruken Toss and Jinada thus making fragile heroes easy picks for ganking. Few examples of such heroes are:
Crystal Maiden,
Pugna,
Skywrath Mage,
Io,
Witch Doctor, etc.
* Heroes with Linken's Sphere as core item:
Weaver,
Morphling,
Medusa.
* Heroes with Linken's Sphere as core item:
Weaver,
Morphling,
Medusa.
* Heroes with Linken's Sphere as core item:
Weaver,
Morphling,
Medusa.
* Heroes who build a Black King Bar (or have any sources of spell immunity) to channel abilities/items can still get interrupted by Dismember:
Enigma,
Juggernaut,
Phantom Assassin,
Pugna,
Elder Titan.
* Heroes with AoE abilities are a bane to Beastmaster's summons:
Storm Spirit,
Magnus,
Pangolier.
* Heroes who rely on channeling abilities can be interrupted in teamfights by Rolling Thunder:
Crystal Maiden,
Pugna,
Witch Doctor
* Heroes with other kind of disables that pierce spell immunity can hold Pangolier in place during Rolling Thunder:
Axe,
Beastmaster,
Enigma,
Magnus,
Pudge,
Batrider,
Bane,
Winter Wyvern
* Heroes that rely on summons will suffer against Ion Shell, which kills them very quickly:
Beastmaster,
Broodmother,
Enigma,
Nature's Prophet,
Visage,
Warlock,
Wraith King.
* Heroes with summoned units don't fare well against Dawnbreaker. (
Phantom Lancer ,
Beastmaster ,
Lycan).
* Heroes with channeled abilities which Assassinate may cancel at long range:
Witch Doctor,
Crystal Maiden,
Shadow Shaman,
Pugna
Additional:
* 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.
* Heroes with AoE abilities are a bane to Beastmaster's summons:
Storm Spirit,
Magnus,
Pangolier.
* 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.
* Heroes who rely on high mobility are especially vulnerable to Primal Roar:
Storm Spirit,
Ember Spirit,
Queen of Pain.
* Heroes with mana burn:
Nyx Assassin,
Invoker,
Outworld Destroyer,
Pugna,
Lion
* Attacks from Boars and the attack speed boost from Inner Beast will quickly wear down
Refraction.
* Pugna's
Decrepify can render Templar Assassin's physical attacks useless.
* Pugna can also cast
Life Drain on Templar Assassin, burning her Refraction instances.
* On the other hand, Pugna generally has low health and armor. Use this to your advantage.
* Beastmaster's Hawk can find Tinker easily while he is pushing or blinking into trees.
*
Nether Ward discourages Tinker from using abilities and items due to its high damage against heavy mana usage.
* Primal Roar and the slow from Boars make kiting Troll Warlord very easy.
* 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
*
Wild Axes,
Primal Roar and
Drums of Slom can deal high damage to Chen and clear waves of his creeps.
* Even though Chen can take control of the Boar from
Call of the Wild Boar at any time with
Holy Persuasion, which could put Beastmaster in a disadvantage against Chen. Skilled Beastmaster can buy
Helm of the Overlord to regain control of it to counter this problem.
* Smart Beastmaster can also buy
Bloodthorn to prevent Chen from taking control of the Boar from
Call of the Wild Boar and make Chen more vulnerable to Beastmaster.
*
Nether Blast can deal high damage to Chen and clear waves of his creeps.
*
Decrepify can be used to waste the duration of
Penitence.
*
Nether Ward can discourage Chen from using
Penitence,
Holy Persuasion and
Hand of God due to their fairly high mana costs.
*
Life Drain can often kill Chen or any of his allies before he can save them with
Hand of God thanks to it's high damage and low cooldown.
* Heroes with summons or illusions can counter Flux, such as
Beastmaster ,
Chen, or
Shadow Demon.
* Arc Warden can't use Magnetic Field to stall the damage of
Nether Blast on towers, but he can buy
Aghanim's Shard to diminish its damage.
* Arc Warden has no innate disables to stop
Life Drain and
Decrepify
* The short cooldown of both Life Drain and Decrepify also means Pugna can deal with Arc Warden and Arc Warden's clone simultaneously most of the time
* A good Pugna looks to end the match early while Arc Warden, a very item reliant hero, thrives in longer matches.
* Long lockdown is a great way to deal with Axe to prevent Berserker's Call from being used, heroes such as
Legion Commander,
Beastmaster and
Primal Beast are good examples of this.
*
Decrepify can be used on allies to prevent them from attacking Axe and triggering Counter Helix during Berserker's Call. He can also cast it on Axe to prevent anyone from attacking him.
*
Life Drain can be used to heal himself or allies caught in Berserker's Call, preventing them from dropping low enough for Axe to kill them with Culling Blade.
* Heroes who can stun Sven even with an activated
Black King Bar can be an issue:
Clockwerk,
Beastmaster.
Additional:
* Primal Roar takes Sven out of the fight completely, even with
Black King Bar.
* Pugna can save allies with both healing or by making them ethereal but needs to be careful of Sven's
Aghanim's Scepter purge.
* Long ranged disables, especially those that pierce spell immunity, cancel Black Hole:
Beastmaster's
Primal Roar,
Bane's
Fiend's Grip,
Faceless Void's
Chronosphere,
Magnus's
Reverse Polarity,
Axe's
Berserker's Call,
Pudge's
Meat Hook.
* 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, Pugna can also damage multiple of Enigma's allies around him with
Life Drain when he casts it on
Aghanim's Shard upgraded
Nether Ward during teamfight.
*
Nether Blast can easily kill Eidolons, especially when Enigma is pushing.
* Even though Pugna cannot cancel
Black Hole on his own, smart Pugna can buy
Orchid Malevolence to stop Enigma from channeling
Black Hole and make him more vulnerable to counter-attacks with
Decrepify and
Life Drain.
Additional:
* 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.
* Illusion or summon-based heroes can be a problem to Viper due to his lack of AoE damage:
Naga Siren,
Phantom Lancer,
Beastmaster
* Pugna's
Decrepify allows him to save allies from being ganked by Viper, since Viper mostly relies on direct attacks in order to deal damage.
*
Nether Ward can discourage Viper from spamming his abilities.
* Viper's damage over time is not enough to kill Pugna as he will have more than enough time to save himself (or his allies) with
Life Drain and Viper has no solutions to cancel it.
* Pugna has no passive abilities, which renders
Nethertoxin nearly useless.
* Skywrath Mage also has a terrible time fighting against anything that isn't a hero. His skills are mostly target-based and he has terrible strength and agility, he can easily be kited or harassed by illusion-based heroes like
Chaos Knight and
Phantom Lancer, or by Heroes that summon other units like
Lone Druid,
Lycan and
Beastmaster.
* 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.
Additional:
*
Nether Ward will make Skywrath Mage next to useless in fights, as his low hp pool will not allow him to sustain through the damage of the ward should he choose to cast spells. Be wary though that Skywrath's huge burst will make very quick work of Pugna's low hp should the ward be destroyed, and
Decrepify won't help Pugna at all.
* Wraith King's lack of area of effect spells makes him easily overwhelmed by Beastmaster's summons.
* Heroes who are reliant on physical damage will be nullified by Decrepify:
Riki,
Wraith King,
Juggernaut.
*
Primal Roar allows Beastmaster to keep Lycan in place after he used his Shapeshift.
*
Pugna's
Decrepify prevents the target from taking physical damage or doing damage, which poses a huge problem for Lycan, as he mainly deals physical damage.
* Any long duration disables that can pierce through both, Pierce The Veil and
Black King Bar are devastating against Muerta:
Enigma's
Black Hole,
Dawnbreaker's
Solar Guardian,
Axe's
Berserker's Call,
Naga Siren's
Aghanim's Scepter upgraded
Ensnare and
Reel In from
Aghanim's Scepter,
Jakiro's
Aghanim's Scepter upgraded
Macropyre,
Bane's
Fiend's Grip,
Pudge's
Dismember,
Batrider's
Flaming Lasso,
Beastmaster's
Primal Roar,
Grimstroke's
Soulbind,
Medusa's
Stone Gaze,
Magnus's
Reverse Polarity.
* Heroes that commonly attack ethereal units will not have any problems against Muerta's Pierce The Veil:
Tinker,
Jakiro,
Lina,
Luna,
Pugna or
Ogre Magi,
Enigma,
Batrider,
Techies,
Broodmother,
Dawnbreaker,
Shadow Shaman,
Bane,
Tinker,
Venomancer,
Arc Warden.
* Heroes with illusions and summons can manfight Night Stalker:
Terrorblade,
Beastmaster,
Broodmother.
* Heroes that can punish aggressive heroes, such as:
Leshrac,
Shadow Demon,
Pugna,
Death Prophet.
* Heroes with disables that ignore spell immunity will render Phantom Assassin completely useless in teamfights throughout the game:
Axe,
Enigma,
Vengeful Spirit,
Doom,
Bane,
Beastmaster,
Pudge,
Medusa,
Warlock.
* Heroes that can apply early pressure before Phantom Assassin has farm are massive threats:
Axe,
Viper,
Meepo,
Jakiro,
Pugna,
Slark,
Venomancer etc.
* Inner Beast helps Beastmaster's team destroy
Supernova quickly.
* All of Pugna's abilities are active, making Demonic Purge break from
Aghanim's Scepter useless.
*
Nether Ward punishes Shadow Demon's constant mana usage from spamming spells, especially Shadow Poison.
* An attempt to save an ally using Disruption can easily become a perfect setup for a
Nether Blast for the enemy.
*
Life Drain can be used to heal Pugna or an ally to save them from Shadow Demon's abilities.
* However, it can be cancelled by Disruption unless Pugna buys defensive items.
*
Decrepify prevents
Omnislash damage, until Juggernaut gets a
Nullifier.
* Without a disable, Pugna's high movement speed makes it harder to chase him with
Blade Fury.
* Juggernaut has low mana and his skills cost large amount of mana.
Nether Ward will hurt him more and even worse, the damage from the ward is inflicted before the Spell immunity provided by
Blade Fury.
Additional:
* 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.
*
Nether Blast is one of the best tower pushing abilities in the game, with a low cooldown. A competent Pugna will (at the very least) destroy tier 2 towers and make space for his team before Spectre can finally come online.
* Spectre's spells, while not spammable, have a fairly high mana cost, so
Nether Ward can be fairly damaging to Spectre early game. The mana degen will also dampen Spectre's early game power significantly.
* Once Pugna gets
Aghanim's Scepter, he can spam
Life Drain on any illusion Spectre summons, whether it'd be from
Haunt,
Manta Style, or some other means.
* In addition, Pugna can disable Spectre's
Desolate ability (although its damage is pure, it requires physical attacks) with his
Decrepify ability, leaving Spectre only with
Spectral Dagger.
* Decrepify prevents Faceless Void from attacking trapped allies inside
Chronosphere, wasting a large portion of its duration if Faceless Void can't dispel it.
* Even though Pugna's low HP means that he can be quickly burst down, his
Nether Ward heavily punishes casters whose spells cost a lot of mana, like Zeus. Casting 4 of his active spells, including Nimbus, close to an enhanced level 4
Nether Ward, can make the ward deal up to 1750 magical damage.
*
Decrepify can further increase the damage dealt by Nether Ward upon Zeus. However, if used on Pugna himself or on one of his allies, it will amplify the damage done by Zeus' abilities.
*
Wild Axes destroys large amounts of trees specially upgraded with
Aghanim's Scepter,
* 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
Additional:
*
Decrepify on either hero stops Legion Commander from completing a Duel, and dissuades her from initiating Duels on ethereal allies.
*
Life Drain can help Pugna's teammates win a fight, either by killing Legion Commander or replenishing her target's health.
* The Hawk can easily find Monkey King while he is sitting on a tree.
* Wild Axes can knock out Monkey King from tree.
* Boars drastically reduce Monkey King's attack speed, making it harder for him to gain
Jingu Mastery stacks.
Additional:
*
Wild Axes can chop down trees, making it difficult for Monkey King to utilize Tree Dance well.
*
Call of the Wild Hawk can scout Monkey King when he is perched on top of trees.
*
Primal Roar can stun Monkey King for a lengthy duration even with spell immunity.
*
Nether Ward causes Death Pulse to actually damage Necrophos rather than heal him. Meanwhile, Reaper Scythe's gigantic mana cost while Necrophos is near the Nether Ward can often instantly kill him.
*
Nether Blast and
Life Drain both make quick work of Necrophos's small healthpool, especially during Ghost Shroud. The latter also makes him an unappealing target for Reaper's Scythe, and can often force Necrophos to use it defensively as he has no other means of interrupting his channeling.
* 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.
Additional:
*
Nether Ward on its own can greatly hinder Invoker from casting many of his abilities, at least until he gets a significant amount of HP or is under the protection of spell immunity from
Black King Bar
*
Life Drain provides True sight, revealing Invoker through Ghost Walk, and forcing him or his allies to use an ability or item to interrupt its channeling
* Outside of Nether Ward's range, Invoker shall have the advantage, as Invoker has Tornado to purge Pugna's
Decrepify when it is used defensively, Tornado or Cold Snap to prevent Pugna from channeling
Life Drain
* A poorly used
Decrepify on Pugna's allies means Invoker's abilities can be used to deal more damage to them.
* 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
Additional:
* 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
* Primal Roar and the slow from Boars make kiting Tiny very easy.
*
Nether Ward can do a ton of damage to Disruptor because of his high mana costs.
*
Life Drain can be used to heal an ally trapped by Static Storm-Kinetic Field combo (if Pugna is not a target).
*
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 or spam Shadowraze.
Additional:
* 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.
*
Nether Blast,
Decrepify and
Life Drain deal high magical damage and bypasses Bulwark.
*
Nether Ward reduces the amount of abilities Mars can use during fights and forces Mars to be careful about the heavy mana cost of Arena Of Blood.
* Pugna is one of few heroes that can contest Mars' ability to push and defend towers early on.
* Any hero that can outrange Plague Ward can neutralize them without putting themselves at risk of receiving Poison Sting:
Arc Warden,
Chen,
Clinkz,
Drow Ranger,
Lina,
Mirana,
Nature's Prophet,
Pugna and
Sniper.
* Special mention to heroes that outrange Plague Ward after obtaining talents that increase attack range.
* Heroes who relies on illusions and summons (
Beastmaster,
Chaos Knight, etc.).
* Heroes with magical or pure damage output will not have any problems against Atrophy Aura at all:
Luna,
Lina,
Jakiro,
Pugna,
Bane,
Snapfire,
Muerta,
Nyx Assassin,
Enigma,
Tinker,
Witch Doctor,
Zeus,
Crystal Maiden.
* As Terrorblade's damage output comes mainly from direct attacks, he will struggle greatly against heroes who have abilities that give evasion, trigger on attack or which can disarm an enemy hero:
Centaur Warrunner,
Hoodwink,
Huskar,
Invoker,
Leshrac with
Nihilism from
Aghanim's Scepter,
Lifestealer with
Aghanim's Scepter upgraded
Infest,
Pangolier,
Phantom Assassin,
Pugna,
Techies,
Windranger etc.
* Heroes with high movement speeds like
Pugna and
Meepo can run around, to, or away from Snapfire during
Mortimer Kisses and dodge the projectiles easily due to their slow speed.
* Heroes with mobility spells (such as
Queen of Pain's
Blink and
Clockwerk with
Hookshot) can easily avoid
Lil' Shredder and
Mortimer Kisses.
* Heroes with high movement speeds like
Pugna and
Meepo can run around, to, or away from Snapfire during
Mortimer Kisses and dodge the projectiles easily due to their slow speed.
* Heroes who are reliant on physical damage will be nullified by Decrepify:
Riki,
Wraith King,
Juggernaut.
* Heroes who rely on high mobility are especially vulnerable to Primal Roar:
Storm Spirit,
Ember Spirit,
Queen of Pain.
* Any heroes with high intelligence, such as
Invoker and
Pugna.
*
Pugna:
Decrepify prevent the Spirit bear from attacking or protect allies from it.
* 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.
* Heroes with both illusions and summons, for Io has nothing to deal with multiple enemies at once outside from Spirits's weak area-of-effect:
Beastmaster,
Broodmother,
Chaos Knight,
Lycan,
Naga Siren,
Nature's Prophet,
Phantom Lancer,
Shadow Shaman,
Terrorblade,
Visage,
Warlock,
Wraith King.
* Heroes who rely on high mobility are especially vulnerable to Primal Roar:
Storm Spirit,
Ember Spirit,
Queen of Pain.
* Heroes with disables that go through spell immunity can end Bloodseeker before he has the chance to do anything:
Batrider,
Beastmaster
*
Pugna's
Decrepify makes sure that either Alchemist is unable to hit anyone while also being slowed and susceptible to magical damage, or can protect an ally from physical attacks. Besides, Pugna can push early on, when Alchemist is not strong enough to repel it, so by the time Alchemist comes online, he might be forced to sit in base.
* 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.
* Heroes with strong dispels can remove Primal Roar's stun:
Abaddon,
Slark,
Oracle.
*
Nether Blast will still hit Slark even if he is hidden during Shadow Dance.
* Even though Pugna can rarely target Slark directly with
Decrepify, he can still use it defensively on an ally to prevent Slark from getting stacks.
* Despite being somewhat easy to break with Pounce, Pugna can damage Slark and provide vision over him with
Life Drain.
* Heroes who summon multiple units that are not spell immune.
Nature's Prophet,
Lycan,
Beastmaster
* 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.
Additional:
*
Nether Ward punishes Leshrac's constant mana usage from spamming spells.
* Leshrac needs to be in the thick of the fight to deal damage, and so cannot escape from
Nether Blast nor
Life Drain easily.
*
Illuminate clears Beastmaster's summons and is effective against his push.
* 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
Additional:
* 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
* Heroes with no mobility will take some good damage from Sand King's spells:
Dragon Knight,
Jakiro,
Pugna,
Earthshaker.
*
Pugna's
Nether Ward damages Sand King when he channels Epicenter, preventing him from using Blink Dagger afterward.
*
Untouchable negates Inner Beast's attack speed bonus, making her hard to kill even if stunned by Primal Roar.
* Enchantress can also take control of Beastmaster's summons.
Additional:
*
Enchant can control Beastmaster's boars with Enchant, mitigating his effectiveness during the laning stage and teamfights.
* 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.
*
Cold Embrace mitigates Primal Roar's single-target initiation on allies.
*
Winter's Curse can turn Beastmaster's summons and Inner Beast against his teammate.
Additional:
* Beastmaster's summons and
Inner Beast are very useful to attack his cursed teammate.
* Cold Embrace effectively mitigates
Primal Roar's single-target initiation on allies.
* Cold Embrace is a death sentence against Pugna, since its the perfect setup for all his abilities, especially
Life Drain.
*
Decrepify can be cast to save the ally under Winter's Curse effect, wasting most of its duration.
* Winter Wyvern's abilities require a lot of mana, allowing
Nether Ward to deal lots of damage.
*
Reactive Armor is very effective against Beastmaster's summons during laning stage and entire game.
* Timbersaw can quickly clear Beastmaster's summons with his nukes.
*
Lotus Orb item for Timbersaw can releases roar from the target position, stunning and damaging Beastmaster and knocking away, damaging and slowing allies that stand on the way.
* 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.
Additional:
*
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, especially when combined with
Decrepify.
* 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
* Primal Roar and the slow from Boars makes kiting Ursa very easy.
*
Pugna's Nether Ward doesn't really hurt Meepo since he usually buys attribute items to tank up and can be killed very quickly by 4 clones. Decrepify can amplify Poof's damage should Pugna use it to avoid Meepo's right clicking.
* Because only one clone needs to be killed in order to kill Meepo, heroes that excel at singling out enemies can also be a detriment to him, such as
Batrider,
Beastmaster,
Pudge and
Clockwerk.
* Heroes with AoE abilities are a bane to Beastmaster's summons:
Storm Spirit,
Magnus,
Pangolier.
* Any hero who can counter-initiate in anticipation without getting caught in Reverse Polarity:
Sven,
Omniknight,
Enigma,
Luna,
Naga Siren,
Mars,
Jakiro,
Venomancer,
Elder Titan,
Faceless Void,
Rubick,
Keeper of the Light,
Pugna,
Invoker,
Spectre,
Alchemist,
Treant Protector,
Lina,
Oracle,
Zeus,
Shadow Shaman,
Phoenix,
Razor,
Huskar,
Batrider,
Kunkka,
Tidehunter,
Wraith King,
Sand King,
Medusa,
Dawnbreaker.
To start select enemy heroes in the field above. It's intended to be used with multiple heroes. The more enemy heroes you provide the better results you will get.
This website was made to help you in pick stage of online game Dota 2. It calculates rating for each possible counterpicks based on tips from web-based database made up entirely of user contributions Dota 2 wiki.
You will get the list of recommended hero counters with a list of tips written by Dota 2 wiki contributors explaining why it's good against the particular hero. In comparison to other similar websites, which show only rating based on average hero win rate from dotabuff or similar service.
Take it with a bit of grain of salt, especially if the recommendation has a low rating (<= 1), some heroes
may win a lane in an early game but would lose in late game (and vice versa). That's why sometimes
you could hero names appearing as a counter and as being countered, as on image:
You can also add your own tips, update old data and fix mistakes by editing page on Dota 2 Wiki (it works like Wikipedia - anyone can contribute, you don't even need to register) these edits will appear on this website automatically (data is updated several times per week).
Right now there is no app/overlay that will detect picks automatically (like overwolf dota plus or become the gamer), instead, you can open web version in a steam in-game browser or use mobile version on your smartphone.
Want to know more? Check FAQ
Latest changes first
Sharing link to this site is always appreciated.
Dota 2 is a registered trademark of Valve Corporation. This site is not affiliated with Valve Corporation. All game images and names are property of Valve Corporation.
Beastmaster
*
False Promise effectively nullifies Primal Roar's single-target initiation on allies.
Purifying Flames kills Beastmaster's Hawk instantly and Boar with two casts.
*
Pugna
* 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.