Puck is a very strong ganker who can be laned in the mid or off lane. She is very hard to lockdown and kill, and can wreak havoc on the enemy team through her high mobility, silence and AoE stun.
Puck requires a very high level of mechanical skill and good decision-making in order to be effective with her. Although she can be hard to lockdown, over-extending with her can sometimes be easily punishable.
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[/column]Skill Build Order on Puck
- Illusory Orb
- Phase Shift
- Illusory Orb
- Waning Rift
- Illusory Orb
- Dream Coil
- Illusory Orb
- Waning Rift
- Waning Rift
- Waning Rift
- Phase Shift
- Phase Shift
- Phase Shift
- Talent
- Talent
- Dream Coil
- –
- Dream Coil
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Puck fires an orb in the target direction, damaging all enemies it comes in contact with. Puck can jump to this orb at any point before it expires. This is maxed first because it increases the damage and reduces the cooldown of the spell. It is also the spell you use more often as a means to escape, initiate and chase enemies. The orb becomes red just before it will expire, and it lasts just under 3 seconds in total.
If you’re laning mid, be careful about when you use this spell offensively, as you are very vulnerable to ganks when it is on cooldown. When their supports or off laner is missing, consider whether or not they could be ganking you. If so, then you should probably save your Illusory Orb. The same logic goes applies for the off lane as well. If you use Illusory Orb to escape incoming enemy supports, play safe until it’s off cooldown, as they might try, and succeed, to kill you again.
When you’re trying to escape from an enemy, you can cast your Orb in one direction and walk another. If the enemy chases the orb, you can often walk away, and if they chase you, you can jump to the orb. If you are about to die in a team-fight across the map, you can cast the Orb right before you die, buy back and then jump to it to reappear at the engagement. This is quite a rare situation, although it’s worth keeping it in mind. Illusory Orb can be a great scouting tool, especially against enemies that tend to hide in the trees, such as Monkey King or Tinker.
Puck damages and silences all nearby enemies. This is one of your main initiation spells, as the silence lasts 3 seconds at level 4. This is maxed secondly and prioritized before the level 10 talent because with each point in it, the damage increases, the cooldown decreases and the duration of the silence increases by almost 1 second. These are all very significant for Puck as they help you to win team-fights more easily in the early and mid game than your level 10 talent options would.
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Puck briefly disappears, becoming completely invulnerable to damage and spells. Moving, attacking or casting spells will cancel the effect. This is usually maxed lastly because it doesn’t give you any more kill potential. However, it is usually prioritized before Dream Coil and the level 10 talent because it helps you much more throughout the game as it makes you much harder to kill. It also tilts your enemies, causing them to vent out their frustrations on Dota 2 Reddit.
At level 4 Phase Shift, it will last long enough for your Illusory Orb to first travel the full distance before you jump to it. This is very valuable as it’s another factor that will help you to escape engagements. In the early game, you should use this to avoid taking damage from spells and attacks. One point will be all you need in it for now. If you are going to use Blink Dagger from your Phase Shift, try to Blink in the direction that you were facing before casting it. Otherwise, your hero will need to turn in the target direction first. Usually this won’t be a big enough problem to kill you, although there are certainly situations where doing so will be the difference between life or death.
Puck briefly stuns all enemies in the target area and tethers them to a point in the center. If an enemy leaves its range, the tether will snap dealing damage and stunning them for an even longer duration. Aghanim’s Scepter increases the damage from the Coil break and makes the stun it applies go through magic immunity and it increases the duration of the Coil. You should always get this at level 6 as it gives you massive kill potential and can even help to turn ganks around if you teleport to another lane.
It is sometimes skipped until you have maxed your other spells because the only aspects that increase per level is the damage and the stun duration, with a 5 second decrease in cooldown. This is usually not very significant because enemies usually don’t break the tether in order to be affected by the stun and damage. If you’re against heroes that have high mobility or are likely to break the tether due to a forced movement spell on your team, then it might be worth getting the second level.
The intelligence is usually the better talent option as it will give you a bit more mana to cast your spells with and also a bit more damage. However, if you’re facing a lot of physical damage or minus armor, then the extra armor can be quite good as well. In any case, these talent options are quite underwhelming compared to the value of getting extra points in your skills, which is why it is often delayed until around level 14.
The spell amplification can be good against illusion based heroes, heroes that are especially squishy to magical damage or if you are going for a Dagon 5 build. If you have gone for more utility based items and don’t/won’t have an Aghanim’s Scepter or a Dagon, then the extra damage might be a better option. The damage can also be good against heroes that have high magic resistance or low armor. You should also consider it if your team needs more physical damage in your line-up. Both options are great for pushing Dota 2 ranks.
If you’re against a team of heavy casters and mobile or hard to lockdown heroes, then the reduced cooldown on Waning Rift can be good. Otherwise, it doesn’t have as significant an impact as the extra distance and speed, which is almost always the better option. This is because even against heroes that are hard to lockdown, the increased speed and distance may end up helping you to chase them down even more easily anyway. In addition to this, it will help you to escape from bad positions after initiating, escape bad fights, and help you to move around the battlefield more easily.
The Dream Coil Rapid Fire is good in situations where you are able to stand and right-click enemies for a while without getting burst down or disabled. It’s also good if you have some damage items, as you’ll be able to deal a significant amount of damage to all nearby enemies. The extra GPM is good if you need more items in the late game, or if you think the match will go on for a lot longer. The talents choice here is very situational, and it depends a bit on whether you are ahead or behind.
Puck can be played in either the off lane or mid lane. In the off lane, you’ll probably need a bit more health regen. A Faerie Fire can be good in the mid lane as it gives you a bit more burst regen and damage. A Null Talisman can be good for more last-hitting damage in the mid lane, although it’s generally not needed for the off lane. You’ll probably end up getting one anyway for the Veil of Discord if you choose to get one. A Mango can be good to get as it can be built into a Magic Wand which is good in almost every game on Puck.
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Puck greatly benefits from having a Magic Wand as it can give her enough burst healing to help her survive and escape a fight. Similarly, it can also be used to help you pick off another hero.
A Bottle is a great item on Puck because it gives her lots of HP and mana regen. If you are in the off lane it’s a lot less useful as you struggle to control the runes.
Power Treads are usually the boots of choice on Puck as they give you more intelligence and some attack speed. Alternatively you can leave your boots as Boots of Speed and upgrade them to Travels later.
A Veil of Discord is a great item on Puck because it gives her lots of stats, a very strong active ability and it’s very cheap to build. It makes it much easier for you to get kills in the early and mid game as you get a lot of value from the damage amp, given that all of your spells are magical damage. It’s especially very strong if you have lots of magical damage on your team.
A Blink Dagger is a core item on Puck and you should get it in every single on your games. You can Blink out of level 4 Phase Shift, initiate with Waning Rift or Dream Coil more easily and be aggressive with it, without being punished as you can escape with an Illusory Orb and Phase Shift combo. When you Blink away from a Phase Shift, keep track of which direction you are facing before you Blink away.
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A Eul’s Scepter of Divinity is a great item on Puck if you need a defensive item to purge silences or keep yourself alive for longer. If you use Phase Shift and immediately Cyclone when it ends, Phase Shift will be on a 0.25 s cooldown and you can use it again almost straight away. It can also be a great item if you need more disables on your team to, for example, cancel teleports. You’ll see this item widely used in many Dota 2 esports events.
Dagon is a great item on Puck as it helps her to get pick offs and burst down heroes much more easily It combos well with her other spells and her Veil of Discord. If you’re against heroes with high magic resistance it might be less effective, but in general it’s a great item on Puck. It’s very strong against heroes that are vulnerable to magical damage or that have low HP pools, like Weaver.
An Aghanim’s Scepter can be a great item on Puck if you need more control in team-fights. For 8 seconds, enemies will not be able to leave the Dream Coil without taking lots of damage and being stunned through magic immunity. If you’re against several heroes with Blink spells, or spells that they can use to escape the coil such as Fire Remnant or Ball Lightning, then it can be less effective. The stats are also really great on Puck and help her a lot.
A Dagon 5 is a great item on Puck as it gives you a massive amount of kill potential in the mid and late game. It’s worth upgrading in the mid game if you are able to snowball with it easily or if you don’t need any other defensive/utility item more.
If you have a Dagon 5, then an Ethereal Blade will give you even more kill potential. It can also be used defensively to great effect against physical damage dealers that can burst you down very quickly. In most games there is usually a better item you can get that will offer you more utility, although it can be good in games where you are very far ahead and snowballing, and where the enemy line-up is made of several squishy heroes.
A Scythe of Vyse is a great item on Puck because it helps to make your initiations much smoother in the late game. The Hex can be used on a carry when you initiate with Dream Coil for your team to follow up on, and it will gives you much more solo-kill potential. It will also make it much harder for enemies to kill you in 1v1 situations.
A Shiva’s Guard can be a great item against physical damage dealers. The armor and attack speed debuff on enemies will tank you up and the active slow will help you even more when you initiate team-fights. Use it after Blinking in and hitting the enemies with a Waning Rift + Dream Coil combo. Overall, the slow is a great addition to your team-fight control skill-set.
Boots of Travel are a great mid-to-late game item on Puck. This is because you can very easily push in creep waves with your spells to make space for your team to take Roshan or farm the jungle for a few minutes. You are very hard to lockdown, and as such can get away with being in relatively unsafe areas of the map. With Boots of Travel, you can teleport to a lane to push it in or push in a lane and teleport to your allies afterwards. Simply a top-tier item for any Puck build, and one that many of the best Dota 2 players use each game.
If you’re 6 slotted in the late game, you can consume a Moon Shard for yourself or for an ally.
If you’re against an enemy that can drain your mana, then a Kaya can be a great item on Puck. If and When you get a Dagon 5, it will help to preserve a large amount of mana in team-fights, as you’ll be using a lot of mana on all of your spells.
A Refresher Orb can be a good item if you’ve gotten lots of active items, such as Aghanim’s Scepter and Scythe of Vyse. If you need more control in team-fights, a Refresher can definitely be a strong 6th or 7th item.
You may need a Linken’s against heroes like Doom or Legion Commander, as they can lock you down very easily and kill you if you get caught out. The stats it provides are great on Puck as well, as her stat gain isn’t the best.
A Mjollnir can be a very strong late game damage item on Puck. With Dream Coil Rapid Fire, you are likely to get a lightning proc on at least one of your attacks. As the 0.2s lightning cooldown is less than your attack speed during Dream Coil and because of the 25% chance to proc, if you get 4 enemies in the Dream Coil, you have a very high chance of proccing the lightning with every attack. Overall, a Mjollnir can give you a massive late game DPS increase.
The minus armor from Desolator is applied to all enemies that you attack with the Rapid Fire buff during Dream Coil. This makes the item a very strong pickup against enemies with high armor, as it will also help your team to kill them more quickly.
A Nullifier can be a strong item against heroes that have strong buffs that make them much harder to kill. The extra damage and armor are nice on Puck, but it doesn’t synergize with Rapid Fire very well and it doesn’t provide you with any mana/intelligence.
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Spells like Disruptor’s Static Storm and Riki’s Smoke Screen can potentially kill Puck as they prevent her from using Phase Shift or Illusory Orb. If you’re fast, you can sometimes use Blink Dagger to escape them, but in general they counter Puck very hard. Be careful about initiation on enemies if these spells are available to the enemies.
Puck generally has a hard time killing heroes with high HP or armor, as her right-clicks are a lot less useful in the mid game. In addition to this, her spells often won’t do a significant amount of damage either.
Any significant AoE damage spells such Wukong’s Command, Epicenter or Call Down are great spells to combo with Dream Coil. This is because it prevents enemies from escaping the spells without getting stunned and damaged for a large amount. Just remember that it’s not always worth saving your Dream Coil to get the perfect 5 man Coil.
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