Puppet Master Guide – by Trainingday

Update: As of 1.30.1 puppet master has a base agility of 20, furthermore, his base str is 20 and his str gain/level is +2.1

Skills: Learns Puppeteer’s hold, Puppet Show, Whiplash, Voodoo Puppet


Disclaimer:
Welcome to my Puppet Master guide. Just to introduce myself, I play under the tag Trainingday in HoN/Cod4 and the tag TinyBlackTears in dota. I have played dota for 5 years now and have acquired a good taste for all fields of play, from pub level to scrim vs EG/MYM level. This is my first guide I have ever written, and if it goes ok, it will hopefully not be my last. This guide is meant to be straightforward and to the point. I will not go over basic skills like last hitting and ward placement, however, you can refer to Nome’s guide on warding by following this link http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=4839

Skills:

Puppeteer’s Hold: The puppet master ties up an enemy with puppet strings. The strings slow down an enemy’s attack speed and restrain movement

Target: Hostile Unit

Type: Magic, note that this spell cannot be casted on a hero who is already magic immune, however, if a Hero gains magic immunity after being held, they will still be “held”. AFAIK this skill can be countered by blink type skills but that knowledge is not reinforced.

Range: 500
Radius: 400
Mana cost: 115/140/165/205
Cooldown: 14 seconds at all levels
Duration: 3/3.75/4.5/5.25 seconds
Status: -10/15/20/25 attack speed

Notes: Puppeteer’s hold will apply a constant “pull” toward the location at which it was casted. If the afflicted unit reaches the radius, it will quickly be pulled back toward the original location. The loss of attack speed is almost negligible, so this skill can indeed by considered a movement disable, nothing more, nothing less. In dota terms, this is similar to what sprout does (not completely true, but the closest comparison)

Puppet show: The puppet master enslaves an enemy unit as his puppet. The target is driven crazy and will attack the closest unit, be it friend or foe.

Target: Hostile unit
Type: Magic
Range: 700
Radius: 250/300/350/400
Cooldown: 30/28/26/24 seconds
Mana cost: 125/140/155/170
Duration: 2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds

Notes: attacks are non lethal. Note the range on this skill, and how it is superior to puppeteer’s hold. Also note the cooldown. This is not a skill you want to throw away lightly. You will not be given the opportunity to use this skill twice in one fight. I consider this skill superior to puppeteer’s hold in general and to be quite blunt it is your go-to skill. You will be initiating ganks and disabling key heroes with this skill. You better get good with it.

Whiplash: Imbuing his attacks with his magical puppet strings, the Puppet Master is able to increase his base damage and unleash devestating attacks that damage multiple opponents.

Type: Passive
Effects: On every 5th attack, the puppet master’s attack does 125/150/175/200% dmg and splashes for 25/50/75/100% in a 200 radius. Also passively increases base damage by 6/12/18/24%

Notes: Everytime you attack the icon for whiplash will have a number that decreases. Once it hits 1, your next attack will apply whiplash, and the counter (number) will go back to 5. There’s not much to say about this skill, it will help you last hit and help your farm. The “harrassment” aspect of it is highly overrated. Note that the % damage of whiplash assumes that 100% is normal damage. In other words, 200% dmg is essentially a 2x crit, and 125% dmg is 1.25x crit. Every 5th attack is amplified by all dmg, whether raw or gained from levels/stat items. The passive dmg % bonus applies stat/stat items exclusively.
Furthermore, the splash on every 5th attack is dealt as pure damage and is effected by the 125/150/175/200% bonus, in other words, once maxed out you are essentially splashing a 2x crit on all units within 200 aoe of the target. Critical strikes completely amplify damage from whiplash attacks, in other words, they stack.

Voodoo Puppet: The puppet master imbues the essence of an enemy in a puppet. The puppet can then be attacked by the puppet master or his allies. The voodoo puppet takes increased damage, and will apply damage taken to the target as magic damage.

Target: Hostile Unit
Type: Magic
Range: 600
Cooldown: 150 seconds
Mana cost: 150/200/250
Voodoo puppet takes 160/180/210% dmg and has 5.5 magic armor (same as heroes). It has 450/700/950 hp and transfers all damage to the target in full, even if it dies. The puppet lasts until the unit moves 1500 dist away from the target, or the puppet is killed. As of 1.30.1 patch, voodoo puppet cannot be dispelled. Voodoo puppet has armor value of 0.

Notes: I recommend casting puppet show over puppeteer’s hold when chaining your ult since puppet show silences and has better cast range. That doesn’t mean puppeteer’s hold + ult is bad, but you can certainly run into problems if the enemy hero is more then willing to fight back. You do not want to waste this skill.

While certainly useful, it has a 150 sec cd, which imo is far too much for what is essentially a single-target nuke. Make sure you communicate with your teammates and tell them who you intend to ult. Finally, math proves that attacking the puppet is ALWAYS better then attacking the hero, regardless of physical armor, magic armor, or level of voodoo puppet. That is, of course, assuming that the target does not have magic immunity, which leads to absolutely zero damage being done through voodoo puppet.

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Core analysis: This is where we analyze hero-specific stuff like stat/stat gain and movespeed. The Puppet Master’s base stats/stat gain are above average, with a str gain of +2.1/level starting at 20 base str, he is very durable relative to other int heroes. He has a 600 range, a very generous base armor of 3.38, and 300 movespeed. As far as the basics go, the Puppet Master is on the right foot. His stats are generally higher then most other int heroes, he has 600 range, and his base armor and movespeed surpass those of other int heroes. His base damage is nothing to be proud of, but luckily whiplash augments that.

However, he has no nukes, and his disables are what I call “pseudo-disables”, they are not true disables and are not always reliable. From this, we can determine that puppet master’s early game comes in the form of last hits/denies, and to be honest that’s about the extent of it. Trying to harass with whiplash will not only draw creep aggro but will likely result in a nuke/stun combo to your face.

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Skill build:
1: Puppeteer’s Hold
2. Whiplash/ Puppet Show
3. Whiplash
4. Puppet Show / Whiplash
5. Whiplash
6. Voodoo Puppet
7. Whiplash (maxed out)
8. Puppet Show
9. Puppeteer’s Hold
10. Puppet Show
11. Voodoo Puppet
12. Puppeteer’s Hold
13. Puppet Show (maxed out)
14. Puppeteer’s Hold (maxed out)
15. Stats
16. Voodoo Puppet (maxed out)
17-25. Stats

Whiplash is taken ASAP due to the last hitting it provides. You may be wondering why we do not take his disables ASAP, and the reason is simple, remember, they are pseudo-disables that don’t even deal damage. Furthermore, even low levels of his disables still accomplish a reasonable amount compared to higher levels. If you think there is risk of dying early or getting an early bloodlust, take puppet show at level 2 instead of level 4.

Why do I alternate his disables? Reason is quite simple, it is because both have their strengths and weaknesses and in any situation one might be better then the other, and vise versa.

Puppeteer’s hold is incredibly powerful in one-sided ganks, but the casting range is poor and the only real loss to the afflicted enemy is movement restriction.

Puppet Show has a much better casting range, plus it silences, but the cooldown is hefty and in some situations you can’t even cast it on someone due to its restrictions. It is in essence similar to pollywog priest’s morph ability, but even that skill is far more flexible then puppet show.

His ult is strong despite the cooldown and should be taken whenever possible.

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Item build: Puppet Master has a flexible item build.

Pub build: For crushing pub games with no remorse. Begin with runes of blight and some minor stat items.
-Rush Alch Bones (1900 g)
-Finish Steam boots (1500 g)
-Build Shieldbreaker (4420 g)
-Continue to build whatever is needed. This could be Daemonic breastplate (5550 g), shrunken head (3900 g), behemoth’s heart (5500 g), hellflower (5025 g) etc.

Explanation: Puppet has little to no use for mana regen early game, so massing hp regen items like runes and flasks + minor stat items like minor totem and pretender’s crown is your best bet.

Alch bones gives puppet master more ias=more whiplash=more farm, not to mention its active…it basically increases your income as puppet 2 ways!

Steamboots gives armor and str which is basically essential to alot of the heroes out there, and puppet master is no exception.

Shieldbreaker gives very cheap dps, and furthermore, the armor reduction means that the primary target takes more damage, resulting in a higher damage splash. What does this all translate too? More farm of course!

Shrunken head gives you magic immunity, which is pretty important if you are against a handful of disablers and nukers.

Behemoth’s heart honestly has no synergy with puppet master whatsoever, but if you are playing a hero to carry, it doesn’t take a genious to figure out the lasting longer so that you can dps=good.

Hellflower gives you magic regen that you will never need, but the ias, again, means more dps and farm, especially in combination with the active silence. Do not get this item over totem of kuldra in a serious game.

Flayer sucks in comparison to daemonic breastplate and personally I see no reason you would ever get it. Daemonic breastplate basically gives a carry puppet master all he could ever dream of: more ias, massive armor, and armor reduction. If you are wondering why you should build shieldbreaker first, well, it’s just easier to farm, that’s all.

Competitive build:

-Fortified Bracers (510 g)
-Steamboots (1500 g)
-Wards (both types) (200 g)
-Totem of Kuldra (5675 g)

If there is any hero that is more then capable of buying wards or monkey courier at start, it is puppet. You probably don’t need to buy all the wards in a game as puppet master, probably 4-8 in a typical game. Mana items are wasted on puppet, so pick up steamboots and a couple of fortified bracers, and then build your way to totem of kuldra. Build the blessed orb and the manatube before you farm the acolyte’s staff please.

Explanation: One set of wards and a courier is standard for any competitive game. It doesn’t mean that one hero has to buy all of that (in fact usually it’s a good idea to have 1 hero buy wards and another courier/winged courier). Your allies cannot afford to go back to base just to pick up an item. Rune control is mandatory to winning lanes and can also save your team from an early gank. Refer to the linked ward guide near the beginning of my guide.

Competitive play=more stuns+ disables. The hp boost from fortified bracers is cheap and to be quite blunt is basically a necessity on like 90% of the int heroes out there.

Steamboots for the same reason as the pub build.

Post haste kinda sucks on puppet master because his disables aren’t even relatively strong and he isn’t a good pusher. Throwing post haste on Puppet Master isn’t as good as post haste on, say, pollywog priest or soulstealer.

Totem of Kuldra is a luxery item that 80% of the int heroes currently in HoN should strive for, and puppet master is one of them. Your team will love you if you farm up a fast hex stick. Remember, competitive play has alot of stuns and disables. Totem of Kuldra = the best disable for an item. So make this your #1 priority luxury item in more serious games.

I would never go frostfield plate over totem of kuldra on puppet, it just pales in comparison given puppet master’s skillset. After you farm totem of kuldra (which can be as early as 25 minutes) farm whatever your team needs. Puzzlebox is still flawed, the passive mana burn and damage on death are still not functional. Skip it for now.

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Laning: Puppet is not a strong solo despite what people think, sending him mid solo is a one-way ticket to being crushed by soloes who will surely abuse bottle in much stronger ways then puppet can. These heroes include:

Thunderbringer, Soulstealer, Defliler, Torturer, Pharaoh, Voodoo Jester, Pollywog priest, Moon queen and even Pyromancer. Other heroes that don’t need bottle but that can likely outsolo a puppet master anyway include Hellbringer and Blood Hunter.

So where should we send Puppet Master? Long story short, the side lanes. If he can solo, great, if not, that is fine too. Focus on last hitting over harassing, because harassing is not a good idea when you have pseudo-disables and no nukes. If the enemy is slow to retreat from a creep wave, cast puppeteer’s hold or puppet show.

Ganking: Open with puppet show if there is someone for the target to attack, and then chain with puppeteer’s hold. Ult if needed (before puppeteer’s hold but after puppet show) and auto-attack bla bla. If you are casting on the same target, please chain your disabling spells to make the most use of them, this should be common sense. Cast totem of kuldra to disable key heroes, also, don’t forget to used enhanced marchers to chase or retreat.

Team fights: Ult either the carry or a caster and hope that they do not have magic immunity in any shape or form. Cast puppet show like you would hex, because in a team fight scenerio puppet show is basically hex. Use puppeteer’s hold as need be, don’t cast it just because you can, look for enemy heroes that are fleeing and use it to ensure they don’t get away, or to save an ally who is being chased by an enemy hero. Again, use totem of kuldra to disable priority heroes.



Well that is all thank you for reading my very first guide ever posted. Feedback is always welcome, if you have a valid argument I will be more then happy to respond, if you are trolling you will be ignored. I have to admit it was annoying to continually alt-tab from my game for the numbers on his skills, so until a “wiki” is posted containing precise information on heroes I will only be posting guides on dota-port heroes from here-on.

Cheers.