Pudge the Butcher is a melee strength hero feared for his incredible gank prowess. Though he may not look like it, he is one of the strongest solo-killing gankers in the entire game, with one combo of his three active abilities proving more than sufficient to kill fragile enemy heroes in the early and midgame. His signature ability, Meat Hook, which requires intuition, precision, and good timing to land, is thrown out in a straight line a long distance away. If it snags a unit, it will drag it back to Pudge, dealing enormous damage to it if it was an enemy. It thus serves as a powerful ganking and initation tool, and also has the utility of being able to save an endangered ally. He can then follow up with his ultimate, Dismember, which deals further damage to the target over a few seconds, as well as disabling it. During this period, he can toggle on his Rot to damage his enemy further while hurting himself as well, and use it to slow and finish off the hero if he or she survived the initial assault. To supplement his killing power is Flesh Heap, which provides him some magic resistance to reduce the damage he takes from Rot as well as from other enemy spells. The scariest aspect of Flesh Heap though is that it provides him permanent Strength with every kill that he participates in, giving him the potential to permanently increase his vitality (and physical damage) to monolithic proportions, thereby becoming a formidable tank. In the hands of a skilled player who can land his deadly Meat Hook with high accuracy, Pudge is both one of the most rewarding and fun heroes to play and one of the most fearsome opponents to be up against.