Dota 2’s Pudge has turn into the primary character within the MOBA’s historical past to be performed in additional than a billion matches, making the portly butcher the sport’s hottest character by about 300 million matches.
As tracked by the web site Dotabuff, Pudge had been performed in 1,000,059,649 Dota 2 matches on the time of writing, with a Decide Price of 33.03%. This places him considerably forward of the second-most well-liked character, Phantom Murderer, who has a measly 704,021,392 matches performed by comparability, and a choose fee of simply 23.25%.
Impressed by Diablo 1’s Butcher boss, Pudge has been round so long as Dota has, and has been Dota 2’s hottest character way back to 2016. Pudge combines an energetic hooking means that permits him to drag different gamers towards him, and passive traits that give him well being and injury buffs with each enemy he kills. Gamers have been discovering ingenious methods to utilise his talents, such because the notorious “Fountain Hook” technique made well-known by the participant Dendi on the Worldwide 2013.
Pudge’s legacy additionally stretches past Dota 2, having impressed quite a few comparable characters in different multiplayer video games. These embrace Overwatch’s Roadhog, who combines an Unreal Event-style flak cannon with a Pudge-like hooking means, in addition to League of Legends’ Blitzcrank.
But whereas Pudge is the most well-liked Dota 2 character, he does not have the very best total win fee. The holder of that individual title is OmniKnight, with a win fee of 56.2%. Pudge’s win fee, by comparability, falls towards the center of the desk at 50.96%. This could possibly be as a result of his reputation means he is performed by much less skilled gamers, however it’s additionally true that Pudge was considered one of Dota 2’s weaker characters within the sport’s early years.
Dota 2 has undergone some main modifications within the final 12 months. In June 2023, Valve introduced it was transferring away from the battle cross mannequin, citing that almost all gamers “by no means purchase” one anyway. Later within the 12 months, Valve cracked down on third-party battle passes, and at Christmas performed digital Krampus by luring hundreds of dishonest gamers into bans with pretend Christmas presents.