The Puppet Master is a new hero designed by S2 Games. Combining 2 pseudo-disables and a strong inbuilt critical strike, he is one of the deadliest range carries and the only intellect hero that can be considered a full carry.
Puppet Master1. Skills Descriptions
Puppeteer's Hold
The Puppet Master ties up a target enemy with puppet strings. The strings slow down the enemy's attack speed and restrain movement.
- Level 1: Applies Puppeteer's Hold to target for 2.5 seconds, reducing its Attack Speed by 10 and constantly pushing the target towards the position he was at when Puppeteer's Hold was applied.
- Level 2: Applies Puppeteer's Hold to target for 3.25 seconds, reducing its Attack Speed by 15 and constantly pushing the target towards the position he was at when Puppeteer's Hold was applied.
- Level 3: Applies Puppeteer's Hold to target for 4 seconds, reducing its Attack Speed by 20 and constantly pushing the target towards the position he was at when Puppeteer's Hold was applied.
- Level 4: Applies Puppeteer's Hold to target for 4.75 seconds, reducing its Attack Speed by 25 and constantly pushing the target towards the position he was at when Puppeteer's Hold was applied.
Targets under the effect of Puppeteer's Hold are
Restrained.
Range: 600
Mana Cost: 115/140/165/205
Cooldown: 12 seconds
Usage: Puppeteer's Hold is a pseudo-disable, meaning that it is not a true disable like a stun or a hex, but still a very useful and strong skill. You use it to keep enemies in their place while beating on them, to hold them near towers/creeps or just hold them to give your team enough time to engage and do the dirty work for you. Notice that people can still attack you or use their skills while under the effect of Puppeteer's Hold. The only exceptions are movement abilities like Magebane's and Hag's Flash or Valkyrie's Courageous Leap.
Puppet Show
The Puppet Master enslaves an enemy unit as his Puppet. The target is driven crazy and will attack the nearest unit, be it friend or foe.
- Level 1: Applies Crazy Puppet to target for 2.5 seconds. Any unit with Crazy Puppet applied to them will be forced to attack nearby units in a 250 radius around them until the effect wears off.
- Level 2: Applies Crazy Puppet to target for 3 seconds. Any unit with Crazy Puppet applied to them will be forced to attack nearby units in a 300 radius around them until the effect wears off.
- Level 3: Applies Crazy Puppet to target for 3.5 seconds. Any unit with Crazy Puppet applied to them will be forced to attack nearby units in a 350 radius around them until the effect wears off.
- Level 4: Applies Crazy Puppet to target for 4 seconds. Any unit with Crazy Puppet applied to them will be forced to attack nearby units in a 400 radius around them until the effect wears off.
The attacks are non-lethal and prioritize on heroes in range first, then enemy creeps, and all other units at last.
Range:700
Mana Cost: 125/140/155/170
Cooldown: 30/28/26/24 seconds
Usage: Your second pseudo-disable. Puppet Show can count as a full disable but only if you land it within effect radius, so it forces your enemies to attack nearby units. If they are out of range, your enemies can do as they please under the effect of Puppet Show. So use it wisely and always when the enemy has something near him that will trigger the effect of Puppet Show, be it yourself as you run up to him holding him down with Puppeteer's Hold first. Enemies under the full effect of Puppet Show will lose control over their Hero for the duration, meaning they are silenced and cannot fight back.
Whiplash
Imbuing his attack with his magical Puppet Strings, the Puppet Master is able to increase his base damage and unleash devastating attacks that damage multiple enemies.
- Level 1: Starting with 5 charges, every time you attack it removes one. When only one charge remains, the next attack will deal a 1.25x critical strike and apply 25% splash damage in 200 radius. Charges are then reset to 5. Also improves your Base Damage by 6%.
- Level 2: Starting with 5 charges, every time you attack it removes one. When only one charge remains, the next attack will deal a 1.5x critical strike and apply 50% splash damage in 200 radius. Charges are then reset to 5. Also improves your Base Damage by 12%.
- Level 3: Starting with 5 charges, every time you attack it removes one. When only one charge remains, the next attack will deal a 1.75x critical strike and apply 75% splash damage in 200 radius. Charges are then reset to 5. Also improves your Base Damage by 18%.
- Level 4: Starting with 5 charges, every time you attack it removes one. When only one charge remains, the next attack will deal a 2.0x critical strike and apply 100% splash damage in 200 radius. Charges are then reset to 5. Also improves your Base Damage by 24%.
Not attacking for 12/10/8/6 seconds will remove a charge.
Usage: Getting Whiplash will boost your base damage on auto-attack hits as well as providing you with a free and control able critical hit that can be used multiple ways. This skill is what makes Puppet Master an efficient farmer as the splash damage Whiplash provides helps him farm the jungle quick and clean, tear down creep waves or even damage towers. For further information, check section
4.1 WhiplashVoodoo Puppet
The Puppet Master imbues the essence of a target enemy in his Puppet. The Puppet can then be attacked by the Puppet Master or any of his allies. The puppet takes increased damage, and transfers damage taken to the target as Magic damage.
- Level 1: Spawns a Puppet near self that is linked to target, any damage taken by the Puppet is transferred in full to the target as Magic damage, regardless of the Puppet's remaining health.
The puppet has a maximum 450 health and takes 160% damage. - Level 2: Spawns a Puppet near self that is linked to target, any damage taken by the Puppet is transferred in full to the target as Magic damage, regardless of the Puppet's remaining health.
The puppet has a maximum 700 health and takes 180% damage. - Level 3: Spawns a Puppet near self that is linked to target, any damage taken by the Puppet is transferred in full to the target as Magic damage, regardless of the Puppet's remaining health.
The puppet has a maximum 950 health and takes 210% damage.
Lasts until target gets more than 1500 units away from the Puppet, or until the Puppet is killed.
Mana Cost: 150/200/250
Cooldown: 150 seconds
Usage: Voodoo Puppet is a strong and long range Ultimate with a huge utility all though the game. The strong boost of damage it deals and the fact that the converted damage is magical is enough to kill most enemy heroes early game, even when they try to run away, and will come in handy late game when you have to kill one enemy hero, preferably a farmed carry, as quick as possible.
Voodoo Puppet will be attacked by creeps and towers if nothing else is around, making it a strong escaping skill as well or giving you the opportunity to turn around a gank when you get tower dived.
You can deal overkill damage to the Voodoo Puppet, if it has 100 HP left and you throw a Whiplash for 300 at it, it will convert the full 300 damage as magical damage to your targeted enemy.
If you engage a fight, place the Voodoo Puppet, hit the enemy with your normal attacks and if he tries to escape, start beating the Puppet. Finishing the Puppet with an overkill Whiplash is your best case scenario and should always result in a kill.
2. Skill Build and Usage
- Whiplash/Puppeteer's Hold
- Puppet Show
- Whiplash
- Puppeteer's Hold/Whiplash
- Whiplash
- Voodoo Puppet
- Whiplash
- Puppet Show
- Puppet Show
- Puppet Show
- Voodoo Puppet
- Puppeteer's Hold
- Puppeteer's Hold
- Puppeteer's Hold
- Stats
- Voodoo Puppet
Getting Whiplash or Puppeteer's Hold, or even maybe Puppet Show first depends on you running straight to lane or lining up with your team for a Rune gank. An early point in Puppeteer's Hold will give your team enough time to beat down the enemy at the Rune. If you are going straight to lane though, get Whiplash as it boosts your base damage and gives you the critical strike that will help you a lot getting early last hits and thus not wasting creeps.
There may be other ways to build your Puppet, but they depend on your lane. This here is the basic build. If you are laning on solo lane with an Ophelia coming to your assist early on, you might want to start with one point into each Puppet Show and Puppeteer's Hold at the first 2 levels before maxing out Whiplash. From that point on, the Skill Build never changes: getting one point into both Puppeteer's Hold and Puppet Show and focusing on Whiplash. Maxing Whiplash first will not only provide you with more base damage and therefore easier last hits on creeps, but a great harass that can almost considered as a nuke in the early game phase. For more information on Whiplash check out
4.1 Whiplash.
After getting your Whiplash maxed out, start getting full points into Puppet Show. Why, you ask? That’s because Puppet Show has both a higher range than Puppeteer's Hold and a better usage early game, as it silences you opponents while they beat on whatever is near them, thus preventing deadly early game nukes that could pose a thread to the Puppet Master while he can safely beat them down. You practically don't need more than one point into Puppeteer's Hold except if you are facing heroes with escape mechanisms such as Magebane, Wretched Hag and such, which in that case it doesn't hurt to max it out before going to stats.
3. Item build
3.1 To start with:
1x Runes of the Blight
1x Health Potion
2x Mark of the Novice
2x Minor Totem
This basic set of starting items provides you with enough regeneration that will last until you get your Helm of the Victim, unless you are laning against special heroes like Vindicator. You should win most harass auto-attack trade-offs with other heroes as your damage is, thanks to Whiplash, incredibly high early on. It also boosts your starting damage incredibly well, and as every point in Whiplash will strengthen your damage further and further, this basic set of items will make your Whiplash hit for around 110 once you hit level 5 (3 points in Whiplash). That’s 1/5 or 1/6 of most heroes’ total Health Pool early game.
3.2 Then..
Marchers
into
Steamboots
Helm of the Victim
into
Whispering Helm
Steamboots are the first item to get on Puppet Master. They provide you with everything you need: Attack Speed and Survivability (Set on Strength) for team fights and ganks, or more last hit power (Switch them to intelligence when you are laning/jungling when you have proper ward support and won't possibly get ganked.)
Once you finished your Steamboots, start working on your Whispering Helm. The Helm of the Victim part will provide you with enough regeneration to last in lanes as long as you want. Once finished Whispering Helm, it will not only boost your damage fairly well and allow you to farm the jungle efficiently without losing health, it will also allow you to dominate a creep of your choice to start stacking Ancient Creeps, other creeps in your jungle or even help you out with their helpful auras (i.e. Ogre Magi for his Ice Armor or Wolf Commander for a damage aura.)
You might want to get
Fortified Bracelet
Getting a Fortified Bracelet is situational. If you need the extra health points to survive team battles and gank, you should always get one or two. They are extremely cheap, and it is no problem at all for the farming beast that is Puppet Master to get them between farming for bigger items.
Always 
Homecoming Stone
Puppet Master is one of the best farm heroes in the game. Comparable heroes like Soulstealer might get Post Haste, however you do not want to lose the bonus stats provided by Steamboots. So remember always to carry a Homecoming Stone. It is the most important item for farming efficiently. As your enemies know you will be farming a lot until you can really carry the game, they will most likely try and gank you. So Homecoming Stone will not only provide you with a safe and easy way to escape or evade ganks, but it will help your farming a lot as you can switch lanes to farm more often. It also allows you to continue farming right before team battles engage. Teleport to the nearest tower and take part in the team fight without wasting time standing in the regular stare down before team fights.
3.3 Mid-late game items
Shrunken Head
Harkon's Blade
Symbol of Rage
Next you should focus on getting your Shrunken Head. It will add a decent amount to your survivability and damage and allow you, the carry, not to get disabled or nuked in team fights and provides you with probably the safest way to escape unforeseen ganks: Get magic immune and Homecoming Stone out.
Harkon's Blade is one of the best if not the best item on Puppet Master. As you are an intelligence attribute hero, its components will heavily boost your damage as well as your mana pool and regeneration, give you needed attack speed bonus and transform every of your attacks into magic damage. Combined with a sure to have Whiplash critical strike on every 5th attack, the devastation this item will bring is well known and feared.
If you still get nuked in team battles pretty hard, you have to get a Symbol of Rage. As you already have one of its components, the Whispering Helm, getting it is not that expensive as it might look like. Not only will it add tons of health to your Health Pool, but provide you with 150% life steal on use. Combined with your Harkon's Blade and your Whiplash, you will be insanely hard to take down.
3.4 Luxury Items
Kuldra's Sheepstick
Geometer's Bane
Hellflower
Savage Mace
Once you have your core set of items, you are even more of a farming beast. With your huge possible gold income, you might consider getting a Kuldra's Sheepstick for your team. It will provide you with the best disable in the game as well as boosting damage and survivability.
Geometer's Bane can be considered on Puppet Master as it synergizes really well with him. Your Illusions will also get a Whiplash for every 5th attack they do, and with Puppet Master already heaving two pseudo-disables that force enemies to stay before him, you can get the full effect out of your Illusions damage output.
Hellflower was once the main item to get on Puppet Master, until Harkon's Blade was implemented. It is still a very strong item as it will boost both your damage and attack speed, make you engage Whiplash much more often and therefore dealing a lot more DPS with the ability to silence enemies.
Savage Mace has the highest damage addition besides Doombringer in the game and adds a damage modifier that synergizes really well with Puppet Master’s fast attack speed. It also gives you the true strike ability that will hit through abilities or items that provide evasion.
3.5 Optional Items
Assassin's Shroud
Shield Breaker
Daemonic Breastplate
Assassin's Shroud lets you farm pretty safely and will add the capabilities of a ganker to Puppet Master. You can pop out of nowhere, initiating with a Whiplash that adds to the bonus 125 damage Assassin's Shroud provides on the next hit after using, dealing heavy burst damage. If there are not many nukes or disables in the enemy team, this might be the item to get instead of Shrunken Head.
Should your team consist of any heroes that have armor reduction abilities like Pestilence, Soulstealer, Armadon etc, or your each enemy player starts getting a Shaman's Headdress early on, you might want to consider getting both Shield Breaker and Daemonic Breastplate instead of Harkon's Blade. The negative armor adds up and multiplies your damage, making you more capable of dealing even more destruction than you would have done with your Harkon's Blade.
4. Hero Specific Strategies and Techniques
4.1 Whiplash
Whiplash is a versatile skill. You can toss a heavy damaging harass on the enemy heroes whenever you can. As Puppet Masters base damage is high and gets higher for each level into Whiplash, enemy babysitters should not seek an auto-attach trade-off with you. They will lose it and possibly open a window for you to kill them. You can also throw your Whiplash on creeps next to enemy melee heroes that come near to last hit to both get creep kills and harass them with the splash effect.
The splash effect of Whiplash can be used to deny your creeps while still getting creep kills on enemy creeps with the same attack. As it deals heavy damage, you can both deny creeps at the same time as killing them with the splash from higher health base as your enemy could last hit them. This can result in you taking full control of the creep kills and denies.
When you start using your Voodoo Puppet Ultimate, it is recommended to deal overkill to the Puppet via Whiplash, therefore maximizing the effect of Voodoo Puppet. To do this correctly, you have to switch your attacks between your target and the Puppet. Once the Puppet is low on Health, throw an overkill Whiplash and the enemy will receive even higher damage than he would have gotten by you only beating on the Puppet.
4.2 Skill Synergies
Every one of Puppet Master's skills has a great synergy to each other. For example, if you encounter a lone enemy in the woods with no creeps around to trigger the effect of Puppet Show, you will use your Puppeteer's Hold on him, run up to him, preferably attack walk, and you can safely use Puppet Show and pressure him a lot.
Most people make the mistake to not go for safe kills, using their Voodoo Puppet when the enemy tries to escape as a pseudo-chasing tool. It can definitely work well, but it can easily be outrun as well. So try to use your Voodoo Puppet once you engage in a fight, and use the strategy written in
4.1 Whiplash, alternating hits between the target and the Puppet until you can finish the Puppet with preferably overkill damage.
If you face heroes with escape mechanisms like Courageous Leap, Flash of Darkness or Time Leap, you can use your Puppeteer's Hold to keep them in place. The restrained effect of Puppeteer's Hold will make them unable to use their escaping skills. Using your ultimate while they are held by Puppeteer's Hold will make sure they will not use their escaping skill to outrun the 1500 range of your ultimate.
If you are facing a somehow difficult lane, either heavy magic damage harass or ranged stuns they can toss at you, use your Puppet Show anytime you see fit to toss some hits in, preferably with a Whiplash, and go back to defensive immediately after. You are really squishy, but you got the right set of skills to push fights to your advantage, thus not getting nuked or stunned. So play it that way.
4.3 Team Battles
As the Puppet Master is a fairly squishy hero and does not have comparable strength gain per level as other strong carries, you have to adjust your play style to that fact. Try to stay back, using your damage from outside or getting a fast kill on an important enemy hero via your ultimate. Try to evade stunners as much as possible as they are your most feared enemies. A good stun can cost your precious life. Once you get your Shrunken Head, you can be a bit more aggressive. But you should always remember that its effect can run out as well and smart enemies will save their stuns and nukes until its run out, so beware.
4.4 Advanced: Creep Stacks
The art of Creep Stacking synergizes really well with the Puppet Master. His Whiplash ability allows him to cleave down stacked creeps while it provides him enough health regeneration through the life steal to tank them and eventually take them down. Once you obtained your Whispering Helm, you can dominate a creep with it. The domination of creeps divided into two styles:
The old school style is dominating a Minotaur or Catman Champion as tanky creeps that can eat a lot damage while you use them to pull the Ancient Creep stack. They however have to be sent to the fountain from time to time unless you want them to die. Those two creeps can also help you to take down your stack earlier on as they can tank some of the damage the Ancients will deal as well as stunning them with their physical area of effect stun.
The newer style of domination to creep stack is using an Acolyte or Archer. These two creeps have inbuilt health regeneration, so you never have to send them back to base after pulling. They will heal up themselves in the minute you have to wait before you can stack again. The downside is that those creeps cannot help you to take down your stack. They are also harder to manage because of the bigger attack range they have. You cannot place them right before the Ancient creeps by clicking on the mini-map as they will start to shoot the creeps and die, meaning you need more micromanagement skills to use them efficiently. Also, if you screw up the pull, those non-tanky creeps will die and you will have to wait for the whole long cooldown on your Whispering Helm to refresh until you can dominate again.
5. Replays and Videos
6. Changelog
04/01/10 First release
