Can Ah Puch Really Raise The Dead? Of Corpse! (Reference Only)

I feel bad for laughing at the title.
As HiRez should feel bad for releasing this stupidly broken god. But we all know they don't, they have been doing this since 2008! This one though is really Puching the limit of being OP. He is so ridiculously broken that he has no problem holding off 3 people on his own in Joust while teammates reconnect or respawn. Ungankable(it's a word!), unzonable(it's also a word!), easy sustain, anti-healing, huge burst. Why I am not even sure something so unbalanced needs a guide in the first place.
Good guide for what it's worth still!

Ah Puch is absolutely incredible in jousts. His lane control and damage output cannot be topped. I have him to mastery level 8 now and it is rare to do less than 30,000 player damage. My best joust so far is 34 minutes at 66,000 player damage and 116,000 minion damage. Know who you're fighting, know their range, and get his combo down and you cannot be stopped.

Hi I have been playing around with Ah Puch for a few days now and thought I'd throw my thoughts into the mix. The build I've been running with is quite a lot different than yours. Warlock's sash as a first non-boot item is a given of course. It's too good at high stacks and synergizes too well with his passive to not take.

After that I build book of Thoth. The mana lets you spam abilities constantly for damage or sustain using your passive. Once you hit mid game with this item you can actually regain mana by using your undead surge and picking up the corpses. When you get ganked or otherwise caught in close quarters this can be very useful as picking up the corpses will heal you and reduce cooldown so you can just keep hitting them over and over while constantly healing yourself.

Anyway back to items, then I go for Rod of Tahuti. It is the clear winner in terms of boosting raw power so that stays the same of course. But after that I actually go for ethereal rod. At this point you have a lot of extra health already from warlock's sash so when I actually run the numbers with its passive and considering the mana it gives which will play into book of Thoth's passive, picking up ethereal rod at this point actually increases my magic power more than most traditional damage items, plus it significantly increases your survivability. Makes getting in close for an ult much easier, and people who focus you won't be able to get a kill as quickly as they expect, often not at all.

Then I end the build with something like gem of isolation. Like you said, the passive works really well with Ah Puch's ult, plus it also gives both mana and health, which both give you additional magic power now with Thoth and Ethereal.

The obvious downside to this build of course is that there is no cooldown reduction. I have found myself wanting shorter cooldowns when I've used this build in arena, but It hasn't really hurt me too much in conquest. Also there's no spear of the magus, which perhaps reduces his burst damage a bit. But I've felt like it's been worth it so far to have the surviveability that comes with ethereal. You have to get in close for max effect on your ult and spamming undead surge and fleeting breath while picking up the corpses (for essentially 60% cooldown reduction and constant max health scaling heals during a fight) can be pretty potent, especially with the slow on undead surge. Anybody have thoughts on that? Also I'm not an expert player either. I've played no more than 10 matches as him so far, but in my last pvp games I went 8-2-12 and I think 5-0-something.

Haha thanks! I have a weak spot for horrible puns.

Up vote for that pun about corpses

Since I don't play conquest I personally tend to not get starter items. The gold rollout in the other modes is high enough that I prefer to just go for the stacking items and get them going. I also tend to get a pen piece 3rd or 4th, since usually I don't run into issues with tanks really early game. But that could be because I play with a group of friends so we work together really well.

I like building soul stone first, vampiric shroud is recommened. But when you get soul stone you can out push players very fast. This works very well with Ap Puch due his passive to keep sustaining. Then I'l like to build book of thoth or shoes of the magi. I do not build shoes of focus because in battle you have to spam your 1, 3 explode or pick them up wich descreases the cd on your first. Book of thoth is very good, it gives you much power. Then I'd like to build bancroft's talon or chronos pendant, situational first. If you have trouble with warriors or other tanky gods get spear of the magus first otherwise get rod of tahuti. That's what I do. Sorry for the bad english :D.

As Zilby mentioned, Pen is extremely important. Even on gods who don't build any defenses, they have natural defenses and you'll want a pen piece. You'll do more damage with one pen piece than you would with an extra damage piece and no pen.

As far as build order, when stacking I like to build my stacking pieces all in the first three. This way you get scary earlier in the game. If I'm concerned about health I build warlock's sash first. It also lets you start stacking sooner since it required 100 and Book of Thoth only needs 75. If I'm worried about mana I build Book of Thoth first.

Depending on how the game is going I would get the next stacking piece second, or shoes second. Whichever of those two I don't grab I'd get third. With your last pieces I'd go Chronos' Pendant, Rod of Tahuti, and then Spear of the Magus instead of Ethereal Staff. The staff isn't needed when you already have warlock sash. :)




Thank you! I felt like this one was rushed since I had next to no time to play with him. Generally I'd like to have an alternate build or two (I may still toss one up, we'll see.) I'm glad it's still helpful!

As far as Gem of Isolation when I did play with it on the PTS there was a noticeable difference on Empty the Crypts. I'm not sure if this was intentional or a bug. I haven't messed with it much on live.

Dude, pen is so important to your damage output you don't even understand. Get penetration if you want to do damage, please, I beg of you.

That's true, but Warlock's Stash gives you 400 mana. It doesn't give any mp5, however, so getting Book of Thoth first could be a good idea!

Arvorus, I mostly built Thoth first because he seemed so mana hungry.

I love that you can make such good guides for such new gods! That said, doesn't Gem of Isolation suffer from diminishing returns? I think that Undead Surge hits the DR cap while Empty the Crypts goes past it.

To Roboctopus:
You should probably build Warlock's Stash first. Not only does it need more stacks to build, you also gain more damage through the Stash's stacks (60 damage compared to ~24).