Well, that's it. Huskar's Berserker's Blood isn't working since 6.78. It would be cool if it would work so it could be combined with Pudge's Rot.
Anyway there are other options of a Rot centered build.
Rot + Fiery Soul + Scorched Earth + Natural Order + Borrowed Time + Pulse Nova.
It's really cool that Borrowed Time is activated with Rot's self inflicted damage, preventing your hero to die, but I was disappointed to see that neither Rot nor Pulse Nova activate Fiery Soul. Anyway Scorched Earth does, and it also deals damage per second while it heals your hero! So it's good for both chasing enemies and running away.
Natural Order is a given since Rot, Scorched Earth and Pulse Nova deal magical damage. However it can be replaced by other skills of your choice depending on your favorite style: if you wanna improve your mana for Pulse Nova, you can take Arcane Aura or Essence Aura. But if you rather to chase your enemies then you can take Thirst among many other options. Note that Sprint will make you take extra damage, which it would only be good if Berserker's freaking Blood would work as it should. Empowering Haste, Surge and Skeleton Walk are all good choices. Not sure about Skeleton Walk 's behaviour with Rot, Scorched Earth, etc. Will investigate later.
About Pulse Nova, well...when you are close enough to your enemies, cast it along with Rot and Scorched Earth to see hp go down in just a moment, while no one is able to run away from you fast enough. Degen Aura will not give you more speed, but rather reduce your foes speed, which is also really cool.
Shackles would also work nicely, moreover if casted at a short range. In theory Fatal Bonds would be cool too, but only if leveled because early-game is kind of weak. Nethertoxin is good for the mix too.
About the hero model, both Spirit Breaker and Meepo are good choices. Since Rot inflicts magical damage to you, it's obvious that you'll need magic resistance and Meepo is the hero with the highest base magic resistance, while the Spirit Breaker is the hero with the highest Base Strenght which is good to have more health that is a basic aspect of handling Rot.
Of course, Pudge's Hook is always a good choice, but there are better options like Geomagnetic Field.
If you would like to have more of a tank, then you could change the build a bit like this:
Rot + Vampiric Aura + Flesh Heap + Morph (not sure if it works, if not then Return) + Borrowed Time + Reincarnation.
You can also add your favourite Poisons, Stuns or Blinks to the mix!
Opinions?
