Treant Protector viable?

I really enjoy playing Rooftrellen so I wanted some thoughts about him.
Could he be a viable alternative to Tidehunter or Enigma if they are already picked or ban and you need/want some aoe disable?
The ult can really kick ***, especially with Epicenter, Chain Frost or similar spells.

Also imo he is a farily strong counterganker with his seed, invis and ult and with his invis you can perhaps save some money for Smoke of Deceit or even a Blink Dagger if your farm is really poor.

Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I always wonder why he is almost never picked :)

He is undoubtedly powerful for a support hero. If you want my honest opinion he would make a decent alternative to Tidehunter or Enigma. However, as he can cast every one of his abilities while under the effect of Nature's Guise he is not reliant on a Blink Dagger for placement. I'd say this eliminates him as a common pick for that and the following reasons..

- His Living Armor isn't completely reliable as the global effect only works during the day making heroes like Crystal Maiden a more viable choice.

- He is easily shutdown early on. As his Nature's Guise is basically his placement skill to help him land a successful Overgrowth, items such as Dust of Appearance, Gem of True Sight and Sentry Wards disable sufficient placement.

- Money spent on a Blink Dagger would then become a waste as you aren't utilizing Nature's Guise to it maximum potential. You'd be better to focus on items that will aid in increasing your reduced mana pool or increasing your HP and armor. I've found items such as Medallion of Courage, Shiva's Guard or better yet a Bloodstone. Anything that will allow Treant Protector to soak up as much damage as humanly possible.

Living Armor gor reworked with the latest dota 1 update, so i guess it will only be a matter of time until it gets into dota 2, so it will get more reliable as a supportive ability.

It's true that he can easily be countered during the laning phase but as the mid game starts, the enemies would need a gem to counter Nature's Guise effectively because they can't put sentries everywhere on the map, especially if you want to deward too, and if you don't know he is around looking for some initiation, you won't randomly spam dust. And a gem can backfire pretty hard :D

And I like the idea of guising your team and start a "smoke" gank :P

Time will tell.

His ultimate no longer deals damage in dota 1.So I would say not.

still a 4.5sec disable and they are still vulnerable, and you don't have to channel it the whole time... i think he will see a lot of play.

Even then, I don't see competitive teams playing him. A Gem of True Sight will make him pretty useless.

I don't know, the way Treant Protector was being talked about in the DotaCinema Weekly Update, his new spell that replaced Living Armor is GLOBAL. Which means you can basically sit in a lane invisible and cast it on any of your teammates when they're going for first blood, are in trouble, you can even cast it on towers from what I understand.

This could end up being pretty game changing. You're essentially getting a free shield and HP regen that can be applied globally. That's pretty powerful IMHO.

Like NotSureIf said, time will tell. His skills are really good, especially with that 4.5 sec bind ultimate. Almost like a Naga ult, IMO. And if the enemy does get gem, then you could opt for a Blink Dagger, but it's pricey. :/

I tried him out last night in a Pub to mess with his new skillset. I'll have to say that laning was a dream and the carry I was paired up with really enjoyed the benefit of the new spell. The mana cost on it is so low I was able to use it every time it was off cool down and never worry about getting low on mana. Being able to use it globally was nice too.

I will admit that after the early-game laning phase it lost most of it's usefulness.

In addition I REALLY miss the damage on the Ultimate though. It's not nearly as scary as it used to be and it really makes him play like more of a hard support. In addition it really lets you realize how small the radius on it is. I didn't compare the exact numbers but it feels about 2/3s the size of Ravage

In anycase, time will tell.