You a carry, I a carry, we all Carry.

I'm really new and have only been concentrating on 3 characters started out with Lich playing the support role. I then encountered Riki 3 games in a row who absolutely destroyed me. So I started playing him. I'm now playing Tiny as I got tired of the others squishyness. So one support and two carries. From my brief experience it seems that you get a much more stable game if you play a support as your team is relying on you rather than you relying on team mates, some of whom are idiots. With Riki his biggest weakness seems to be his team mates so better to take the responsibility yourself.

Been playing long enough I can random and do a reasonable job on most heroes - repick on Chen or Meepo obviously :). Can play most roles pretty well and enjoy the variety, but quite often end up as support cos the team is usually short on em.

Usually im picking carry, cause I know that my team won't carry game (always happens). But I also like to pick random sometimes when im bored with carrying ;d

I play a lot of random myself, I find it keeps things interesting!

I like to play support don't get me wrong I find it can be very rewarding BUT in pub games people just don't appreciate it so generally I try to avoid supporting. Also nothing worse than supporting a carry that can't last hit lol!!

I always pick a hard support unless my team has no carries: I can play carry well, I'm very good at farming (I mean, comparing to an average pub player) if my support(s) creep pulls and doesn't interfer with my farm and experience, but I really like roaming, warding and giving advantage in fights with absolutely no items. That's why I play support, you help your team twice: you ward and you can let your carry get all the experience and gold, winning teamfights with just Boots of Speed and an Urn of Shadows!

My favourite and most succesful Hero is Chen, I really like showing up my micro skills chainstunning with centaurs and trapping enemies with trolls. Also, with him you can easily ward and get a Mekansm in 15-20 minutes, so it's perfect for pubs.

Picking support is fun enough to play, but when you get an awful carry on your team, its just traumatizing.

I normally use Bloodseeker or Silencer (Until I can learn other heroes enough to use in games.) I see Bloodseeker as a mid-late gamer. (He sucks before ulti, and he's still poor before farming up to treads / maelstrom.) After that assuming the other team are not too far ahead he can start dominating.

Silencer is more of a team fighter semi carry. He can take a few hits before going down and he is awesome early game for harassing enemy lanes with Last Word. Once you've picked up Force Staff you can turn on Auto glaives which makes farming a bit quicker. The only problem is if the other team come hard at you from the start you tend to be weak throughout because of no team kills and no +2 int per kill.

I aim eventually to be able to just Random, confident in my ability to play all heroes.

I've just checked back over my 35 games played. In every single one Riki or Drow were present. This to me just suggests that people try go for the auto win.

In fact, in pubs, I'd even say that it comes down to who picks the autowin heroes fastest.

I started with Silencer and Blood because they were the ones I randomed in bot games and I seemed to pick them up straight away. I've tried using Lich and Lion before but they just weren't fun. I am quite tempted to give Keeper of the Light a go though...