Melee laning

I've tried a few melee heroes and just don't have the same results as I do stealth, ranged, or caster. Usually I play Night Stalker or Life Stealer and am trying to get better at them. Let's use Night Stalker for this discussion.

I was of the opinion that I just suck until I get farm and items with him and most melee heroes. Last game (probably my 20th attempt) my teammates are complaining, "You are nightstalker, you are supposed to own!"...and I responded, "Just magically own with my quelling axe and tango?" However, I keep reading guides that make that same claim. I should be owning at the first night.

So, I am trying to figure out what is the problem?

Here are a few problems I can pin point that I don't know how to address:

1) Ranged opponents
I am in a lane facing two ranged heroes on the opposing team. Regardless of my lane partner, I just cannot get farm and end up spending every gold on healing potions, getting way behind in farm and kills. Every time I run up for a last hit, I walk away with half my life gone.

2) Silence/Stun
After Laning, the opposing team has more than one person on their team capable of silince or stun or both. I run in with my team for the kill and am dead within seconds. I try to counter this with a Linken's Sphere, but it takes too long to get or I get hit a second time.

So, inevitably, rather than piss my team off and be called a feeder, in these scenarios, I take to the jungle and not participate in team fights until level 16 or so and hope that I can out gear the opponent and often do, but that is no way to play!

Suggestions?

Positioning is everything in the laning stage Here's a video that really helped me learn to play a mele vs a ranged in solo mid. Some of the techniques will help you in any lane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbIczdzAeEU

I'm no nightstalker expert but he's a ganker so mid is quite a good lane for him when the first night comes you should look to go gank another lane. Also watch the final of the international 4th game I think. Alliance played a Nightstalker mid against a puck and owned. That should also help.

You should not be laning a Nightstalker because by the first night you won't be level 6/7, which means less points on your Q and E. You also won't get a bottle which means you won't have rune control through the night. You'll also face a 2-lvl disadvantage if you gank mid. In short, a laned Nightstalker (unless you were solo laning), is useless.

If you are laning melee heroes in lane against ranged heroes, GET a Stout Shield. For last hits, pull the enemy creeps toward your ranged creep by attack-targeting enemy heroes to draw the aggro. Also, melee heroes usually have better attack animations and base damage. Even if you don't get farm, it's not hard to deny/disrupt enemy last hits.

Why get Linkens Sphere on melee heroes? I can probably count the number of heroes who require a Linkens on two hands. ALWAYS get BKB on melee heroes.

I wore a three paragraph response but instead of posting it I am going to tell you to watch that video that manic_e posted.I learned something from it and so will you.

Great video and gives me a solid idea on what to do in the middle lane.

So, figure, try to get the middle lane and carry out the strategies outlines. However, given I am in pub games, often someone else will argue that they want the middle. A second good scenario would be for me to be in the hard lane solo, so I can get farm, while someone jungles and have 2 in the safe lane. If they won't cooperate there, I think I am pretty screwed, at least with Night Stalker.

Well the thing is you also have to tailor your picks depending on what everyone else has picked. You can call mid early and pick your hero early that might help. But NS won't be good against all mids so you also have to look at what the other team is getting. NS is good against squishy casters or escape heroes. That's why alliance picked him against puck because puck is both. So pick him in situations which he will do well in and your success rate will shoot up. Look at the enemy team see which ones are squishy or rely on early spells. Your silence and slow combo will have them tower hugging in no time. Also what build do you use? Starting items I would build towards an urn of shadows with 2 gauntlets of strength (think thats what they're called). That should give you enough tank early on.