roaming... how effective is it? and when should you do it?

Often when I don't have anything to pick (we have carry, mid, offlaner and support) and I want to leave my offlaner solo, I'm just picking roaming Pudge with Animal Courier, Smoke of Deceit, Clarity and Tangoes at start and roam from lvl 1 with Rot to slow enemies. That's very effective I must say :D

I'm rather a fan of roaming when playing Shadow Demon. Since I'm already wandering around warding, de-warding and the like, I usually just end up roaming to gank, which has... mixed results. Not due to being detected, but due to people not understanding 'go on the big black ball'.

Pubs, y'know. With communication it owns.

Yeah good points. Roaming can be great, but it can also be a disaster - it all depends on making the ganks stick. If you get the kills, you'll get a big advantage, if you don't get enough, you'll be waaay behind. Same with the dewarding - if you can find their wards, you'll do well, if you guess wrong...well that's 200 gold u aint getting back.

It's very good against greedy picks (farming junglers, hard carries etc) as even a few kills can massively slow them down, and you won't get steamrolled midgame either.

Personally I agree on the 3 solos + 2 roamers setup, have 3 heroes who can solo effectively and get lots of xp without supports, the supports make the ganks and you're still reaping plenty of XP. Roaming tends to fail when the enemy team is prepared to sacrifice a lane while you're trying to setup a gank on it - they just sit in the trees and let their other lanes reap the rewards - every second you're getting nothing with 4-5 heroes waiting to gank, their team is pulling ahead.

hmmm so basically only use two heroes to roam and that way you will get the best of both worlds ?

so a good line up might be ?

yea Xyrus i thought about Natures prophet, but more in a defensive role. i might try him as a safe lane/jungler support and then use his global tp to come in for those ganks.

mirana and bane and lina work well together but what other heroes have that level of synergy and the amazing chain stun potential?

because honestly, lvl 1 team fights are just ... awesome fun haha

TY for all of the cool advice on roaming. The funniest example I witnessed in game was when the Ursa and Wraith King on my team lvl 1 Roshed, killed him, then proceeded to roam the beginning of the game and killed everyone in the lanes they walked to. The other team called GG 5 mins in because the Ursa/WK combo effectively destroyed everyone and Ursa was fed. LOLz. P.S. My friend and I safe-laned a Dazzle and Shadow Demon combo just last night and won the lane easy. Glad to see that Peppo_oPaccio has experienced their awesomeness too! Lates.

Sando basically sums up roaming and the ganking strat perfectly. If you dont get the kills or trade equally the only things thats going to happen is the enemy Mushi will come for you in the mid to late game and the "imma rape you" will begin again, NOT fun :c. Also with the ganking strat what i see alot of people in pubs do is that they will buy wards and just place them in the river, what you need is aggressive warding >_>. Meh I just dont see this strat working in high level games, it was a popular thing in the dota 1 days with vigoss and stuff but it doesnt suit the meta in dota 2, gosh im ******ed :c

Any Heroes that have good long Disables or even Pseudo-Disables at lvl1 are worth considering, e.g. Mirana -> Sacred Arrow, Clockwerk -> Cogs, Bane -> Nightmare etc. then combine with some heavy DoT, or spammable Nukes, e.g. Leshrac -> Diabolic Edict, Skywrath Mage -> Arcane Bolt, Pudge -> Rot, etc.

You can even just have him use his Ult for some decent Burst Damage on the entire Tri-Lane <}3

Quas-Exort Invoker works in a similar way, in that you have Sunstrike for Kill Secures. Can't think of any other good Solo Safes with Global skills

Hello Guys, I'm new here.

I have played some thousand games as 4 and 5, so my thoughts on this topic from that perspective:

Roaming can be a lot more than showing up on other lanes to gank. I would consider it as an entire own role (it's just not as commonly played as carry, semi-carry, support etc.). Some heroes roam to gank, other's to carry out pushes, others to ward and very often people just roam to maximize the farming income. Be creative. Often times after you ganked a lane, your allies are too low HP to keep on farming that lane or mb they died. Obtain the lane and get some cs. Even if you're getting a kill for your team every minute, you will be very underfarmed by 10-15 minutes if you never took any creeps or towers. Sometimes you may win the game with your plays in this early period, sometimes you won't - and then you better not be useless.
Roaming in general is not a good idea if you have weak lanes/the enemy has stronger lanes. If your carry dies because you decided to roam instead of support, you did the wrong thing. IF you roam, try to in some way win the lanes. Gank, get towers, set up good wards, use farm, mess with the enemies jungle, sometimes just outnumber the enemy.
By the way: You should not roam if you can't either kill or escape the enemies you encounter reliably. As a roamer, you automatically obtain a lot of map control, but not if all the enemies think fighting you is a good idea! Thus, often times it's okay to play a bit ballsy as a roamer. If the enemy is not intimidated, they might get ideas. Roaming is dangerous, to you and to the enemy. This is why hard roamers are rarely seen in competitive play: It get's a bit predictable and can be turned into a disadvantage pretty quickly. Know when to stop! Sometimes you just can't continue roaming effectively (your hero is too weak, the enemy 5-mans, your own lanes are getting counterganked heavily). Way more often you see people teaming up for larger, more goal-oriented ganks: (e.g. ganking someone BEFORE they get Radiance, Wrap-Around the enemies offlane t1 at first nighttimme etc. etc.)
I am pretty sure that the strat of OP works well in a lot of games. Keep in mind though that stomping the enemy from the beginning is not showing how extremely strong the strat is: It's what the strat is about. If you can't pull it off, you may very well loose because of getting outfarmed. Also, strong pushing lineups might get the better trades constantly if they push a tower while you rotate elsewhere.
Thats actually a huge problem about roaming strats in general: You might win early, but winning early is not winning the game. You can be outpicked heavily if the enemy gets a lot of early teamfight/push and just crushes you 5v5 under your towers. Getting an early lead is nice, but a clever drafter/team might see that coming. It's not so much about being outplayed by the enemy not running into your ganks, it's also about the enemy having a plan of his own to a) not let you pull too far ahead b) win the game later.

Example: The hero I played the most as a roamer is Mirana. Mirana is superschtrong as a roamer because with one single ally to help her she can kill pretty much everybody early if she hits the arrow (if you think about it, this is VERY unique!). I usually buy obs-wards (mb even chicken), 2 or 3 clarities (very strong to use on your journeys over the map) and 80% of games manaboots (sometimes bottle). She has low attack damage and you will usually skill up arrow, so she doesn't roam to push (like Leshrac or Pugna could) but to gank. Even if she doesn't hit the arrow the pressure on the enemy team is immense. You can also easily obtain rune control. Often times mid leaves me runes because I made his lane freefarm and he looses too much if he ganks anyway. Every rune except mb illu is insanely strong on most roaming heroes and POTM is no exception. You can also set the wards to your own preferences without loosing time. Often get an early tp because you never know. I try to be in every fight where I can make a kill or save someone. If there is no fight and I have an arrow ready - maybe start a fight.
((There are a lot of downsides to the hero obviously, but I will leave that for now))

Just what came to my head on the topic!