Just finished a game where I randomed Treant Protector, and wow, seriously impressed :)

Ended up having to hard solo against Clinkz and was just thinking it was gonna be invisible and soak up XP...wrong! Between your massive base damage and Living Armour I could actually make life a bit difficult for him and compete for hits. Throw it across the map occasionally to save a team mate, heal a tower etc and you've got one hell of a power...

60 minute game ended with a lot of massive team fights, roshan attempts and Overgrowth really proved it's worth - preventing Black Holes and setting up their team for a kicking. Nature's Guise also deserves a mention, you have to beware of Sentry Wards but being able to invis most of your team allows for some great initiation.

Will there be a second date? Hell yeah :)
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It feels kinda dumb to even have to comment on this (surely most Dotafire members know it already?), but for some reasons I've been seeing lots of Night Stalker's who seem hell bent on farming rather than ganking...

Don't get me wrong, you can farm during the day, but it's incredible watching people trying to farm up a Maelstrom during the first night by hitting creeps. Semi-carry heroes are all about getting gold and experience by KILLING HEROES and PUSHING TOWERS - in fact, if you're successful you can get far more this way than you ever could from hitting creeps.

The other big issue is the effect this has on the enemy team - DOTA isn't just about gaining gold and experience for your own team, it's about stopping the opposition from getting it. The total amount of gold/xp you gather is far less important than the GAP between your team and opposition.
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What's the point of a trilane? First of all to try and secure freefarm for a carry, then to go get kills, or to stop the enemy carry getting farm.

Safe-lane trilanes either need kills, or at least a carry worth putting all your eggs in one basket for, ideally both.

Lately I've seen a lot of failed tri-lanes - either massively flawed execution (you wonder how they failed to get kills with the skills they had available), or really poor decisions to make one in the first place.

Case in point, I've just played two games as Slark, who I'm trying to learn. He's a good hero, capable of surviving a tough lone solo, although much better with a support who can help him gank.

The first game, the enemy team picked a Phantom Lancer (groan), one of my team picked Axe to jungle, leaving me a long lane solo. As it turned out PL had Nyx Assassin for support (well I suppose it could have been Keeper of the Light!).

The second game, my team decided to tri-lane a Sven (!), when the oppositio…
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I've just clocked up over 1100 hours now on Dota (!), with a grand total of 525 wins - 505 losses. Obviously the matchmaking system is doing it's job :)

It got me thinking about why we still play Dota...what drives you to play?

Do you want to get better?

Is it the idea there's always new heroes and things to learn?

Is it the endless combinations of hero matchups?

Is it the team work?

Or just purely for the fun of playing?
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I don't know why, but the last few days I've had teams who insist on picking melee hero after melee hero (Tuskar included obviously :)). There's nothing wrong with melee heroes, but you can't expect to win lanes with dual melee unless you have a very particular plan or combination in mind.

Certain melee combinations can work really well if they have great harass or, more likely, killing power. Versus lanes with ranged heroes you're going to get harassed and denied a lot, so either you can have to quickly notch up a level advantage through kills, or you're going to be ground down and forced away from farming.

Losing a lane like this is really bad for the team - not only are you and your partner underfarmed, but the enemy has probably been able to fill their boots. This sets you up badly for the whole game, and it can be a long way back.

So please, the next time you're looking at picking a melee hero, just make sure there's somewhere good for you to lane:

- You can jungle if approp…
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