Trilanes - when to change up?

Great discussion guys - what I was hoping for with starting this thread :)

@Peppo - yeah this is what I'm looking for - finding useful ways of increasing gold/xp income in situations like this. The main issue I find atm is that the supports are a bit short of levels for effective (semi-)jungling, I guess it's a question of running efficient stacking/pull camps to maximise xp, and the supports being pro-active in looking for opportunities.

@Jawbreaker - well pubs and "low level" organised games like Team Games and Captain's mode, but short of pro-level. Quite a lot of teams do seem to be running trilanes regardless however - "because it's what the pros do", rather than doing it well. I'm not arguing that it's not the most effective strat in the current meta, just that you need to have options for changing it up. Agree atm running a jungler seems a better option in a pub.

@Mattyg - while I agree with a lot of your points, I think it's perfectly possible to zone out a lot of offlaners with the right counter heroes. To use your example of Dark Seer, I'd suggest Disruptor, Keeper of the Light and Bane as all being very effective against him - all have abilities that interrupt or mess up his escape even at level 1-2. Even with 3 heroes in lane, some heroes like Clockwerk can spam abilities to farm that are very difficult to deny against. And yeah, even in a 2v1 lane they shouldn't be letting you get or keep up wards - even though it's easier for 3 heroes to manage that.

I had a really fun game like 20 minutes ago,we set up a trilane in a solo-matchmaking game.

Skywrath Mage, Ancient Apparition(me), Slardar.We won the lane so easily and after that, the game was finished.We won the entire game, we had a really good mid Huskar and a Bounty Hunter that ganked a lot.

@jawbreaker - running a true tri lane in a pub is a bad idea. It takes 3 guys who work really well together. When I play with mates, all I can hear is the 3 of them talking almost constantly. Whereas on pub games most guys don't have headsets or the ability to type. Also playing a proper lane support is hard because you stay poor most of the game.

@sando - of course there are ways to stop dark seer,just the same as any other hero. Even with one of those heroes, it's still hard to pin dark seer down. My point being, it's generally more worth while to keep your carry and supports slightly under leveled then have your carry get under farmed.
And I agree about this being a great thread. It's very rare to see intelligent discussion on the net these days.

Am I the only one who trilanes with friends even though we don't communicate with microphones? Well, we've known each other for a long time so we kind of know what the other is going to do, but I think the chat and some pings are enough to pull off decent actions. I've also tried to trilane with one friend and one guy we didn't know: sometimes they mess things up with bad supporting (sapping exp from the carry and not zoning out enemies), but it's still decent if you have a good solo laner I guess.

Also, solo laning gives a large advantage if done right: yesterday we had no reliable carry in a random draft match ( Tusk, Dazzle and a jungling Enigma were top in the Dire side, while Puck was mid), so I picked Lone Druid and went solo hard lane. After the laning phase I got about 3 kills thanks to the ganks of the mid laner and we managed to push all the T2 towers in less than 20 minutes (and our Tusk decided to rush a Battle Fury ending it in 22 minutes even though we had so much advantage...). With a dual lane, the enemies would've been more careful and most of the mid ganks would've failed, while I woud've got less experience and, talking about trilanes, the carry would've been less protected and easier to gank.