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Town Portal Scroll
Orb of Venom
Tango
Observer and Sentry Wards
Infused Raindrops
Boots of Speed
Tranquil Boots
Wind Lace
Medallion of Courage
Solar Crest
Blink Dagger
Pipe of Insight
Lotus Orb
Force Staff
Heaven's Halberd
Eul's Scepter of Divinity
Glimmer Cape
Vladmir's Offering
Refresher Orb
Scythe of Vyse
Aghanim's Scepter
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2 | 13 | 14 | 16 |  |
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6 | 12 | 18 |  |
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10 | 15 |
Treant Protector...
This hero is a very adept support with many unique traits, being the hero with the highest base damage as well as the slowest base move speed, and an awful BAT. During the 7.00's, he had a rework to his nature's guise being a passive invis bash, making him a disgusting monster in pubs. Unfortunately, he had a series of nerfs to his move speed as well as his now "root-punch" passive, making him not stupidly strong but definitely still dangerous as all hell in a pub-ranked match in the right circumstances.
I'm sure there's been many meme-builds or clips on Reddit showcasing a bunch of situations with tree so I feel many players mis-understand the hero, building and skilling him very inefficiently. Throughout this guide, I'll be giving very specific details on everything you need to know about Tree: weaknesses and how to address them, strengths and how to capitalize on them, where you should be and what you should be doing throughout the whole of the game, cool nuances/tricks you may not have thought of, and more.
For Treant Protector, his items are very straight forward through the early to mid game, and become situational mid to late game if the game somehow gets there. Keep in mind this is not the be-all end all of Treant item builds; every dota 2 game is situational and you have to adapt accordingly (ie: Buying a quelling blade against Monkey King). Here's the explanation for these items:
Starting Build:
Every support player should be buying a tp and a set of wards(sentry + obs); the plan is to tp to lane asap and get these wards down, whether they be for vision or blocking. This way, you're less likely to get dewarded and more likely to spot the opponents' wards and deward them. Ideally, you would have another support player buying the courier for you but in the worst case scenario, you'll have to adapt and give up the sentry. Another strong use for the sentry is to instantly deward any sentries the enemy brings w. your tango. The orb of venom is nice for simple reasons; adds a slow to make chasing for you and your allies easier, does a good amount of damage, makes orb walking easier(more details on this later), and tilts the living hell out of your opponents.
Early Game:
Get Tranquils + (optional) another windlace + raindrops
Movespeed. Simple as that. Makes your movespeed outside of your passive not awful so you don't get run down and makes your chase when you have guise active like you're on a perma haste rune. The regen provided by tranquils is also very amazing as you'll be spending most of your time stalking and lurking around your enemies in the trees. The windlace is nice as it essentially makes it like the past few MS nerfs to tree don't exist and you usually have the item slots. Raindrops are very nice for tree for survivability and some needed mana regen earlier on.
Mid Game:
Medallion -> Solar Crest
By far the best all-encompassing item on Treant. It's SO good, I can't emphasize this enough.
It gives:
1. Rosh Potential
2. Survivability (on you or ally seiging HG); armor INVALUABLE on tree (low armor, high hp hero)
3. Extra Physical Burst on anyone you want to kill fast
4. Keeping creepwave alive (living armor + solar crest on a melee creep being hit by tower = it lives for the full duration)
And above all, it's pretty easy to build up.
Situational Items:
Honestly, any kind of utility item is good at this point out; the game usually ends with solar crest + 1 mid tier item as Treant is not adept at farming; he doesn't need to. Look at the game and see what your team needs. Examples:
Euls
Counters axe call, purges silence, nice extra cc/tp cancel potential(root punch -> euls -> root punch -> ulti -> root punch), extra ms and mana regen.
Glimmer Cape
Escape when there's no trees, save allies, counter necro Ulti/magic burst
Blink
Blink ulti initation, blink guise intiation (fade time on q lets you blink root someone out of trees), escape/mobility/chase
Lotus Orb
Counters certain heroes (ie: Sunder from terror blade), purges hex on allies, stops silence, general utility (reflects a multitude of annoying spells like chainfrost, sniper ulti, storm hammer, etc), nice regen and armor.
Vlads
Extra push/sustain; gives lifesteal to a core that needs it
Force Staff
Force staff things XD (larger mana pool, save potential + catch potential, invaluable against certain heroes ie: clock)
Pipe
Survivability + push potential vs a high magic burst line up.
Refresher
2 Ulties. Nuff Said.
Hex
Need more Insta-CC.
Many of you may have noticed why I distinctly left out Aghs, even from the situational items. You've seen all those posts on how Tree can get 1000+ GPM and 9 slotted with this item and you probably think it's amazing.
To simply put it; Aghs is possibly one of the worst items you can get on Treant. It's expensive as all hell to build up and even when you do get it, it's very unreliable. It sounds amazing in theory; having spy trees everywhere that can not only root but do damage globally in a radius (grabbing enemies and farming a ton). But the issue is you have to spend a LOT of time moving around and planting those trees. Eyes in the forest has a 35 second cool down, meaning it'll take 10 minutes before you can set up any kind of field/network of vision in an area(usually away from your team and vulnerable to being caught out). Also, they can be easily taken down; even if they don't have a natural tree killer, a gem + quelling blade can make a lot of your work quickly moot. Finally, even if you somehow get your tree network up; if you use it for farm that's your ulti on cooldown for any sort of teamfight.
It's very impractical for farm up and, the map control/game situation + time that it would take for you to implement, you probably already won the game regardless. Of course, I won't say NEVER buy it; maybe late game to potentially get vision/catch a tinker or something. But in 99.99% of games, you shouldn't focus on getting this item as there are much better items to get opportunity cost wise.
I won't go into how the skills work; I believe the guide users can read the skill and understand for themselves. What I will do is give tips on how to use them to maximize their efficiency.
Nature's Guise
By far the bread and butter of the new Treant; inarguably your most game impacting/dynamic skill. It used to be fully imbalanced bashing out of invis, but even now, a root out of invis is very strong. Here are my general tips:
1. Learn and Practice how far away from trees you can be before the invis breaks and what trees you can reach at what movespeed before the fade time breaks. Get into a Practice Lobby if you have to; if your invis breaks, it gives away your position and often results in death if the enemies are competent.
2. Take advantage of your MS to get up wards unseen in enemy jungle.
3. Learn the "perma-root" trick with your Q. Basically you hit, run back into trees, wait for passive to proc again and hit. There's a 0.8 sec interval between them being rooted; this can lock down a core near permanently in a fight, esp if you time your ultimate with it. Very invaluable.
4. Use this skill aggressively; this skill lets you terrorize weak supports or junglers early in the game. With the right teammates, you can even terrorize their cores quite easily.
Leech Seed
Pretty normal skill. Good damage, heal, and slow. Tips:
1. Keep this skill at 1 value point; 2 at max if you want to be very very aggressive. Does not scale that well. Stacks well w. orb of venom to run people down and helps you orb walk.
2. Don't be afraid to pop it on an enemy creep while pushing to heal up your wave as well as any low allies.
3. At late game, the skill becomes terrifyingly good. 600 damage and aoe heal on a very low cd (around 6 sec w. 15% cd reduc and 4.5 sec with octarine).
Living Armor
Global Utility Skill:
1. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR TOWERS ASDSADASDASDAKSFJASKDJ. Any down time w. your skill should be used to heal towers. Map awareness is key to maximize this skills effectiveness.
2. Do NOT use it on a tower that is being hit by creeps. It instantly disappears; ranged creeps don't do enough damage to remove a "tick" but melee ones do. Wait for creepwave to die OR glyph before using it.
3. There's a long CD and low heal value on it at low levels. It only blocks 80 damage (max) and heals 60 hp at level 1; not to be used on heroes early on bar emergencies as it's usually not worth the mana. I cannot emphasize this enough; the regen from living armor isn't very good on anything bar towers; it's the damage block that's very strong in the skill and that scales very well.
4. Can be used on creeps (solar crest/medallion too if possible) to tank towers.
Overgrowth
His ulti:
1. Make sure you keep one of your roots in reserve in case they decide to TP after 1 of your roots.
2. Don't be scared to use it on solo enemies to catch them.
3. If the enemy right clicker has a bkb/purge of some kind, wait for them to use it first before using this skill. It's usually very important that they're disarmed and rooted in place.
Level 10:
70-30 in favor of mana regen. By the time you hit level 10, you'll be using living armor a lot more and you'll find yourself running low on mana w. the tranquils build, even with rain drop. It's important you have your mana pool full for any incoming teamfight so you can overgrowth, leech seed, and armor when needed all the while passively maintaining your towers and heroes.
The attack speed isn't to be underestimated on tree though; it adjusts for your awful BAT and lets you get your attacks off to more easily root. It can be taken if you have a Crystal Maiden or ahead enough to get another mana regen item.
Level 15:
100-0
Get the gold. Invaluable on support. Your items + your passive at this point should more than compensate for your MS; you'll be close to max MS anyway at near all times if you're playing him correctly.
Level 20:
100-0
Cool Down Reduction. You're not a right clicker as a support tree; unless you want to meme build, always CD reduction.
Level 25:
75-25 In favor of leech seed. It makes it one hell of a teamfight spell when bkb timers are low late game. Living armor is OK but an extra potential 400 damage block isn't THAT good. It's global sure, but by that point, even if all 400 damage gets blocked (no small procs to remove it fast), the hero probably dies anyway if he's caught out alone.
Treant is IDEALLY played in an aggressive dual offlane. Period. If you HAVE to safelane support treant, do it but it's a situation you want to ideally avoid.
Your ideal laning partner is any hero with aggressive potential (stuns, slows, etc) that's reasonably survivable. The #1 partner for you is darkseer; ion shell + tree is no joke. Heroes like sandking, veno, bristle, etc are also deadly.
Throughout the game, try to have a mic so you can communicate with your team when you're performing certain actions. (Ie: I'm going in and rooting him. I'm going to ulti. Call if you want armor. I'm armoring tower and it's on CD, care. ETC)
If you must safelane, do your best to zone out the offlaner. Get a stout shield situationally if need be; rest of your items should be similar through early - mid game. It's very hard to pull on tree(given his non invis early game movespeed) and unless your carry has strong killing potential, you won't be able to do much. In this scenario, I suggest just maxing out living armor and doing your best to have a global game impact. It's by FAR not the most optimal way to play tree; if you're just going to sit safelane, there are tons of better heroes opportunity cost wise (ie: shadow shaman). This is the worst case scenario; but still buy courier and get to lane (via tp) to ward and have a sentry to deward.
Do as I specified before; tp to offlane and get your ward down. Then, carefully navigate through trees (if you break invis, best case you expose yourself, worst case you die and get dewarded). Try to position yourself in trees behind their mid tier 1 and snipe the mid's courier carrying the salve out. This tactic only works in relatively higher mmrs, where they mimic pros and get salves instead of pure bottle rush but not too high, where the pros know trees do this kind of thing. I'll leave it to your judgement.
From here, pressure the lanes weak lanes. Tree's biggest weakness is that he has great trouble pressuring the mid lane early on unless his midlane has high kill potential. Request a strong laning partner offlane in the drafting phase and cause as much grief/chaos to their supports/safelane as you can. Don't be scared to tp and surprise gank the safelane too.
A key thing to remember is that Tree is VERY VERY squishy. Despite having a lot of HP, tree has very very low armor, meaning if they go on you, you essentially evaporate. With all the movespeed nerfs, if you get caught out early on, you're more or less dead. Be VERY careful and know your match ups.
Keep your towers and allies healthy; pressure the enemies weaknesses and try to patch any struggling lanes you have.
There's many many different situations in ranked play and other than the general situations I gave, there's no all-encompassing to-do. If you have specific sitautions/questions, feel free to reach out to me.
Not the end all be all list; for more specific interactions w. any hero not listed, feel free to ask.
Heroes good WITH tree in the offlane:
1. Darkseer
The ion shell + surge pairs very well with tree's CC and high base damage and nerfed chase potential.
2. Venomancer
Gale makes chasing and hitting a lot easier.
3. Sand King
Good stun, decent chase.
4. Batrider
Same as veno; their slows and high dps compliment each other, just watch out for batrider killing too many trees.
Heroes that Counter/Do well against tree:
1. Necrophos
Good sustain in lane; with supports can push out tree early. Worst case, he can ghost shroud to avoid right clicks and the slow stops tree from chasing effectively.
2. Venomancer
He gales and runs away...or worse just kills you. If you're galed as tree, usually you have to tp or you're straight up dead.
3. Jakiro/spirit breaker/night stalker/clockwerk
Basically a strong roaming hero or a strong laning hero that has strong cc that can catch tree/can trade w. tree. If tree is caught out alone he's pretty dead, especially with dust.
Heroes that tree can punish hard:
Mobility heroes: (ie: Storm, ember, puck)
Many of these players on these heroes underestimate tree's root power and don't itemize properly against it.
Right clicking cores: (ie: TA, PA)
Heroes that HAVE to right click to do damage are severely hindered by the disarms from the root and have to be burdened to itemize against it.
Weak laning heroes (ie: Cm, drow, spectre)
Basically any hero that's squishy and has weak to no escape is food for tree in lane. Look for these lanes and run them down.
Pros:
1. Easy scouting with guise in enemy jungle; easy to get aggro wards down
2. Forces enemy supports to buy a lot of detection
3. Huge Base damage, can really hurt/bully weak heroes (supports/cores) that have little to no defense early on
4. Heal Towers; only hero that can do this. If a tower doesn't die vs tree, it can be healed to full. With a proper defense, it can weaken split pushing effectiveness.
5. Multiple Roots; roots got massively buffed in 7.00's; so they can be very effective against mobile heroes like ember/storm now.
6. Global presence and various heals to keep allies alive
Cons:
1. Low movespeed. Makes chase hard and escape even harder; very vulernable early on without proper itemization and levels (+ trees).
2. Low BAT. Need to learn how to orb walk attacks early on to maximize effectiveness.
3. Very Squishy with low armor; can be vulnerable to strong trilanes.
4. No "real" escapes bar ulti and invis, can be caught w. dust quite easily; need to itemize appropriately to deal with this
5. Tower pushers/DoT heroes can make living armor useless (ie: jakiro/ember)
6. No "HARD" Crowd control; need to itemize around this if needed
7. Cannot farm well; has to farm heroes or needs a free lane (a carry that can jungle after a bit) to get needed items and levels.
8. Needs to be next to trees (esp early game) to be effective
Should be easy to last hit/deny with this guy.
As for jungling? Don't do it please.
Later into the game, if you have some down time, leech seed and farm a few camps sure. But don't you dare start iron talon jungle on tree; it's awful and it's a waste if you want to go ranked and be serious about winning.
Overall, tree has been nerfed and nerfed to the ground, but he still has strong potential in your average ranked pubs. He now revolves around his Nature's guise to control the enemy side of the map and put a lot of pressure on their mid/safelane, though he can also rotate to offlane with a tp if needed. He does best with team communication and a strong/aggresive laning partner/line up.
He'll take a lot of practice to get used to, especially post nerf, but it's definitely possible to climb up high with this guy. I personally dragged him to 6.7k, building him and playing him the way I have.
Good luck!
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