General Discussion☑ COME AT ME BRO - Treant Protector Guide - by Avidity

NOTE: THIS GUIDE ASSUMES THAT YOU KNOW THE BASICS OF DOTA2.
Keep in mind that solo queue and party queue are two different worlds, this guide is oriented for solo queue players.

Source: DotaROOT
GUIDE STRUCTURE:

1. [url=#intro]INTRODUCTION[/url]
        1.1 Pros & Cons
2. [url=#mindset]THE GAME MINDSET[/url]
3. [url=#items]ITEM BUILDS[/url]
        3.1 Default safelane opening
        3.2 Default offlane opening
        3.3 Situational opening items
        3.4 Core items
        3.5 Core extension items
4. [url=#playstyle]PLAYSTYLE & SKILL OVERVIEW[/url]
        4.1 Nature’s Guise
        4.2 Leech Seed
        4.3 Living Armor
        4.4 Overgrowth
5. [url=#reaction]TYPICAL ENEMY REACTION[/url]
6. [url=#tldr]TL:DR[/url]

Treant is one of the best support heroes when it comes to solo queue, he's extremely viable and you can always pick him first with very little to no diminishing return.
By drafting support hero first you open up more room for your team to breath, it may also force your opponents to get heroes like Slark, Timbersaw or Ursa which in return helps your team to counter-pick.

☑ You’re a giant tree
☑ You got healing powers
☑ Highest base damage in the game
☑ Free mekanism
☑ Naturally tanky
☑ Not item dependant
☑ Can be a ninja, trenja?
☑ Tide changing ult
☑ Global presence from early levels
☑ Extremely viable
☑ Fun to play (once you get dat feel)
☑ You’s most hated hero in solo queue
- Slow as shit
- Level dependant
- 99 mana problems
- Needs game awareness

As you can clearly see pros heavily overweight cons. ^^

We’ll assume you’re playing support Treant, always remember your role. You are THE WARD BITCH on crack! Your main purpose is to keep your team alive and maintain as much game awareness as possible to account for mistakes of others. That includes constantly checking allies’ whereabouts and giving them living armor when the time is right. You are the only support in Dota2 who has spammable global skill that accounts for the fuck up of others.

The game outcome will depend a lot on your ability to predict and cover up bad play. Secure early game and let your team snowball out of control.

Buy observer wards whenever they're off cooldown and place them wisely, preferably before the creeps spawn. Don’t forget to counter ward as well, you want to see what’s hiding in the dark even if there is no enemy wards.

There is no such thing as "Hey guys, I am going to buy arcane boots and get wards asap!", always (90% of the time) prioritize support items first (observers/sentry/dust/gem/TP scrolls for your team) even if you have no brown boots, support items come first.

Always carry TP scroll, it's very important. If you see somebody on your team without a TP scroll then buy them one & have it delivered via courier or drop it by fountain. That extra TP can give you extra win. If for some reason you secure first blood extremely early (0:10 or so) it might be a good idea to buy bottle for your middle player, it will make a ton of difference in the long run. If you have a great deal of confidence in your mid then just use that money to get brown boots & wand instead.

Always try to stay in experience range; you need fast level 7 to reach your full potential when it comes to global presence. Don’t be afraid to deny/last hit if you still have regeneration items. Your base damage is incredible and you should be able to deny quite a bit of farm from the enemy, especially if they’re melee and/or lack crowd control.

Unless you're laning solo DO NOT TAKE farm of your partner. (You should know this already)

Your starting gold is 625; get chicken and 1 set of wards. If somebody else got it & you have some gold left it’s almost never a bad idea to get a few branches for good luck. You can later turn them into magic wand.

Buy your items when the game starts and head on to your small camp; try to prevent the enemy from placing a ward.

Buy your items when the game starts & head on to ward small pull camp & long rune. If you’re facing Pudge or Mirana it’s a good idea to ward middle lane instead of the rune.

Do you feel like being extra aggressive? Are you running a tri, maybe strong duo? Going against somebody who spams skills, or they hit very hard? Do you want to hide in trees and leech experience? Are you laning against annoying spider? Feel free to replace some of your regular opening components with these babies; just don’t get carried away. Most of the time default opening works like a charm.

Get core items based on your situation, if you need mobility then rush boots, if you need more mana get a stick first.

Adjust to your game and get whatever your team needs the most.

It's a good idea not to rush and wait before picking first skill. All your skills are amazing!

Instead of picking armor and feeling like you achieved something try to gain control of one of the runes before creeps spawn. Sometimes you're going to get a haste/double damage rune, if you see somebody coming to contest and they're alone... take that rune and level leech seed. Now chase after them, use leech seed and poke them with your sticks until they die! You have the highest base DMG in the entire game (higher than Roshan himself); it shouldn't be hard to secure first blood even if you’re alone.

That's just one example, depending on the lineup and situation you may have to opt-in for leech seed, armor or even invisibility first. Don't just go with 1 universal build. Play smart and be viable, adjust to your team & opponent picks.

Don’t be afraid to initiate first, you’re extremely tanky. Absorb some damage for your team. Your job in team fights: land overgrowth, cast living armor and leech seed. Once it’s done you can escape or fight and die as an honorable tree.

Experiment, experiment, experiment! Have some fun, be creative & find something that works for you.

Extremely underrated skill, basically it turns you into a ninja!

Become one with the trees and use it to:
- Initiate
- Escape
- Help somebody else escape
- Help somebody else initiate
- Leech experience
- Place observers
- Place sentry
- Use quelling blade to deward like a true ninja
- TP out/in while hidden
- Dagon #YOLO
- Just chill in the trees
- Getting flamed & losing your game? No problem, chill in the trees
- Role-play and pretend you’re a real tree

Did I mention that you can cast/use items while being hidden without breaking your invisibility? Riki is mad.

Remember that fade time is not instant and takes 2 seconds for you to become completely invisible. Nature Guise checks in 1 second intervals for nearby trees, removing invisibility if none are found. It’s somewhat similar to Sand Kings sandstorm.

You can use blink dagger to freely travel between clusters of trees without breaking Nature’s Guise. It turns you into insanely dangerous initiator.

Tree radius detection is 375 and duration scales well with levels - 15s/30s/45s/60s. You also get a nifty 10% speed boost while hidden. In most cases level 2 is enough, take stats/other skills instead of leveling it too much. If you feel like you need more points in Nature’s Guide then don’t hesitate and adjust your skill build appropriately.

Only level it early if you actually plan on using it. Nature’s Guise costs quite a bit of mana and has low duration until level 2.

If you’re playing solo offlane against a strong duo/tri it’s a good idea to level Nature’s Guise first and hide in trees leaching as much experience as possible.

It’s quite good early game.

Use it to harass and right click the hell out of whatever you’re trying to poke.
If you’re running duo/tri it shouldn’t be too hard getting kills with the assistance of your Life Leech.

Think of it as extra mekanism that also slows people and deals damage!

Signature skill of Treant Protector, this is what makes him extremely annoying.

Most of the time you should have Living Armor maxed by level 7, it will unlock your full global potential and allow your team to snowball out of control.

Let’s do some number crunching! Level 4 Living Armor blocks 7 instances of damage while giving the host 13hp/s regeneration and blocking 80 damage per instance.

Think of it as extra 560 effective HP, it also gives 195 HP over 15 seconds. If you’re capable of predicting enemy’s actions and chain-precast Living Armor… you’re giving a total of 1020 effective HP with additional 390 HP/30seconds.

Level 7 can be achieved by ~7 minutes.

Your game awareness should increase as you level Living Armor. During first three levels DO NOT SPAM it to heal your allies. Cooldown is simply way too high, you’ll have mana problems too. Use it to save people from ganks and help win fights instead of blindly casting Living Armor.

Once you reach level 7 you can start healing towers, allies and spam it non stop.

Do note that some skills remove Living Armor (ie Invokers tornado) make sure to time it properly.

Always get it at level 6 and don’t be afraid to pop it, the cooldown is pretty low.

When to use overgrowth:
- Secure solo kills
- In team fight
- Help your team escape
- Help yourself escape
- Stop teleport scrolls
- Stop channeling spells
- Fakecast into ultimate

Keep in mind that enemies can still cast spells while under your ultimate and can also activate items such as Manta Style and Black King Bar which dispel the ultimate.

It’s best to pop it after manta/bkb since overgrowth affects magic immune targets.

If you followed this guide correctly then this is the expected reaction from your opponents:

Cast living armor – win games.