Aggressive Support—Treant Protector's return to the meta
Treant Protector currently sits at almost 56% win rate in the highest skill bracket, making him the most successful support after Io. The hero has been absent from competitive scene and high level pubs for a while now, but the return of dual lanes and some direct buffs made the hero a lot more viable.
Treant Protector is very good in 2v2 lane setups. He has almost 800 HP and 90+ damage at level 1, meaning that trading and harassing is something he excels at. He pays for it with excruciatingly slow movement speed, but with the help of Nature’s Guise you either force the enemy to spend gold on sentries or have a way of getting to your target undetected. Neither of these options are particularly great for the enemy.
History of Buffs
The hero received some interesting buffs in the recent past: his level 10 talent was changed, now providing more instances of Living Armor damage block, he received an extra tick of Leech Seed and the regeneration of the later levels of Living Armor was also increased.
These buffs, while certainly nice, are unlikely to be the reason for the hero’s sudden resurgence: he is now picked in 7% of highest level pub games, ahead of heroes such as Visage and Lycan.
What made the hero gain a lot of attention is the dual lane status-quo. More equal XP spread between the heroes on a team ensure that Treant Protector can get his levels, even from a support position he is primarily played in.
Treant Protector is greedy. He needs levels, all of his abilities are relatively weak at the beginning, but once they are maxed out they have an immense impact on teamfights, ganks, map control and almost every other aspect of the game.
This greediness is also the reason the hero is better in a pub environment: there is more time for him to get online as a support. In China Supermajor the hero was picked three times, winning only one game.
Building for success
There are two general builds for the hero: one focusing on maxing Living Armor and supporting your teammates across the map. On focuses on Nature’s Guise and attempts to win the lane as hard as possible.
During the China Supermajor, the first approach was favored by the Chinese team Vici Gaming, where VG.Fenrir would even skip Nature’s Guise altogether, instead concentrating on being a defensive support. This approach certainly didn’t work for Vici Gaming and they lost both games with Treant Protector.
VGJ.Storm.MSS took a different approach, focusing fully on Nature’s Guise and maxing it out by level 7. He also didn’t take any points into Living Armor before level 8, instead getting two points in Leech Seed for superior laning stage. This is the only game in the tournament where Treant Protector won and while the results are inconclusive, given the small sample size, this approach is probably also better for pub environment.
Winning lanes is important at levels of play, but for pub players it is also a motivation boost, a way to prevent early arguments within the team and a way for Support players to make more aggressive and impactful plays. As such, we highly recommend going 4-2-0-1 build by level 7, unless you absolutely know what you are doing.
Getting the correct items
VG.Fenrir didn’t get to get any items in his games, but given his position in the team it is very likely he would progress through the regular support items, such as Urn of Shadows, Force Staff etc. Relatively inexpensive items with high situational impact.
VGJ.MSS went in a different direction, rushing Meteor Hammer. It is an item that allows you to double down on the aggressive aspects of the hero: you become much better at ganking, almost guaranteeing a follow-up stun after the Nature’s Guise root, and become stronger in teamfights, where Overgrowth on several enemy heroes can allow for some easy extra disables.
Meteor Hammer also opens up some split-pushing capabilities for the hero, as well as a way to farm better. This build is good enough for the highest levels of play and should also work relatively well in pub games.
Talent Tree
When it comes to talents, there isn’t really much information coming from the pro-scene. Given how level reliant the hero is and how much his abilities improve with levels, it is probably not uncommon to skip the talent selection at level 10: both 10% cooldown reduction and +2 Living Armor instances are not fully utilized until after all other abilities on the hero are of an appropriate level.
The tree growth talent at level 15 is a weird one, since it doesn’t really offer much in terms of damage, disable or other aspects Dota players should care about. That said, in certain matchups, against heroes like Timbersaw, Enigma or Beastmaster, it can be a worthwhile pick-up. +90 damage is probably a lot more potent and useful in all other situations.
There is very little difference between picking left or right talent at level 20, at least in terms of stats. On practice, root duration is probably better against mobile opponents, while extra heal/damage is superior when you don’t really need extra lockdown, but could use better teamfight presence.
Finally, if you do get to level 25, going for extra Eyes in the Forest and Overgrowth AoE is a safe bet: more vision and bigger AoE for your main teamfight disable make for a very potent combo. And at level 25 Treant Protector is almost guaranteed to have his Aghanim’s Scepter, since the hero doesn’t really need other items, apart from Blink Dagger and potential Meteor Hammer.
Closing Thoughts
Treant Protector requires some degree of understanding to play well: what paths he can take without breaking invisibility at what level of Nature’s Guise is a very important skill that can only come from experience. But as it turns out, the hero is definitely worth exploring and playing: put him in a dual lane against enemy safelaner and watch his early game ruined. Just don’t push it too far.
Step 1: Pick Treant
Step 2: Buy Quelling Blade
Step 3: Steal farm from your carry
Step 4: ...
Step 5: Profit?
why buy quelling blade when u have THE highest damage in the game?
1.pick Treant
2.say that ure the carry
3.farm
4.get agh
5.make enemy get gem and Quelling Blyat
6.steal the GeM
7.eye the whole map
8.?
9.sit in base and cast ult
As a Treant spammer (been spamming him for years and my best winrate hero), he is at his best right now. With an extra pulse in leech seed, you can put him offlane with ANY nuker and destroy your lane. 1 in Guise, 2 in Leech Seed and you are ready to play ridiculously aggressive. Just make sure you tell your team you won't be leveling your global heal until later. 1 Q, 3 W, 1 E.
Heroes that go GREAT with Treant offlane (KOTL, Undying, Bristle, etc).
Make sure you ALWAYS have a sentry ward on you. I will always out-deward the other team as you watch their support struggle to keep the income to deward you.
Also, Aghs isn't the only way to play Tree. I usually get Drums or urn and then rush Blink Dagger so you can blink from tree to tree without revealing yourself.
Blink > Aghs
1. be treant
2. aggro the fuck our of their enemy carry
3. buy medallion
4. buy memehammer
5. buy dagger
6. push with ur team
7. ?
8. ez mmr
Pick ags, octarine and other expensive itemes, press R, and i lost my game.. 70 minutes by the way...
oh gush
rip x..
rip xxx
X was a degenerate, keep him out of here
1. Pick Treant
2. Afk farm
3. Fuck wards
4. Rush Aghs (30 mins)
5. Free vision
6. ???
7. 4 reports
Itemisation tips; I’m a Treant spammer, if you check my profile, and I’m firstpicking him to immortal on this smurf. I’ve got over 1000 games and former top 100 spammer and yes the 4-2-0-1 build is the best right now.
I think there’s 3 items that are broken which people don’t usually talk about when mentioning Treant. First is Tranquils, 90% of games. You want the movespeed with max Q you will be near perms hasted at level7 through the trees.
Secondly, which synchronises with tranquils is soul ring. It gives infinite mana for his 3 spells that all cost 150 mana or less, and you don’t have HP problems due to Tranquil regen. Even with 2 points in leech-seed, you can push lanes for free from invis using soul ring Leech-seed which is useful at all MMRs and a handy trick.
The final item is Spirit vessel, that grants movespeed and healing healing which synergises with his invis move bonus, W heal and E heal. It also gives extra catch on a hero that can only damage heros in close proximity normally.
Extra mention to Euls, Blink, value windlace, and OBSERVER WARDS. Finally, aghanims should only be bought in 5% of games when they are going super late because it’s really a trash item to be rushing on Treant when your role in the team is to be active on the map probing and punishing enemy’s in the forest.
PLEASE hyperlink the hero in the article so i can just click on it and go to the hero page instead of navigating to it a longer way. You guys always miss this in your articles
I totally agree with this guy. Every time they have an article about a specific hero, a link should be available in the title or close to the beginning of the article. Links are usually included to specific items or heroes only when the article is about multiple things (e.g. patch reviews).
it's interesting, Treant protector is back!
Feels good. One of the heroes I enjoy is back. I love picking treant especially with a carry Luna the Offlaner just rage quits after 5mins hahaha.
I recently spammed treant and I agree with kill them with kindness. The importance of early movement speed cannot be understated on treant, with tranqs + windlace you can actually cross a lane at some places with level 3 natures guise. Makes the hero a lot more annoying to deal with at all stages of the game.
Got to try carry treant with maxing out 1st skill. Build phase boots and MOM, then get the +90 dmg talent. Armlet might also be useful.
@darko5000
"PLEASE hyperlink the hero in the article so i can just click on it and go to the hero page instead of navigating to it a longer way. You guys always miss this in your articles"
Yes, please! I second that!
he's a hero if ignored will fuck you up late game as I've learnt many times..thank fully he's not picked that often and most of the times when he's picked the player's noob so for my high skill pubs i can still safely ignore him most of the time
That AOE on the heal is one of them "win game" abilities. It removes damage instances from basically everyone on your team in a team fight... Ran into this once and that was not fun. We were left wondering what the hell happened as we lost a team fight 5-0 and barely got a scratch on any of their heroes. Get the Aoe heal at 25, it will win you the game. It is basically an Omni ult for all damage, not just physical. Just wanted to point this out... Improved aoe on the ult is nice, but won't really impact your team fights as much. With blink you should be able to hit pretty much all the enemy team with it even without.
And you really don't want to farm the entire map as a support... What will your carries farm them???
Ok this is bullshit. Anyone who actually plays Treant should be maxing leech seed. It's an AoE purification (heal) and slows more than degen aura.
Just go as #3 Treant with something like a Vengeful in lane and you will kill anything.
I've played this with my gf for over a year and we have 65% winrate at 5k despite her picking up Dota2 in 2017.
Sure if you're pos 4 why not go 4-2-0 but it's a waste for Treant to not be pos3 and get a 15-20m scepter. It alleviates pressure from your supports and applies it to the enemy supports.
Vengeful is the best laning partner by far for obvious reasons -- stun - armor reduction - aura. Combined with Treant's high base damage you get a dual lane that overpowers any classic safelane.
I'm Treant spammer and i always buy Quelling Blade in starting items .. it's usefull to deny and cut the sentrys and some special ways in the trees ..
another good idea : go to offlane and harass the enemy support and force him to buy a sentry , go behind them and kill their courier :D
now u can control the lane without care about sentrys
I have alomst 2000 game with him , pray for me to reach top 100 treant players
I'm a bit concerned that you have over 2000 games and don't realise that quelling blade doesn't work on denies. But hey, gotta learn it at some point
Hello. I disagree whith some parts of all these comments, saying 4-2-0-1 is the best. It is true that I am just 2k mmr player, but treant is my №1 hero and want to put my own note here.
First - 4-2-0-1 works only if you and your lane teammate has a nuke sinergy and it is a plan to harrass and kill all the time. PLAN, not the randomness.
Second - these -0- on E. Zero on E means you are cant help your team at all. I do understand that I am not a pro and even not a 4,5,6,7k player, that I may make mistate all these years, but seriously, E is so much good and could save your teammate so much, so i mention it as somthing ridicouls to not have it at least on 1 lvl asap. You want only invis and leech seed - fine, get living armor on lvl 3 and be helpful everywhere on the map.
If you are not a spammer or somthing and just play treant on accident, note - 4-2-0-1 on lvl 7 is the worst skillbuild possible for you. You just should try othr builds like maxing E or W(or even Q but after you will get all 3 abilities).
Third - AGS is worse than blink dagger. Most of the time. Not all the time. Itembuild on treant fully depends on situation. I highly recommend to get blink dagger at every game. All other items is fully depends on situation. Arcane boots, urn of shadows, tranquill, orchid, ord of atos, euls, quelling blade, memehammer, aeon disk, and almost all other stuff including force stuff ofc, is a possible choice.
Last - dont be fooled by all these invis thing. When you play treant just remember , that his most powerfull weapon is his ultimate - treant is a disabler. R works throu BKB , dont let ot go invis and just stop walking and casting. You will not be useless if yuo will get just wards wards wards > arcane boots > blink dagger , and just will use you ult on someone who just use his bkb (remember if enemy uses his bkb after you ult, than they will be free).
Pls dont try to be like a pro at first place - be a part of your team is much better than "try all these pro builds". However note - if pro goes this way than it means it is not out of sense.
dont pick fucking treant every gome!
this dogshit hero is as obnoxious fk as always.