A reoccurring issue I see in all skill brackets is people not effectively using the courier. Now, ignoring the classic case of a courier steal when your pos 5 needs a wand recipe after mid already called the courier for crucial regen, there are some basics that help A LOT in getting items out quicker while simultaneously not angering your team mates.

Courier control makes a huge difference for item timings and morale and I never see this being discussed. So for anyone that might benefit from this info by happenstance, here are some of basics.

– Shift Queueing: Like most hero actions, courier actions can also be queued up, which will then be followed after the unit is done with whatever it was busy with. If you see the courier is delivering items to a teammate and you need to use it right after, simply hold shift and click on the delivery arrow. This will tell the courier to go fetch and deliver your items the moment it is done with delivering its current load.

To expand on this, with the latest update there is now an option right above your stash that notifies the courier that it should pick up your items when it’s in the fountain again. Combining this with a shift queue will allow you to tell the courier to pick up your items whiles it’s busy getting another player’s items and deliver them to you right after it completes it’s original delivery without having to return back to the fountain to get your goodies. That’s basically 1 trip with 2 deliveries without disrupting the original players item timings even by 1 second.

– Sending items to team mates: It’s like nails on a chalkboard for me whenever I read someone typing out “RE USE COUR” since there is no reason to do this. Right clicking on the delivery arrow button will bring up a list of heroes whose items are already on the courier. Selecting one of these heroes will tell the courier to deliver to that player as if that player requested it themselves. This means that if you accidentally steal the courier (or when you are just much closer to the courier and it makes sense for it to deliver to you first) then you can simply right click the delivery arrow button and send it back to the original caller.

Again, expanding on above using shift queuing means that you can either tell the courier to deliver your items and immediately deliver the next person’s items when it reaches you, or tell it to deliver to another person and immediately deliver to you when it’s done. All this without interrupting other players while they are fighting/farming.

One caveat is be careful shift queuing the courier to you after a teammate in another lane. People will have the courier go top directly after dropping stuff bot and the courier will walk down the river and get killed.

Simple solution: Add two queued commands, one sending the courier a little back down the lane into a safer “flight corridor”, the second to deliver your items. For example, when your mid-laner is using the courier and you as the safe-laner also got items in it, shift-queue a move command somewhere behind your mid tier 1 followed by the delivery command so the courier doesn’t have to fly all the way through the river.

Also when defending high ground and you need to get secret shop items, you should shift queue a move command along the edge of the map and then queue the secret shop hotkey so that your courier flies out of vision of enemies before and after it pops out of the trees to buy from the secret shop.

I’m a low Immortal player and for the past 2 weeks I’ve played 24 Treant matches with a 3k friend of mine that was coming back from a long break, using a borrowed (former) 2.8k account, and won 87.5% of those games. I don’t have a smurf account of my own, I don’t like to play at that bracket and don’t think I’ve ever played Dota on an account other than mine prior to this, but I enjoy playing with my friends and this was the only way to do it.

So I’m here to tell you how to win with Tree at that bracket.

Leaving Base

Tree can go in both sidelanes as he is great either way. Get Q, 6 Tangoes, Orb of Venom, a Branch and a Mango. Give 2 Tangoes to your mid player if you have to.

Run as fast as you can (use the trees on the side of the map for MS buff) to the Outpost and place a ward on the lane scouting their tower and then wait for that rune to spawn. This goes for both lanes. I’ve noticed a lot of players don’t rush out of base at this bracket, this isn’t optimal, so if you are an alt-tabber that thinks its fine to waste a few seconds after the match starts, stop.

Use the ward you placed to spot any fool coming to your woods. Q and beat his ass as you grab the rune, a lot of cores won’t be with you cuz they think its fine to go contest the other rune in a 2v1, but with some luck you’ll have a smart pal and a dumb foe which will give you FB. If not, you’ll just get a rune and leave an enemy with 20% HP, forcing his Salve or just providing free farm for your core in the first couple of wave.

Laning

Use Q on every single wave. Not on the creeps, clearly, on the enemy as you leave trees to punch them in the face. You will get a whole lot of kills, but thats not necessary, you’re just making space cuz 3 right-clicks is over half HP of most enemies. This aggression will push your wave cuz you’ll agro their creeps and do some collateral dmg to them, so use your tangoes to cut a way for pulling the hard camp and be ready to pull after they spawn. Its your top priority get this pull so DO NOT miss it. Practice the timings for each pull if you’re not familiar with them. Use neutrals to get denies, don’t rush to farm them, cuz if the enemy tries to contest it you’re probably stronger and can set up some kills like this.

When Q is on CD and your core still isn’t ready to solo farm, stay in lane and help with denies. You hit for 92 dmg, you’ll get them all. If the core can free farm solo, cuz the wave is near tower or the enemy are at half HP and aren’t coming close, leave XP range. Don’t leech XP from your cores and use this time to stack the small camp.

Keep doing this “harass and pull”. When hard camp isn’t available use your stacked small camp. If you don’t have a stack there, use it anyway but time it so you only pull the ranged and the last melee creep in the line, its not hard to do, you’ll get these 2 denies and not push the wave afterwards.

If you do all of this right your core will seriously out level the enemy and you’re free to TP to the other lane to make plays.

Skill Build: Max Q, get 2 points in W then max E. Always get Invis talent, Q dmg in most games, CD reduction everytime, and Ult dmg if games go late.

Item Build: Wand the majority of games, in some rare cases where you’re up against a dual that doesn’t cast much shit, get a -armor orb instead. Regen Boots, Meme Hammer followed by Blink Dagger, and if the game isn’t over yet get Refresher (and mangoes as you do cuz you’ll probably not have enough mana for the combo). This is where playing at 3k bracket shows another big difference, ppl tilt their ass off from losing lanes and are just generally not very good, you don’t need to worry about making stuff that counters them. If you lost the other two lanes (which shouldn’t happen, you should win yours and then help the other sinelane) you can make a Halberd, Lotus, Force Staff, Glimmer Cape, Euls or w/e is needed instead of your Meme Hammer. Also, in the laning stage, buy more mangoes and salves (for you and your core) when needed, don’t let waves go uncontested cuz you’re low HP or have no mana, not even if you’re close to regen boots.

Midgame

Use your ult as soon as you can to get a kill. Overgrowth, Q, W and a +1 will kill somebody. Sometimes you won’t even the +1. Don’t need to save your ult for TFs only.

Now, your Ult dictates where you’ll be playing. When its on CD, go to their safelane and push the lane with Q from the trees. This is what Treant does, with and without Meme Hammer (with it you also dmg their tower), you shrink their map. Ward their jungle, cast E on your team and towers, ferry in clarities cuz you’ll need it unless you got a neutral item for mana. Sometimes you’re forced to TP in to a fight so don’t be shy to do it.

When you have Ult available, go be with your team and make plays. Again, getting their whole team is nice (this is what Blink is for), but ulting for a single important target is more than fine. Go back to slowly getting their safelane’s T2 with your Meme Hammer and warding afterwards.

Lategame

Its all about getting good ults. In TFs you’re not a frontliner, if you have to give your life for a good ult, fine, but if you can Blink in and retreat safely to cast your shit for afar, its better. Q on stunned targets or on chokepoints, use E on your friends, and W when you guys are routing the enemy.

If game is hard and you get lvl25 and Refresher, your combo does like over 1k dmg with the Ults and Q, you can solo win TFs with it.

And this is how you win with Treant.