Rooftrellen - DotA-Allstars Hero Strategy Guide

A treant of immense age and wisdom, Rooftrellen was merely a sapling during the invasion of the Burning Legion. Having grown powerful over thousands of years, Rooftrellen has lent his considerable might to the Sentinel cause. An omnipresent force in the forest, he is capable using his power over the forest to hide his allies. Rooftrellen is aided by the forest itself, providing him with a thick living armor of vines and entangling nearby foes in a deadly embrace, allowing Rooftrellen to pound his victims to dust with his massive gnarled limbs.

Rooftrellen has always been a strong choice for playing serious games and recent version has improved many of his skills as well as his ability to fend off pests. Possessing decent agility, tremendous strength, and low mana costing spells Rooftrellen has grown more versatile since the buffs of lower Overgrowth mana cost and an

Though this guide can provide you with firm soil to plant your base, it is up to you to nurture your skills and grow, bearing the fruits of victory to your team as you, the Treant Protector, aid your allies while weeding out the ability of your enemies to resist. For those relatively new with Rooftrellen or those that have used him before, this guide will help you better utilize your skills to your greatest advantage. Keep in mind that you can deviate from this guide if the situation demands it. Grow, bend, take advantage of what you have and what the enemy lacks.

Level 1 - Lasts 15 seconds.
Level 2 - Lasts 30 seconds.
Level 3 - Lasts 45 seconds.
Level 4 - Lasts 60 seconds.

Mana Cost: 90/ 80/ 70/ 60

Cooldown: 4

A nifty little spell that grants invisibility to heroes that don't normally get it. Escape mechanism as well as a saving skill are two obvious ways of using it especially in battle. However a great way of utilizing it is using it on hero that requires positioning to be effective like Nevermore's Requiem of Soul, Techies Suicide (first blood), Meepo's Poof, etc. You can also cloak your whole team for an ambush as well. The only problem is the guised hero must remain near a tree, making it less useful at the base or at the river.

A neat little trick you can do to help allies is cloaking them while they are focus fired. This throws the targeting of the enemy heroes off if they don't have true sight, forcing them to manually target them again, losing a bit of damage time from it. You can even do this out of the range of trees as well, mimicking the nature of a lvl 2 Phase Shift. I myself manage to save allies when the finishing shot was racing towards them.

This is the maximum distance that you must be from a tree to maintain Nature’s Guise

Eyes in the Forest (E)

Level 1 - 300 second cooldown.
Level 2 - 225 second cooldown.
Level 3 - 150 second cooldown.
Level 4 - 75 second cooldown.

Mana Cost: 100

Cooldown: 300/ 225/ 150/ 75

Your legal maphack permenant Observer/Sentry ward hybrid on a tree. Place these on key points in the map, letting you know where the enemies are ganking/attacking at, if and where enemies are jungling/neutraling, and where the runes and neutral creeps composition are. It's also a good post watch for annoying stealth heroes. The description doesn't mention that the range of sight increases with each level of Eyes in the Forest though. The nice thing about Eyes of the Forest is that it can see pass any terrain that is higher than the tree that it resides. This means that its sight is a full circle and not blocked by that pesky hill.

However, due to the lower sight range, limitations to trees and especially their cooldown, there may be situations that you will want to use observor wards, such as in the middle of the river, a wide corridor, or the enemy base. More on locations to put Eyes will be revealed in this guide.

This is the sight range of a level 1 Eyes and a level 4 Eyes.

Living Armor (V)

Level 1 - Adds 3 armor and regenerates 1 hit points per second.
Level 2 - Adds 6 armor and regenerates 2 hit points per second.
Level 3 - Adds 9 armor and regenerates 3 hit points per second.
Level 4 - Adds 12 armor and regenerates 4 hit points per second.

Mana Cost: 30/35/40/40

Cooldown: 7

The regeneration is welcoming for the early games and the armor is a blessing late game to increase the hero's EHP. The mana cost is very low allowing you to spam this and the fast cooldown allow you to buff up most of your allies with Living Armor. At most, you can have 4 heroes with perma-living armor. One little tidbit is that is looks really funny on Atropos, looking like he's sporting a new wig!

WARNING: Do NOT cast Living Armor on someone with Magnus's Empower as they do not stack.

Overgrowth

Level 1 - Lasts 3 seconds.
Level 2 - Lasts 4 seconds.
Level 3 - Lasts 5 seconds.

Mana Cost: 150/175/200

Cooldown: 160

Deals a total of 255/340/425 damage before magic resistance.

A great disable with a long range and decent damage, this skill allows you to pin down the enemy team and let your allies do what they want to do to them. Because it also disables attack, it works wonders against DPS carry heroes. Note that it does not prevent spells or items. Be sure to catch at least 60% of the enemy team in the Overgrowth but since Overgrowth has such a huge Area of Effect, it should be a big problem.

The most practical use of Overgrowth is to stop mobility by the team so they can retreat or pin them down from an ally's skill that deals large amount of AoE damage. With the recent nerf to blink dagger, you can prevent them from using a blink up 13 seconds. However it will not stop movement skills that are not blink which includes Morphling's wave form, Darkterror's Time Walk, Cryxalis's Burrowstrike, Mirana's Leap although they will still have the debuff after they land.

Because Overgrowth it an area Target debuff, it can be dispelled by purge/diffusal, broken out with Manta Style or Slithice's Nessaj's image skill, can be blocked by linken, and shrugged off with a mean of obtaining magic immunity while in Overgrowth; however if they are hit while being magic immune, they will be still disabled but no Overgrowth damage will be dealt to them.

Note:This is a foundation build in which you generally go on for a generic game. However, if the situation demands that you take an alternative path (like you need Nature's Guise at level 1 for Techies), then do so and adjust to the situation.

Skill Build

1. Eyes in the Forest
2. Living Armor1
3. Living Armor
4. Nature's Guise
5. Living Armor
6. Overgrowth
7. Living Armor
8. Eyes in the Forest
9. Eyes in the Forest
10. Eyes in the Forest
11. Overgrowth
12. Nature's Guise/Stat2
13. Stats
14. Stats
15. Stats
16. Overgrowth
17. Stat/Nature's Guise
18. Nature's Guise
19. Nature's Guise
20-25. stats

Living Armor is taken for the Regeneration and for some armor (the enemy doesn't have infinite mana after all) and maxed for the purposes. One level of Nature's Guise is taken for emergency escape purposes. Eyes of the forest has one level taken first so you can place an eye before the creep wave starts and maxed after Living Armor. Overgrowth is leveled when possible since it's a great team disable. Three levels of stat is require to get enough mana capacity from int boost to be able to cast two overgrowths in a team battle.

Keep in mind that there is no “best” way to play Rooftrellen or “best” item for him. I encourage you to follow the paths in the builds before experimenting with the other builds once you are familiar with him. Drop me a call and a replay if you manage to do well with other items (recommend skill level of the enemies to be great though).

NOTICE: I am aware of a carry hero build but it will be in the next update of this guide, not this one yet.

Starting Items

The Tangoes are for regeneration as Rooftrellen will be harassed as a melee hero vs ranged heroes as well as nukers while the branches aids essentially every aspect in Rooftrellen's early stage. The branches can be substitute for a chicken courier if you decide to take on the cost of it. As Rooftrellen doesn't need as much stats as other heroes, he can afford taking the -4 stat hits due to high base damage and not-so-mana-intensive skills.

Core Build

--> 1750

500

1 1200

1675

1875

Total Cost: 7000

1: Alternatively you can substitute the Point Booster for 2 Null Talismans.

Perseverance is taken first because Rooftrellen needs the mana regeneration since he is going to constantly be using his skills especially Living Armor and Eyes in the Fores. I recommend getting Voidstone first but you can get Ring of Health first if you find yourself neutralling a lot. Boots of Speed is taken next since Rooftrellen is going to be waking around the map fairly often. Point Booster and is prefered over Energy Booster for now is due to that fact that you cannot really build anything from it while Point Booster gives HP/mana and can be turned into a Skadi (or two Null Talismans) is taken for the sole purpose of mana capacity so you can possibly cast another Overgrowth when needed.

In summary, this build focuses on rushing refresher to activate Overgrowth when you need it most while it is still on cool down or extend Overgrowth to a devastating 10 seconds. The only requirement for double Overgrowth is for your mana pool to be at 725/775 (a few points lower is fine due to regeneration). The best part about the core build is that it is very cheap to complete, requiring the gold amount comparably to Skadi to finish. Because of the speed of the completion of the build, you can devastate the enemies before they get enough items for themselves possibly helping your team bringing the game to quick finish or at least devastate a lane's barrack.

The weakness of this build is skills that drain your mana or mana pool which includes but not limited to, Mana Break, Mana Burn, Mana Leak, and Mana Drain. Then other problem is that, unless your Overgrowth is ready, you aren't going to contribute as much in battle since the build is emphasizing Overgrowth.

Boots of Travel is a must after Refresher so when you successfully win a battle, you can teleport to the most vulnerable side of the enemy base to attack there instead of wasting valuable time to walk there, time which they may end up respawning on time. Also if you are out in the forest and the enemy is pushing FAST to your base, then you need to teleport there as soon as possible. Finally, if you had died at the enemy base but the enemy has died as well, Boots of Travel allows you to buy back and teleport back into the scene.

Living Armor helps with your EHP vs physical so you need something against spell damage. Hood of defiance will increase your EHP vs spells by 30% and considering that Rooftrellen has a large HP pool, that's a lot.

Eyes of the Forest covers a good amount of area to observe but people will be killing trees on sight so you need an alternate mean reconainssance. However if you have someone else that has map control skills (Ex. Lanaya's Mines). Then you can leave this out.

I moved this from bad to possible since the enemy is going to be stuck in Overgrowth for a while adding to the damage. This may become a necessary item due to the change in Blink Daggers. Also since Rooftrellen is going to be in the middle of the enemy flank to pull it off, it also works well to catch the maximum amount of heroes in the damage. Also, since enemies can't use Blink Daggers while you are immolating them, Radiance is essential from keeping your enemies from running away by merely moving with them. If Lothar gets a surge of popularity, your Eyes and Sentry Wards should counter them. The only problem is that someone on your team may have Radiance so only get it if no one else is planning to. Also, you will need to rush this item before Refresher first or don't get it at all as the immolation loses effectiveness later on.

Assault Cuirass is to make Rooftrellen a dangerous presence in the field with his high base damage aided with Refresher's (and possibly Radiance) damage, giving the enemy more reason to focus fire him instead of ignoring him while the armor gives him better tanking abilities and allows him to use living armor on someone else other than himself. The increased attack speed and armor debuff auras make that your mere presence will support your allies. Get this if none of your allies aren't planning to.

Due to the long duration of Overgrowth, Rooftrellen can make use of Necronomicon. Also due to his warding nature, he is also a candidate to hunt them as well, using true sight to destroy them. This also allows him to deal more damage through the Necro-Warriors as well making him more useful in battle even without Overgrowth. Also since you have a long duration disable, this allows your minions to get free hits on the enemies. Finally, if the enemy has a low mana base, the mana burn and mana break may cause your opponent to lack mana to cast any spells. The increased mana capacity should also be enough to use a Refresher as well if you desire. However, if you are going for Necronomicon, rush it first as it also loses effectiveness

Because Rooftrellen needs to position himself in the middle of the enemy ranks, he would also be in a good position to use the active ability of Shiva Armor. This also allows him to add even more armor to himself as well as allowing his presence to slow the enemies' DPS complimenting the effect of Assault Cuirass. The Shiva activation should be good to slow the enemy down so your allies can mop up the rest of the survivors. Getting this, you should have also have enough mana for Refresher as well.

Originally I had this item as a consideration but after several test, I see this item is not needed. Perseverance/Refresher is enough regeneration as your skills has low mana costs and you only need to maintain your to at least 775.

Hyperstone serves a better purpose in increasing your attack speed because it can be turned into a useful Assault Cuirass which gives just enough attack speed but the added benefits of the auras while the only thing the Mask of Madness have over Hyperstone is for the life steal. It is best leave this item to Magnus or Sven as they deal far more damage to benefit from the life steal.

Like Heart of Tarrasque, this will draw spells away from Rooftrellen and onto your more fragile allies.

Unless you finish your luxury build, damage items are not a high priority on your shopping list. If anything, desolator would be a better choice as it will augment your negative armor bonus and allow your allies to deal more damage to your chosen target.

Buy your items and immediately run to the top river to plant your eye on the top rune area. Doing this early will allow part of the time of no creeps to absorb some of the cool down, something you will need as the cool down for Eyes is a whooping 300 seconds at level 1. Also, the top area is more idea at the bottom before there is no easily accessible trees at the bottom lane that will observe both gank routes. Rooftrellen as a teammate on lane only provides extra survivability but little ganking skills so focus more on last hitting, denying, and healing with living armor. Rooftrellen has a high base damage but a slight animation delay in his attack so you should time your last hits a bit earlier than most heroes. Also due to your high base strength, you are more able to take harassments than a more fragile hero like, lets say, Rhasta. In the midst of last hitting, make sure anyone with wounds get a Living Armor to help a bit of healing along with Tangoes.

Once, you hit level 6, try to conserve your mana so that you can be able to cast Overgrowth. With an ally with good lane control as well as one that synergizes with yours, you can be able to take out one or more of the enemy heroes. However, if you find your lane at a disadvantage, you may have to call for help in the adjacent lane. Also keep track of the cooldown of Eyes of the Forest so you can place another of these non river spots or renew them when an enemy tangoes your first one.

Make sure to purchase wards off of your chicken or, better yet, turn it into a crow and have it fly and place it for you. Just make sure to turn on the courier shield when you are near the location so it does not get shot down by an enemy that is may be nearby.

With leveled eyes, you should be going about the map to places them at key points like gank routes and neutral creeps. Some of the previous eyes are probably destroyed by Tangoes or AoE tree-eaters. Renew the critical spots when needed. For locations that contain only a single tree, take note that the trees regrow at 5 minute intervals (5:00, 10:00, 15:00, etc). You should stay in lane and move off when you are either pushing too far, placing an Eye, neutral creeping, or going back to retrieve your purchase from a courrier (or go back to shop if it's a pub game and no one shares chicken). Always keep a scroll with you for if you anticipate a battle, you can teleport to their location and lend them a hand with your Guise and Overgrowth.

This phase of the game is particularly important for Rooftrellen since ganks are more frequent and you can foil them through Eyes of the Forest, wards, and Nature's Guise. The other reason is checking on how the enemy is reacting to your team line-up as well as your own presence. A few times, you should check the enemy's inventory for the following items:

If you see an unusually large amount of tangoes and there is no constant tree killer hero, then this is the hero designated to kill off your eyes while scouting the map. To counter, use observer wards in the same location as well. Few people would suspect the redundancy of Eyes and wards from the same hero and even less in the same area. They also, oddly, have good synergy with each other. Eyes of the Forest would detect sentry wards against your observers, and observer are back up scouting if someone tangoes or tree kills.

This is to counter your Nature's Guise to make sure that they don't get away. However, if you have another stealth hero, such as Gondor, Bone Clinkz, or Black Arachnia, they may have gotten that to kill two birds with one stone, or one ward, so to speak. Pay attention if you see an odd number or decreased amount of wards. Buy your own sentries as well to destroy theirs when you have control of the area. Don't use Eyes for the task as their line of sight is too low and are easily killed. Make them busy waging ward wars that they have less time hunting your eyes.

Nothing is more annoying to Rooftrellen than an item with the annoyance of Magina's Mana Break, Anub'arak's Mana Burn, and a Gem of True Sight, all in one moldy book. The mana issue may prevent you from using Overgrowth twice or even once in the early games while the level 3 true sight will prevent Nature's Guise from working. Try to initiate first so you have already used Overgrowth making the Mana Burn less effective. If someone has a book, never linger near the enemies and assume that you can be spotted at any moment's notice.

At this stage, ganks are less frequents since both teams are going to be moving in groups and any attacks probably be from the entire enemy roster. Because of this, it is imperative that you remain with your allies as well. Posts Eyes on any of the ambush zones near the lane you are pushing and give all of your allies constant living armor, particular your carry hero. If you have your Refresher at this time, then try to capitalize on your allies' combo by extending the disable time so you can take out their entire team at once so they are either forced to buy back or push and break down the enemy barracks. You can also use your refresher if you need Overgrowth at a crucial moment but it's still on cool down. Remember only to use the Refresh if you need that second Overgrowth. Don't get into a habit of hitting refresher after Overgrowth just to find out that second Overgrowth will not be needed.

You should have refresher and boots or travel at this time. Focus all of your support onto your carry hero as you move in a group. If he is being focus fired, immediately use Nature's Guise to throw targeting off of him. You can possibly spam this to increase his EHP through frustrating Phase Shift. If you managed to get a Radiance and/or Assault Cuirass try to get into the enemy's face so they focus fire on you once you used your Overgrowth. The focus is the same as before but keep in mind that respawn time is very long and the buyback price is very high.

Rooftrellen is going to be in the enemies face thanks to his large HP and Living Armor. He should position himself in the middle of the enemy ranks to encompass as many enemies in Overgrowth as possible (see the Overgrowth Screenshot). Then focus your attack on the carry hero and the strong disable/AoE casters in that order.

Beginning game, you can use Overgrowth as a mere disabler since you won't get too many people in a single lane at the time. Mid game you should get 2-3. Late Game, you should reserve it for team battles since most sensible teams will go in groups.

Your Overgrowth will keep the enemies in the range of their ult and Nature's Guise conceals them from single target disables. You can also help them get away since these heroes have no escape means, although most of them generally get a blink dagger.

Nature's Guise will help these heroes position themselves to use their devastating close range AoE. Darchrow and Magnus, also puts them in a nice little bundle for Overgrowth as well while you can Nature's Guise away a wounded Geomancer/clone while he is retreating.

The longer they are standing still, the longer they are suffering from the devastation of Pulse Nova. Once it started, it cannot be turned off, allowing Leshrac to constantly deal damage. I would say this is one of the best allies for Rooftrellen.

Overgrowth does not prevent skills so these guys will seal up that weakness. Nortrom's Global Silence along with Rootrellen's Overgrowth will stop, attacks, movement, AND spells, thus almost disabling all enemies entirely while he can slash them to ribbons with those devastating glaives. Overgrowth also keeps the enemies within the swarms of Krobelus's Exorcism ghosts as well.

DPS heroes that uses physical attacks to annihilate your team will be rendered helpless due to Overgrowth's ability to stop attacks, even Syllabear's spirit bear, unless they have a mean of dealing a lot of damage from spells, like Luna’s Eclipse. Their HP isn't particularly high either.

These heroes rely on their invisibility that makes it hard to call missing as they go gank someone. However, Eyes will still detect them as they move elsewhere on the map towards your allies, allowing them to flee. Between Sentry Wards, and Eyes of the Forest, their main advantage is negated. Also, most of them are strong physical attackers, thus countered by Overgrowth.

Eyes placed on neutral creeps will catch these heroes creeping, allowing you to gank them, possibly without allies. Also placing wards at neutral locations will prevent them from spawning, thus effectively negating part of their income.

Watchers and Hawks are invisible so you will know if they are map controlling. Also you can intercept and kill the watchers as well. Revenants aren't invisible so you will know if they are posted on areas of the map. However, keep in mind that they can use their own units to do the same and find your eyes and Rexxar can use his axes to cut them down.

Rooftrellen has a bit of an advantage in waging a ward wars as his eyes will reveal any observer wards within its close vicinity. It is not a huge advantage but one nevertheless. In addition, Rooftrellen can also use observers in conjunction with Eyes to give better map coverage than an average map warder.

Heroes that have spells that can kill trees. Three of them are int heroes, thus have plenty of mana to spare to nuke your eyes while Beastmaster can axe your trees and wage his own map control war with his invisible hawk. The unique case is Medusa who can purge an eye out of trees without needed to kill it while also purging your Living Armor off of you.

What a pain in the ass! Song of the Siren will waste Overgrowth, Split Image will get her out of any other Overgrowth, her Ensnare will prevent you from running into the forest. The only saving factor is that she has a lot of trouble laning but she can gank decently so keep those eyes up at all times..