Elements That are Important in a Lineup

Lineups can be difficult to construct. There are a lot of elements that are valuable. Some are more quantifiable than others (e.g. Farm Dependence vs. Synergy, respectively). Here, I am going to talk about many of the elements that make a difference in a lineup.

In Brief:

• Farm Dependence
• Initiation
• Vision
• Laning/Synergy
• Crowd Control
• Damage
• Hero Peak
• Teamfight, Solo Kill, and Gank

Farm Dependence

Having a spread of farm dependence is important. That's why you have things like the number system, where:

• 1 = Carry
• 2 = Solo Mid / Solo Farmer
• 3 = Offlane / Semi-Carry / Jungler
• 4 = Second Support / Roaming Support / Jungler
• 5 = Support

Gold is a limited resource, so it's important to think about how you want to split it up. A hero like Shadow Demon can be very effective at any stage of the game with limited farm. In contrast, a hero like Anti-Mage is almost useless without any farm.

Depending on how you run your lineup, you need to adjust how gold is distributed. When you have a 4-protecting-1 strategy, then the Carry is going to have very high farm dependence and most of the other heroes should be able to function with less farm and shared experience.

In something like a dual or tri-core (2-3 semi-carries / farmers), then farm will be more spread and your supports will likely be roaming or stacking the jungle for farm.

The Goal

Just take into account how much farm dependence your team has. If it is too top heavy, it won't work. Similarly, if you stack too many support heroes, then the farm may not be put to optimal usage.

Initiation

Being able to start a fight is incredibly important. You need someone who can jump on the other team when there is an opening and set up the rest of your team. Being able to reliably initiate is another important aspect of the initiator.

Take Pudge, for instance: he can really punish a player for being out of position and initiate to some extent by making the fight into an immediate 4v5. However, if he misses hooks, your team is now lacking initiation.

We'll use Batrider as another example. His initiation is generally pretty good once he has a Blink Dagger. He's able to jump in, secure a grab, and Firefly out. However, at some point, his initiation will be reduced because is he gets stunned, he turns into a free kill. As long as you can guarantee he has enough farm to keep initiating (e.g. get a BKB), then you'll be ok. Enigma is a hero that faces similar issues. If he gets a 5-man Black Hole, you're golden. Anything less, and he's in trouble until he gets BKB.

Heroes like Clockwerk, Magnus, and Warlock will all be generally fine unless there is no followup. Clockwerk can tend towards being suicidal if he's underleveled. Warlock faces the issue of the enemy seeing him and knowing the ult is coming. Magnus is generally fine as long as he gets a good opening and has Blink Dagger.

The Goal

Ensure your team has some form of initiation. The more reliable, the better. If you can't start fights, you'll have trouble winning them.

On a side note: having vision makes a huge difference in team fights because you can get setup, have some idea of what to expect, and have a surprise aspect.

Vision

Heroes that provide some sort of vision can make a huge difference in games too. Information Gathering is an incredibly important aspect of any strategy game. The more well informed decisions you can make, the better you'll do overall.

There are a few different categories of heroes that give vision (and a few examples of each):

• Summon Vision 
• Beastmaster's Hawk has a huge vision radius and is great for scouting or providing vision in hard to reach areas
• Venomancer's Wards give enormous vision, are great for scouting, but can also become food if they are poorly placed
• Naga Siren's illusions can let her scout out dangerous areas (and potentially have opponents waste spells on them) while posing little threat to her (they may be able to tell what side of the map she is on because her illusions do expire after a period of time)
• Hero Vision 
• Luna's night vision is greatly amplified by getting one level of her passive spell
• Nightstalker has greater night vision than the average hero. With Aghanim's Scepter, his vision can see over trees (a.k.a. the legit map hack)
• Hero Spells
• Clockwerk's Rockets can scout out areas (great for checking level 1 Rosh attempts)
• Batrider's Firefly gives him flying vision
• Clinkz has the advantage of  going invisible, and thus is able to scout out areas or find targets.
• Note that this can backfire if the enemy team has a Gem or Sentry Wards
• Slardar is able to keep vision of a hero with his Ultimate 

 The Goal

While it's not necessarily critical to have an extra source of vision, it can make a huge difference. Many heroes have vision fringe benefits, so it's not hard to work into your lineup.

It's also important to note that having an invisible hero forces the other team to buy items they normally wouldn't (e.g. Sentries, Gem). While this can be a strength, if you lose map control early on then your invisible hero ends up being more of a liability than an asset.

Laning/Synergy

This is probably the most important aspect of a lineup. You need to have lanes that make sense, and a team that can come together for a greater overall strategy.

There is a lot to talk about here, so let's look at some of the overall basics:

• Lane Synergy - heroes that go well together or set each other up, or a lane that does what it is intended to do (e.g. an aggressive trilane should be able to get kills / have high early game damage)
• Strategy Synergy - this can be anything from building up a wombo-combo, making an effective split-push team, or having heroes that can come together late in the game for an amplified effect (e.g. the offlane Lone Druid gaining benefit from the trilaned Ogre Magi in mid-late game teamfights)
• Lane Balance - making sure that your lane has a good balance of farm dependence, ability to face off against the opposing lane, or is able to come together in a way that works (e.g. jungling supports)

Lane Synergy

Many of the common synergies are well known and picked up a lot in competitive matches. For instance, Shadow Demon combos well with Stuns and Burst Damage. You sometimes see him paired with Kunkka for a dual mid because Disruption makes landing Torrent easy. Gyrocopter also has natural synergy with Shadow Demon because Rocket Barrage deals a ton of damage, while Soul Catcher amplifies it. Leshrac & Lina are other natural options because they can easily land their delayed AoE stuns, Clockwerk also falls into this category for landing easy Cogs.

Lane Synergy is most important for Trilanes and Dual Mids. If you have a jungling Chen, you want to make sure your Lane is setup for pushing early on. That means your carry shouldn't be reliant on static farming for an extended period of time.

Strategy Synergy

Your lineup should come together in some way as a team. Sometimes you see individual elements coming together after the laning phase. Ogre Magi and Lone Druid are one example of this. Lone Druid usually offlanes (at least in the Western Scene), whereas Ogre Magi would Trilane. However, Bloodlusted Spirit Bears are nothing to be taken lightly.

Wombo-Combo and Split-Push are two strategies that often come to mind and are pretty easy to build around. However, most lineups tend towards more balance and versatility. If either of those strategies gets hard countered or doesn't work as intended, then there is no fall back plan if you went all-in on them.

You'll often see things instead like a Nature's Prophet that is able to Teleport in, help secure a kill, then push with the team before going back to farming. Having him there to turn a 3v3 into a 4v3 is part of the Strategy.

Lane Balance

This ties in a lot with Farm Dependency. But basically, just make sure your lanes are lopsided in terms of farm dependency, or that you don't weaken your lanes too much by running a Jungle Trilane.

You want to make sure your lanes can get farm, and that they have enough damage when necessary. Placing a Disruptor, Faceless Void, and Treant Protector may fulfill the general Trilane requirements of a #1, #4, and #5 farm dependency requirements. However, they have no kill potential and limited zoning potential. Up against an aggressive trilane, or even something like a Dark Seer they may not have what is necessary to win the lane.

Crowd Control

Being able to control the flow of a team fight is a huge advantage. I've read before that the highest win-rates for number of stunners on your team tops out around 4. Being able to lock down the opposing team is a big deal if successful fights, ganks, and in general.

There is a variety of Crowd Control though:

• Stuns - the obvious source, usually dealing damage while preventing the usage of the hero.
• Silence - can be incredibly effective as well, preventing the usage of spells. There are variants on this like Doom's ult, which prevents casting spells and using items.
• Polymorph - a.k.a. "Sheeping" or transforming an opponent into a critter briefly. This is actually a huge deal because many heroes lose passive abilities too (e.g. Phantom Assassin cannot evade while Polymorphed)
• Grips - like Bane's ult, or Shadow Shaman's net are very important as well. They may take your hero out of the fight, but they also take another target with them.
• Disarm - though not always the most reliable (can be dispelled by Magic Immunity), it can make a dent in DPS if timed correctly. Items like Heaven's Halberd also supply this effect, in addition to spells like Silencer's Last Word.
• Blind - causes a miss chance, which is effective in the way Disarm is. Spells like KotL's Blinding Light will apply this to opponents.

These are just some examples. You still have spells like Bane's Nightmare which can't be properly placed. Slows also help to some extent, but aren't necessarily as useful as other forms of crowd control.

On another note, spells like Shadow Demon's Disruption can be used defensively to prevent a hero's death (causing some sort of crowd control), or to take a hero out of the fight for a few seconds while your team sets up.

The Goal

Making sure your team has the ability to control through stuns, silences, etc. is absolutely necessary. Supposedly, 4 Stuns could grant the highest chance of success (again, not sure of the source, but I've seen that statistic somewhere).

Damage

It sounds silly to mention this, but it is crucial. Often, it's important to have more than one hero that can dish out damage . I've seen lineups like Treant, KotL, Gyro, Ancient Apparition, and Dark Seer that fail because they let the game make it to late game and the other team has more carry potential then. While KotL and Treant are very effective early game (in terms of dealing damage and preventing damage, respectively), late game they fizzle out for the most part. The above lineup is essentially relying on Gyrocopter as their only source of damage (with Dark Seer's Wall supplying some as well). Up against something like a Lifestealer, Lone Druid, and Queen of Pain - they just won't have enough damage output.

The same issue can happen early game. If your lane is pressured and you don't have enough damage, you won't be able to do much but hug the tower. This can be attributed to lane composition and build choice. For instance, if your Defensive Trilane with Alchemist maxing Goblin's Green, a Disruptor, and Wisp faces off against an Aggressive Trilane - the Defensive Trilane won't have enough damage to really do much to defend themselves and secure farm for Alchemist.

The Goal

Make sure that your lineup has enough damage to defend itself at each phase of the game. This can change to some extent based on your goal.

A fast push lineup might feature heavy push and lots of early game damage. In contrast, a late game lineup might feature a farmer like Faceless Void, while a hero such as KotL provides the early game damage to make space.

The bottom line is: Don't leave yourself helpless.

Hero Peak

Heroes all max out in effectiveness at some point in the game. Items help them scale better, but with some heroes you cannot avoid it.

Take Treant Protector, for instance: Living Armor and Leech Seed are both amazing early game spells. However, in late game, neither will help you that much - there is too much damage and too much HP to heal for either to make a dent.

A hero like Drow Ranger is said to peak at level 16, when her ult provides the biggest gap against her opponents' DPS. As the game goes on, a static bonus of AGI does mean as much as something like a percentage.

Heroes like Anti-Mage are said to have a peak time (usually around 40 minutes). Anti-Mage's specialty is farming up quickly and abusing his better than avarage Base Attack Time (BAT). When he has a Battlefury, Manta Style, and BKB against his opponent that has much less, that's when he takes advantage of the situation. However, an Anti-Mage at 60 minutes against a hero like Spectre is not as formidable.

The Goal

Simply to take peaks into account. If your entire lineup peaks at mid-game, then you sure as hell better not let the game go late. Likewise, if you pick a team that has several late game carries, you will have to expect to lose the laning phase.

Spreading out hero peaks is a popular strategy. Supports tend to be most intimidating early game, whereas semi-carries dominate mid game, and hard carries win late game. By spreading out your hero peaks, your team has something to handle each phase of the game. However, all-in strategies can exploit this if you're not careful.

Teamfight, Solo Kill, and Gank

This is a category that I like to look at personally. It may not be a big deal to some, but I like to have lineups that feature heroes that encourage a team to group up, as well as heroes that encourage a team to spread out.

For instance, Enigma provides a lot of teamfight and punishes grouped up heroes. In contrast, Juggernaut can destroy a hero caught out alone with his ult, and thus incentivizing heroes to travel grouped up (to spread out Omnislash's damage).

Being able to do multiple things well is always good for a lineup. If you feature a lot of wombo-combo, the other team can try to pull off more hit-and-runs or split-push. Likewise, team that features a lot of gankers might find themselves lacking in teamfights.

The Goal

Either spread out your team's strengths or strategize around forcing the other team to play to your strengths. If your team has a great wombo-combo, but you're unable to force a team fight, then you're in trouble. You either need to choose differently to have a multitude of strengths or force the other team to confront you in a team fight.

Strategy: Coping With Split-Push

Anyone that has had split-push done against them successfully knows it is a pain to deal with. The entire thing is set up as a lose-lose situation. Then how do you deal with it?

My argument is that it's mostly about not letting yourself get in a bad position. When you're backed into a corner, you'll generally have to face the conflict or give up. You need to have situational awareness so that you don't get stuck in a corner.

To start, we'll look at when split-push is effective and how to dismantle it based on that.

When Is Split-Push Most Effective?

• They have 2 lanes pushed
• They have a hero that can quickly get with the rest of the team
• They have good warding / map awareness

When you begin a game, you have to recognize they have split-push potential (as opposed to something like Wombo Combo). If you let your lanes get pushed, then you'll be forced to choose which tower to defend.

Now you're stuck with this decision:

• Smoke Gank the solo hero, who may TP away
• Team Fight the group, who may back off, stall, or have the solo hero port into the fight

Good warding allows a lot more split push because they can move around safely, or have some idea where you are.

How to Cope With It

1) Don't let multiple lanes get pushed

If there is only 1 lane pushed, then they can't split push easily. Someone will have to push up the other lane so they can get into position to split-push. If they do that, then you can smoke gank the solo hero or force a fight with the other 4.

This also is something you need to mostly take into account when they have a split-push capable team. If their lineup is like: Faceless Void, Disruptor, Puck, Beastmaster, and Crystal Maiden - odds are they won't split push (I mean, they could with Puck maybe but it wouldn't be that effective).

2) Take Towers Into Account

Depending on what hero they have split pushing, you might want to take towers into account. Someone like Lone Druid would have to TP to a fight, whereas Nature's Prophet can teleport anywhere.

If you choose to push out a couple of lanes, push out the ones where there are towers and put less emphasis on the one without a tower.

Now they have the situation where the split pusher has to push a lane and cannot easily come to a team fight.

3) Decrease Their Map Awareness

Your team has the most power when you have lots of vision and they have none. However, there is more to awareness than vision.

Map Awareness covers:

• Warding
• Having an idea where heroes are (e.g. if they catch a blip of you, if they can guess your trajectory, etc.)
• Knowing what they can see
• Items in Inventories, amount of mana/HP, etc.
• How quickly heroes can come to aid

Limit how often your team shows itself. You want them to have no idea what you're up to, when you might go for a kill, if you're smoked up, etc. If you keep them in the dark, it makes it very difficult to split push because of how risky it is.

4) Other Ideas

• Utilize Smoke of Deceit to gank heroes that are out of position
• Force them to play Defensively
• Kind of ties into keeping lanes pushed - they can't split push if there is no easy target
• Gives you a lot more room to smoke gank anyone out of position
• Be careful about being too out in the open - if they have good initiation, they'll get easy wipes
• From a pre-game standpoint, you can:
• make sure you ban out heroes your lineup will have difficulty dealing with
• pick up heroes like Nyx Assassin, Wisp, Tinker, Storm Spirit, etc. who are all good at killing split-pushers
• KotL also works to some extent here because you can send someone to deal with the solo hero, then have KotL summon them
• Disruptor can work in a way too (sometimes) - when the split-pusher TPs in for the team fight, you can send them back. Now as long as they lose the team fight and towers, you'll come out on top (even if they get a tower as well)
• pick up heroes that are good at keeping lanes pushed

These are just a few ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many other ways to deal with split-push. When you take a step back, dealing with strategies is always about pushing the other team into a position that favors your own team (more or less like Chess). However, don't just look at forcing the other team into a position, look at your own position as well and make sure you've covered your bases/weaknesses.

Overview of Metagame Strategies

 Meta Strategies

From what I've gathered, it's broken into 3 general categories of strategies:

1. Push - try to knock down towers super fast (reducing mobility via TPs and safety in lane), win before the enemy has a chance to get farm and use your tower gold to overpower them with items.
2. Turtle - farm up a hard carry, slow the other team's push, and avoid being ganked. Then win using calculated team fights and pushes.
3. Gank - ganking overextended pushers, then using the level advantage to overpower them and win.

In their pure form, they are supposed to be sort of rock-paper-scissors where:

Push > Turtle > Gank > Push

Because:

• If you Turtle and play safe, then it's hard for the other team to Gank. If your opponent cannot Gank, they cannot gain a gold/level advantage.
• If you Push, the enemy cannot take the time to Turtle and farm up their carry. If they cannot farm up their carry, they cannot win fights or the game.
• If you Gank, the enemy cannot Push because gankers can usually burst down pushers (especially overextended ones) very easily. If you cannot Push, then you cannot end the game early.

However, realistically, teams do not use a pure strategy. They hybridize and innovate.

Line Ups

Within these three main strategies, there are different lineups and strategies:
NOTES:

• May need to see my post on the "Chinese Number System" for references to position #1-5.
• Going with annotation of: safe lane - mid lane - hard lane
• e.g. 3-1-1 = Trilane = 3 in safe lane, 1 at mid, 1 in hard lane (a.k.a. suicide lane)

• Trilane (3-1-1)
• Notes/Generalizations
•  Generally have a #2 mid, #3 hard lane (a.k.a. suicide lane), a #1 farming, a #4 and #5 stacking/pulling, as well as harassing/denying.
• Hard Lane/Suicide Lane is there to get whatever XP and Creep Kills they can, but most importantly not die
• When done properly, your Trilane should have multiple levels advantage on your Carry (~3 against a suicide laner)
• If the Trilane fails, then you need to recover by optimizing the Carry's farm/XP
• Offensive  
• Focus: Getting Kills, Denying Creeps
• Defensive 
• Focus: is on getting your carry farm, stacking creep camps, and once the carry has established their farm, one or both supports begin to roam.
• Jungle (Jungle-2-1-1)
•  #1 focuses on farming, #5 supports via harass/deny (sometimes stacking/pulling), and #4 in the jungle
• Maximizes XP and gold
• #4 comes around to gank and push
• 4 Protecting 1 
• Notes/Generalizations
• In some cases, this refers to literally protecting one hero in battles (that was more of an old meta where Silencer was the counter to the mass AoE meta)
• Currently, can be employed with almost any other line up because it's more of a mid-game strategy
• Types
• Offensive
• Four heroes put pressure on the other team via pushing
• Carry farms alone (usually someone like Anti-Mage, Lycan, or Morphling all of which can escape pretty easily if ganked)
• Defensive
•  Four heroes make sure their carry is not ganked
• Carry farms alone - any hero that tries to contest his farm is ganked by allies
• Dual Mid (2-2-1)
• Notes/Generalizations
• The Carry dual laning mid should have some form of survivability (e.g. Anti-Mage can blink, Morphling has Waveform, Brewmaster has evasion)
• Can have a Dual Safe Lane or a (Jungle-1-2-1)
• My understanding is that the general Focus is: 
• to dominate the mid lane and have control of it because mid lane creeps will reach the enemy base faster than any other lane (because it's short)
• shut down the opponent there (e.g. a Templar Assassin, Morphling, or someone that will snowball out of control if they get any advantage)
• combat an opposing Dual Mid
• I don't see a point in doing this if you risk letting their Carry farm
• Types
• Offensive
• Focus: Killing, shutting down a mid that can snowball out of control, denying them farm
• Defensive
• Focus: Farming safely, rune control
• At some point, the support can go roaming (generally once the mid is established)

 Drafting Strategies

This is just based on observation, but from what I can tell:

• First Set of Bans (2)
• Heroes the opponent likes to run
• Heroes that are difficult to play against / you dislike playing against
• Heroes that will hinder your ideal lineup (without giving too much away)
• e.g. if you were going to run Riki, you might want to ban Slardar, but if you ban him too early, the other team might realize you want to run an invis hero and ban them out
• First Set of Picks (3)
• High utility heroes
• High "tier" heroes
• Second Set of Bans (3)
•  Heroes that the enemy team still needs (e.g. get rid of popular carries if they haven't selected one yet)
• Heroes that will hurt your line up
• Heroes that will help their line up
• Second Set of Picks (2)
•  Anything you still need
• Counter Picks
• Surprise Picks

Other Notes:

•  Some picks will force your opponent to lean towards certain picks
• E.g. grabbing Naga Siren may prompt a Juggernaut, Enigma, etc. pick (someone that can quickly recover after Siren Song ends)
• In low level games, picking an invisible hero early might prompt a Slardar pick (but in higher tier games, the support will just pick up Sentry Wards, Dust, and eventually a Gem)
• Most Teams tend towards balanced/adaptable teams
• Picking something specialized can work against you if it fails because then you have a hard time recovering using a team that's doing something other than what it's meant for
• Most Teams run some variation of the 3-1-1
• This synergizes well with the Number System
• i.e. Carry (#1) + Support (#5) + Second Support/Jungler/Roamer (#4), a Mid (#2), and a solo hard/off lane (#3)
• Variations can be having 3 in the offensive (hard) lane, two in the lane + one in the jungle, etc.
• Having 3 in a lane and pulling it off well is very hard to counter

Special Lineups

• Global
•  Picking a lot of heroes with global presence. For instance: Invoker (Sun Strike), Wisp, Spectre, Spirit Breaker, Nature's Prophet, etc.
• Wombo Combo
• Picking heroes that have huge teamfight potential when there is good communication and timing (e.g. Enigma + Lich + Faceless Void + Earthshaker -- get their ults off in sequence and it's almost a guaranteed wipe)
• Na'ix (Lifestealer) Dropping
• Picking a lineup centered around using Lifestealer's ult to deliver him to fights (e.g. Lifestealer inside Nature's Prophet/Spirit Breaker/Wisp/Beastmaster's Hawk)
• Minions
• Broodmother + Undying (for mega nukes using Spiderites & Tombstone). Grabbing Omniknight's Guardian Angel to ensure they live in fights/pushes
• Mega Buffing
• Picking heroes that buff your carry to make them effective much earlier. For instance, Ogre Magi's Bloodlust, Lich's Ice Armor, Wisp's Tether + Overcharge, Omni's Magic Immunity, etc.
• Magic Armor Reduction Trilane
• Have Juggernaut with Pugna and Ancient Apparition so his spin does extra magic damage, or something along similar lines.
• Mass Lockdown
• Picking heroes that are able to lockdown enemies (e.g. Shadow Shaman, Tree, Batrider, Bane), then have a carry that can rip through them quickly while stuck in one place (e.g. Ursa, Shadow Fiend).
• Note: with a lineup involving Shadow Shaman, Batrider, and Bane, you can effectively take 4-5 heroes out of the fight with disables.
• Aura Stacking
• Picking heroes that all have aura's to maximize teamfight potential.
• Example: Beastmaster's attack speed aura, Vengeful Spirit's Base Damage Aura, Crystal Maiden's Mana Regen aura, etc.
• (Level 1 Roshan)
• Picking a lineup that can kill Roshan at level 1. This usually involves heroes with minions, someone that can reduce Rosh's armor, and a hero like Ursa that can stack damage on him.
• You need to smoke into the pit usually
• Very risky because most competent teams will acknowledge it when you have a lineup capable of level 1 Roshing
• (All-In)
• Putting 4-5 heroes in a lane and pushing towers very quickly in order to get a very early Rax (Barracks)
• Extremely risky because if countered, you might have just given them several kills for only a tower or two. If it fails, you'll have to pick up the pieces because odds are, attempting to go all mid again will not work.

EDIT:

• This is also a very good write-up: Wagamama's Guide (Mirror)

Analysis: Hard Lane Heroes

 LAST UPDATED: May 28, 2013

Disclaimer: This isn't going to be 100% correct (if it were, then Dota would probably be close to a solved game). Also note that the list will innately be more geared towards pubs. Also, have to do a lot of fixes to this list as my skill has increased plus the meta has shifted. The original version of this list was pretty awful. Sometime soon, I'll just do a whole re-write of this post.

The key things are:

• Survivability
• Ability to farm against 2+ heroes

Other notes:

• Some heroes are good because they can play a little more dangerously because they have good escapes
• Some heroes are good because they have long range methods of getting some farm
• Some heroes are good because they don't require much farm and can screw enemies over with levels
• Even if a hero is generally very good at the lane, there are ways to counter them (e.g. they might not be good at fending off pushes)
• Some heroes can solo the hard lane, but whether they should is another story.

Very good:

• Lone Druid is absurdly good at the hard lane. His bear is basically a lanemate that takes no XP from you. His movespeed is very high, allowing him to escape most quarrels. However, a few stuns and he's toast. Also note, using his bear, he can pull creeps
• If the lane is too difficult, he has the option of Jungling
• Dark Seer because he has a speed boost and can farm creeps from a range with Ion Shell to some extent, but due to it being a DoT enemies can deny. However, you can harass the enemy carry and keep the creeps pushed into tower range which makes last hitting more difficult.
• If the lane is too difficult, he has the option of Jungling
• Batrider due to an excellent escape in Firefly. He also can harass with Sticky Napalm and Flamebreak to some extent.
• If the lane is too difficult, he has the option of Jungling
• Nature's Prophet because he can pull with his Treants. Sprout gives him extra survivability. Combine Sprout and his Teleport, you can escape many situations because the enemy does not have vision of you. However, AoE stuns can still shut you down while you're hidden in Sprout and he has no escapes other than those two.
• If the lane is too difficult, he has the option of Jungling

Pretty Good:

• Weaver because he has invisibility and Geminate Attack works well for harass. After getting his ult, he's pretty safe. However, he is very easy to nuke down with his low base HP and poor attack range.
• Clockwerk by using his rockets to last hit and harass. A well placed cogs will get you out of many bad situations.
• Windrunner because she has a good escape mechanism, Powershot allows her to farm from a range as well as harass, plus she has a stun. However, against a coordinated trilane, she'll be in for trouble. She is much better against a dual lane that also has a jungler.
• Clinkz has invisibility to escape with. He also has Searing Arrows, which allow him to last hit effectively. If you turn your back on him, he can easily take out a tower or kill a hero.
• Bounty Hunter is a good pickup because he is able to leech XP with invisibility, similar to Broodmother. His goal is to hit level 6 quickly, then get kills with his ult, making up for lost farm. He can be countered quite easily with Sentry Wards though.
• Beastmaster because his axes have a long range. If you skill his critters, he gets a huge sight radius so it's hard to gank him and you can use his boar to help you last hit or harass. Many people also will stack the ancients and farm that using the Boar. He's also very difficult to deal with 1v1, forcing the enemy to dual lane in order to get farm.  
• How to farm Dire Ancients: Use your boar to stack the ancients on the 52 second mark. Build a Soul Ring. Once you have 3+ stacks, use your Axes to hit all the Ancients. Wait until your Soul Ring comes off cooldown, use it for the mana, rinse and repeat. (I've seen this done with even up to 6 stacks of ancients).

Decent:

• Magnus used to be a tier 1 offlaner. however, Skewer was nerfed (the range now scales instead of starting at max distance). He can still do OK, but kind of relies on Bottle-Crowing and spamming Shockwave. Leveling Skewer is a must, the level 1 distance is crap. He really shouldn't be run against lanes with heavy disables. Ideally, he'd work better if they had a Jungle Trilane. 
  
• Broodmother can hide in her webs and use her spiderlings to farm the jungle, giving her some nice guaranteed farm. The problem is that if the enemy picks up Sentry Wards the lane can be problematic. However, you also have high movespeed in your webs, good regen, a long ranged nuke, and spiderlings. Plus, the enemy has to use money to buy Sentry Wards. Her main goal is to leech XP and then push down towers as soon as laning phase is over (i.e. players leave the lane to gank and do other things), leaving Broodmother unchecked.
• NOTE: Brood got her Spiderites nerfed hard, so she is a bit less viable (they don't do as much damage to towers as they used to and are worth more bounty)
• Enigma because, similar to Lich, he can deny creeps. His minions allow him to last hit while not putting himself in too much danger. He also has a stun, which can be used aggressively or to retreat. Just be careful not to feed his minions to the enemy, they are pretty slow.
• Mirana due to her jump for escapes. She can farm decently with her attack range as well as Star Storm. If an ally comes to gank, a well placed arrow is great. Plus, getting her to level 6 quickly helps the entire team with her ultimate.
• Treant Protector can soak up XP using his invisibility. He's mostly put there to gain levels fast and help other lanes by using Living Armor.
• Lich because he can deny creeps, giving him an even larger level advantage over his enemies. He is mana independent and can harass effectively with his nuke. His movespeed is higher than most and he has a good attack range. However, he cannot fend off pushes very well and if caught out of position, he doesn't have much of an escape.
• Tidehunter is good as a solo in certain situations. Anchor Smash allows him to get some last hits (depending on the match up). It also reduces damage by 40%, making it difficult to kill him with auto attacks. It's also incredibly low in mana cost. Gush can help him escape due to its slow. Lastly, he has Kraken Shell, which reduces incoming damage and will remove debuffs at a certain threshold of damage.
• Like Sand King, Tidehunter is also an excellent counter to Broodmother because of Anchor Smash.

Situationally (and in some cases can, but shouldn't):

• Sand King because he is excellent at escaping. His stun is very reliable and can be used to get away from a bad situation. Sand storm allows him to get out of a lot of bad scenarios as well because of the reveal time after breaking the channel. Additionally, his passive has splash damage which can be used to harass enemies that get too close to the creep wave.
• Sand King is a very good counter to a solo Broodmother lane due to Caustic Finale.
• Wisp Sometimes, people throw Wisp there to get him to level 6 quickly. His attack range is pretty decent (575) and Spirits give him further harass. But, once he's level 6, all hell breaks loose and ganks come non-stop
• Tinker  can work on the same grounds as Beastmaster - Ancient Stacking. He is a bit less able to stay in the lane and is very dependent on Soul Ring or Bottle for stacking properly (no cheap spell like Boar to stack with).
• Queen of Pain because she has blink. She also benefits from the extra levels and can demolish her lane once she has ult. However, she works much better if the lane is 1v1.
• Puck because illusionary orb allows it to farm or escape. Phase shift, when used properly, will make Puck very hard to lock down with a stun. Puck also has a silence.

Also remember, that some of these heroes have the ability to solo the hardlane, but you have to be careful with mana.