I still do that from time to time, even going so far as to call Crystal Maiden Rylai, the Shadow Blade Lothar's, Sheepstick as Guinsoo's, and so on.
I don't care if Blizzard has the trademarks; DotA ended up making more of a mark in my mind than most of Warcraft 3 did, various custom maps that I played and helped create aside. There was a Europa map that I assisted in making, having been a part of a clan who played that fairly often, with the map of Europe, and the top of Africa, a free for all and various countries having different special units (English longbows OP).
Now I'm waxing nostalgic for Heroes and Empires, as boring as it got when you got the hang of it (background: heroes were trivial against most enemies as long as you kept up with levelling, and empires were trivial against everything with the correct technology; either could solo the game on the hardest difficulty without much issue, but working together made it easier since empires had to wall themselves in for a while to start, and heroes, being mobile, could take out the spawning bases and quest markers more easily), and as laggy as the game could get due to the heavy scripting involved in determining housing space for tax income, I would love to try my hand at making something like that. I powered through that map a lot on the hardest difficulties, usually soloing (if you can call it that) the final boss in the bottom left corner... with atomic bombers. Heroes that attempted to betray me were brought a quick death, as they may take out a building or a few units before succumbing, but I had reserves, and they had limited lives.