Anyone in here play broodmother? It's occurred to me that I haven't seen anyone but me play her for at least 50 games and that seems odd since she's excellent when you've got a jungler or a trilane. Kind of interested in tips and tricks other people have on her, since I see so little of her and casters for pro-games spend almost no time watching her.
She has two main ways of playing her, I'd say, and which one you pick is determined on what your lane is going up against. I've had extreme success as a pushing spider master Brood in lanes where they have no AoE effects, so I tend to start with a Web at level 1, then max Spiderlings and alternate between Web and the passive orb when not getting the nuke. Had a few games where, as I mentioned, with no AoE on the enemy team, I pushed to the barracks in less than fifteen minutes. Grab a Ring of Basilius to start, build that into a Vladimirs and go to town on their towers while doing some fairly severely damaging nukes. This does much better early game regardless due to the 300 damage, spammable nuke at level 7, and a horde of 400 health minions with a slow poison effect of their own.
On the other hand, if they have lots of AoE, then it may be a better idea to go the pure carry version, where you max the passive/orb first, and levelling Webs as needed to have more mobility and regen in lane. She's a great mid lane because of webs and the short distance between the two towers, when using this build, as well as the fact that a 40% slow and decent attack damage advantage over the enemy makes you harass extremely well, at least until they (if ever) get wards or dust. Grab the nuke if you feel comfortable about your current amount of regeneration and speed from webs, otherwise just max and use them as a tunnel system for easy access to runes and gankable lanes.
With either build, she takes off once she hits 6, since you now have access to a huge damage boost and ridiculous amount of lifesteal that you can keep at an approximate 50% uptime at level 16. Get attack speed either way; Power Treads (Strength, since you're fairly squishy), possibly an early Hyperstone, and most definitely a Cranium Basher to abuse the fact that you will not only slow them, but keep them out of action fairly often. Black King Bar too, of course rushed early if you are the target of effects that cause you to be less effective. Vladimirs is nice regardless of the build you choose, mainly because of the innate lifesteal that brings you almost nearly to 100% once you hit your ultimate, but it may be overkill on the second one.
Edit: The DotA2 blog post got my hopes for for Meepo being added. Maybe after the tournaments?