Queen of Thorns Shamblers

Also Bramble shield is an acceptable alternative to the passive ability.

bramble shield is not an acceptable alternative to the passive ability, both are required, mulch should be dropped. the passive ability gives +14 damage and +360 health per shambler, when maxed. bramble shield gives any ally a damage shield.

Here is the hard info from the LUA files. The total dps with compost is 54.88, per shambler. 52 for minios, 62 for siege and priests. Add it all up and you get 571 dps for all 10 minions total, before items are taken into consideration.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pmbS09ByNPGE-hT1mq5_XBQ

Know how long it takes those 10 minions to take out an unclean beast? like 6 seconds. extend that to 8 seconds if they got health items. then add your damage in and reduce it back to 6 seconds probably.

The only other thing i'd say about QoT. I think i'm going to have to start dropping 1 point, at least, into the aoe spike thing. Reasoning: it reduces armor (damage can be removed, doesn't matter). All your minions will benefit from armor reduction. UB has high armor, remove most of it and he's taking upwards of 20% more damage.

Mulch vs Bramble in my opinion depends on your teammates and the team you are fighting.  I do agree with you, however, on the aoe spike spell.  The reduction to armor synergizes well with focus of this QoT build.  At least I'm glad someone agrees that the shamblers seem to have promise in addition to the other builds I have seen on the forums.

Both run  closed queen

Honestly not sure how mulch vs bramble depends on teammates. mulch is a selfish ability with a damage aoe that's debatably useful. Bramble shield is an ability you can put on any ally, even a catapult or giant, that gives them an extra 1250 health, that has a reasonably small cooldown. Combined with the fact that this build is minion based, which doesn't require tons of mana (you can generally regen most of it back before you have to cast again) this allows you to save your mana for key situations that will possibly sway the game in your favor.

In addition, mulch requires you to have minions. Making it's mana requirement sky high. And again, to do what, kill creeps? You are doing upwards of 600 dps to your enemy, why the situational AOE at that point? No one can compete with you when you have the minions anyways.

bramble shield 4 life.

bramble shield owns. its the queens best spell in my opinion. 

shamblers are pretty good too. don't forget that their attacks are line of effect ranged, so they'll hit everything in their path. that makes them extremely efficient at taking out creep waves. 

Nivina, you definitely added up the DPS incorrectly though for purposes of attacking DGs. the raw numbers might be right but you're ignoring armor (which can be quite alot, easy to get 50% damage reduction with the right items) and you're taking for granted that every attack hits, which won't be the case if the DG is moving around. 

Yep, as transitive pointed out, raw DPS figures for minions should be lowered by at least 50% when you consider their targetting issues as well as armour. Also if you're against a tb, you'll be lucky to have all your minions alive and doing damage.

First of all, I know the DPS is prior to armor. And I understand some people actually spend money on +armor items. But it requires someone to purchase nothing BUT armor items to get anywhere near 50% mitigation, and if you do the math, +health items are far more beneficial through most of the game, in addition if you aren't putting points into your citadel and taking advantage of your war score, you are never going to win. On average I'm assuming 30% mitigation. And when taken into account, yes you are doing a now lowered 400 something DPS with your minions. Still waaaay powerful and that doesn't change the fact that they all have 2.4k health. Which leads me to my second point...

TB is worthless. TB would have to waste his entire mana reserves to kill 10 minions, each with 2.4k health. Not only that, but he would probably only take out a few of them. They seem to spread out on their own. But just for the sake of argument, lets say he spends his mana and kills all your minions. You can re-summon them back instantly. TB is now dead or fleeing with nothing to show but a timeout in the corner while the QoT soaks up even more exp and gold to give her an even larger advantage. Now she can go buy that +damage and health minion item she's always wanted, and has asked santa for time and time again. So the next time you face her, you are even worse off.

The armor is also why I mentioned putting a point into the spike AOE. It would increase the QoT damage as well as all her minions (and anyone else attacking the target) by 10-30%

a frost nova from Torch will stun your minions for 5 or 6 seconds, during which time they deal exactly 0 dps. Torch is an assassin type as well so he has much higher weapon damage and attack speed then Queen. you shouldn't underestimate what other DG's can do when played well. you also shouldn't overestimate your minions. 

i think you're getting carried away adding up columns of numbers on spreadsheets and playing out games in your head. in my experience in game it rarely works out the way you describe. the minions are easy to ditch. they get stuck on creeps. they miss with their ranged attacks. they get stunned, knocked down, killed by AoE, they lag behind and will take 5 seconds to run into position. there are alot of issues you're completely ignoring. the big raw numbers just barely compensate for the fact that there's a lot of crap you have to put up with to use minions.

direct attacks from an assassin DG have no strings attached. you can pretty much always count on it performing exactly as well as you would expect. its a massive advantage.