DotA 2: 200 hours and counting

Since I've began playing Dota a couple months ago I've actually racked up 200 hrs of gameplay. Which is a lot considering my RL responsibilities. It's a really great game, that has managed to keep bringing me back virtually every night. I haven't had an experience like this with a game since I stopped playing WoW. Usually games get old after 20-50 hours for me. However, since DotA is so challenging and so complex, it makes you feel like you have to play more and more, to practice to actually become half decent. 200 hours is actually considered very noobie still, generally people that get good play thousands of hours, and it really does take that long to absorb even the basic complexities of this incredible game.

I think since this game has essentially become my new goto game, I might actually start posting more about my experiences in this game, what I learn and my thoughts on some of it. I know I'm still very fresh, but I figured some of my experiences may be useful to other new players and perhaps if I get some feedback, some more seasoned players may be able to point out flaws in what I'm saying.

Much like other aspects of my life, including work, I really enjoy trying to make sense of things using concrete information, and nothing is more concrete than numbers, which this game actually offers quite a bit of, so I might try to focus on that.

In terms of what my experience in the game has been so far, I have been playing mostly public match making games (Pubs as they call it, which is confusing since on wow they called it PUGs). I have played over 150 Pub games and some Co-op games when I try new heroes. I also started to play some BOT games now as a way to practice some of the more basic skills in this game such as last hitting and general mechanics of new heroes.

My record right now shows that I've played (win rate in brackets)

Nature's Prophet (Furion) - 46 games (54%)
Viper - 29 (52%)
Venomancer - 24 (63%)
Witch Doctor - 18 (61%)
Spirit Breaker - 10 (50%)
Crystal Maiden - 8 (623%)
Windrunner - 7 (43%)

I have played a couple other heroes more casually such as Phantom Assassin, Templar Assassin, Wisp, Morphling (my current obsession), Omniknight.

A lot of people suggest playing a lot of different heroes initially but I must say I find it frustrating to try new heroes in a Pub because I generally suck when I do that, so I rather play a few initially, get familiar and see how much it matches my play style and my taste. I've found that some heroes are great in terms of how well I can use them, but they aren't crazy fun to play for me (Crystam Maiden is the hero I'm thinking of). Then I have heroes like Windrunner and Leshrac, which I do enjoy playing but tend to suck at them at this point.