man, as long as my teams aren't TERRIBLE I can pretty much win the team the game nowadays. but I had a streak of teams that...I can't even begin to describe.
<3 this game.
now to find a way to get to .500 in my wins/losses. i gave the losses column a helluva head start because I hadn't really played Action RTS/Moba/whatever types of games before (maybe a 6 hours in LoL before diving in) and had to take baby steps. got the hang of it now. I still sometimes forget that my upgraded items have active abilities. I think that because I don't have the items for the majority of the game, they sometimes slip my mind. I guess I'll get that part.
Everything else feels good with the characters I've focused on (Drow, Lina, Zeus, Lich, Destoyer, AM, Storm). I spent some good time with Dragon Knight, but I find that he's a bit too farm-dependent and winds up irrelevant too much of the time in pub matches, where skill levels don't always allow for constant farming without your team getting slowly crushed. I think I'll try Bloodseeker, Riki or Huskar next. those guys are pretty scary in pub matches.
as per usual, thanks to GAF for advice and help along the way.