...
Wraiths/bracers let you HOLD the lane. Do you not get tangoes or what? Also, pers isn't for EVERY hero, especially not roaming gankers, who won't really even be able to farm up the required 875 gold for roh/void. They also help IMMENSELY with lasthitting/survival; regen =/= survival, since regening at 4 hp/s isn't going to save your *** from burst damage, whereas an increase in max hp would. Tangoes do well enough for regen. Not saying pers isn't a good item, but getting bracers/wraiths help you get to that pers FASTER than if you didn't have them, since more stats = more hp/mana/etc, which allows you to LAST HIT better. And when it comes time to clear up an inventory slot, it's not so much a 200 gold since the gold that you've spent is already long gone, and it's more like you get an extra 200+ to get to whatever item you need. It's a difficult concept to grasp, but if you don't really trust what I'm seeing, feel free to go watch some high-level replays (MYM/SK/mouz/H2O/TPD/Ks/etc), and you'll see that they in fact DO bother getting wraiths/bracers/nulls. I wonder why.
Going straight for pers without any early regen/items is ********. Against any competent player, they'll notice your lack of regen, and harass you until you can't lane; what are you going to do then? And 95% pubs can't lane worth ****, if you're wondering.
Not to sound arrogant, but I'm almost 100% sure that I play DotA at a higher level than you do, just based off what you're saying right now.
Wraiths are for agi heroes (99% of the time), but bracers honestly can go on whoever needs them. Ward*****es/roaming gankers who are ALSO low on hp tend to go bracers, such as VS/lina/cm/lich/lock/sven/etc (although some choose to get nulls if they need a larger mana pool like NA, or those who pump stats like lock sometimes can just go branches+mek etc).
Bracers provide CHEAP STATS AND MANA. In return, they help you get more money in the form of more herokills/creepkills, and thus are used as stepping stones towards bigger items. Also, there are some heroes like SF who are just begging to be ganked. SF in particular, because he has relatively low hp, no natural escape mechanism, and is somewhat easier to deal with if he's shut down early (if you don't stop him early, then he's free to quickly farm to bkb/dagger/lothars/whatever and start wrecking teamfights from there). Even the best players can't escape from some ganks, even with full vision + good map awareness.
Branches are fine, but it's usually still more advisable to get early bracers simply for the cheap hp and so on. Really can't stress how important that is. Another key part is that they're EASY to build up, which the most expensive part being the circlet, which is 185, as opposed to something like a point booster which is 1.2k. If you're a hero like CM, it's wiser to get bracers FIRST, then get the point booster later; otherwise, you'll be an easy target to kill while you're saving up for your slightly more expensive item. Might be a different story if you're something like tree (not all heroes need get bracers).
And of course it's not set in stone. You can vary your builds if you're doing extremely well, get more cheap items if you aren't, and so on.
