Thoughts about Alchemist

At one point in dota history, Alchemist was a very popular pick as a number 1 position in competitive games (along with Weaver offlane). In fact, he was apparently so strong that Icefraud nerfed the **** out of carry Alchemist. However, players still continued to play Alchemist, this time as a support. Then Icefraud nerfed his stun.


How does that frozen amphibian want us to play Alchemist? A number #3 tanky dual offlaner? Whatever it is, now Alchemist really needs some tank items to survive an onslaught of nukes, but he still sorta needs damage and attack speed items to wreck face. Has anyone had any success with this hero lately, and if so, what item build do you use?


Let the theorycrafting begin.

problem:

he needs more farm then any other carry to be on par with any other carry.

where a troll needs s&y and helm

alch will need mjollnir ac and basher

and will still lose ..

decrease base attack time and increase hp regen during ult and you will have a viable carry.

That is one question which is kind of an oxymoron.
Why do you "play" out of meta heroes"?

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If you still want to play him, build a Crimson Guard. And i mean rush it.
Proceed to get BKB,SKADI,AC,MJOLLNIR.
In case you need basher/abbyssal either sell crimson guard or skadi.

He benefits,A LOT in aggro trilanes. because he gets bonus gold. So you level your stun and greevils greed and compete for last hits against their safelane.
He is high risk high payoff; something like a deathball strat in current ricing meta.And unlike deathball, he will have his luxuries in 20 mins.


Offtopic: what would you say if i said antimage Blink cd will be 4 seconds at max level?
I think this answers your question.

Porygon trying to redeem trash heroes xD

Seriously, he's just overnerfed. His ulti used to give him 900 (!!) bonus HP. His stun used to be good. He used to be playable.

Honestly I think I can achieve a far higher winrate by playing offlane Spectre every game than by picking Alchemist.

If there was a redeeming factor about the hero (which there isn't), it's would be maxing Acid Spray for lane control, either for mid or offlane. Like maxing spray and greed and leaving stun at 1 or even skipping stun completely, because stun is bad now. Spam spray in lane with a Soul Ring (or a Battle Fury rush) for mana and farm with greed.
But then, well, congrats you won the lane and got farm but your hero still doesn't use the farm well, because he's just good at stunning himself.

Yeah, Alchemist is literally the worst hero in dota right now thanks to those nerfs. But ever since the Juggernaut MOM incident, I thought that maybe certain items would bring out his full potential. I'm probably gonna do some Alchemist play-testing with different item builds and see how it turns out.

So let's look at the Hero's strengths.

-Farms fast
-Attacks fast
-High regen
-Has a stun (lol)
-Has -armour
-Bashes

Farms fast: Pick Anti-Mage or Terrorblade.

Attacks fast: Pick Troll.

High regen: Pick anyone who builds Satanic.

Has a stun: Pick Wraith King, Sven, you get the picture.

Has -armour: Pick Slardar.

Bashes: Pick Void, Slardar, or Troll.

Alch's problem is that a bunch of carries do what he does, but better. Sure, he does it all, but none of it very well. To be viable as a carry, he needs not to have Greevil's Greed buffed, but to have increased stat gain and lane presence. His stun sucks hard as well due to being so hard to land it off - there are numerous fixes to this. I see absolutely no situation in which I'd draft Alchemist over Troll Warlord, because Troll has better manfight, better carry potential, is less item dependant, better lane, and has better utility as well.

The Crimson Guard rush sounds like an interesting build for a tank Alchemist. I'm gonna try that one first :D.

I do that whenever i do AR games and random Alchemist.
Then i instantly change my name to GGICEFRAUD.
I wreck face.
In case i lose, i type GGICEFRAUD in all chat.


No harm no foul eh?

Back when his ulti actually gave him HP and when he had a stun, I used to play carry Alch a lot. Even then his pub winrate was 40%-like, still if I remember I was doing pretty well with him.

What I liked about the hero was that he was both a farming carry and a ganker. Essentially you could alternate between farming with greed by going Mjollnir as first item (back then Mjollnir was OP as hell), AND picking off heroes. Alch was essentially the only hero that could both farm hard AND gank hard, which gave him a huge advantage in the mid-game over AFK farmers like AM,

But now...the nerf on his stun is a complete turn-off, as well as his abysmal stats, and the fact that you can't rebuy BKB anymore.

@ Tera : Of course there's no reason to ever pick Alch when you can pick Troll. But that's just due to Troll being broken :)

With great Disdain and shock i must admit that alchemist item build works as the one suggusted by Kyphoid Returns.
http://en.dotabuff.com/matches/1355269948

I thought he was a troll.I have my doubts still.


But he is a good buddy, you get a rep for this build you suggested. I think if BKB is not needed then you can go butterfly by selling
crimson guard