The waterboy Alchemist

So I had quite a confusing team recently and had no idea who was laning where, why or in what role. So I chose Alchemist with a mind to being able to play carry or support without too much issue.

Alchemist is an interesting beast in the current patches - some severe weaknesses, but strong bonuses too. This has already been suggested elsewhere, but I'm trying to clarify in my mind how it could work.

He basically seems to be sub-par as a carry these days, and his supportive skills are not the easiest fit into the role or a draft. However...he does have some extremely useful bonuses:

1) High health sustain thanks to Chemical Rage.
2) A physical stun.
3) Good farming/pushing ability.
4) A huge bonus from bounty runes.

And also some bad points:

i) Unreliable stun.
ii) Mana problems.
iii) Minimal armour and zoning ability.
iv) Quite level dependent.

My thoughts are around running him as a greedy #4, or even as a "transistioning core". What is this? Well, potentially a hero who farms an early item before transistioning to a more supportive role, with a support transistioning to a carry in the opposite direction.

Sounds weird? Well, some fast flash farmers like Gyrocopter, Naga Siren or Necrophos could potentially transisition to a core role quite easily after an active start, especially if they got a free Aghanim's Scepter to help them along :). Hell, Alchy can probably farm an Agh's for Tiny faster than he can himself.

If Alchemist could got say an early Hand of Midas or Maelstrom to boost him along, then swapped into a support role, the odd bounty rune would easily pay for boots, wards, etc. Get plenty of stacks ready for Acid Spray. Then you start distributing free Aghanim's Scepters to the team. This would easily let you run heroes like Disruptor and Ancient Apparition as a #5 without any real loss of effectiveness.

If the game goes late, the extra inventory spaces and fast farming speed provided for all this could be worth a lot, plus he's no slouch himself late game if he gets some farm together.

Obviously, there's all sorts of organisational issues around this...but could it work?

The other thought is a true "water boy" role for Alchy - support. Those high value runes make warding a cinch, sustain is never a problem - you could even look at the likes of Arcane Boots and/or Soul Ring to deal with your mana problems. I quite like the idea of getting a Bottle on him early entirely to give health/mana to your allies once you have your ult. If you're taking all those bounty runes anyway, right?

I get the feeling there's some good drafts involving him just waiting to be found - sure you don't want to be up against an ultra-aggressive early game or aggro-tri...but there's got to be some pocket strats out there that leverage his incredible gold collection speed alongside his ability to pass that gold onto an ally in the form of a free (no-inventory) Aghanim's Scepter...?

There was something similar done in the qualifiers where an Alchemist farmed an Aghanim's Scepter for a #3 Weaver. (alch was #1). It worked out really good for protecting him in fights.

The thing with Alchemist is that no matter his role, he needs to get a farming item FAST and start farming with it. Pure support Alch without items is essentially of an underpowered Venge/Naga and Alch is nothing without farm. Utility farming Alch? Sure!

For me Maelstrom into Blink Dagger is the best way to do it. It gives you Anti-Mage level of mobility which is insane with Greevil's Greed chainfarming - it keeps the max greed stacks up all the time. Forget Hand of Midas completely...it has no synergy with greed and nerfchemist is no longer a hard carry...if he ever was.

(besides blink is needed to actually land your stun)

Nice thing with blink-maelstrom is that you can pretty much stop there (treads + soul ring if you need mana)...and your hero is useful as a Wraith King-style initiator and semi-carry. And then start giving away Aghs.

Depends...what's your Maelstrom timing on support Alch? If you can get an early maelstrom on a support Alch...sure. Abusing the booty runes can really help there.

I'd still rather go offlane or mid with him, max Acid Spray for zoning and then farm my Maelstrom, and then go jungle. Because it's all about the maelstrom timing...just like Anti-Mage needs his Battle Fury timing to be useful.

I think if you are going to run Alch, you run him as a more aggressive version of Anti-Mage. As in where AM aims to be 6 slotted by like 40-45 minutes, and win as a result, Alch aims to do that in like 30-35 minutes instead.

Because the only thing Alch does better than other heroes is farm fast. Because he is the fastest farmer in the game with a farming item and Greevil's Greed

The donating Ag's is only something you should be doing once you are 6 slotted, with a Moon Shard in your belly, and in need of something to invest your gold in.

It relies a lot on co-ordination (Like you absolutely want to have the initial bounty rune, and you need to have space made for you), and it's risky because you get out-carried by essentially everything on earth, and you rely entirely on momentum, because if you get shut down, even if you can catch up, and be ahead then, you'll be in effect item worse than you should be.

Just... pls Icefrog, give the man something to make him less reliant on like 4 items to be remotely useful.

EDIT; The reason why I don't think he should be a support is because he has to get sooo much done as a result of it, because he is useless if he's not ahead.

Play it like an SF.

Go mid, farm a farming item...

Ask one of your supports to stack for you. If you're radiant, you can stack for yourself.

Then rotate into the jungle and give your #4 the lane.

Farm blink.
Farm Agh's.
Feed Agh's.
Repeat.

I saw that game, hard ****. He could just initiate high ground, HP dropped low he had an "extra life" from the Weaver sitting at the back, then he still had Aegis of the Immortal, so he worked as a late game farmed Abaddon with super attack speed.

the last time i saw a transitioning alc was TI4.
http://www.datdota.com/match.php?q=767198624 (cant find the vod)

i really hate the way alc was balanced this patch. the only buff he really got was the bounty rune, and even then he got another nerf to his stun, not like the damage was already ****, lets make the timer visible too.
i hate the aghs change just because that was the thing that probably stopped actual buffs, instead now he is a weird joke hero that only works in specific circumstances.

there are multiple ways of playing him that are all viable, but they are all extremely situational, and probably impossible to do against a very good team.

personally i think the best way to play him is like vg.Super. go mid and get a mek, but that is probably outclassed by dragon knight, the difference is that unlike Dk you are the one picking up the mek.

also i cant find anywhere how the concoction damage actually works. is it %of max charge time = % of max damage? so 5 sec is 360. and 2.5 sec is 180?

Interesting responses guys...there's obviously some milaege in this idea, it's just a question of how best to put it all together. One thing that's pretty obvious is you need a co-ordinated team around you, and that the other heroes are both good Aghanim's Scepter recipients, and flexible in their role.

We all agree he'll need some afk farming time to make this work, and that loss of map presence has to be compensated for by somebody.

The mid/offlane arguments are quite interesting...offlane seems challenging as you don't have a great escape mechanism and are pretty mana reliant to shift the lane around. I'd say he's also gold as well as level reliant for this, so not really. Mid would seem a better fit for levels/farm, but does rely on having a #4 who can step up into that lane, possibly against a level 6 enemy mid laner. Maybe you could almost inter-change with a fast jungler like Enigma?

Still, those free Agh's upgrades could really count for a lot. Personally I think you've got to prioritise getting them over your own items, at least once you have farming equipment to speed that up. Lot of scepter upgrades are great midgame, but are required at a reasonable timing (after you're 6 slotted is too late for some).

Still...some good possible line ups:

QOP - mid
Centaur/Timber - off
Gyro - #4/#1
AA/Disruptor - #5
Alchy - #1/#4

Parially farm lane early (bounty rune runs allowing), buy Soul Ring, farm jungle @6 and start feeding Aghs soon after (possible Maelstrom and even Blink Dagger allowing). A fast Agh's on Gyro lets him globally recovery farm as well as eat stacked ancients. Feed rest of team Aghs as you go, maybe building in some useful items for yourself along the way. Team is pretty strong early, mid and late, even allowing for you to be relatively passive at times.

Heroes like Luna, Tiny, Weaver, etc anyone with a half decent agh's upgrade is good to go. As it takes up no space, it's still very useful to give to these heroes when they might not normally build it.

Tbh I'm thinking Acid Spray is useful enough in fights and for farming to be the main focus of the build. 1 point in stun early, and Greed whenever you can. Match with a Soul Ring and you have mana to use it, gaining the health back from your ult (don't even need to spend out on Tranquils).

Probably need to test this properly - there's a lot of things that can go wrong, but it's very strong on paper.

My idea was kinda similar, except:

Run Alch in a safe dual/tri lane with your mid as the #1. Perhaps he can go solo safe, if you want to run an aggro tri. Farm up Soul Ring + Maelstrom.

Here we start to differ. I maintain getting one Scepter for a single Hero, and then focusing on building auras like Vlads so you can sit in fights and contribute with Acid Spray + auras, and be hard to take down due to massive regen (probably get Silver Edge too, lineup allowing). After a few of those items, then start handing out Aghs like Christmas candy.

Perhaps:

#1: Tiny (mid)
#2: Alch (safe)
#3: Centaur (off)
#4: Wisp (mid)
#5: Venge/Lion (safe)

Mix and match as you please... so much can be done depending on what you want to do and who you want to pick.

I think Faceless Void and Juggernaut deserve special mentions for Alch lineups, since they're carries who have insanely strong Aghs but cannot go Aghs because there's no place for it in their build. Having a free Aghs from Alchemist helps them a lot.

Same thing for Tinker, who has a really good Aghs but has no place for it either. And he really needs the mana. Also Tinker can help delay the game while Alch is farming.

outworld devourer, same. He just needs to farm a refresher.


Actually I think offlane Alchemist is viable. Sure, he has no escape, but he can't get zoned out because of Acid Spray, he can avoid feeding by using his stun, and if the lane goes badly he can farm ancients with Acid Spray and Soul Ring.

Besides, for me Alch is a position 3 hero. He can't go safe lane because safe lane is for heroes who can carry. He can't go mid because mid is for a very restricted pool of meta heroes and imba heroes of the moment. So this leaves us with the utility farmer/ganker/semi-carry offlane role.

So for me Tinker mid, Void/Jugg/Tiny safe lane, Alch offlane, and greedy supports with good Aghs like Omni, WD or Rubick.