Xyrus's hopping on the bandwa...I mean 6.85 patch

With Acid Spray you can deal 192/256/320/384 Physical Damage to a Camp, combine with -4/-5/-6/-7 Armour and it's actually decent for Farming Jungle/Ancient Camps. It also amplifies the huge Physical Damage from Unstable Concoction and prevents Heroes from using Blink Dagger to disjoint. The Burst Damage from Riptide is great, but you've either got to get right up to your target to use it, or you need to send in your Illusions, great at higher levels, poor at lower levels.

The 5 second Root is nice, but a 3.5 second stun is still better. Landing Unstable Concoction is a problem as you can just BKB out of it, but you can also combo, or use it as a follow-up to a better form of Initiation.

As for Greevil's Greed vs Mirror Image, the skills have seperate uses for these Heroes (as supports), so there's not much point comparing them.

Finally, 300 second Cooldown Panic Button vs 45 second man-up button at lvl6. Having a lot of HP and being able to stay in the middle of a fight as a Support is pretty big. Granted Alch doesn't do much there, but it's still more than Naga once Song is down. Once Song of the Siren hits that 60 second Cooldown, it's undeniably better, but lvl16 on a Support is a long way off.

Ultimately, Support Alchemist could potentially have a stronger Early to Mid Game impact than Naga Siren, all he needs is a useful 3rd Skill and a buff to Concoction to make it worth considering.

The idea is that you play him as a Roaming Position 4, similar to Bounty Hunter, except you pair him up with another Hero such as Shadow Demon, Visage, Vengeful Spirit, etc. and either go Aggro Tri or Roam and crush Lanes. Back when Concoction could be charged for 7 seconds, he was really good at this.

As a Carry, you'd end up using the Active early on while it was low-levelled, then ignore it in favour of the old Passive which will inevitably start churning out more Gold. It wouldn't have much impact on Carry Alch at all.