Effective Alchemist - Avoiding Early Death?

So, basically, I want to know how to avoid an early game death as Alchemist and get to a point where it's harder to kill him. He's slightly tanky, just because of his high health, but he always has the most deaths in every game I play. Slow movement speed has a lot to do with this. Would Boots of Travel be a good buy for him at some point? This also makes rotating lanes easier which is good for his incessant need to farm. Any insight into how to better defend him would be appreciated.

Boots of Travel are only really worth it late game on most Hero's I feel.

I mean, isn't the best thing to do is be cautious with your early game playstyle? Don't stretch to far for last hits or kills (Especially kills)., and don't let yourself get caught out by rotations as easily.

Whilst I don't know a lot about Alchemist's lanes, having wards up is a solid option to help you play safe (Even if it means you have to ward yourself at the start of the game, the 150 gold investment pays for itself shortly), since you can spot more obvious ganks coming your way and go hug your tower in response. Especially if you've got enough map awearness to spot when people are missing and likely to be coming your way.

I mean obviously it would be nicer if you played with a dedicated support who'll make your job in lane easier (Especially if it's one with some disables to help you getting kills or escaping). Since said support can also stack camps for you later in the game when you have your confirmed farm. Oh and massive kill potential between the two stuns. But sadly it's not as common as people would like.

But yeah, playing safe should in theory help you to avoid early deaths and get off to a smoother start farm wise.

Is early game jungling an option or only after level 3 or 4 acid spray? For example, could I start right off at the... 3 minute mark, and jungle? or should I wait until I have more health and acid spray is effective?

The main problem Alchemist has is the low armor he starts out with (0). So, if you play him as a support, I suggest getting a Medallion of Courage. If you carry, just get an early Chainmail or Platemail that you will turn into an Assault Cuirass later.


Acid Spray is quite weak early on too. You would need to stack camps for that, and that would take away more time from ganking with Unstable Concoction or farming the lane (unless a support does it for you).

Support Alchemist seems like a bad idea since he is rather gold reliant. Is that sort of setup very effective?

Yes, it's been done in competitive and normal alike. Since Unstable Concoction is physical damage, Acid Spray and Medallion of Courage will make sure that it deals tons of damage early on.

The range and duration is pretty good too, the only thing you have to care about is the stun backfiring. He can also take a quick rosh thanks to the medallion and acid spray, while tanking it with ult. (of course, not alone)

Support alchemist used to be the strongest ganking support in the game hands down, but after they made his stun channel time shorter it is less reliable and often less damaging.
He still is a strong ganking support though, and can turn into quite a carry later into the game.

It also happended in TI4, most notably in an IG game where he ended up with items like assault cuirass and abyssal.
Without that extra carry they probably would have lost lategame.

Not a huge fan of post-nerf support Alchemist, support alch is basically Vengeful Spirit without Nether Swap now. Sure the stun duration is better but on the other hand you go from a game-changing initiation ultimate to no ultimate at all. I don't see any situation where I'd want to pick support Alch over Venge now - Unstable Concoction is not a good enough skill anymore to pick Alch just to be a walking stun. I mean, at least support Sven can still semi-carry decently with no farm, but support Alch really can't, it's like offlane Void, or support Naga : when you steer away from the carry build you can't go back to being a carry anymore because you're just too underfarmed.

Support Alch is a semi-outdated build and even though some people still like it even in the competitive scene it has been heavily nerfed so I don't think it should be recommended. Sure in 10% of games support Alch can still find farm but in the remaining 90% he'll be stuck with his useless arcane boots/Medallion/blink/Mek/whatever and he'll be completely useless past 25 minutes. On the other hand, if you get fed with Venge you can carry perfectly well (I have several games where I played support Venge and ended up 6-slotted), but if you have just mek and forcestaff 55 minutes into the game you still have very strong lategame so it's not a problem. Support Alch is a horribly greedy pick because it's completely dependent on snowballing with ganks in the first 20 minutes otherwise your hero becomes useless.
So yeah, why would you ever play roaming Alch now when you can roam with heroes who actually have an ultimate like Venge or Naga?

To go back to the original question, if you're playing hard carry/farming Alchemist, you don't need to build survivability, just rush your farming item ( Maelstrom or Battle Fury), and avoid ganks with wards and map awareness. You don't want to join fights anyways and you don't need to tank up to avoid ganks, you avoid ganks with wards and looking at the minimap. If your supports are bad you can just go ward yourself, 150 gold is cheaper than any survivability item you may get.
And if you're playing mid-game carry Alch and you want to fight early, indeed Platemail or Vitality Booster help to tank up, You don't go BoT if you want to fight early anyways, and Armlet of Mordiggian is a good option for early tankiness as well. If you're facing lots of stuns you need to get early Black King Bar.

When playing Alchemist you need to remember, you AREN'T TANKY WITHOUT YOUR [chemical rage You have very low armour and less Strength gain than Drow Ranger, You are also pretty slow and I think your turn-rate is bad.