Thoughts on 6.85 Alchemist support?

Recently I've been thinking about playing Alchemist as maybe a (~4th position) support. With Greevil's Greed, any last hit that he does get can almost be doubled, allowing him to potentially have double the gold as a normal support. Plus if he gets the first bounty rune, then he already has boots. Also, with his level 6, he could maybe move into the jungle and easily solo camps while his lane is pulled and the carry is receiving the last hits and solo xp.
With all of this, I am thinking maybe Alch could rush things like grieves/crimson guard/solar crest. This would allow the team to (potentially) dominate the early game, which hopefully leads to destroying them and winning by mid or early late game. Also, because of Greevil's Greed and his ability to jungle (if his carry it not), then wards and couriers would be easily bought, since he would have a lot more gold than a normal support.
About his skills, I think acid spray is a great AOE team fight ability, because if you put it down where the fight is happening/where the enemies are, it lowers their armor by up to 7. His unstable concoction is a great stun, with a chance of hitting multiple enemies with its AOE effect. Lastly, Chemical Rage is an amazing ability, not only to help him jungle a bit to allow him to get a lot of gold, but also for him to be the one to tank towers if the team wants to dive a bit.

Personally I'd think Alchemist would be a great support. He can get a lot of gold quickly, which can be turned into amazing support items (or even buying aghs for his teammates) along with buying wards and courier(s). He has a lot of potential AOE effect, with his first two abilities. Lastly, he could also be the team tank, especially early on, with his Chemical Rage.

What are your guys's thoughts on Alchemist as a support? Is it viable, or completely absurd? (And what couple of items do you guys think should be prioritized if he was a support?)

The thing is, if you want a tanky support that scales well into the late game, can farm for themself, and can contribute to fights with their spells, Ogre Magi exists.

So, it works. You can just keep pulling the creep wave through the easy and medium camps and last hit. The thing is, other supports aren't reliant on money. You'll need to buy big Armor and HP items on Alchemist just to stay alive because his stats are SO BAD. He has worse Strength growth than Drow Ranger, and worse AGI growth than Witch Doctor. He isn't tanking anything unless he has lots of items to remedy these, and he isn't going to get those as a support, even with Greevil's Greed. Ogre Magi has a reliable way to farm, crazy Armor, crazy STR growth, and his spells are about the same as far as usefulness goes in a fight.

So sure it could work, but it's not good because better things exist.

Not sure at present...he's used to be a pretty good support, but there are issues (as outlined by Apaz). I think it's very situational on having the right team around him that will give him some space to farm, otherwise there are better choices.

Combination of a pretty good level 1 stun, and the gold bonus for runes is interesting though, as is the passable agh's upgrade. Think you're reliant on not-too-greedy cores though, and getting your timing windows right to make this viable.

Just run him in a core position, and abuse his ability to flash farm to get these really early utility items and abuse them for further advantage.

It's basically the same as what you suggested here, it's just it puts him in a position where he can actually achieve it. Combo it up with supports or like an offlaner who have really deserable ag's and you are sorted. Oh and minus armour synergy.

I think rushing Solar Crest is practically core now on the hero.

What I'm reading sounds more like a jungle Alchemist than a support Alchemist.

If you max Unstable Concoction then yes you are a support but then this kind of "ganking support" Alchemist is completely outdated and was downgraded to pretty much garbage tier when his stun and his night vision were nerfed.

And if you max Acid Spray and Greevil's Greed you're not playing a support, you're playing a farming core that's just AFK jungling and contributing nothing to the lanes. And AFK junglers are really bad.

The thing is, Alchemist needs to CS a lot, since Greevil's Greed completely defines the hero and is the only reason why he's not completely outclassed by other picks.

Honestly there's also Chaos Knight now if you want a ganking support with a 4 second stun that scales as a carry. And unlike Alch, CK actually makes a good late game carry once he gets farm, and he needs very little farm to do that. While Alch is a mid game carry who needs tons of farm early and fast to have any kind of game impact. Which incidentally means, once you actually get farm on your Alch he'll already have fallen off as a carry so that's pretty pointless.

In other words, don't think that an Alch 30 minutes in with Solar Crest, Mekansm and Crimson Guard has any game impact above zero. He doesn't. He's literally a walking stun that deals no damage and his stun isn't even good anymore.

Maybe the least bad way to do it would be to still max Acid Spray and simply spam it in lane for zoning, while also stacking jungle camps and clearing them later with Soul Ring. But even then...not a fan.

I think there's enough opportunity now to play Alch as either a solo mid, a solo offlane or a dual offlane farmer to even consider reviving the long dead and buried support Alch who by the way wasn't even buffed in any way.

For me Alch is an early game farmer, a mid game carry, and a late game semi-carry and aghs dispenser. Unlike I sometimes read, he's not a versatile hero at all since he has the same timing windows in every game.

TLDR : Alch as a hero is all about farming a lot and farming fast. He used to be a good early ganker but he no longer is. And his lane presence is really good. This kind of hero is a farming core not a support.

Did you just suggest a 4th position Chaos Knight?

This was always semi-viable and got buffed in every CK change that happened lately. CK has very strong roaming potential with a Soul Ring or a Bottle as only item. He has a 4 second stun. He has Reality Rift for chasing and diving. And he has armor reduction now. He doesn't even need a Blink Dagger or Force Staff like a support Wraith King does.
And the great part about CK is that he can build very cost-efficient items to scale as a semi-carry. Or simply build a midas and slowly farm up. Like, a CK with armlet as only item is a 1000 times better semicarry than an Alchemist with 3 items. Not even kididing here ;)
I was just bringing this up to say that a support CK has the same kind of early game/ganking impact than a support Alch...without dropping off like a brick in the ocean after 25 minutes.

Another nice thing about support CK is that you can literally first pick it. Let the enemy team pick their shaker, Sven and Magnus, and then just shrug it off like you don't care since you're only using your ult to rat anyways :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8waoBKnpP2I

Slahser's way.

Plus, he's a support who can solo kill other supports when they have equal gold values. Even some cores.

It's pretty scary.

As as Hamster days, he doesn't need that much to be a scary late game hero; Given just how crazy gold dense he is.

Roaming ck too good.

Farm stacks in jungle and don't roam too far... Should be fine. But I will sugest that you buy wards and other early utilities, this even hurt your budget midgame, and after that you can easily ramp as semi-carry or aura-carry.