AngeloBangelo's Guide to Chen (Updated!)

Introduction

Hello! My name is Angelo, and thanks for checking out my guide on Chen. Recently I made a guide on Lion, and had a lot of fun doing it. I'd like to up the ante a bit and make a guide for one of the highest skill cap heroes in the game: Chen! I've been coaching new players on the support role for a bit over a year now. I've helped probably around 150 people. When I ask for their favorite heroes (Or heroes they want to learn), I've often heard "I'd love to play Chen, but he's too hard for me." Chen is a challenge at first, but I'm going to do my best to design this guide, so that ANYONE can do well in a pub with Chen.

I'd also like to talk for a moment about why I initially picked up Chen. When I first started playing DotA, I remember seeing Chen being played by professional players. I was amazed at their micro and how they were ALWAYS where they needed to be. I wanted to be the Chen player of my group. I wanted to be the guy that plays one of the hardest heroes in the game, and makes it look easy. Good Chen players get called out in game. When you're throning your opponents and you see "Wow. dat Chen", it's a great feeling. The aim of this guide is to get you to that level. Let's get started.

Lore and Hero Summary

Born in the godless Hazhadal Barrens, Chen came of age among the outlaw tribes who eked out an existence in the shimmering heat of the desert. Using an ancient form of animal enthrallment, Chens people husbanded the hardy desert locuthi, a stunted species of burrowing dragon that melted desert sands into tubes of glass where twice-a-year rains collected. Always on the edge of starvation and thirst, fighting amongst their neighbors and each other, Chens clan made the mistake, one fateful day, of ambushing the wrong caravan.

In the vicious battle that followed, Chens clan was outmatched. The armored Knights of the Fold made short work of the enthralled locuthi, who attacked and died in waves. With their dragons dead, the tribesmen followed. Chen struggled, and slashed, and clawed, and perishedor would have. Defeated, on his knees, he faced his execution with humility, offering his neck to the blade. Moved by Chens obvious courage, the executioner halted his sword. Instead of the blade, Chen was given a choice: death or conversion. Chen took to the faith with a ferocity. He joined the Fold and earned his armor one bloody conversion at a time. Now, with the fanaticism of a convert, and with his powers of animal enthrallment at their peak, he seeks out unbelievers and introduces them to their final reward.

If you're completely new to the game, here is a bit of information on Chen: Chen is an item INDEPENDENT support hero. This means he does not need farm to be effective. However, he can farm faster than most supports because he acquires gold through an untapped resource (The jungle). I'll touch more on that later. He primarily sits in the jungle because he can possess creeps for an unlimited amount of time (But he can only have 3 at a time). The creeps that you take determine what you can do. Because of this, every game will be different with Chen. It takes A LOT of game knowledge to know what to do and when to do it (On top of the micro that Chen requires, I can see why new players are intimidated by him).

All heroes in the game have an optimal window of opportunity to win the game. Most hard carries (Like Medusa) want the game to go on for at least an hour. Chen players need short games. Chen really starts to fall off of the game rapidly after 30 minutes. His creeps HP, nukes, etc are all static. This means they will never improve with time. This means that a creeps HP compared to the damage that an opponent deals, will become unfavorable as the game goes on. Chen excels in a line up that peaks around 35-45 minutes.

Because Chen's creeps are so strong early game, and Smoke of Deceit works on them, he's one of the best heroes to smoke gank with, because it also transitions into a very strong push since you will have 2-3 heroes there and 2-3 creeps as well. A team wipe mid game will transition to at least two towers with a Chen player. Minotaur/Owl creeps take 13 tower hits to die (With no armor buff at all), meaning that 3 of those will translate to a minimum of 39 T1 towers hits if the lane is left uncontested. A tower fires one attack per second. This is why Chen is such a great pusher: His ability to turn a gank into a gank AND a tower with a single kill.

Pros and Cons

Chen is a great hero overall. He sees A LOT of competitive play, and has almost always been a viable pick. He even saw play prior to 6.72c when Midas was picked up on three to four heroes per team! That says a lot about the hero. He ganks, pushes, needs no items, heals, saves, solos Rosh... WHAT IS THIS HERO?!

Pros Can buy all support items, leaving your 4/5 positions more farmed Can gank from level 1 Can solo Rosh at 7 if you micro well (Bring your team if you're not confident) Extremely versatile items. Can use ANY support item well, and can farm it quickly. Completely shuts down aggro tri lanes. With the variety of creep combinations, can assist the team in many ways. Incredible at pushing towers. Penitence scales into late game very well. Can save allies with Test of Faith. (Free commends for life) Global heal?! (MOAR COMMENDS!)

Cons Countered by Hand of Midas, or heroes that devour creeps (Until Aghs) Extremely squishy. Prepare to get focused HARD. Starts to lose effectiveness after 30 minutes. Hard to micro creeps. Takes a LOT of game knowledge and experience to learn when to gank/push/rosh/smoke.

Skills

Penitence

Although Chen's brand of animal enthrallment isn't quite strong enough to control the minds of enemy heroes, it still tests their resolve in combat

Type: Targets:

Active Target Unit

Forces an enemy unit to move slower and take more damage from attacks and spells

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Notes:

• Considered a separate instance of damage

Penitence is one of your only abilities that actually scales into the late game, because it is based on percentage. So the higher the damage of your carries, the more damage the spell will do. You will typically cast this on a hero that is out of position, or a hero that needs to chase. The slow allows you to kite and focus them. When a unit has Penitence cast on them, it basically shouts to your team mates "This guy is out of position, can't run, and will take a lot of extra damage. Let's focus him!" Your test of faith ability (The next skill I will cover) is considered pure damage, so in conjunction with Penitence, it can burst down a hero very quickly.

Test of Faith

Knights of the Fold possess a fanatical form of magic that is considered quite unwieldy by most other users of arcane arts

Test of faith

Type: Targets:

Active Target Enemy

Deals random damage to test an enemy unit's faith.

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Notes:

• When used defensively, it can be dispelled.
• When used offensively, the damage is pure.
• Skills do NOT share a cooldown

Test of Faith is a somewhat odd skill. When you put one point into it, you get two skills. They have separate cooldowns, and different mana costs. You can use it offensively on a non-allied unit (Creep or hero, but you cannot use it on Roshan). It will deal a random amount of damage based on the level. The damage is also pure, which means that it is not reduced by magic armor, or physical armor. This spell is usually used in conjunction with Penitence. You can also use it defensively on an allied unit. If you use it on a creep (Like one that you have dominated) it is instantly sent back to the well. If you used it defensively on an allied hero, they are returned to the well after a delay.

Using this skill offensively is what makes Chen scary early game. Using it defensively is what makes Chen a real pain to deal with middle and even end game. If you're relying solely on a really farmed hero (Like an Ember Spirit with a few Daedalus and maybe a Divine Rapier) and the opponents catch him out, only to have him sent back by Chen, it's extremely frustrating for them. Using this skill takes excellent timing and knowledge of spells, damage, cooldowns, health/armor, movespeed... Everything. To land this at the CLUTCH last second moment, you have to take into account how much burst the opponents have. The more burst they have, the less hesitant you should be to cast it. If the opponents rely heavily on chasing heroes, the overall DPS of the heroes are lower and you have more time to react and weigh out situations.

Defensively on heroes: Using test of faith defensively costs A LOT of mana, so you can't just spam people back home. When someone says "Chen, send me home." you may not want to. You need to always have mana for your ult, because it can turn a gank around early game. If that happens, you can regain momentum and even reverse it to gain an advantage early. If the team commits a lot of spells or even a smoke to an unsuccessful gank because Chen had enough mana and map awareness to use his ult, it's a big win for your team.

Defensively cast on Chen: When cast on chen it uses the same delay as sending a hero back to base, but at the end of the timer all of Chens creeps are teleported to him. This gives Chen the ability to now SPLIT PUSH! It also gives him the mobility that he has always lacked that all other supports have. You can literally just send you creeps down a lane and walk chen with your team through another lane. When both lanes are pushed just TP your creeps to you and you can split push.

Holy Persuasion

Although they may not be knights, Chen incorporates beasts into the Fold in the same way he himself was converted.

Type: Targets:

Active Target Creeps

Gives control of an enemy or neutral creep, and gives it bonus hit points.

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Notes:

• Cannot be cast on Ancients
• If creep count is exceeded, your oldest creep will die
• Works on all summons except Spirit Bear

This skill is what makes Chen who he is and defines him. His ability to jungle is solely based off of this skill. He can dominate any creep in the jungle and use it to farm or gank. Some creep camps are better than others for certain roles, and I will go heavily over that in another section. For now just realize that Chen spends time in the jungle taking creeps, and the creep that you dominate will determine your playstyle until you get another creep. Do NOT look around for your favorite creeps. I'll go over my favorite creeps in another section, and trust me... I love to get them. They suit Chen too well. Sometimes you get bad draws with the creeps. Bad luck, really. This is part of playing Chen. You have to adapt and communicate to your team when you've got the perfect combination of creeps for what your team needs to accomplish.

Hand of God

Using the mental link with his thralls, Chen calls down restoration and well-being to those who share his fanaticism.

Type: Targets:

Active Allies

Fully regenerates any creeps under Chen's control and heals all allied heroes on the map.

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Notes:

• Heals magic immune units.
• Global.

ALLLLLLLLL ARE HEAAAAAAAAAAAALED! This is Chen's other signature spell. A global heal that restores a set amount of HP to heroes, and heals your dominated creeps back to full HP. Because you get this spell off regardless of your positioning, it's a great counter to large AoE team fight ults like Ravage. You will want to use it right when the initiation occurs, so that it's like it never happened. I know it's tempting to go for those last second "OMG U ALMOST DIED BUT I SAVED YOU" heals, but it's better to just use the heal in the beginning of the team fight. Saving the heal for too long will discourage your team mates from fighting. You'll want to usually use it when your team mates are around 60-80% HP. Scepter reduces the cooldown to 30 seconds, which means you can basically spam it whenever someone takes damage without too much concern. Before scepter, you have to be very careful with this ult. The cooldown is REALLY long at level 1.

Item/Skill Build

As I have said (And will continue to say), Chen is extremely situational with his items. Here I explain which situations justify different items.

Ring of Protection - This is one of the two items for a Ring of Basilius. This item cannot be picked up at the shop, while your mask CAN be. So grabbing this as an opening item indicates that you want additional armor early. You'll only want additional armor early if you can get a kill and push quickly.

Arcane Boots - This is the only set of boots to ever get on Chen. He is extremely mana dependent early game, and the mana helps support you, your allies, and your creeps. Since you're able to farm the jungle as a support, this also allows you to pick up this item up in a short amount of time, compared to other supports who would like to pick them up but cannot because they are supporting the lane.

Buckler - This is the first part of your Mekansm that you pick up. Never pick up the Headdress first. This is because a Buckler will significantly increase the EHP (I go over EHP in the next section) of your teammates and creeps compared to a headdress. This prioritizes it over some extra AoE health regen.

Drum of Endurance - This item gives Chen health, mana, movespeed, and attack speed. Everything that a squishy pusher/support with no mobility needs. The only problem is that getting too early will compromise your pushing ability by delaying your Mekansm. Mek heals a set amount of HP. This means that the lower the HP pool of the heroes, the larger percentage of their total health is healed. Healing a level 25 hero with mek versus healing a level 7 hero with mek: Who will gain more of their maximum HP? The low level. This is why Mek rush works so well. Spells are too weak early game.

Mekansm - This is core on Chen. Everyone gets it for the most part. I've seen players rush Aghanim's Scepter and skip mek, but I would only do that if your team is 100% steamrolling the opponents. Agh's takes too long to build, and time is something that Chen doesn't have a lot of.

Force Staff - This is picked up as a luxury to save allies from heroes like Lifestealer, Sven, Anti-Mage, and other melee heroes that rely on chasing. It's not a necessary pick up for every game.

Ghost Scepter - Picked up late game against those pesky right-click heroes. This isn't something to be rushed. For the most part you can dodge attacks by keeping Chen out of the initiation, and only using your creeps for their abilities. Once the heroes can change position quickly (Like an Anti-Mage or a lycanthrope) it's necessary to get this item.

Medallion of Courage/ Vladmir's Offering - Both of these are basically picked up for Rosh. Medallion can be a grabbed after your Mek, but Vlad's should be a late game item. Vlad will mostly benefit any melee carries that you have. Don't get it just to give your creeps lifesteal.

Aghanim's Scepter - Probably the most common pick up after Mek. This item reduces the cooldown of your ult to 30 seconds, regardless of what level it is. This allows you to spam it constantly, especially with the stat boosts that it gives you. If you don't need to get one of the situational items I listed after your Mek, this is almost always worth grabbing for your next item.

Edit: Aghs has been upgraded so that you can persuade ancients when it is picked up. The number of ancients that can be possessed is equal to your ult level (level 1 ult = 1 ancient. Level 2 ult = 2 ancients. Level 3 ult = 3 ancients). Ancients are extremely valuable late game. They protect against midas, clinkz ult, enchantress steal, etc etc... They also are immune to most spell anti push (Lina spam, KotL spam, Sniper spam, Earthshaker spam, etc etc...). If you have a natural mek carrier (Viper, Razor, SF) you can now rush aghs and pick up ancients for pushing purposes. Ancients CANNOT gank because of their slow movespeed, so it hurts your gank but helps your teamfight/push. It is worth picking up a kobold as your 4th creep if you have 3 ancients just to give them some mobility.

Necronomicon - Definitely a great item, but I'd only get it after you've been playing Chen for a while and you're very comfortable with your level of micro. The melee summon is pretty easy, since you just have to right click him, but the ranged creep has a ranged mana burn spell that you have to manually cast. The higher your APM, the more likely you are to utilize this item efficiently.

Skill Build

My skillbuild may be hard to read because DotAfire lumps your D and defensive E together. Get Holy Persuasion at 1, 3, 5, 7. Skill Test of Faith at 2, 4, 8, 9.

I explained why to get test of faith at those levels, but some people like an early level of Penitence. The idea is to amplify the damage of your nukes/ganks to burst heroes down faster. My opinion is that Penitence is best kept until the late game. Because it's based on a percentage, early game the extra damage from the skill is low. 28% of an attack doing 150 damage will be much higher than an additional 28% from an attack doing 50 damage. An additional point to consider is that the spell costs 100 mana, for a small amplify damage. 100 mana for Chen is a fair amount of mana, and it may put you too low on mana to cast your ult or send someone home when you need to. Mana management is very important on Chen early game, and I don't think he has the mana to support a Q, W, E, and R all in one fight. That is my justification for skipping Penitence until late game.

Creep Camps

Like I said earlier, Chen's gameplay is entirely influenced by the creep camps he finds. Before getting more familiar with how he plays, we need to look into what you'll be walking into when you're farming the jungle. Knowing the capabilities of your creeps will make your Chen game 1,000x easier. There are three types of camps you'll be running into, based on their difficulty: Small, Medium, and Large. First I'm going to go over each creep camp, followed by a list of the creeps that are worth casting Holy Persuasion on.

Notes:

• "EHP" means "Effective Hit Points" versus right click damage. This basically accounts for armor, and multiplies the health appropriately to give you a more accurate representation to how tanky the creeps are

Small Camps

Name: Kobold Camp Gold: 69-93 Exp: 141 HP: 1445 EHP: 1464

Name: Hilltroll Camp Gold: 65-77 Exp: 123 HP: 1450 EHP: 1510

Name: Hilltroll Kobold Camp Gold: 75-89 Exp: 123 HP: 1400 EHP: 1460

Name: Vhoul Assassin Camp Gold: 78-102 Exp: 123 HP: 1100 EHP: 1176.6

Name: Ghost Camp Gold: 70-86 Exp: 144 HP: 1300 EHP: 1376

Name: Harpy Gold: 81-91 Exp: 144 HP: 1350 EHP: 1464

Medium Camps

Name: Centaur Camp Gold: 86-102 Exp: 160 HP: 1650 EHP: 1980

Name: Wolf Camp Gold: 81-97 Exp: 212 HP: 1600 EHP: 1768

Name: Satyr Camp Gold: 84-100 Exp: 206 HP: 1680 EHP: 1752

Name: Ogre Camp Gold: 89-155 Exp: 144 HP: 2300 EHP: 2402

Name: Golem Camp Gold: 108-124 Exp: 176 HP: 1600 EHP: 1984

Large Camps

Name: Centaur Camp Gold: 86-102 Exp: 160 HP: 1650 EHP: 1980

Name: Large Satyr Camp Gold: 139-161 Exp: 222 HP: 1940 EHP: 1976

Name: Hellbear Camp Gold: 136-158 Exp: 207 HP: 1900 EHP: 2299

Name: Wildwing Camp Gold: 97-127 Exp: 169 HP: 1650 EHP: 1962 (2259 with aura)

Name: Troll Camp Gold: 106-128 Exp: 243 HP: 2100 EHP: 2166

Ancient Camps

Name: Dragon Camp Gold: 252-346 Gold Exp: 279 HP: 3900 EHP: 4848

Name: Large Golem Camp Gold: 215-245 Exp: 393 HP: 3795 EHP: 4944

Name: Thunderhide Camp Gold: 247-271 Exp: 393 HP: 3000 EHP: 3360

Individual Creeps

I'll be rating each creep on their ability to contribute to different aspects of the game. This will allow you to use your creeps more efficiently, based on the roles they're best suited for.

Kobold Foreman

Ganking: Low
Push: Low
Teamfight: Low

The Kobold is an extremely squishy melee creep from the easy camp. The only reason to pick this guy up is for the movement speed aura (12% movement speed). Early game if you're participating in team fights and you need a bit of kiting (Against a Lifestealer or something) he can be an OKAY pick up. For the most part though, this guy should never be grabbed.

Ghost

Ganking: Low
Push: Low
Teamfight: Low

The only reason to grab a ghost is to again, kite a melee carry. You just right click the ghost to the melee carry and make heroes focus it. The nice thing about the ghost (Like the Kobold above) is that it doesn't require any micro. Just set it and forget it. It makes the opponents waste attacks on a creep with decent range, rather than your support heroes.

Harpy Stormcrafter

Ganking: Low
Push: Low
Teamfight: Low

The Harpy is a unique creep. It has a chain lightning spell that gets weaker with each bounce. The chain lightning costs 50 mana, and the harpy has 540. This means that with 0 mana regen, the harpy can cast the spell 10 times. The range of the spell is 900, and the cooldown is 5 seconds. It's very spammable from a distance. This creep only has one role, and it's to win the middle lane. If you get a harpy and you'd like to win your middle lane for your team, send the harpy middle and spam chain lightning on the opponent until the harpy is out of mana. Doing this will put you very far behind on farm, unless you stack. So it's very important to stack the large camp continually during your harass. When you're out of mana on your harpy, you'll have keep stacking the hard camp until you get a wildwing camp. Then you take the wildwing and farm the stacks to catch back up.

Centaur Conqueror

Ganking: High
Push: Medium
Teamfight: Medium

Centaur is mainly grabbed for his stomp ability, which is an AoE 2 second stun. 2 seconds is a really long time considering how many creeps you can have, in addition to any stuns you have in lane. The problem with the centaur is that the stun AoE is balanced by being very small, and creeps are very slow. This means that you have to approach your opponents from behind, and they have to be out of position (Unless you have a support like Rubick pull them out of position with a stun or something). Centaurs also have an aura that boosts attack speed by 15% which can be beneficial to pushing and team fights.

Alpha Wolf

Ganking: Low
Push: Medium
Teamfight: High

The Alpha Wolf is amazing at boosting DPS. One ability gives him a 20% chance to do 2x damage against enemy units. The other aura gives allies a +30% damage bonus based on base damage and your primary attribute. This not only helps in team fights, but helps push down towers very quickly. This is definitely a late game creep.

Ogre Frostmage

Ganking: Low
Push: Medium
Teamfight: Medium

Ogre has a spell that you can cast on allies to give them an ice armor buff, similar to Lich. It's actually better than his version of ice armor. Since towers are physical damage, this can be a very good creep for pushing. If you're pushing your short lane against a solo Windranger and she keeps spamming power shot to pull the creeps, you can just load up on armor with this creep and tank the tower while your allies/creeps beat on it. The armor is also good at increasing survivability of teammates and lowering the DPS of enemy melee carries.

Satyr Tormentor

Ganking: Medium
Push: Medium
Teamfight: Medium

Satyr is mainly used to harass your short lane. It has a spell that launches a purple ball at a target (It's not a skillshot). The ball does 125 damage (100 after magic armor is applied). If your opponents aggressive tri lane and this is the first creep camp you get, position your satyr to hit multiple targets and spam the spell a few times into lane to make for an easy gank if you get a lucky second camp. The satyr also has a regen aura almost equal to a RoH. So if your allies are losing to an aggressive tri lane, just let the satyr hang out in the lane and regen them, while harassing until he's out of mana. During this time you should be stacking the large camp and praying for a wildwing spawn to catch back up in farm.

Hellbear Smasher

Ganking: High
Push: High
Teamfight: Low

Hellbear has a spell that is similar to Brewmasters stomp. It's a nuke/slow in a small AoE around him. This is used similar to the centaur when ganking: Cut off the opponents escape and clap them to slow. You can use this time to run the Hellbear ahead of the opponents and block them, as you would block the creep wave at the beginning of a match. Hellbear can also damage a creepwave pretty quickly to push the wave, and he is quite durable. This makes him suitable for a gank followed by a tower push.

Dark Troll Summoner

Ganking: High
Push: High
Teamfight: High

PRAISE OBELIS! This is my favorite creep (I also just call him a "trapper"). He can cast a net from a distance to stop an opponent from moving (The same mechanics as Ensnare) for 1.5 seconds. So he's got a ranged disable that can't miss. Nice! The net also MINI STUNS, so it stops channeling like Fiend's Grip or Freezing Field. It also goes through Black King Bar. That's right, this is a 1.5 second stun that goes through magic immunity. On top of that, the troll has a second spell that summons two skeletons from a corpse. This makes him the perfect creep for a gank followed by a push. The only downside to this creep is his low armor value of 1, meaning that he cannot tank towers that well (You'll need skeletons).

Wildwing Ripper

Ganking: Low
Push: High
Teamfight: High

The wildwing (Or owl) can cast a channeling tornado which control the movement of. The tornado moves slowly, and does damage based on how far away opponents are from the tornado. One tornado will do over 1k damage to a hero if they stand on top of it. The AoE of the tornado is about the width of a lane, so you can just plop one right in front of a tower, move it behind the tower, and let it sit there while your team pushes. Tornadoes will not stack, so you can't have 3 tornadoes on the same spot doing 3x the damage. It's better to use them one at a time, because the AoE is quite large and you typically won't need 3 going at a time. Here's a picture to demonstrate the damage difference and the AoE of a tornado.

Ancient Black Drake

Ganking: Low
Push: High
Teamfight: High

The Ancient Black Drake is basically just a decent DPS ranged creep with a lot of health. Take him if you're on the way to a push (Just persuade, and keep running). In my opinion, if you have time to farm the ancients with him, it's best to just farm him and try to get another ancient later. Only grab him if you're pressed for time. Like you need to push, RIGHT NOW. Then he's OKAY, but not great. Just right click him on a support or a tower and forget about him. His movement speed is too slow, and he's so tanky that even players with the best micro don't need to bother with him. Just set him, and forget him.

Ancient Rock Golem

Ganking: Low
Push: High
Teamfight: High

The Golem offers a buff in an AoE that increases the health of all allied units. That also counts for creeps and illusions. I would honestly consider grabbing two of these guys if possible. One will be focused down immediately, as killing one will automatically reduce your teams health by 15%. That is a lot of health taken away from one creep being killed. Otherwise he just sits around the team and tanks. It is usually worth ulting to save your golem, so don't hesitate to ult if he eats a lot of spells. It's worth it.

Ancient Thunderhide

Ganking: Low
Push: High
Teamfight: High

Thunderhide is a pretty strong ancient. Frenzy is very strong when damaging towers, and he has a good health pool. The AoE of "slam" is also too bad to really utilize correctly. Also the two second duration on slam is pretty laughable considering his movespeed is horrible. He can also shred rosh with his frenzy buff. His movespeed is garbage, so try not to chase heroes with him. Just set him on an objective and mash "frenzy".

ANGELO. YOU FORGOT SOME OF THE CREEPS!

I know I didn't include some of the creeps. The saytr with mana burn, the satyr with purge, etc etc... I don't think these creeps are worth picking up under any circumstances, so I did not include them. If anyone asks me to include all of the available creeps, I certainly can. They're just SOOOOO situational, that I feel they aren't even worth mentioning. Maybe I'll add them in a few days or so. :)

Mini Micro Guide

So you've got these creeps, and you're ready to gank. Now for the hardest part of playing Chen (Or at least the most intimidating): Microing three creeps in addition to your hero. Creep micro is situational. It's based on the creeps you have and the line up you're against. If you average 100 APM (Actions per minute), then you need to divide those actions among the most important creeps. The most important creep is... Your hero! (That was a trick question. huehueuehue)

A big part of microing is knowing your limits. Don't go 3 hellbears if you can't micro them. Get some passives. Get the Kobold for some extra escape or something. There's no shame in it. It's better to recognize your limits than try to do too much and "panic micro" (Trying to do 5 things at once, and accomplishing none of them).

If you're not very good at micro, I will give you an easy way to micro your stun/slow creeps without requiring micro. It involves using the "shift-queue". If you're unfamiliar with shift-queuing, this is what it is: By holding the "shift" key during a command, it tells that game to perform that action as soon as humanly possible. So if I'm playing Tidehunter, and I town portal into a large team fight, this is how to shift queue your ult:

1. Town portal to the desired building

2. While town portal is channeling, hold your shift key, press R, and release your shift key.

3. The game recognizes this as "Press R as soon as this channel is over".

Here's how to apply that same concept to microing (This will be VERY awkward at first, but it's the easiest way to micro Chen's creeps for new players. It is worth your time to get into the habit).

Shift Queue Gank

If you have a centaur, here is how you stun without microing the creep:

1. Position the centaur behind the opponent, so you're cutting off their retreat.

2. Right click them with the centaur, then hold down shift, press Q, right click the hero, release shift.

3. This tells the game "Attack the hero with centaur. After one attack, stun. After one stun, attack them again."

Ganking with shift queue allows you to do ALL of your creep micro when there is no pressure on you. You're free to micro your hero.

Shift Queue Gank (With creep block)

You can also shift queue your hero and micro your creep. This is especially good when trying to block. Here's an example:

1. Highlight Chen, with your centaur in front of Chen.

2. Right click the opponent, hold shift, press W, right click the opponent, release shift.

3. This tells the game "Attack the opponent. The moment you successfully attack, use Test of faith. After that, continue attacking."

4. After you shift queue Chen up, start microing your centaur.

5. Run him up to the opponent, and cut off his/her retreat. Land a stun with Q.

6. Now block the hero by moving left/right (Just predict movement and watch the hero model carefully) and spamming "S" every 0.5 seconds or so. Meanwhile Chen is auto attacking the opponent.

Picture Guide (Lane Gank)

Notice in the first picture that I place a sentry in a commonly warded spot. This is to make sure that my gank isn't spotted. The lane is relatively pushed up and I see Naga constantly dipping in and out of sight. I'm only 4, so I can't double stun or anything yet. But with Rubick it should be very easy. In the second picture I check for Weaver to make sure he doesn't intercept the gank. He's MIA, so we push in. I don't shift queue stuns here because I communicated with Rubick asking him to use Telekinesis. This way we don't stack our stuns. I killsteal like a pro and we push the tower against solo Weaver. #PraiseObelis

Picture Guide (Team Fight)

In the first picture, Rubick gets netted. Clock ults to intercept the gank. In the second picture I show the positioning of my creeps. The centaur near the top is going to cover the retreat of Rubick. I shift queue the centaur to attack and stun the TA. I manually click the centaur and hellbear to attack TA as well (My goal is to burn Refraction charges). I stun TA and tree, and reposition Chen in the fourth picture. ALWAYS have creeps between your hero and your opponents. Never frontline with your hero. Naga ends up living through this turn around, but I get the kill steal on tree and we push. #PraiseObelis

Advice from Obelis!

Something to learn how to do as Chen as well is "Cut the lane". If your lane is pushed in (Towards your tower), send a creep around to intercept the next wave and walk the wave down the river. This means you get a full creep wave that will be uncontested. If the lane is pushed out (Towards your opponents tower), run your creep past their tower and attack the next creep wave. Now just run the creep away into the river again. Cutting the creep wave is one of the fastest ways to push an uncontested lane.

Gameplay

Now that you're familiar with the possible creeps, let's talk about how to play Chen in game. Chen's playstyle is extremely situational. I can't cover all of the situations in a guide, so you'll just have to use your best judgement. Remember that playing Chen is a balancing act of activity, and efficient use of your time. If you get a wildwing ripper, don't think "GOTTA BE ACTIVE. GOTTA GANK!". Just farm for now and wait for a good ganking creep. Failed ganks set you back significantly, and this is why Chen is the least played hero in DotA right now. He relies on efficiency and game knowledge more than 95% of the rest of the hero pool.

Early game

If your team will be against an aggressive tri lane, take the hard camp closest to the lane and pray for a satyr or hellbear (Thanks be to Obelis. Praise his name). If you didn't get either of those two, just farm for now. If you're not against an aggressive tri lane, take the hard camp farthest from the lane and see what you get. If you get a wildwing ripper, you should do other camps while stacking the hard camp. Typically you can farm the other 2 baby owls, the easy camp (Then stack the large camp), then micro the owl through the medium camp and stack the large once more followed by a tornado.

No matter what (If you did the large camp close to middle), your next camp is the small camp. If you get a harpy, you can farm it or send it middle. Send it middle if your mid can make use of the extra experience/harass and potentially get a kill or a tower. If your ally is a Pugna for example, harassing could lead to a few extra Nether Blasts on the tower, and in conjunction with Chen that is a very dead tower. You need to communicate with your team that you NEED to get a successful gank and push towers at 3-5 typically. A gank should get you half of a level (Assuming you ganked someone that got solo experience). Normally you can farm until you're 5 now and get a Buckler. 3 creeps with a buckler is solid for pushing.

If you've pushed middle, it's time to push the long lane. Place an Observer Ward behind the tower so you can see what you're running into. This also allows for dives, which are sometimes necessary. Pushing long lane gives you more control over their jungle, and slows their carry heroes farm. If you're planning on diving, just send your creeps past the tower, but keep chen back. During a dive, Chen really has three roles: First of all, his creeps need to take tower aggro. People care too much about their creeps with Chen. They are there to die (Trade them for heroes. Always a good trade!). Second, he needs to cast Hand of God to support the dive. Last, if they're REALLY resisting the dive, use test of faith to send someone back to the fountain. Rarely can opponents handle a dive from Chen early game. You should have 1-2 towers.

The first fifteen minutes are over. How are you doing?

Early Game Checklist

• Brown boots/Basilius
• At least 3 assists
• 1-2 towers (Middle/Safe lane)
• Level 7-9

Middle Game

Middle game is where you start to lose your effectiveness a bit. I'd consider this from the 15-40 minute mark. You should be smoking into Rosh with your team whenever it's up (Don't waste a smoke if you don't have to. If you'd rather ward/sentry the pit, it will allow you to be more aggressive with ganks later on). Usually you can keep Chen out of the Rosh pit and just send your creeps. On the off chance the opponents try to intercept the Rosh, you won't get focused, you can still cast Hand of God and your team will not have taken any damage if your creeps are tanking the Rosh attacks. Test of Faith is still a fair nuke, especially on squishy supports if they're out of position. You should be casting Penitence on melee carries to kite them and focus them. You should use two or three smokes during this time. This is when Chen can be extremely aggressive, and your Mekansm should be online as well. This means that it's the PERFECT time to win team fights, take towers, and Rosh.

Remember to keep the pressure on. The WHOLE IDEA behind picking Chen is to snowball your team with tower gold, ganks, and a fast rosh. If you give them space, and let them farm back up... Chen is past his window of opportunity, and the gold graphs are probably looking pretty balanced for both sides. That's not good for Chen.

The first thirty minutes are over. How are you doing?

Middle Game Checklist

• Arcane Boots/Mek
• One Luxury item if you're ahead (Vlads, Force, Scepter, etc...)
• Kills + Assists should be at least 12-15
• 3-6 towers
• Level 12-14

Late Game

Sad times for Chen indeed. At this point your main creeps should be alpha wolf, ogre magi, and AT LEAST one trapper (Sub out the Magi if you'd like). Chain disabling a BKB hero with a trapper is absolutely 100% game changing, and one of the strongest things a Chen player can do in a team fight, so focus on that if you can. I'd suggest stashing Chen at a tower or something if you're not very good at microing yet (Or if you tend to panic). Just plant Chen at the tower, and chain disable a BKB in a team fight. Then just run your trappers away and continue as normal. It's easy! Microing a hero is easy, microing creeps is easy. Both at the same time can be difficult, so just focus on one at a time. Know your limits with micro. Remember to use Mekansm before Hand of God if possible, because it is more mana efficient and the armor needs to be used early in a team fight. Don't forget to send people back to the well with test of faith when they are focused. Creeps like Hellbear, Satyr, Owl are pretty useless at this point. High priority targets should be trappers, alpha wolves, centaurs (If you can micro them), ghosts, and kobolds (In that order from most to least desirable for most cases). At this point your creeps are going to be dying left and right because their health is too low to survive large team fights. Don't put too much micro into them. Just shift queue their stuns and let them go. Obelis appreciates their efforts. #PraiseObelis

The game is past forty five minutes. How are you doing?

Late Game Checklist

• Arcane Boots/Mek/Scepter
• At least one set of rax
• Kills + Assists should be at 15+
• Rosh has died at least twice
• Level 18-22

Remember that the longer the game goes on, the less useful your hero is. Sometimes you need to speak up and remind the team what hero you're playing. Most public players are contest to just farm their lane and never leave. Chen can't allow that, so you need to speak up and direct the team. Don't be shy!

Allies/Enemies

Chen has a lot of friends, as well as enemies. He has the most synergy with pushing heroes and heroes that commit with a lot of space, in which you can send them back after their commitment (Like Clockwerk).

Allies

Pugna - Great mid that kills towers extremely quickly. The only problem is that picking him weakens your late game even more.

Leshrac - More push! When people pull the creepwave away and you're right clicking with your creeps... All it takes is one push to make your opponents realize that it was a huge mistake to do so.

Clockwerk - An initiation hero that can scare heroes away from defending towers. When he initiates with his ult, you can send him back home.

Storm Spirit - Good for the same reason as Clock. He has to jump and commit space. The problem with SS is that you have to manage your mana carefully so that you can kill but still zip out with your ult. Chen fixes this problem. You can simply send SS back, and he is free to completely over commit and blow all of his mana on one hero.

Nature's Prophet - More push! NP is a push MONSTER, and he can Rosh very quickly with you. He also can transition into a late game hero if your team needs one. His global presence with ganks and push makes him a beast hero in general, but he works well with Chen's push.

Enemies

Hand of Midas - Kills your creeps, gives enemies gold. Enough said.

Enchantress - She can steal your creeps repeatedly, so it really hurts your push. Enchantress is also more of a snowball hero than Chen is. She has to be much more aggressive, but her support abilities are a bit weaker. She is a much more offensive hero, so you'll have to watch middle for her ganks.

Clinkz - Eats your creeps and gains a TON of damage and health from them (Especially if you're past level 7). He can also burst you down incredibly fast from being invisible. This hero needs to be monitored SOOOOO carefully. Honestly I'd say Clinkz and Enchantress are Chen's biggest counters.

Bounty Hunter - Can just sit in the jungle and leech EXP. This makes you level even more slowly than you normally do in the jungle, and he can also steal your creep kills for gold. He's more of an annoyance than anything.

Lifestealer - He can instantly infest and consume your best creep, which can put you back a bit in a team fight. He will never just SIT in a creep for you to send back to the well. He will just blow one up and get a ton of HP from it.

Riki - He will just sit invis and pick your creeps apart at early levels. He takes too much gold to truly counter for a very long time. I would try to never pick Chen against Riki because he damages Chens early game so much. If you do pick Chen against a Riki, I would suggest farming the opponents jungle, followed by your own. Make Riki search for you so that he falls behind in levels. Chen is a very risky pick versus Riki.

Closing words

That's going to wrap up my Chen guide. I hope you learned a bit from it, and you give Chen a chance. Right now he's the least played hero in the game, and has one of the worst win/loss ratios as well. Show Chen some love, he is definitely worth your time.

Comments and questions are more than welcome. I know I missed a lot in the guide, and I'd love to add to it. I just need some suggestions. :/

#PraiseObelis

Angelo out! ^_^