iN7.Ganker's guide to Alchemist

iN7.Ganker's guide to Alchemist

Hello guys and gurls

and welcome to my 4th guide released here on Dotafire featureing Razzil Darkbrew, the Alchemist.

---

---

Alchemist is an extremely tanky hard carry who excels at free farming, tower siegeing and carrying lategame. He was considered pretty weak a long time ago then got buffed recently and even hit the competetive scene again and gets picked up occasionally.

This guide is focused on explaining every aspect of Alchemist. It's designed to help new player's to get an idea on how to play Alchemist. Nevertheless intermediate player's may learn something too.

This guide will try to explain things on a quite high level while maintaining some basic level knowledge to help newer players understand.

If you care about supporting me or you just like to be up to date with what I am doing, you might consider subscribeing to my youtube channel.

It would be really appreciated if you that you consider rating this guide later on, read the whole guide before you actually judge on it. Please don't skip any sections in that case since some sections explain each other or fill certain gaps. Thanks in advance!

Introduction

Hey there!

You have finished the first step and hopefully didn't skip that part because here you'll get an general overview of Alchemist.

Alchemist is a strength based tanky hard carry that excels at farming much in the early stages and later on due to Greevil's Greed. You can argueably say he is the fastest farming hero in the whole world of dota even faster than Anti-Mage with a Battle Fury.

That makes him a really fearsome carry when left uncontested. His skillset however also provides aggressive options when he gets forced to.

He is a good allround carry that can pay off when used in an aggressive or a defensive trilane, does even work in pubs but not as well as in organized games/very high level pubs.

Alchemist can be a really action and kill orientated hero or a silent farming one. If you are looking for both these options, why don't give him a try yourself?

Pros/Cons

---

+ really strong abilities in general + extremely tanky with a bit of armor + farms extremely fast + huge physical dps potential + able to stun dodge with ult + powerful ultimate

* okay start strength * average sightrange * average difficulty to play

- really poor statgain - low base movementspeed 295 - low base armor - weak without ult - melee hero - stun can backfire

Know your role - Laneing

Let's take a closer look at Alchemist, shall we?

---

He is a small probably lazy but ingenious ogre-riding goblin, right? Well he gets carried by an ogre right? Guess what ..

You are the carry hero, obviously what you do in the early stages of the game is mainly farming up your core items to be effective through mid - and in lategame. Alchemist hugely excels at farming, just free farming for about 8 minutes make you explode in the midgame.

You will most likely and you should always lane on the safelane(aka short lane, "short" here means that the starting "lane equilibirum" is really close to your tower and has nothing to do with the actual length of the lane).

For those of you who don't already know what "lane equilibrium" is, let me put it this way: Lane equilibirum means the current position of the creep wave you are farming. Controlling the lane equilibrium therefore means keeping the creeps at the exact same position most of the time.

For better understanding I recommend you to watch the following video:

Controlling the Lane Equilibirum

---

Back to where I was, ehm ...
Yeah, there are in general 3 different scenarios you will be faceing in the safelane:

1. 3v1 scenario

You either have 2 supports constantly pulling, stacking camps, farming them, rotating for ganks and pushing your enemy laneing hero out of the lane or a jungler farming the jungle and only 1 support doing all the work described above while you farm uncontested furthermore called "free farming" and controlling the lane equilibrium.

In that scenario you have to get atleast 90% of the lasthits possible.(possible 80 after 10 minutes, 120 after 14 minutes)And start rotating as soon as you have your core items up or you are really needed. In this scenario, whatever hero stands in the lane should not gain levels at all or atleast less than half of your level. You are 3v1 or atleast 2v1 while your jungler farms, this is definitely doable.

Talking about when to rotate and when not to. You have strong skills but you are still a carry that needs items, normally your team should be able to defend t2 pushes on their own in a 4v5 situation, you farming. If however you are really needed to defend a t2, take the chance. You shouldn't however rotate to defend a t1 just because you really need the farm in the early minutes and t1 towers are not really that important at the very start. You are really strong however when you finish your Shadow Blade. You can do a huge amount of damage useing it wisely and get some kills/assists in a defending engagement.

If you are not needed to defend you should always farm in either your lane or the jungle if possible. Your team should consider not pushing and just stacking or farming in the early stages of the game instead of forceing/asking you to help them push in the first 20 minutes.

After you have your core items up, you are strong enough to rotate permanently but you should still consider farming but help in every engagement you see yourself useful in.

It can be useful to push the tower quite early with a jungler or just the 2 supports who go with you, in case you do, you surely open up the lane for the enemy hero to farm and gain levels. Try to stack the creepwave when preparing a push with a single creep pull. Make sure either you when your supports are ganking or your supports deny 1 full creepwave with either dual or stack pulling. So you get your lane equilibrium in front of your tower restored.

Dual Pulling

---

---

Stack Pulling

---

---

Single Pull

(Push preparing pull)

---

---

2. 3v2 scenario

You will often face a common dual lane in lower level pubs or even pubs in general. In that case you usally will have a jungler and a support on your side. Try your best at lasthitting, your quota will be very different from the free farming one obviously. Get as much lasthits as you can and make sure your jungler either stack pulls or the support stacks and the jungler then pulls or ganks the lane from time to time to help you get the space you need to farm some of your core items up.

This is essential to make Alchemist or in general any carry effective in the mid - lategame.

Controlling the creep equilibrium is not possible because your enemy laneing heroes can easily **** it up, nevertheless you should actually win this lane with the help of your jungler and get the tower sooner or later.

If the lane goes bad ask for ganks from your mid hero as well as take into consideration to rotate yourself to help out in other lanes if you can't farm on your lane and/or can't leave the tower in fear to get killed/feed. This might open up the safe lane of yours.

The other possibility is that you stay on your lane and hug the tower while your whole team rotates and tries to take the tower that is as far away from your farming position as possible to force enemies helping and tping out of the lane to defend a tower resulting in space for you to farm and get levels.

Normally that matchup should go well ...

3. 3v3 scenario

(2 supports+ alchemist, no jungler)
Your enemy team recognizes the strength of a free farming Alchemist and rotates an aggressive trilane against your tri safelane. This matchup is hard to predict at the very least because it highly depends on the hero matchups fighting against each other and the individual skill of the players.

You however have a slight edge because you have the better position and are able to pull.

Focus on positioning and highly think about if takeing that one lasthit might have horrendous consequences or not.

Talking about the warding situation in these matchup would sadly blast the frame of this section. Therefore I'll leave it out here and consider writing a guide about supporting in general if people would like to read that.

Your Skillset

Acid Spray

Type: Targets:

Active Enemy Units

Sprays high-pressure acid across a target area. Enemy units who step across the contaminated terrain take composite damage per second and have their armor reduced.

---

Notes:

• Mechanical units suffer the armor reduction but do not take the composite damage.

---

Usage:

Excellent spell to clear stacked ancient camps or just stacked camps in general. Nice to zone enemies out of a certain area since the area of effect is huge and hurts quite hard. Good to push with because of the facts mentioned above.

---

Unstable Concoction

Type: Targets:

Active Enemy heroes

Alchemist brews up an unstable concoction that he can throw at an enemy hero, to stun and deal damage. The longer the concoction brews, the more damage it deals and the longer the target is stunned. After 5 seconds, the brew reaches its maximum damage and stun time. However, after 7 seconds, the concoction will explode on Alchemist himself if not thrown. Unstable Concoction always affects a 175 area around where it explodes, including when it explodes on Alchemist.

---

Notes:

• Alchemist casts to begin brewing and the spell then becomes usable while the brew increases in potency. Alchemist can still take actions while the spell is active.
• A timer above Alchemist's head will indicate the remaining brew time. (This timer cannot be seen by enemies).
• Maximum effects will be achieved after 5 seconds brewing time.
• It will blow up if charged for more than 7 seconds without throwing, checked at 0.5 second intervals (allowing up to 7.5 seconds brew time)
• The concoction moves at 900 speed, and provides 400/400 sight range.
• If the concoction explodes mid air, it will affect one enemy unit within 175 radius around its position.
• Magic immunity blocks the effect of the spell when it is cast on Alchemist as normal.
• If the Alchemist is affected by crowd control effects, the concoction will continue to be brewed, and can still explode and stun the Alchemist.
• If Alchemist dies while brewing, Unstable Concoction will explode on the spot where he dies.
• Alchemist can commit suicide using Unstable Concoction. This counts as a deny, and will not award gold to any enemies.
• Can be cast on heroes who are magic immune - damage goes through, stun does not.

---

Usage:

Really strong spell, can be comboed with certain spells like Vacuum or Reverse Polarity to achieve a ridiculous amount of damage and stun. ****ing sick spell, wtf. Very strong when used together with Shadow Blade to secure a solo kill or initiate a teamfight since you are actually able to start channeling the spell while you move around invis.

---

Greevil's Greed

Type: Targets:

Pasive Enemies

Alchemist gets bonus gold for killing creeps; the bonus stacks if the creeps are killed within a period of time, after which the count is reset. The bonus gold is capped at 30 gold.

---

Notes:

• Also works on hero kills.
• Counter increases from denies, but denies don't give bonus gold.

---

Usage:

This spell just increases the amount of gold you get from creeps up to 30 bonus gold per creep which is completely insane. A quadra stacked easy camp gets worth about 900 gold all of the sudden. Extremely potent through the whole game.

---

Chemical Rage

Type: Targets:

Active Self

Alchemist causes his Ogre to enter a chemically induced rage, reducing base attack cooldown and increasing movement speed, HP and regeneration.

---

Notes:

• Has a 0.35 seconds transformation time.
• You can dodge projectiles and abilities while transforming.

---

Usage:

Use your ultimate wisely if you have to fight in an engagement you will really need your ultimate. Use it earlygame to heal yourself up and regenerate some mana. Your ultimate alone regens 75 mana with only a cost of 50 at lvl 1. Use that to your advantage to stay always on full HP and Mana.

If you time it correct you are able to dodge certain abilities like Vengeful Spirit's Magic Missile. For clarification I recommend you to watch the following video.

---

---

Itembuild - Explanation - Justification

This section is gonna explain when to take which itembuild and how to adapt to certain situations you might be faceing when playing this itembuild.

However of course these itembuilds can't reproduce or react on any given situation you might face, you are still the one who decides for what item he is going next. I only deliver you the frame you should be working into be most effective. Feel free to experiment.

---

---

Like the name already suggests you will be free farming. You should only use this build if you are certain that your enemy is not aggressive tri laneing against your lane or atleast not hardly trying to disrupt your farming. If that happens nevertheless you should transition into another build as the free farming build will obviously lose efficiency.

Free farming must not lead into a 40 minute farmfest of yours. You should rush your core items up and go wreck havoc on the other team if the game is kinda even at the very moment since your impact with Shadow Blade is really high in the midgame.

However more farming might be required depending on how the game is going.

Starting items

---

Why so less heal? Why Tango's and why a Stout Shield and a Quelling Blade?? You are playing free farming Alchemist, you take these starting items because they are the best for the situation you are certain you will be faceing. Let me explain why: Your supports keep your enemy out of your lane, why would you need much heal anyways then? Tango's are sufficient and can be used while under attack. From whom? From creeps of course, you will be tanking a lot of creephits while lasthitting under your tower due to pulls from your supports. Thats why you have a Stout Shield as well, to prevent lots of damage while tanking 'em hits. But why are we buying a Quelling Blade then? Well, lasthitting under your tower can be quite difficult and you can lose a lot of lasthits due to the tower ****ing you up. Quelling Blade helps you get the lasthits you wouldn't get sometimes and certainly helps farming jungle creeps later on, so why don't get it from the start? It pays for itself after ~ 4 - 5 lh. Might be the amount you would miss without it.

Earlygame

---

Boots of Speed are essential for almost every hero in the early stages and for every hero in the later stages. No additional explanation should be needed here. Hand of Midas, you are free farming and able to farm it in 4 minutes, so why not get it and boost your farm even more, right? Be careful though if the enemy team is a hard pushing one, it might delay your core items to much to react to that later in the game. But why the hell do we get a Town Portal Scroll this early? You surely experienced ganks on yourself early, you always get stunned immediately, chain stunned or slowed most of the time and you can't escape in time. Count your enemies stunts out and instantly tp out after their last one was used. You are so freaking tanky on level 6 that they should only be able to kill you with strong slows or incredible nuke power, so you get out most of the time when no stuns are left. Enemies might sucidely dive a mate on a lane you could freefarm on after the engagement and a Town Portal Scroll of you could save his life and secure you kills and farm/space for the next minutes. Your lane gets pushed by a 4-5 man doto squad? Tp as far away from them as possible and continue farming forceing either their tp's or a long run from them while your team defends or counter pushes another tower in a lane you are not in.

Core itembuild

---

Power Treads, the allround boots, grant a little bit of ias, stats and average movementspeed but why do we not choose other boots?(For more of a in depth analysis on the choice of boots go back to the "Free farming itembuild" and take a look at the "Core itembuild") Phase Boots give us flat damage and a movement speed increase for a short duration, Alchemist excels at attackspeed due to his ultimate Chemical Rage which also grants movement speed which we therefore don't require. Tranquil Boots give huge movementspeed until they are broken and the ability to heal ourselfs if we need to. Well we already have the regeneration through Chemical Rage and the movement speed bonus as well. We simply don't need that. Arcane Boots? We are a carry hero, we need some sort of damage. Even if we are reliable on our earlygame spells we always have the mana through Chemical Rage. Wow that ult does everything ... Boots of Travel. Okay, okay ... you got me. You can't teleport with Alchemist's Chemical Rage.(******* icefrog, volvo fix pls) Boots of Travel are great, don't get me wrong but they are really expensive and don't really do that much for us in the early stages of the game like for example Power Treads would do. Therefore we build it later when we need a slot to replace the Town Portal Scroll which should always be in our inventory at any given time before we get Boots of Travel. Shadow Blade, why on earth would we get Shadow Blade? I was sceptical too for a long time and considered it trash but for certain heroes like Alchemist it really rocks. It enables you to initiate fights, it helps you outtake a solo hero on the map. It can help you escape and it provides attackspeed as well as damage which both work very well togehter with Alchemist. You simply start channeling your Unstable Concoction and go into Shadow Blade invisibility. You use the additional damage which breaks the invis on hit and throw a full charged up Unstable Concoction onto your enemy. Throw some Acid Spray in there as well and enjoy seeing your Alchemist going berserk over your enemy stunned for years. Must buy! Assault Cuirass fixes one of your biggest problems, your very low armor throughout the whole game and adds some much needed attackspeed to your Alchemist. The aura is one of the strongest in the game and enhances your whole team as well as it weakens your enemy and strengthens your push. Overall excellent choice and should be one of your core items.

Extensions

---

Desolator helps you crushing your enemies armor if needed or you really want to push down those rax or towers which Alchemist wrecks in seconds. If you go down that road you might as well start transitioning into the anti armor itembuild. Mjollnir is a great item for farming, split pushing or just destroying creep waves in general as well as fighting heavy physical dps teams useing the active ability of Mjollnir. Abyssal Blade excels with attackspeed even though it has a built in cooldown and grants a really powerful active ability which helps you to focus important enemy heroes down and interrupt enemy heroes either getting their spells off or being able to constantly fight you. Heart of Tarrasque makes Alchemist almost impossible to bring down without chain stunning him to death, you are able to heal yourself up from 1 % of your hp to max in only a matter of seconds starting to push again or siegeing away at a base tower. Great choice if your enemy got spells that go through magic immunity as such provided by Black King Bar or if your enemy is actually not able to prevent you from hitting all to much. If not consider getting a Black King Bar. Daedalus, not really my favorite item of choice but is really worth a thought because it increases your dps by a lot, in fact it increases your dps by a factor of 1.6. In terms of actual dps the best item you can get.

Situational

---

Black King Bar should be built when you get disabled most of the time or you get prevented from hitting in general by not magic immunity piercing abilities. Monkey King Bar is a must against any enemy carry hero who builds evasion. It's also really helpful if you need to disrupt channeling abilities or abilities with a high cast point.(Also called cast time) Heaven's Halberd is a great choice when dealing with enemy carrys who aren't excpecting you to buy a Heaven's Halberd and can turn a manfight between you and the enemy carry around. Stop them from attacking you with the active and the evasion will certainly help you survive and dish a lot of damage out in that time or make you able to escape. Battle Fury is an okay choice when you really need the cleave or you are faceing an enemy illusion carry hero. You might as well try to rotate into the Anti illusion itembuild then. But you can even get it late if it really helps you to catch up on farm or makes you able to manfight a certain hero. In special situations when many enemy heroes are forced to stay in a small AoE, Battle Fury obviously rapes. Satanic is really strong and adds a huge factor of surviveability to your carry potential, if you have a free time to use it you will heal yourself up like crazy and might be able to fight the enemy carry. Not always the best choice but if you don't want to get a Black King Bar or a Heart of Tarrasque it's a great choice however. Boots of Travel should always be bought when you are almost maxed out. It allows you to join engagements at any time and enables you to buyback and instantly rejoin the fight when you die. Must buy lategame, not earlygame!

---

---

The flash farming/anti illusion itembuild does what its meant for. It makes you a really sick farming machine and works really well against illusion based heroes like Phantom Lancer or Chaos Knight.

The rushed Battle Fury is key here, your supports are meant to be stacking neutral camps all over the map sacrificing some experience they would get from pulls which they get back when the camp gets farmed by Alchemist.(make sure your support leeches some of the exp)

This itembuild focuses on farming the first 25 minutes which works very well against defensive enemy hero compositions or heavy farm dependant carrys. It is really important that you farm neutrals and ancients hopefully stacked, a lot since your goal is to get Alchemist nearly maxed out at around 25 minutes in to the game.

Thats why you get items that enhance your farm by a lot, Battle Fury and Mjollnir.

When to use this build and when not to:

If the enemy team composes of heavy pushers or really aggressive heroes like for example Shadow Demon, Lifestealer or Io and/or misses a hard carry, the enemy team will most likely focus on ending the game really early before the 25 minute mark applying a lot of pressure early on. This gets achieved by simply rotateing as 5 and ganking or pushing demanding really early action from yourself. Do not use this build in this case since it is not going to work in most cases.

But when an enemy team composes of a hard carry like Phantom Lancer who wants to freefarm atleast like 15 - 20 minutes and requires protection from his team you can abuse Alchemist's freefarm and surprise the Phantom Lancer with 2 times his gold due to you free and flashfarming combined with Greevil's Greed.

No one is gonna win a freefarm race against an Alchemist. Use that to your advantage and finish the game before the enemy carry is maxed out!

Starting items

---

If you want to go into more of a safer itembuild, this might be the best choice for you. Stout Shield to prevent the damage dealt by creeps when tanking them under the tower and enough heal to stay long enough in the lane till you have the regeneration on lvl 6 with Chemical Rage. Iron Branch'es provide additional stats which are always great to have.

Earlygame

---

Boots of Speed are essential for almost every hero in the early stages and for every hero in the later stages. No additional explanation should be needed here. Battlefury, naked ... why would we buy that? We wanna flash farm which means we want to farm as much as possible in the first 20 - 25 minutes before we start competeing in any fights. This works especially well when your supports stack medium, hard or ancient camps. Aren't we really easy to get ****ed up if we only have battlefury? That kinda depends, if you farm well you can have Battle Fury and boots after 8 - 9 minutes into the game, this enables you to farm the stacks later on and get item after item after item really fast.

Core Itembuild

---

Power Treads, the allround boots, grant a little bit of ias, stats and average movementspeed but why do we not choose other boots?(For more of a in depth analysis on the choice of boots go back to the "Free farming itembuild" and take a look at the "Core itembuild") Mjollnir is a great item for farming, split pushing or just destroying creep waves in general as well as fighting heavy physical dps teams useing the active ability of Mjollnir. Shadow Blade, why on earth would we get Shadow Blade? I was sceptical too for a long time and considered it trash but for certain heroes like Alchemist it really rocks. It enables you to initiate fights, it helps you outtake a solo hero on the map. It can help you escape and it provides attackspeed as well as damage which both work very well togehter with Alchemist. You simply start channeling your Unstable Concoction and go into Shadow Blade invisibility. You use the additional damage which breaks the invis on hit and throw a full charged up Unstable Concoction onto your enemy. Throw some Acid Spray in there as well and enjoy seeing your Alchemist going berserk over your enemy stunned for years. Must buy!

Extensions

---

Assault Cuirass fixes one of your biggest problems, your very low armor throughout the whole game and adds some much needed attackspeed to your Alchemist. The aura is one of the strongest in the game and enhances your whole team as well as it weakens your enemy and strengthens your push. Overall excellent choice and should be one of your core items. Heart of Tarrasque makes Alchemist almost impossible to bring down without chain stunning him to death, you are able to heal yourself up from 1 % of your hp to max in only a matter of seconds starting to push again or siegeing away at a base tower. Great choice if your enemy got spells that go through magic immunity as such provided by Black King Bar or if your enemy is actually not able to prevent you from hitting all to much. If not consider getting a Black King Bar. Abyssal Blade excels with attackspeed even though it has a built in cooldown and grants a really powerful active ability which helps you to focus important enemy heroes down and interrupt enemy heroes either getting their spells off or being able to constantly fight you. Daedalus, not really my favorite item of choice but is really worth a thought because it increases your dps by a lot, in fact it increases your dps by a factor of 1.6. In terms of actual dps the best item you can get.

Situational

---

Black King Bar should be built when you get disabled most of the time or you get prevented from hitting in general by not magic immunity piercing abilities. Satanic is really strong and adds a huge factor of surviveability to your carry potential, if you have a free time to use it you will heal yourself up like crazy and might be able to fight the enemy carry. Not always the best choice but if you don't want to get a Black King Bar or a Heart of Tarrasque it's a great choice however. Monkey King Bar is a must against any enemy carry hero who builds evasion. It's also really helpful if you need to disrupt channeling abilities or abilities with a high cast point.(Also called cast time) Boots of Travel are great, don't get me wrong but they are really expensive and don't really do that much for us in the early stages of the game like for example Power Treads would do. Therefore we build it later when we need a slot to replace the Town Portal Scroll which should always be in our inventory at any given time before we get Boots of Travel.

---

---

If you will most likely not be able to free farm or you play a low - mid level pub(where dual lanes are common, therefore reduceing your farm) you should use this itembuild instead of the others.

If it goes very well, means you got your earlygame items really fast, you might consider transitioning into another itembuild.

This itembuild works extremely well against low armor heroes like for example most strength carrys like for example Lifestealer, Slardar, Skeleton King or Lycanthrope since your hits will do bonus hit damage because you can reduce armor just by yourself with lvl 4 Acid Spray and your core items up by about 17. Supports are completely gonna melt with each of your hits.

This is pretty useful in the scenario where you have more than just 1 carry(like in those pubs you might remember, ... Only 2 carries in one team if it only would be this way ...) If you have for example a Templar Assassin in mid whose Meld is also able to reduce armor, your enemy is faceing some serious issues without an agi carry.

But not only Templar Assassin is gonna benefit from the minus armor you dish out, basically every other physical dps hero is gonna deal tons of additional damage due to the minus armor Alchemist provides.

This itembuild is at the very least considered only to be played when you can't free farm. It can still work very well when free farming but maybe just not as good as it would with the other itembuilds. This is a guide and no executive order. Feel free to experiment!

Starting items

---

If you want to go into more of a safer itembuild, this might be the best choice for you. Stout Shield to prevent the damage dealt by creeps when tanking them under the tower and enough heal to stay long enough in the lane till you have the regeneration on lvl 6 with Chemical Rage. Iron Branch'es provide additional stats which are always great to have.

Earlygame

---

Boots of Speed are essential for almost every hero in the early stages and for every hero in the later stages. No additional explanation should be needed here. Shadow Blade, why on earth would we get Shadow Blade? I was sceptical too for a long time and considered it trash but for certain heroes like Alchemist it really rocks. It enables you to initiate fights, it helps you outtake a solo hero on the map. It can help you escape and it provides attackspeed as well as damage which both work very well togehter with Alchemist. You simply start channeling your Unstable Concoction and go into Shadow Blade invisibility. You use the additional damage which breaks the invis on hit and throw a full charged up Unstable Concoction onto your enemy. Throw some Acid Spray in there as well and enjoy seeing your Alchemist going berserk over your enemy stunned for years. Must buy!

Core Itembuild

---

Power Treads, the allround boots, grant a little bit of ias, stats and average movementspeed but why do we not choose other boots?(For more of a in depth analysis on the choice of boots go back to the "Free farming itembuild" and take a look at the "Core itembuild") Hand of Midas, you are free farming and able to farm it in 4 minutes, so why not get it and boost your farm even more, right? Be careful though if the enemy team is a hard pushing one, it might delay your core items to much to react to that later in the game. Assault Cuirass fixes one of your biggest problems, your very low armor throughout the whole game and adds some much needed attackspeed to your Alchemist. The aura is one of the strongest in the game and enhances your whole team as well as it weakens your enemy and strengthens your push. Overall excellent choice and should be one of your core items.

Extensions

---

Abyssal Blade excels with attackspeed even though it has a built in cooldown and grants a really powerful active ability which helps you to focus important enemy heroes down and interrupt enemy heroes either getting their spells off or being able to constantly fight you. Heart of Tarrasque makes Alchemist almost impossible to bring down without chain stunning him to death, you are able to heal yourself up from 1 % of your hp to max in only a matter of seconds starting to push again or siegeing away at a base tower. Great choice if your enemy got spells that go through magic immunity as such provided by Black King Bar or if your enemy is actually not able to prevent you from hitting all to much. If not consider getting a Black King Bar. Daedalus, not really my favorite item of choice but is really worth a thought because it increases your dps by a lot, in fact it increases your dps by a factor of 1.6. In terms of actual dps the best item you can get.

Situational

---

Boots of Travel are great, don't get me wrong but they are really expensive and don't really do that much for us in the early stages of the game like for example Power Treads would do. Therefore we build it later when we need a slot to replace the Town Portal Scroll which should always be in our inventory at any given time before we get Boots of Travel. Black King Bar should be built when you get disabled most of the time or you get prevented from hitting in general by not magic immunity piercing abilities. Monkey King Bar is a must against any enemy carry hero who builds evasion. It's also really helpful if you need to disrupt channeling abilities or abilities with a high cast point.(Also called cast time)

No Luxury itemsection - Rejected items

People who know me from my other guide's:

iN7.Ganker's guide to Windrunner
iN7.Ganker's guide to Invoker

Might have noticed that there is no "Luxury" selection possibility in the itembuild section and in the "builds" at the top of this guide. I have decided to leave it out regarding Alchemist's farming speed just makes a "Luxury" itemsection redundant. I will however talk about items I rejected to use in any of the builds since many people might miss a certain item pickup here and there.

Rejected items

Vladmir's Offering

Really cost efficient item and very easy to farm and thats exactly why you don't get it. This can be farmed by another hero, even a support and the only thing you really need from it anyway would be the lifesteal and the armor which are both aura based. You will need the itemslot later on anyways. Bad item choice for you.



Armlet of Mordiggian

Really good item which gives Alchemist all what he needs, attackspeed, damage and armor but the big problem with it is, it blocks an itemslot which you will need later on and therefore it's kinda wasted even if you sell it in the lategame. Better aim for a bigger item.

You can however exploit the low cooldown of Armlet of Mordiggian. This video should explain you what I am talking about.

---

---

Butterfly

I really thought about it a lot. The thing is it is actually a good item for Alchemist since the massive agility boosts his attackspeed and armor and the evasion is really sick when you have around 3000 hp+ with Chemical Rage.But the big problem is that actually the evasion is the really big benefit which makes it an okay choice. At the very moment you have it, it might be a good item but only as long as nobody has a Monkey King Bar.

Good opponents will realize what you want to buy even if you have only just bought a Quarterstaff and counter your Butterfly with Monkey King Bar. Since this item is bought quite often just when some carrys look for some dps items Butterfly falls off extremely. Better get another item of the "Extensions" itemsection instead.



Manta Style

Is only in special cases a good item for melee heroes when you have other abilities that actually works on your illusion as well, like Anti-Mage has with Mana Break for example. This is not the case for Alchemist and therefore it is not a really good item on him because others are simply better.



Radiance

This might make a big discussion happen but I will try to be on point with my explanation. Radiance is a strong item. No doubt about that. What makes it actually weird to call it a bad item on Alchemist is that you can farm it really fast with Greevil's Greed. Thats true.

Nevertheless Radiance excels at heroes who have the possibility of spreading the AoE or useing it for farm purposes like Spectre for example with Haunt. Alchemist can't spread the Radiance AoE nor does he need it to farm thats what Mjollnir is for and does even better.

There are lots of other heroes who normally build Radiance and all of the sudden don't anymore like Phantom Lancer or Weaver, they focus on items now that don't just deliver pure dps because thats what Radiance only does. It gets more and more common that hard carrys actually buy Drum of Endurance on heroes like Gyrocoptor, Phantom Lancer or Lifestealer because movementspeed, stats or special benefits like the active of drums or the "True Strike" ability from Monkey King Bar gets more and more important.


Radiance simply lacks utility which many other items offer nowadays. Radiance has and will fall out of favor.



Shiva's Guard

Why Shiva's Guard is a bad choice on Alchemist is fast explained since a simple comparison with Assault Cuirass makes it look really bad on Alchemist.

Shiva's Guard provides lot of int which Alchemist doesn't need. An active ability that slows everyone who gets touched by it which is nice but could be more useful on another hero. And armor which is a really big deal but Assault Cuirass gives the same amount. Shiva's Guard doesn't improve your carrying potential which makes it a bad item for Alchemist. The passives are nice and bla bla bla but it helps you completely the same when a mate buys it and you get an Assault Cuirass instead. Therefore no reason to get it.

Skillbuild - Explanation - Justification

This section will be used to explain why I chose which skillbuilds.

You will surely notice that they are all quite the same(kinda obvious how to skill on Alchemist)in the end but I am still gonna explain why I don't skill certain abilities until a certain level.

It is obvious that you are meant to adapt to certain situations and you can vary as you like as long as it makes sense to you. Feel free to experiment!

The best you can do is to always save your skillpoint on lvl 1 till you really know what you gonna need.

Free farming skillbuild

---

---

You should always level Unstable Concoction on lvl 1 if you see the chance of getting a kill. Of course since that is the free farming skillbuild we will focus on maxing Greevil's Greed on level 7 and max our most utility provideing skill 2nd at level 9.

Chemical Rage is one of the most powerful spells in the game and we will of course level it everytime we can on 6, 11 and 16.

Acid Spray gets maxed last but doesn't have to if you think you need it more and you don't even have a lane opponent because he might rotated into the jungle. This spell is really useful when farming the jungle especially stacked camps but isn't really effective in early engagements since they are over quite fast in the earlygame.

Flash farming / Anti illusion skillbuild

---

---

We are flash farming, which means we want to get a lot of gold therefore maxing Greevil's Greed seems like the best idea.

Unstable Concoction is really strong so we max it 2nd at lvl 9. Feel free to take 2 points from Unstable Concoction into Acid Spray as it may helps you to farm a little better in the jungle or just clearing stacks. Depends from game to game!

Your ultimate is essential, skill it everytime you can.

Anti armor skillbuild

---

---

In expectation of a non free farming lane you should max the spell provideing the most killing potential Unstable Concoction which should make room for some farming with Greevil's Greed.

The reason behind not skilling both spells Unstable Concoction and Acid Spray is simply that the manacost are to intense and Acid Spray just doesn't do much in the early stages.

What counters me

Of course there are a few heroes which work really well against Alchemist. I will tell you about the ones you should fear the most.

---

Clockwerk
- Long range initiation due to Hookshot and Power Cogs prevent you from takeing part in the fight wrecking havoc around you for about 8 seconds. You might be able to kill Clockwerk if he doesn't Force Staff out of his cogs.



Omniknight
- Preventing the enemy heroes from getting stunned, Repel, healing them up again, Purification and stopping you from doing any damage at all in a fight for 5/6/7 seconds, Guardian Angel. Crucial time in a teamfight.



Slardar
- Counters you heavily earlygame. You won't be able to escape from him and his ganks with Shadow Blade because his ultimate, Amplify Damage reveals invisible heroes. You can't run from him, he is faster with Sprint. And he uses your weakest point to kill you, your low base armor. It only takes several hits to bring you down when you have -7 armor.



Lifestealer
- Doesn't really counter you that hard but he benefits from your huge hp pool he can Feast up against you which makes him hard to kill and fight in certain situations since he is able to survive really long against you. Open Wounds can be a real pain in the *** since it slows really hard and for a long time. However he melts when building minus armor items.


Doom Bringer
Doom Bringer
- If you get Doom'ed before you get your ultimate Chemical Rage off you are basically screwed since you are not able to do **** in a teamfight then. You can't use Shadow Blade, you won't be able to bash, throw lightnings or lifesteal. You are a big melee creep with a little too much health for 15 seconds.



Witch Doctor
- Ever got maledicted when your ultimate was about to run out and you just lost 900 hp? Maledict is gonna ****ing take away half of your hitpoints if it doesn't even kill you. If you have Black King Bar however, you are very safe.


Necrolyte
Necrolyte
- You just sucessfully bought out to get 6slotted and started a teamfight with a total of 5000 health, you survived and won the fight with about 2000 health and think just takeing the rax now wins you the game as suddenly a wild Necrolyte appears and sways his Reaper's Scythe. The last thing you remember was looking at the amount of damage he did to you before you lost consciousness. 2025. And by the way his Heartstopper Aura is percentage based.



Shadow Demon
- His ultimate Demonic Purge and his Soul Catcher make him very strong against Alchemist. Demonic Purge just removes his ability to move freely in a fight and wrecking people completely for about 4 seconds when the slow acually wears off and works through Black King Bar. Soul Catcher amplifies any sort of damage taken by 50%, really helping others to kill you quite easily. You are not able to remove this debuff with Black King Bar which adds a litte bit more to the top of the iceberg.


Ancient Apparition
- Can be considered a really strong enemy as well if we take a closer look at his ultimate Ice Blast. It basically stops everyone it only touches(it doesn't even have to hit you) from regening what can be crucial for Alchemist since Chemical Rage provides us with 60 hp regen/sec. That are 600 more hp for Alchemist in a 10 seconds lasting engagement, an enormous amount of hp we surely wanna have but can't if Anicent Apparition is part of the enemy team.

Alchemist's friends

Of course there are a lot of heroes that work very well together with Alchemist I will mention the most notable in this section

---

Omniknight
- Grants you magic immunity via Repel and makes you almost unkillable due to Guardian Angel in fights.



Io (Io)
- Helps you hit 5 times a second and makes you 20% harder to kill with Overcharge. As well as helps you move in fights with Tether. Great hero to have behind Alchemist, protect him well ...



Dark Seer
- Ion Shell adds nice damage per second on Alchemist makeing him even more fearsome. A Vacuum at the right time almost works like a Reverse Polarity if timed correctly with your Unstable Concoction and nobody runs from you if you are surged. Works really well against slows on Alchemist too since Surge always caps your movementspeed on 522 for the duration basically ignoreing the slows effect.

---

---

Magnus
- Empower is so strong on Alchemist, boosting his damage and giving him cleave is just sick. If Magnus lands a good Reverse Polarity, Alchemist will easily seal the teamfight for his team.



Enigma
- Works like Magnus, keeping many heroes in a small AoE for a long time makes Alchemist a very happy carry, able to follow up with his Unstable Concoction you should be able to make sure nobody escapes.



Invoker
- Alchemist goes absolutely crazy when he is farmed up. The best formula for dps is an even amount of damage and attackspeed, in lategame Invoker can boost your dps with up to 80% attackspeed and 80 damage thanks to Alacrity which boosts your carrying potential by a lot.

Afterword

Hey guys and girls!

Thanks for reading this guide and leaving a comment, praise or criticism below in the comments. If you have any suggestions for me how to improve pls let me know in the comments.

Thanks to you people out there I am gonna follow those guides up with new ones whenever I have time to write somethings down. It's really nice to have dozens hours of work result in so many views, nice comments and positive feedback via the rating.

Thank you!

If you want to support me or just be up to date when a new guide gets released and/or visualized make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel where I keep you updated on what I am doing.

I am planning lots of things recently and am sure that I can bring you awesome content in the future.

Thanks again and have a nice day, I sure had a couple because of you guys.

iN7.Ganker aka |-|e4.-t8.-0|<e|\|

Recent changes and their Influence

6.78

- Shadow Blade damage decreased from 30 to 22

Effectively lowering Alchemist's dps in the earlygame. It still remains a core item because it isn't bought because of the stats, it's bought because it enables Alchemist to solo kill a lot of heroes or initiate teamfights.

This is not changed and therefore Shadow Blade remains core.

Guild Announcement

Hello guys!

I have thought about this for a while now and decided to open a guild. All of you are obviuosly allowed to join if you want to get in contact with me or other
fellow guide readers or subscribers of my youtube channel.

I think this is a good opportunity for me to give something back for all of the support I got. We'll be able to occasionally play inhouse games, fun and serious ones alike as you like. You can bring your friends as well if you want to. To be able to join the guild you will have to join the "iN7.Ganker" chat channel in the dota 2-client.

The purpose of this channel is "invite only" and I will likely not answer questions there, thats what the actual guild channel is created for. Just make sure I read that you want to be invited and things will be on their way. I will try to check the chat the whole time as the day goes by, make sure I am in the channel or you aren't talking to me. Don't be afraid to make suggestions.

Since I am very new to the guild system and still exploreing it myself I might act like a ****** in some ways. Keep in mind that I am a german dude and that I most likely won't be online from 1:00 am CEST to 10 am CEST. Hopefully gonna see you soon in the guild.

Thanks for all your support!

Changelog

0.0.0 - Guide created - 1.05.2013

1.0.0 - Guide published - 19.05.2013

1.0.1 - Adjusted the "Author's favorite itembuild" - 20.05.2013

1.0.2 - Added Anicent Apparition to the "What counters me" section - 20.05.2013

1.0.3 - Added the "Recent changes and their influence" section - 04.06.2013

1.0.4 - Added the "Guild Announcement" section