Hero Discussion #2: Razzil Darkbrew, the Alchemist

Alchemist is a melee carry who excels in acquiring gold at unbelievably fast rates. He is often picked for this purpose - but also, he is picked for his Aghanim Scepter upgrade which allows him to donate Aghanim's Scepters to other people.

Lore-wise, Alchemist is a crazy chemist who decides to try to turn a mountain into gold. He fails and gets sent to jail. In jail, he meets an ogre who he convinces to drink a potion. After drinking the potion, the ogre goes ham and destroys everything, thus leading to their escape. The ogre becomes best friends with Alchemist. The end.

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Gameplay wise, Alchemist is a pain to deal with - while also being a ticking time bomb. His ultimate, Chemical Rage, allows him to regenerate health and fast rates, allowing him to farm farm farm. He will also be taking every bounty rune possible, since his passive, Greevil's Greed, gives him bonus gold from bounty runes.

As Alchemist, keep in mind your strengths and your weaknesses. Alchemist's strength relies on his abilities to accelerate his farm monumentally. Do anything short of that - he becomes quite useless in the late game. As Alchemist, look for ways to farm fast - whether that be picking a safe and efficient jungle route, stacking ancients/neutral games, or simply having an efficient pattern between farming the lane, sneaking into the jungle to get more farm, and retrieving bounty runes. I'm not an expert on Alchemist, but I'd say items to get are: Radiance, Manta Style, Boots of Travel, Solar Crest among many others.

As part of Alchemist's team, there are a few things to keep in mind. First off, pick heroes with good Aghanim Scepter upgrades, but don't expect him to give it to you early. Alchemist really needs to snowball, and you don't want to hinder that. Second, you want to save all the bounty runes for him. It doesn't matter if you have a Bottle and he doesn't (you should buy Bottle on Alchemist btw), it doesn't matter if you're 34 gold short of an item... if Alchemist is alive and kicking, save bounty runes for him. Another thing you can do (especially as an offlaner) is to stack ancients for him. Alchemist clear ancients at reasonable speeds and it can help him come online really quickly. It should only take you around 20-30 seconds to do, and it goes a long way to help your game.

If you find yourself on the team opposing an Alchemist, there are a couple of things you can do to hinder his farm. One, gank him. Pick Bounty Hunter, pick Riki, pick Earth Spirit - all those heroes who constantly camp mid and ruin mid heroes' lives. Second, steal his bounty runes. Quite self-explanatory: if he wants it, don't give it to him. Third: Scout for and take his stacks. If you see an Alchemist missing from his lane, he's most likely taking stacks. Scout for them with invis heroes like Bounty Hunter and Riki, or pick Clockwerk to scout for his stacks. Then, bring a group of 2-4 heroes to contest the stacks, more often than not you can steal them away and hinder his farm once again. If an Alchemist gets behind, he is quite useless later on.

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Ok, enough of me now. Here are some discussion questions to kickstart the conversation (feel free to deviate from these questions so long as it remains on topic).

As Alchemist:

• What items do you personally like to buy?
• What is the "optimal" skillbuild?
• What should an Alchemist do if he is behind?
• Is Support Alchemist viable?

As Alchemist's team:

• How important is saving Bounty Runes for Alchemist?
• What are some heroes that benefit from late Aghanim Scepters?

As Alchemist's opposing team:

• Share some experiences where your team refused to deal with an afk-farming Alchemist and lost because of it.
• Share an experience where you had an Alchemist on your team and he got shutdown so hard he was completely useless later on.

That's it for now! Happy discussing!

I'm not the best Alchemist player but I do know he is alway on the edge of being a bag of trash or being a super overpowered hero. In Ti2 Alchemist was a common first pick and ban, he was even in the final game between Na'Vi and Alliance, were Xboct made that stupid juking play. During 6.83 we can easily call Alchemist the worst in dota, even under Terrorblade. Than he became the most op hero especially in 6.85 were he just ran over every midlane with his Acid Spray and with his stupid Greevil's Greed and Bounty Rune bonusses he had an 11 minute Radiance.

Now he seems a strong hero but not really op, which is good.

I have some games were I completly mashed an Alchemist as Io. We had an oflane Riki and I was mid togheter with a Medusa, doing the good old Divine Rapier tactic. I ganked toplane a few times and mostly succesfull sidenote, it was a Riki were his ultimate was still Blink Strike so he had normal backstab and permanent invisibility. Later when the Alchemist went to the jungle we just ganked him time after time, creating space for Medusa who ended the game around the 30 minute mark togheter with a Riki who was snowblling really hard.

In another game I played Nyx Assassin and the enemy team had an Alchemist. Since I had a good start and I was playing a solo ranked game I bought a dagon. I didn't upgrade the dagon however until I got a Blink Dagger. When I had my dagon I easily killed Alchemist several times in the jungle when he was farming. His Chemical Rage does nothing if you just burst him and the fact that he has barely hp and armor doesn't make it more difficult to kill him as a Nyx Assassin.

Moral: always gank and kill Alchemist, it's way easier than you think. And if you don't have the burst, wait for his Chemical Rage to work out.

Armlet, Radi, tp boots, manta octarine, shivas. If game goes well, no need for other items.

Alch is easily gankable bfore lvl6 and with his ulti up, big burst is needed. Given how fast he farms, he is naturally weaker when not ahead.

Alch is pretty good splitpusher and it's definitively annoing playing against him

Don't have long so just a few quick points:

- Armour is quite a major thing for alchy, his agi stat growth is pretty awful (lowered BAT under his Ult sorts out attack speed) so armour is important to keep his survivability high.

- Radi/Octarine/Manta seems to be the most popular build

- All of his damage is physical, no magical. Works well with armour reduction strats.

- He can be harassed very effectively early on due to poor stats/armour. This will slow him down. He can recover fast, but slowing him down makes him more managable.

- Ancient Apparition can prevent healing with his ult, this is probably his best counter.

- The giftable Aghs is good...but a lot of the really good ones you want early. E.g. Ice Blast or Static Storm, so you don't really want to wait for him. Tends to be more useful for others who have a good aghs, but one that isn't necessarily high priority - e.g. Enigma or Dark Seer.

- Support alchy I've never really got on with in any recent patch. He needs too much space and levels to start rolling, and without either, farming speed is considerably reduced, and his ult is much less effective. Maybe viable with a low greed lineup where he can #4 transistion.

I have really great succcess against alch mid as medusa mid. Mystic snake is very troublesome for him

Very nice starting discussion, Sofa! Pretty much everything was said. I would just add I'm not sure the most popular build now is Radi/Octarine/Manta, however, for most Alchs I've seen recently are going Armlet of Mordiggian first indeed (and then you still get those items, or others).

I think this was first due to the simple nerf to the illusions (not getting Greevil's Greed anymore), but after that maybe people realized it helps him in a way that you can either farm or become more active if needed (helping with survivibility). It makes your illusions stronger and you can still farm with it.

Apart from this let me say those Aghs are tasty, and I tried support Alch and it did not work in the least, but it was probs my fault :)

You buy armlet so you don't meld away. When the enemy has a lot of burst get an armlet.

Alchemist is one of those heroes that can be really tough to lane against if you don't have help.

He's weakest at the earliest levels, mainly 1 when all he has is Greevil's Greed, 11 AGI, and 1 armor, but if you can't make him scared for his life every time he approaches the creepwave, he will get a lot more out of the lane than you. Tinker, Dusa, Voker, and SF seem to be the best fit for this. Timbersaw should win on paper, but I've seen that matchup go both ways.

But really, his weak point is before he gets his Radiance, but after the laning phase has ended, that is when he is most killable and least dangerous.

Also, is Solar Crest on him still a thing? It seems really good to help with his 1 armor and 1.2 AGI gain problem, seems to pair well with Radiance too.

Believe Alchemist can be good coupled with Sven, Sven gives armor for alchemist when teamfighting(Nothing to joke at), space that he needs to farm.The biggest synergy is because his aghs benefits more you than him, so there is no problem at all farming it for him, thoughts ?

The Naga alch is definitely the go to build these days, but I still yearn for the Frankfurt meta Miracle- alch that went Blink/ Solar Crest and then just stacked damage. That was always Hella fun to watch.