LogFAQs > #964946273

I feel like I'm hungover and I haven't even gone to bed yet.

78 - Alchemist (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/1/6/AAAACbAADODw.jpg
Basic Abilities: Acid Spray, Unstable Concoction, Greevil's Greed, Chemical Rage
Shard Ability: New ability "Berserk Potion" which can target an ally, buffing them with 30 movespeed, 50 attack speed, and 40 health regen for 10 seconds. 35 second cooldown, 125 manacost.
Scepter Ability: Alchemist can use an Aghanim's Scepter on an allied hero to provide them with all the benefits of owning a Scepter (+10 all stats, 175 mana, 175 mana, and their Scepter upgrade. If the ally already has a scepter they are immediately refunded the gold cost of it and the scepter is consumed. When Alchemist possesses a scepter or has used this ability on himself, he gains a flat 20 attack damage and 5% spell amplification per gifted scepter.
Notable 7.31 changes: Now gains movement speed while charging Unstable Concoction. Unstable Concoction now damages enemy units surrounding the target/Alchemist himself on explosion.

Now that Techies, Centaur, Abaddon, and Pudge can no longer suicide their way to victory, this goofball holds the dubious distinction as the only remaining hero in Dota able to deny himself with his own abilities without any summoned units. And after playing him for a while, you may want to, also; Alchemist's base stats are bitch-weak and growths merely subpar to make up for his kit literally printing money. Acid Spray deals a large swath of physical damage to the creep wave (and backline supports) pushing closer to the enemy tower, so as it shifts the lane forward, and Alch himself can keep his gold streak going from Greevil's Greed in a small camp before dropping more acid on the creepwave. If he gets ganked, he can begin charging up a Concoction and run for the treeline, or assess the situation to chuck it at a pursuer. Barring that, he can try and use the blast damage from failing to throw it to deny himself. And when he hits level 6, his durability is limited only by his poor armor and his mana - his ult has a relatively low cooldown and gives him insane health regeneration and attack speed.

Alchemist has three main styles of play: the first, and most common, is an "early game hard carry" - Alch will, with a bit of mana regeneration, use his tremendous farming speed and lane control in the lane of his choice to quickly snowball his way up to four or five large items by the time most normal hard carries only have one and are hiding in the jungle, and use the sheer overwhelming power of money to outplay his opposition. He eventually will fall off in extreme late game, but if he gets to that point, his team has some bigger problems.

Second playstyle is similar, but not as farm-reliant. While heavily choreographed, Unstable Concoction deals a bonkers amount of stun and damage, which lets him play as a Shadow Blade or Blink Dagger ganker. This build requires a bit more effort than fire-and-forget Acid Spray spam, since it deals less with Greevil's Greed levels early, and it has the potential to blow up in your face. Pun very much intended.

If neither of those builds work, we get to my preferred build which is almost a form of trolling in its own right: the support Alchemist. Alchemist has the unique identity of being able to donate his own net worth to his allies by purchasing scepters, which is handy if he gets shut down very early, and results in a high GPM but a net worth lower than a typical Crystal Maiden if he's performing even suboptimally by the endgame - typically by keeping his own jungle camps dewarded, stacking, and killing them through Acid Spray for the Greevil's Greed bonus while threatening to stun his lane enemy. Once laning ends, he can ward up and hide in jungle camps focusing on distributing his blue candy - the buildup for Aghanim's Scepters is very safe, after all. Eventually he'll be gaining 60/80 damage just by holding on to the next scepter to distribute, and him getting ganked doesn't hurt nearly as much as a six-itemed Alchemist otherwise. Obviously this third playstyle has some problems that you're shorting yourself a hero for the majority of a game and isn't very appealing to play as, but at least you can blow yourself up with a concoction if you get lucky.

Now, Alchemist as a whole? He's back to the early parts of the list in terms of extremely polarizing. Even when he's ahead in support build he feels behind, because his stat growths are near garbage-tier and it's only *slightly* alleviated by being self-sufficient with just a Soul Ring, but his durability and combat prowess are very much dictated by how often you keep your ult up. He's got a weird power spike where he obliterates people in the early midgame, usually where nukers and casters thrive, but falls off as the game progresses and more people build to counter him.

I want to like him but it's been incredibly hard to say anything nice about him, because either he's swimming in money for a 20 minute victory or feeding 2k gold a death during a 60 minute struggle, with the only inbetween being if you are a scepter dispenser, which gets you reported more than anything. Also, I might be exhausted after a few weeks of both VGMC and working through a new shipping company. Whatever, the latter is how money is made.

Next hero hint: Having a kit that's almost pure utility has its place, but oh man solo queue is so not kind to them.