Alchemist Dota 2 Guide – The Fastest Farmer in Patch 7.33c

Alchemist is commonly played in the mid lane or safe lane in order to secure him farm. Regardless, the tip to winning as Alchemist is to pick last and threaten your supports to stack every minute. After all, if an Alchemist game doesn’t end within 30 minutes, chances are you are going to lose.

On paper, Greevil’s Greed and Acid Spray are efficient farming spells that enable Alchemist to become six-slotted faster than any other hero. Alchemist is reliant on his ultimate, Chemical Rage as it massively increases his attack speed and survivability in team-fights.

He is also especially vulnerable to physical damage nukes as he has low armor throughout his level progression, which can be resolved with the right Alchemist Item Build. Lastly, Alchemist has a unique ability to grant Aghanim’s Scepter bonuses to his allies, given how quickly he earns gold.

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Complete Alchemist Spell guide

Default Passive Ability: Greevil’s Greed

Alchemist gains bonus gold for each creep he kills. This effect stacks if creeps are killed in succession. This is almost always prioritized first as it massively increases the amount of gold you can make. This is also usually skilled first, as it increases the amount of gold you get from the bounty rune at the beginning of the game. This spell makes it very worthwhile to kill even the small jungle camp, as they will award much more gold than usual.

Acid Spray

Alchemist covers the target area with a acid, damaging any enemies that are stood in it and reducing armor. This is usually prioritized alongside Greevil’s Greed as it lets you farm stacked neutral camps very easily and zone out the opponent mid laner. Use this to secure your own last hits in lane and push out the wave so that you can farm the jungle in between waves. If your bounty rune is being contested at the beginning of the game, you can get Acid Spray at level 1 to zone them away and have an advantage in a level 1 skirmish.

Unstable Concoction

Alchemist charges up a time-ticking concoction which stuns for longer and deals more damage, the longer it is charged. If Alchemist fails to throw it in time he will be stunned and inflict damage upon himself. With the Greevil’s Greed becoming a default passive since Dota Patch 7.33, Unstable Concoction is a decent utility skill to maximize alongside Acid Spray. Given how efficient Alchemist can farm, having a max-level Unstable Concoction is a powerful initiation combo with Blink Dagger.

Unstable Concoction deals physical damage, so make sure you cast Acid Spray first to reduce enemy’s armor to deal more damage. You can begin to charge the potion right before you blink onto an enemy hero, then immediately throw a fully-charged concoction. Just make sure that the target isn’t out of range, else you might miss the timing and get stunned yourself. The concoction deals damage and stun in an AoE around the target, so positioning is crucial.

Corrosive Weaponry

Replacing the former passive, Greevil’s Greed, Corrosive Weaponry adds an attack modifier that slows and reduce status resistance of the target, the more stacks of auto-attacks he deals. While definitely not as overpowered as the strongest spell in terms of farming in Dota 2 esports, it resolves Alchemist’s flaw, his underwhelming skill scaling. Hence, why Alchemist traditionally can’t survive the late game.

With the recent change in Patch 7.33c, however, Alchemist seems to be back as an average carry pick, which is great because nobody enjoys playing against a 20-minute Alchemist with Radiance, BKB and Blink Dagger.

Chemical Rage

Alchemist gains increased movement and attack speed as well as health regeneration. His ultimate massively increases Alchemist’s fighting potential, and you should never fight without it since it has a short cooldown of only one minute, or a 30-second downtime. Chemical Rage can disjoint any incoming projectiles within the 0.35 seconds cast time, which means that it can be used to dodge initiation stuns.

Best Alchemist Talents

Level 10: +125 Unstable Concoction Radius or +1 Acid Spray Armor Reduction

If you’re able to farm freely with relatively few interruptions, then it’s desirable to get a wider Unstable Concoction Radius. It’s almost always preferable, because even if you’re behind in farm, three of Alchemist’s skills are oriented for farming for him to regain momentum. The wider Unstable Concoction Radius can mean you hit multiple enemy heroes when you throw your potion, making it a more valuable upgrade in the long run.

Level 15: +2 Damage per Greevil’s Greed stack or Acid Spray grants armor to allies

The extra 48 damage is a massive buff, especially given Alchemist’s very high attack speed during Chemical Rage and farming. It’s generally not worth trading off the potential damage for a support talent of buffing ally armor, unless you are playing support Alchemist or there’s a Slardar on the enemy team.

Level 20: +400 Unstable Concoction Damage or -0.1s Chemical Rage Base Attack Time

The Chemical Rage Base Attack Time reduction is at 1s and reducing it by a mere 0.1s certainly isn’t worth the Level 20 talent. Instead, all eyes on the extra 400 Unstable Concoction damage, which mind you, can deal 800 physical damage with this talent. With the right initiation of Blink into an enemy support to throw the Unstable Concoction plus 1-2 auto-attack hits.

No support hero can escape the inevitable combo unless they had vision of you charging and coming towards them.

Level 25: +50 Chemical Rage Regeneration or +50 Chemical Rage Movement Speed

If you are taking heavy damage in team-fights, the extra regeneration will help. It’s less effective against heroes that can burst you down, although even then, it’s still a better option than movement speed bonus.

What Items to build on Alchemist

Starting Items

Quelling Blade
Healing Salve
Tango
Iron Branch
Enchanted Mango

Alchemist has a relatively low base damage, which makes Quelling Blade a good pickup for him to help with last-hitting. Consumables, especially health regen are essential, given he has no skills for sustainability until he gets Level 6. Additionally, Alchemist has low armor and as a mid-hero will usually take heavy harass damage.

Early Game Items

Power Treads provide great early stats to compensate Alchemist’s flaws. Additionally, being able to toggle between having more mana for casting Acid Spray, have higher strength to sustain enemy damage or deal more damage with Agility stat, can go a long way in letting Alchemist stay longer in the lane and jungle without going back to fountain for regen.
Soul Ring – while Chemical Rage offers health regen at level 6 for farming jungle stacks, Soul Ring provides just enough mana to use Acid Spray and Chemical Rage. If you are able to zone the enemy mid hero with Acid Spray and as a result not take much damage, you should get a Soul Ring. This will let you use Acid Spray without facing mana issues and farm the lane and jungle much more easily.
Radiance increases the rate at which you farm creeps in the jungle and in lane. It increases AOE damage and evasion while attacking multiple creeps. Given Alchemist’s farming rate, a great Alchemist player can often get Radiance before 14-minute mark.

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Mid Game Items

Blink Dagger with maxed Unstable Concoction, Blink Dagger serves as an initiation to jump on unsuspecting enemies. Shutting down an enemy hero or two makes space for Alchemist to return to his farming miscellaneous, which directly widens the net worth gap between Alchemist and a dead enemy carry.
Black King Bar is still essential for Alchemist to safely blink, stun, and leave unscathed with BKB. As your team’s sole initiator at such early timing, chances are your team might not have the capabilities to back you up. Hence, as the most farmed hero in the game, Alchemist players have to rely on themselves to survive the fights too.

Assault Cuirass is a highly valuable item as Alchemist benefits from armor buffs and attack speed. It essentially makes Alchemist deals more damage across every aspect, and is also easy to build with multiple components.

Late Game Items

Overwhelming Blink is an extension to Blink Dagger, makes it a great item without occupying additional slot. Overwhelming Blink causes enemies in an AOE of where you blinked, to be reduced and lets Alchemist deals higher attack damage based on his strength stats. This turns Alchemist into a tank, which is trouble for the enemy’s puny damage output.
Manta Style lets you split-push lanes and farm the map even faster due to their Radiance burn. It gives you attack speed too, but the main selling point is survivability in the form of a dispel. Often dubbed the “Manta Dodge”, many carry players buy Manta for the sake of having another escape item to disjoint enemy attack.
Octarine Core reduces the cooldown on your ultimate and gives you lifesteal from the Radiance burn and Acid Spray. This further increases your ability to survive team-fights. Alchemist relies on his ultimate to fight effectively, and the cooldown reduction from Octarine helps you to fight more often and roughly half the downtime of Chemical Rage. It will also give you a lot of HP and mana.
Abyssal Blade is a good item against farmed carries, or carries which are hard to lockdown. It will tank up up a bit as well through more HP and damage block. It will also give you a bash chance which is great on Alchemist as he has very high attack speed when activating Chemical Rage. Top item pick for some of the best Dota 2 players.

Situational Items

Aghanim’s Scepter – Once Alchemist is six-slotted, the next best thing is to keep farming, but for the sake of your teammates. Donating an Aghanim’s Scepter bonus also grants Alchemist bonuses of 25 bonus damage and 5% spell amplification per stack.
Silver Edge can be used it in conjunction with Unstable Concoction very well, by casting it before turning invisible and then ganking the enemy from invisibility. Make sure to hit the enemy once before to get the bonus damage and to minimize the reaction time of the opponent, as the stun will not have to travel very far.
Moon Shard – If you are 6-slotted and have fulfilled your duties of donating five Aghanim’s Scepters, you can grant yourself a Moon Shard to further increase your attack speed. You can also grant it to allies if you are at this point strong enough and your allies need to catch up.
Heart of Tarrasque lets Alchemist tank up significantly which may be needed in certain situations, perhaps against a Faceless Void for example.
Butterfly gives you lots of evasion and attack speed, and can be good against lineups with lots of carries with low accuracy.
Monkey King Bar if you need more accuracy against heroes like Luna or Tinker. The attack speed it provides is very helpful for Alchemist as well, especially when coupled with items like Maelstrom or Skull Basher.
Diffusal Blade if you’re facing heroes like Omniknight, Windranger and Necrophos then you may benefit very much from having a Diffusal Blade, especially if your allies aren’t getting some.
Nullifier gives you lots of damage and armor. Both of these stats are very good on Alchemist, although it’s only worth picking it up if you can make use out of the active. If you’re facing heroes that have strong buffs that make them much harder to kill, then you should consider a Nullifier.

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Interesting Alchemist Match-ups

Ancient Apparition

Ancient Apparition is a phenomenal counter against Alchemist by preventing him from regenerating HP through Chemical Rage. This renders his ultimate obsolete and the reason why we don’t recommend Armlet regardless of an enemy AA. You would want to think twice when facing an AA by changing your item built to get either a faster BKB or itemizing towards an offensive playstyle.

Creep heroes

Alchemist does very well against Nature’s Prophet, Naga Siren and Broodmother as he can farm their creeps very easily through Acid Spray and Radiance. He will also gain gold from each creep he kills making him an ideal pick against such heroes.

Minus armor heroes

Heroes who tend to buy items such as Desolator, Assault Cuirass or those who have minus armor spells are very strong against Alchemist as they can easily take advantage of his very low armor. However, making Assault Cuirass a mandatory mid-game item can negate negative armor debuffs, even the ones as bad as Slardar’s Corrosive Haze.

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