Gameplay

Playstyle
Alchemist is a formidable carry capable of amassing large amounts of gold, and sustaining himself almost indefinitely during teamfights. Armed with a Shadow Blade, Alchemist can also gank effectively by stunning enemies with Unstable Concoction. Because of the extra gold from his Greevil's Greed, Alchemist will always snowball into a potent fighter if a match goes long. Under Chemical Rage, a well-farmed Alchemist can demolish heroes and structures alike with alarmingly fast attack speed, all the while regenerating his health at incredible rates.
Pros	Cons
Scales well into late game. Good comeback potential. Capable of farming gold quickly. Great pusher. Highest attack speed in the game with ultimate. Can give allied heroes Aghanim's Scepter upgrades so that they don't have to farm it.	Highly reliant on his ultimate. Vulnerable to disables. Abilities may require setup. Worst attribute growth in the game. Low mobility, damage and attack speed early game.

Carry

• Greevil's Greed helps Alchemist farm key items like Radiance and Assault Cuirass. Acid Spray is also leveled early to aid in clearing creep waves, especially if Alchemist goes solo in lane. A successful player aims to overwhelm the opposing team during the mid game, when Chemical Rage makes Alchemist hard to kill.
• Alchemist has a choice of investing in physical attacks with damage items and talents.
  • Or, he can rely on Unstable Concoction buffed with talents and Octarine Core to deal physical damage and provide long disables.
    • Octarine Core lowers cooldown on Chemical Rage to boost his survivability. He can also uses Manta Style more often to dispel disables, like silence, and dodge self-exploded Unstable Concoction.

Ability Builds

Generic Alchemist
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Tips & Tactics

General

• Alchemist is a fairly heavy carry, but may still have trouble dealing with other hard carries, such as Spectre.
• Alchemist farms faster than any other hero, thank to Greevil's Greed.
  • As of 7.33, each jungle camp has at least another one close by. As a result,Alchemist can farm 2(sometimes even 3) of them at the same time with Acid Spray.
• His armor is fairly low,so it is advised investing in some armor items or avoiding harrassment in lane.
• Because of his farming speed, he can spend a long time idle and join fights later without much of a fallback.

Abilities

Acid Spray

• Use Acid Spray to farm in lane if your opponents are harassing you heavily.
• Acid Spray is useful in farming creeps. Ask a support to stack camps for you.
  • It is possible for Alchemist to safely farm ancient creeps early on with Acid Spray. Combined with Greevil's Greed, this can give Alchemist incredible amounts of gold over time. It is not uncommon to have expensive items like Radiance or Mjollnir by 14 minutes with this strategy.
  • Acid Spray can also be used to stack creeps from a distance. Using it on creeps will cause them to automatically pursue Alchemist, and therefore move away from the camp.
• Use Acid Spray to dissuade enemies from defending their towers, or pushing into yours.
• If playing mid, use Acid Spray to push the wave before you pick up the rune every five minutes.

Unstable Concoction

• One point in Unstable Concoction is usually enough until other abilities have been leveled.
• This ability deals physical damage so is amplified with Acid Spray.
• Smart opponents can make it difficult to land Unstable Concoction by juking and avoiding your vision, causing the backfire. It may be better to use it immediately when an enemy reaches the treeline, even if you lose damage and stun duration.
• Enemies will attempt to disable Alchemist while Unstable Concoction is brewing, preventing him from throwing it and causing him to suffer a long stun in addition to the first enemy disable. Try to stay out of reach until you are ready to throw Unstable Concoction.
• Fully brewed, Unstable Concoction is one of the most potent stuns in the game, in both damage and stun duration. The enemy is able to see your timer. It is imperative that you either start channeling within range, or channel a few seconds of the concoction from within fog before revealing yourself.
• If you are in a tight spot and have no way to escape with low health, Unstable Concoction can be used to deny yourself.
• It may not be a good idea to charge Unstable Concoction if you believe you are about to lose vision of an enemy (such as when chasing through trees), as you could end up stunning yourself.
• Begin charging Unstable Concoction before using Shadow Blade or Silver Edge to take enemies by surprise.
• Unstable Concoction can be used to deny yourself. If you find yourself in a sticky situation with Chemical Rage on cooldown and no means of escape, you can channel this spell in the hopes of denying yourself.

Corrosive Weaponry

• Tips needed.

Greevil's Greed

• Greevil's Greed increases Alchemist's gold income right from the start of the game.
• Alchemist does not have to collect Bounty Rune himself to gain bonus gold.
• Thus, his team getting two initial bounty runes already puts himself ahead in networth.
  • As a result, Alchemist's team may want to contest the enemies' bounty runes throughout the game to gain even more income for themselves and for Alchemist especially.

Chemical Rage

• Chemical Rage dispels, and disjoints projectiles, but can be difficult to time properly.
• Feel free to use Chemical Rage for its healing effects.
• This ability makes Alchemist very hard to kill early on and allows him to take stacked camps, even Ancient camps.
• Chemical Rage scales strongly with attack damage boosting items, however at the same time Alchemist does little damage without such items.
• The base attack time change of Chemical Rage does not alter the value of attack speed, neither up nor down. You still want to have a good mix of items that give attack speed and damage.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango regenerates health so Alchemist can survive the lane.

• Healing Salve restores health also.

• Iron Branch is cheap and gives small attribute bonuses.

• Enchanted Mango gives health regeneration, and burst mana to use Acid Spray.

Early game:

• Ring of Protection is a relatively cheap item that alleviates early armor problems.Depending on the situation,it can be upgraded to Buckler.

• Quelling Blade helps Alchemist get last hits with increased attack damage against creeps.

• Boots of Speed give a nice movement speed boost.

Mid game:

• Power Treads increase attack speed and strength to help Alchemist obtain last hits. The bonus intelligence helps him use more Acid Spray in the early to mid game.

• Armlet of Mordiggian works well with Chemical Rage's health regeneration, countering the item's health draining effect.

• Blink Dagger improves mobility so Alchemist can get in range and use Unstable Concoction on the enemies.

• Radiance is a good pickup since Alchemist can get it quickly with Greevil's Greed, when the burn damage hurts the most. It deals heavy damage to the enemy team, as Alchemist can stay alive for prolonged periods with Chemical Rage.

Late game:

• Boots of Travel allows Alchemist to split push lanes, and be present at while farming free lanes. Also, the movement speed boost greatly mitigates his weakness in mobility.

• Black King Bar protects Alchemist from most disables so he can continue to deal damage.

• Assault Cuirass lowers enemies' armor, which stacks with the armor reduction from Acid Spray. It also provides a useful aura to buff armor and attack speed the rest of your team.

• Aghanim's Scepter allows Alchemist to give the item to an ally, granting them it's upgrades for their abilities that are upgradable by it. And every time Alchemist gives Aghanim's Scepter to an ally, he will gain bonus attack damage and spell amplification.

• Aghanim's Shard will give Alchemist access to Berserk Potion ability that will allow him to apply a basic dispel on his allies, and give his allies extra attack speed, movement speed and health regeneration, essentially giving them the benefits of Chemical Rage.

Situational items:

• Manta Style is excellent for sieging buildings and taking waves, particularly in conjunction with Radiance. It also provides Alchemist with a much needed disjoint mechanism.

• Mjollnir increases Alchemist's attack speed greatly, and also gives a useful Static Charge to protect Alchemist or his teammates. Its lightning attack will also trigger often under Chemical Rage.

• Battle Fury allows Alchemist to farm much quicker.

• Blade Mail forces enemies to think twice about fighting back against Alchemist.

• Abyssal Blade goes well with Alchemist's high attack speed, and helps greatly in securing an enemy. It also gives bonus attack damage and greater survivability providing bonus HP and blocking damage from incoming attacks.

• Heaven's Halberd gives some strength, evasion, status resistance, and also gives the ability to disarm a threatening enemy.

• Heart of Tarrasque gives Alchemist a massive amount of health. Combined with the health regeneration from Chemical Rage, Alchemist is extremely hard to take down.

• Moon Shard grants increased attack speed to Alchemist without using any inventory slots. He can also use Moon Shard on an ally to give them the bonus attack speed instead.