If Alchemist is proving a problem in your pubs, then we’ve got the guide for you.
Patch 7.31d brought some pretty interesting changes to the current meta. After seeing Storm Spirit and Templar Assassin in every game, it was finally time for something new. Although these two heroes continue to play a vital role for some teams, there are a couple of new stars.
One of them is Alchemist, the one-man army. This hero has been “on and off” the meta for many years. Some teams used him even when he was not popular, but they rarely achieved any good results. However, the new meta greatly favors this hero, which is why Alchemist has become one of the top-tier picks.
Although almost every team puts him in the mid-lane, we’ve seen some games where Alch was in the carry position. Some teams even try to run him as a support so that he can give a free Aghs to one of the cores.
The reason why Alchemist is so famous in Dota 2 is because of his incredible farming speed. This is the hero with the highest GPM in the game, which means he becomes “online” much faster. As you can probably guess, many people want to do everything in their power to counter him, which is why this article will go over some of the things that work against this hero.
Gank him as fast and as often as possible
The fact that Alchemist farms faster than any other hero in the game means that you can’t just let him “do his thing”. If you only focus on your own game and don’t do anything about him, he will eventually take over and win. Hence, one of the best things you can do is to gank him as often and as much as possible.
The bad news is that this is not as easy as it seems, especially if he has babysitters. Nowadays, many teams decide to put one of the supports near his lane so that he can help when needed. If the hero doesn’t need any help, the support will simply stack Neutrals.
Although ganking a good Alchemist player is not easy, you have to remember that the hero has no defensive abilities besides his ult. He has a stun, but most people don’t level it early because they are more focused on farming.
Executing a gank is never easy, but you should try doing it at least a couple of times. In order to be effective, you need to have some kind of CC, such as a slow or stun. You will also need a smoke because teams will ensure to ward Alchemist’s lane.
Securing a few kills early on should definitely improve your chances of winning the game because he won’t be able to farm. Besides losing gold when dying, Alchemist loses his precious time that could’ve been used to farm his first item.
Be aware of his timing
As mentioned earlier, ganking Alchemist is not always easy. In fact, most people have many problems when trying to kill this hero because they have to use a lot of resources. Hence, there are many cases where this is just not possible.
If you find yourself in this situation, you must pay close attention to his timings and use this to your advantage. There are different kinds of Alchemist builds out there, but most of them focus on becoming tanky and doing more damage. In other words, you have to try to kill him before he gets his HoT or Satanic because it will be almost impossible to do that afterward.
Do everything in your power to prevent the hero from farming
Even though this is also related to ganks, we’ve decided to include it separately because it is crucial. If you can’t kill Alchemist during the laning stage, you must do everything you can to prevent the hero from farming.
There are loads of options, such as pressuring him in the jungle, blocking the neutral camps, and so on. Even though you can’t stop him from farming, you can reduce the amount of gold he gets.
The bad thing about doing this is that one of your teammates won’t be able to help the team because he will be busy with Alchemist. Sadly, this is a price that your team has to be ready to pay because the hero is just too strong to be left alone.
In an ideal situation, you will have heroes like Spirit Breaker, Chen or Enchantress. These three can easily roam the jungle and use their abilities/creeps to prevent Alch from securing all last hits.
Alchemist’s counters
If you and your team know what you’re doing, you don’t need to pick an Alchemist-specific counter to win. However, most people reading this probably play PUB games, which they can’t rely on their teammates. That’s why it is probably a good idea to pick a hero that works really well against Alchemist.
There are many counters that can make his core’s life a living hell. If we look at some of the DPC 2021/2022 matches during Tour 3, we can see that many teams pick Timbersaw vs Alchemist. This shouldn’t come as a surprise because Timber is one of the best counters against the fast-farming monster.
Aside from being impossible to kill, Timber’s Q and Ultimate allow him to kill Alchemist with little to no effort. He can even dive him behind the tower and chase him around the map if needed.
Apart from Timbersaw, another hero that can be annoying to play against is Huskar. Even though the two heroes are pretty even in the late game, Huskar can easily dominate against Alchemist during the early and mid game. In fact, he can completely bully him away from his lane.
Since picking Huskar is risky due to the many counters, some teams prefer to play it safe and go for another popular carry – Slark. Even though this is not exactly a counter to Alchemist, Slark can destroy the fast farmer once he gets a couple of times. Thanks to Essence Shift, Slark can become almost unstoppable and “farm” loads of stats from Alch before bringing him down.
