I think it is because most pubs pick alchemist when they want to farm elite items. Since they farm badly and then use the items badly this is a losing proposition.
The same problem occurs for anti-mage and lots of jungling - afk farm prone heroes. The hero itself is not as weak as a 40% winrate... but the way people tend to play it loses. Remember your experience is not reflected in those average stats. Average players think 400 gpm on Alchemist in a 50 min game is great farm. You are actually getting close the true average 470 gpm, which includes losses. But you know that really a 470 gpm game would be bad. But even when someone does get lots of farm they just charge in and stun themselves in front of the enemy team late game, feed and die and lose.
Note that Lone Druid, Chen, NP, and Enchantress are all also way down near the losing end of the list. These heroes can be very powerful, but in the hands of a typical pub they just slow farm items they will use to mostly feed and fail. Even Naga Siren has a 44% winrate... how is that possible? Naga is first ban material, very strong. I suck at naga and have 54% win.
because most people are dumb and max greed first. That is really it.
last ten alchs i see go 2/0/4 or some dumb shit like that and build midas and battle fury, as if alch needs fucking help getting gold... Honestly building midas on alch is just dumb in the current meta but if you can get it in under 5 minutes then its acceptable.
Basically people play the hero completely wrong. You want to win alch in pubs.... get level 1 greed only if you get the first rune, otherwise, get one point greed, max stun, and get 2 points at least in spray before maxing greevil depending on the game.
Agree with that some of these low win-rate heroes are very powerful. I guess these heroes are not very noob friendly and pub players tend to get too greedy and ignore the team-play aspect or simply just play the hero wrong. Heros with high win-rate are probably those easier heros to play where you can play badly and still win.
I don't agree with concede.
Regarding the carry role, there's no point attempting to build Alch for early because then why not just pick other heroes that were geared for that role in the first place? The reason why Alch doesn't work so well in pubs is because people don't like babysitting carries constantly. The supports generally wanna roam/gank/pull instead of camping the lane and stacking like a no life.
As a result, there are no stacks for Alch (seriously one quad stack for an alch is like 1k+ gold) and as a result of pulling, Alch loses out on farm. The support might get 70g from pulling but then Alch loses 200g from the fucked equilibrium.
The hero can get 6 slotted at 20 minutes but without your teammates properly doing their job, you get fucked because Alch is a major squishy early mid game.
alchemist has a low winrate since at the release of 6.84 there was a trend of playing alch as a "scepter bitch", which was a terrible strategy, since you basically had a completely useless farming carry sacrificing all the farm for his offlaners and supports and putting huge pressure on the mid to win the game for him.
his armor and str is so shet. u need to free farm 30 min or u fucked
edit : no he is actually so sheeeeeeeet.
@sango
"The reason why Alch doesn't work so well in pubs is because people don't like babysitting carries constantly. The supports generally wanna roam/gank/pull instead of camping the lane and stacking like a no life."
which means you have to skill as a fighting alch or you get shit on and your farm is wasted anyway.
His winrate mostly comes from normal skill (75% of matches), where people can't farm, supports don't stack and there are a lot more 2-1-2 and 2-1-1-1 (jungler) than 3-1-1, which means a lot of the times Alchemist will be 2v2 and he's not a good duolaner without more points in his stun. So will often feed first blood and bloods after that when going the max greed build (maxing greed + rushing midas). And midas is almost always bought there, even though he can farm super fast without it.
its hard to execute him properly, and even if you manage to do it, u will still lose (most likely), cz hes not that great atm
the heros just bad, but maxing greed is the correct way to play him (safe lane at least), you can get like 20 min bf shadow blade ac or something
I've thought of playing Alchemist as a semi-support who can pick up useful utility items for the team. Tried it only once, but was rather successful.
alch has low winrate bec nobody knows how to play support alch, 95% of ppl who play carry alch have no idea how to farm or buy good items, and the hero is just weak in general
hero too weak, time window for him to wreck is too small too and they can eaasily dodge it, afk farm and rape him later
All I can say is max greed, u can get a midas before 5 minutes. He is hard to execute but farms like a beast. He was stronger when he had that +1000hp during his ulti. I understand lots of people feel he is shit.
1 point in greed is enough.
Maxing it you are useless and by the time you can farm you have lost map control.
We are talking about global win rate which means pubs. Assuming pubs are going to protect you and not feed 4v5 for 20 minutes is laughable
I loved radiance on him, its such a good build, lets you fight early and it doesnt really matter if you get kitted, plus i am sure you farm faster than with bfury.
Treads radiance solar crest, so tanky.
Concede you really only need like 12 minutes of free farm to get radiance with alch, or less actually.
I died 2 times, only had 50 cs at 10 min and got radiance at 16 so not bad.
radiance better if you go manta for naga split farm.
otherwise BF is better with attack speed items if you are going the classic speed and basher combo.
Yeah but the thing is if you go bfury you need some attack speed item after right ? but if you go radiance you still do damage and farm regardless of your next item so you can get some tanky item like solar crest.
Solar crest + blind = shitload of physical EHP
BF allows Alch to farm much faster than Radiance even without attack speed items.
Wasn't this explained by Matrice or some other well respected high mmr player on dotabuff awhile back? The problem with Radiance is that it's stagnant whereas the fury scales allowing him to clear waves and stacks near instantaneously as the game progresses.
It isn't that bad as a rush item either because Alch has ultimate and Acidspray (which works well with fury) to clear large waves or stacks even without aspd boosting items.
@Concede
But I'm talking about the optimal way to play Alch and why it doesn't work in pubs.
If you going to build Alch for early, don't choose him at all. There are many more great choices that can fill in that role better like a Bylatcyka. If you pick an Alch, it's to get 6 slotted fast and end the game.
It just so happens that hero needs more babysitting than other carries as well as stacks that make him less situationally viable in pubs.
I think matrice said the opposite. he was advocating radiance, I remember him saying the EHP from the miss chance was good which made the item even better, if I'm not mistaken.
The reason Alchemist is not picked in competitive is because he sucks in the teamfights.
Even if his farm speed is huge, he will be just a fat melee creep running around in the teamfight regenerating hp. The Unstable Concoction is so bad right now that you need a blink to have any hope of landing it. If you don't have a blink you can't even use it in the teamfights because there are just so many ways of dodging it that you are more likely to stun yourself and simply die, as the most farmed hero in your team.If you do get a blink your farming speed will decrease and you will struggle with inventory slots. And you can blink in and stun a target, you will get counter initiated and killed in a split second giving the enemy team huge amounts of gold since your net worth is so high.
His laning is very poor and you will need a babysitter and even then a good dual lane by the enemy can shut you down in the lane.
He has no escape mechanisms, no mobility, low split push potential. Single target, no AOE like Gyro, Lesh, Spectre, Luna, etc.
So in paper his dps when he's 6slotted is very strong, but in real life it doesn't work that way.
Midas on Alch is for levels, he needs level 16 asap. He needs more armor/HP/stat gain to be a good carry and a more reliable stun to be a good support. He is just in a bad place right now.
It is because most people are getting shit like Midas, BFury, Maelstorm and SB with no stat and armor items and die to 4 hits from another carry. I would say Armlet is ridiculously good on him and should be gotten every game. For a farming item, Radi is the best just because of it gives physical EHP. Late game, Skadi is way better than both Heart and AC.
The hero just needs some armor, give him more armor and watch him become the most picked carry in the meta.
Alch has a low winrate because he is the ultimate "dream" hero. Pub players in the 1k-3k range watch pro players play him effectively in pubs and think, "hey, I can do that too." However, the hero requires space created by his supports and perhaps a few jungle camps to farm before he truly becomes scary. He should theoretically have one or two major items (such as Battle Fury, Heart, Radiance, or anything expensive) before the 15 minute mark, but the reality is that nobody plays support at the required level in the aforementioned MMR range. So really, Alch just needs a lot of space to farm safely, kind of like an Anti Mage 2.0
Yes but anti mage can make space for himself and can farm where other carries wouldnt be safe so its shit on that part too
Please sign in to post comments.
Is it because he his underpowered? or not noob-friendly?. Anyway been winning quite a few matches playing with him lately.
http://www.dotabuff.com/players/63014779/matches?date=&hero=alchemist&skill_bracket=&lobby_type=&game_mode=®ion=&faction=&duration=&enjoyment=any&timezone=Australia%2FSydney