7.33 changed many things – more neutral items, different play styles, and a much-expanded map.
But one thing hasn’t changed: moolah rules. The more gold you get, the higher chances of you winning. Of course, the opposition isn’t going to lie over while you farm to the biggest items in the game.
Enter the Alchemist. It used to be that whenever carries in pubs picked this hero, he’d get insta-reported. But it’s no longer the case in 7.33. The annoying goblin sitting on the ogre is now a top top hero because of the sheer size of the map and the large number of neutral camps. Taking advantage of the innate Greevil’s Greed ability, (new in 7.33) Alchemist WILL farm up a storm.
It’s just a matter of how fast he can do it. If he can do it in time, he will dominate team fights with his superior items and his ability to give Aghanim’s Scepters to his teammates. Think early Aghs on Disruptor or even Warlock as early as minute 25. Insane? We think so too.
So put together a short guide on how you can achieve 800 GPM nearly (every) game.
- Farming Efficiency is key
The most important thing about playing carries for Dota is how to maximise your farming efficiency. What this means is a few things.
First, make sure you know everything there is to know about creep aggro and last hitting. If you haven’t, head over to YouTube to check out the various content creators who have great guides on how to last hit properly. This includes when to push the wave and when to keep wave equilibrium. Crucial basic stuff.
Second, 7.33 introduced many new camps at the bottom/top of the map for carries to farm. Here’s a quick breakdown of the map in gold terms.
If you are Radiant, you’d want to take on both camps just below your Tier 1 Tower when your wave is pushed out. You can easily do this with Acid Spray in the area circled red. Keep your mana up with clarities and Greevil’s maxed for top efficiency.
- Item Timings
By far, the most important item to get is Radiance. This will accelerate your farm speed and allow you to roam the map to farm even more quickly. But how fast should you be hitting the target?
According to Dotabuff, pros are hitting the timings between 10 minutes (in a stomp game) to 15 minutes. Here’s dyracho’s build at the recent Berlin Major final against Liquid, where he used Alchemist in the 4th and final game of the series.
He bought a Basilus to keep up his mana and headed straight for Radiance in the 12th minute.
Other Immortal players in pub games tend to go for Soul Ring to keep up their farming speed and that’s fine too.
- Item build
After Radiance, the next two items are about team fights. Black King Bar allows you to charge in with your ultimate on. Dagger allows you to initiate fights with Unstable Concoction. Following that, the usual items of Assault Cuirass and Basher will help.
- Skill build
Simple and straightforward: Unstable Concoction and Acid Spray before taking Chemical Rage at level 6. Abuse your ulti to farm fast and quickly since it’s on such a short cooldown.
Lastly, don’t forget that the whole point of Alchemist is to get gold but the end point of Dota 2 is to win the game. The Alchemist gives you a huge headstart and you should use this quickly to take fights when their carries are weak. Before minute 20 you should be able to stomp most of their team if you have played your cards right.
Don’t be an ass and go AFK farming for 30 minutes. Fact: Alchemist is not a hypercarry and will lose out to the current meta carries of Naga, Medusa, Slark and Terrorblade. And they will catch up if you don’t start to win the early fights.
Play to his strengths – get gold fast, fight early, and stomp the game. Don’t forget that winning the game takes more than just farming. Coordinate with your teammates, ping when you are ready to go; enjoy the game and chill. Just like that Razzil on the ogre’s back.
