Chen, the Holy Knight: A Detailed Guide *Outdated*

*This guide is outdated. There may be a time when I come back to Dota and update the guide, but there isn't much here that is relevant to the game and how to play Chen in today's meta.


This guide is intended for players new to Chen, but I hope it will be informative enough that seasoned players might be able to take something away from it as well. Chen is a versatile support that can impact the game in many ways. He's great at pushing down towers, ganking and applying pressure to lanes, and he can protect his allies in a pinch. His ability to control jungle creeps is intimidating at first, but with a little practice, he quickly becomes a very fun and rewarding hero to play.

Introduction

The main reason I wanted to put this guide together is to help players who are new to Chen, or who are intimidated by the micro required to control multiple units. Chen is a very fun hero to play, and if you know what you're getting into before you jump into the jungle, you'll find that it's actually easier than people make it seem. I'm not the best Chen around, so I'm not treating this guide as the Chen bible, but I do know my way around the jungle. If this guide helps at least one person get into playing Chen, then I'll feel like my effort with this guide was a success. Any feedback is welcome, and if other Chen players feel like I left anything out, or that something I've said is wrong, by all means let me know.


If you want to follow this guide in game, check out the hero build here.

Chen's Skills

Penitence

Forces an enemy unit to move slower and take more damage from attacks and spells.


DURATION: 7 / 7 / 7 / 7
SLOW: 8% / 16% / 24% / 32%
BONUS DAMAGE: 8% / 16% / 24% / 32%
MANA COST:100/100/100/100
COOLDOWN: 14



Penitence is a nice bonus to Chen's abilities, but it's usually a good idea to skip this until later in the game. I find that the damage from Test of Faith helps more for ganking, while Penitence has a small effect at low ranks. The duration is great at 7 seconds, but at low ranks the slow and bonus damage are barely noticeable. It also doesn't help that the bonus damage is a separate source of physical damage instead of increasing overall damage. This means that armor effects the amount of damage done, which makes it lackluster at lower ranks. I prefer to just max out Test of Faith before I place any points in Penitence. The reasoning for this is that you won't have the mana to support using it on top of the rest of your skills and Mekanism until you pick up Arcane boots. Even then you will have to carefully manage your mana, because you want to make sure you can use Hand of God and Mekanism when needed.

Test of Faith

Deals random damage to test an enemy unit's faith.


DAMAGE MIN: 50 / 100 / 150 / 200
DAMAGE MAX: 100 / 200 / 300 / 400
MANA COST: 175/175/175/175
COOLDOWN: 24




Test of Faith used to be one spell with two functions and the same cooldown, but a recent patch split it into two separate spells with their own cooldowns. The first part of Test of Faith is a straightforward nuke. The damage is random, but the plus side is that it's pure damage, so it will still hurt regardless. I recommend waiting until level 3 before ganking if you can help it, because rank 2 Test of Faith will do a minimum of 100 damage, which is the maximum amount for rank 1. The extra damage can help a lot in a gank especially when used on low health target like a support.

Test of Faith (Teleport)

Teleports a friendly unit back to the base. Creeps are teleported instantly, Heroes have a delay before teleporting.


HERO TP DELAY: 6 / 5 / 4 / 3
MANA COST: 200/200/200/200
COOLDOWN: 24





The second half of Test of Faith is one of my favorite support spells in the game. Saving someone from death with this is very satisfying. There are some things to consider when using this spell, and knowing when to use it will take some game experience and awareness. The major thing I want to stress is to never put yourself in a dangerous position while trying to save a teammate. If you're absolutely sure you can teleport them out while staying safe in the process, then do it. Never gamble with this spell. It's not worth two people dying instead of one. If you're trying to save a teammate who bought a rapier or a gem, then that's different. In most cases though, it's almost always not worth it. Also, be careful when using this in team fights. You don't want to use this too early, and take a teammate out of the fight when they can still contribute. Use what you can to keep them alive and see if you can turn the fight around before going for the teleport.

Aside from saving teammates, it does have other uses. Using this on your creeps will instantly send them to base, which will save you a lot of time roaming your jungle trying to find replacements. You miss out on a lot of XP if your creeps die too much, so never let them die if you can help it. Creeps are going to die in team fights that much is certain, but you also don't want to feed them to the enemy. Take care of your creeps!

There are also tricks you can do with certain heroes. Puck can refill her bottle or buy items by casting Illusory Orb during the delay, and then quickly casting Ethereal Jaunt back. Kunkka can do the same with X Marks the Spot. You can save Lone Druid a cooldown by sending his bear back to heal. You can be very creative with this spell, so experiment with some friends or in pubs.

Holy Persuasion

Gives control of an enemy or neutral creep, and gives it bonus hit points.


MAX UNITS: 1 / 1 / 2 / 3
HEALTH BONUS: 75 / 150 / 225 / 300
MANA COST: 100/100/100/100
COOLDOWN: 30/26/22/18



This spell is what makes Chen so unique from other supports. It allows him to jungle at level 1, and at max rank you can control up to 3 creeps at the same time. If you use Persuasion on a creep while you already control 3, the first one you took control of will die. You can only take control of non magic immune, and non ancient creeps. You can however steal enemy neutral creeps that are taken with Helm of the Dominator. If you notice the enemy carry picking this item up early, you will want to ward their ancient camp and steal his creep when possible. It stops them from stacking their ancients, and will slow him down.

Hand of God

Fully regenerates any creeps under Chen's control and heals all allied heroes on the map. Upgradable by Aghanim's Scepter.


HEAL: 200 / 300 / 400
MANA COST: 200/300/400
COOLDOWN: 160/140/120
SCEPTER UPGRADE: 30s Cooldown




Global heal on a long cooldown. You want to make this spell count when you cast it, but at the same time, you don't want to hesitate and sit on it without ever using it. Map awareness and practice are key to getting off a good Hand of God. It's also amazing bait if you coordinate with your team. Trick the enemy into chasing a teammate into a favorable position and then turn the fight around with the heal. Scepter gives this an incredible boost by lowering the cooldown to 30 seconds, so always try to pick one up if you can.

Skill Build

The game plan for this build is to pick up rank 2 Test of Faith for early ganking, and then maxing Holy Persuasion by level 7 for pushing and roaming power. Chen is at his strongest at level 7, so you want to be very active from that point forward. Try to get people together to push towers, roam, ward, whatever. Always try to be doing something or have a plan to get something done. Never sit around farming for too long on Chen, get your gold from assists or towers.

Go here for the in-game Hero Build.

Item Progression

Starting Build

You can pick any combination of the first 4 items. I like to see what the lane support wants to get first before I buy anything and go from there. If they buy a courier, then I'll get both sets of wards. It's a good idea to make sure you have proper ward coverage to defend your jungle and give vision of at least one rune. If you have money to spare, get an early smoke and gank early, just don't let the enemy see you with it, or they will expect the gank and play passively.

Chen doesn't need items to jungle, and you can get by with just a clarity and a branch or two. I like to play it safe and grab a tango in case I get harassed, and you can pool a charge to your mid lane or carry. The branches build into Mekansm which will save you some bag space and gives you some early game stats.

At 3:00

Try to buy the flying courier ASAP (it's available at exactly 3:00) and you will help your team out in a big way. Not only can people use the courier more freely and mid can start bottle crowing, but it lowers the chance of your courier getting sniped if its not walking slowly on the ground. You're also saving your lane support some gold by taking care of the flying courier. If you bought wards at the start of the game, you won't be able to pick up wards for another couple minutes. Keep an eye on the stock timer and try to pick up the next set if you can. You want to have constant vision of the river in the early game, so try to stay on top of warding. Chen accumulates gold fast in the jungle and can function with minimal items to begin with, so it's not going to set you back in a big way.

Pre-Core

As you farm for your Ring of Basilius and Brown Boots, you want to start eyeing up lanes to gank. If your ganks aren't successful because you're being seen by their wards, just grab some smoke and try again as soon as you can. People play a lot more aggressive if they think they're safe, and if someone dodges a gank attempt, they will think they deterred you from ganking them again anytime soon. Wrong. Get a smoke and put the fear of Chen in them.

Once you get Buckler + Ring of Basilius, you can make a play at a tower if you get some favorable creeps, if not keep working on finishing your Mek.

Core

Once you get to this point you can really start applying pressure and start fighting for map control. Always keep tabs on the ward cooldown in shop, and keep observers and sentries on the map. Placing sentries during mid game is one of the best things you can do as a support. Dewarding and denying the enemy vision wins games. People do very dumb things when they have no vision, so take advantage of that and force them into making mistakes. Use sentries on common ward spots, and don't be afraid to place them down in uncommon spots either, they have no stock limit so it's a good idea to have a couple on you at all times if you can afford to do so. Keep the smokes coming too and get your team involved in roaming ganks. Sentries can no longer spot out smoke ganks, so they are more lethal than they have ever been.

Luxury Items

Anything past your core on Chen is a situational luxury. You can get by with just your core. I don't recommend it, but it's very doable. I'll list a few choices I would make in a game depending on the situation.


Force Staff



I love Force Staff, and it's easily my favorite item to get on any support. The mobility and positional advantages it can give you is crazy. My favorite thing to do when I'm having a good game is to pick up a force staff and gank someone with it. You can force staff one of your creeps (preferably a centaur) and catch someone out of position. Nobody, and I mean nobody expects a flying centaur to smash them in the face. When you're not trying to be fancy, you can use it to save your teammates or yourself by pushing them out of harms way, or make plays and push your carry on top of an enemy he's trying to chase. It synergizes really well with your Test of Faith (Teleport) as well, and will give you the room needed to send the person back safely.

Heroes I would buy this against everytime: Riki, Clockwork, Doom, LIfestealer, and Ursa.

Vladimir's Offering



It's a good idea to buy this if you have two melee heroes on your team. If none of them plan on going for it, grab it as soon as you can. It's not that expensive, and you should already have Ring of Basilius which builds into it. Make sure you grab an Alpha Wolf when possible, because the auras do stack.


Aghanim's Scepter




Many Chen players consider this item core and I don't disagree. The only problem I have with it is most games tend to finish before I can complete it. Maybe I spend too much on wards, or delay it by going Force Staff so much, but I do try to finish it as soon as I can. If you have the mana to support it, you'll be capable of burst healing your entire team (with mek) for 650 health every 30 seconds, and 400 of that is global.


Necronomicon




Necro is a good item to grab if you plan on pushing towers down really fast, and a must buy if you have Lycan on your team. It's a pretty expensive item (but worth it), so try to farm this up to level 3 after your core items. It's a very potent item on Chen, and the true sight it gives you is really nice against stealth heroes.


Ghost Scepter




This isn't really a luxury, it's more a situational core item. If you find you're being focused by a lot physical heroes, or one fed physical carry then this is a must buy. Just be careful when picking this up against heroes with decent amount of burst magical damage.

Heroes I would buy this against: Ursa, Lifestealer, Anti-Mage, Lycanthrope,
Heroes I would not buy this against: Lion, Tinker, Lina

Item Progression - Continued

Hood of Defiance






Worth buying against caster heavy teams, and an instant buy vs Zeus. You can upgrade it into a pipe if nobody else picked one up already.

Heroes to buy this against: Lion, Tinker, Lina, Warlock, Lich, Zeus, Invoker

Boots of Travel



I would normally stick to arcanes because you will need all the mana you can get, but Boots of Travel may be necessary from time to time so you can sneak into an enemies base late game or to deal with split pushers. Really depends on the situation.

Items I don't recommend but could be bought if the situation allows it

Urn of Shadows



Not a terrible item to get if nobody else on your team gets it and someone has already picked up a Mekansm. I would much prefer to hold Mek on Chen than any other hero that would want one, but if a Dark Seer for example farms one really fast, it's not the end of world.


Medallion of Courage



Viable for fast Roshan kills, and is useful with other negative armor abilities and items vs high armor targets. Not a bad pickup vs a Dragon Knight or a Lich. Don't buy if someone else has one.


Eul's Scepter of Divinity



I love this item, but I have a hard time justifying buying it on Chen before getting scepter. Situationally vs a Huskar or Spirit Breaker, it can be a great pickup. You can also use it to setup for your Creeps disable with it, so its not a bad item at all on Chen.


Drums of Endurance



Good stats, and good active and aura if you're looking for a quick boost. There are better items to go for if you're just looking for stats though, and someone else will most likely already have it on your team. If no one does, it's a decent buy.


Helm of the Dominator



I don't recommend it, but having 4 creeps is fun if you're doing really well.


Scythe of Vyse



Chances are you won't be able to finish this unless you're swimming in gold (very unlikely). Great item for any int hero and it's awesome CC, so it's worth a mention.

Hot Keys, and Control Groups

The easiest way to get better at microing multiple units in Dota or any RTS style game, is to become familiar with control groups, and to set up your keybinds to use them with the least effort possible. Everything after that is just practice.

To set up control groups to your liking, go to options and head to the controls and unit actions menu (this is the default options screen).


I don't recommend copying my settings. They work well for me, but may not be comfortable for you

On the right are all of the control group hotkeys. I prefer to leave them as is, but realistically you will only use around 1-6 control groups depending on the hero you're playing. I highly recommend that you leave Control Group Tab as Tab. You can asign multiple units to one group and press tab to cycle between them. This frees up hotkeys and makes life easier when you control multiple units of the same type (ex. Assigning two Centaurs to the same hotkey)

On the left, you'll see keybinds for just your hero and courier. I always have my hero bound to space so I can quickly double tap space to focus the camera on my hero. A lot of people I know prefer to set their hero to 1. Other notable hotkeys in this menu are select all units, and select all other units. It's handy to be able to quickly select your units no matter where they are on the map if you haven't assigned them to a control group, so it might useful to assign a hotkey to these.




The next thing you might want to do is head to the abilities tab and make sure your hotkeys for neutrals are to your liking. I personally just mirror them from my hero abilities.





The last page you might want to adjust settings on is in the game tab, under general. Auto selecting summoned units is useful for quickly assigning units like the Dark Troll Summoner's skeletons to control groups and moving them around. Unified unit orders is handy when you need all of your units to attack or retreat all at the same time, so I keep it on.


Once you have all of your hotkeys assigned to your liking, you will want to load up a practice game and mess around with control groups until you find combinations you're comfortable with. An example of control group keybinds would be as follows:


1 - Chen
2 - Chen + all controlled creeps
3 - Creep 1
4 - Creep 2
5 - Creep 3

A group like this would make it very easy to just select and move Chen around if needed, or to quickly select Chen and his creeps all at the same time. You also want to be able to quickly select a specific creep when you need to use their spells or move them around. My hotkeys are as follows:

Space - Hero
1 - Chen + Creeps
2 - Creep group 1 (Centaurs, Hellbears, and any other melee creep)
3 - Creep group 2 (creeps with ranged spells like Troll Warlords or Satyr Tormentors)
4 - Courier
5 - All Creeps
6 - Creep I assign to stack the Ancient camp

It's a good idea to always bind the same types of creeps to the same key so you build up some muscle memory. If you always bind Centaur to 2, after a while your mind will know very quickly to hit 2 and press Q when you want your Centaur to stun.

Queuing Commands with the Shift Key

I'm sure many people are familiar with queuing commands and setting rally points in dota and/or other RTS games, but I feel that it is such an important part to microing efficiently that I wanted to dedicate a section to it. Feel free to skip it, if you already understand what it is.

Queuing commands is a great way to speed up your actions in game, and helps you be more efficient while doing different tasks like warding and jungling. First I'll explain how it works, then I'll give you a few examples on how it can you help in game.


When you issue a single command in Dota, your character will execute that command and then stand still. For example, when you simply move your character a few feet in front of you, you will see these arrows on the area that you clicked.





If you hold shift and click on the ground, you will see the rally point icon instead.





What this does is queue a command for your hero to move to that location after it's done finishing with the previous command. If your character is not already completing a command, it will simply just move to that location. In short, holding shift and issuing multiple commands will automate your character to do things in the order that you made them.

An easy way to try this out for yourself is to load into a custom game and buy a TP scroll. TP to one of your towers, and while you are teleporting, hold shift and click on the ground in front of the tower.



When you are done teleporting, your hero will move to that rally point instantly. If you didn't hold shift and clicked on the ground while teleporting, you would have canceled the TP and your character would have started walking to that location.


Shift queuing commands also works for things like casting spells, using items, right click attacking, and attack move commands. The most common example I can think of is the Sand King Epicenter/Blink combo. The combo works by starting Epicenter, holding shift, hitting your Blink Dagger hotkey, targeting where you want to blink, and then pressing Burrowstrike and targeting where you want to stun. The result is an automated Epicenter -> Blink -> Burrowstrike combo as soon as Epicenter is done channeling.


A few examples of how it can help you while playing Chen:


Warding

When placing wards and dewarding, you want to throw down wards quickly, deward if needed, and leave before any enemies show up to stop you. I always shift queue placing the wards, attack moving the ground so I will instantly auto attack an enemy ward if one is there, and then quickly have my character leave the area when I'm finished.


Automating jungle clearing

You can have your creeps automatically clear camps for you with shift queuing. Select your creeps, hold shift, and then attack move different camps. They will go from camp to camp and clear them on their own. This frees your hero up to do other things like quickly warding, stacking a camp, and allows you to look around the map to see how lanes are doing. I wouldn't leave your creeps alone for too long, but this helps when you need to quickly multi task.


Controlling your creeps more effectively during a gank or fight


This is probably one of the best ways to take advantage of shift queueing with Chen. To make life easier while fighting and trying to micro, simply select Chen, target an enemy with Test of Faith, hold shift and right click on them so you will auto attack them after casting your spell, and then switch to your creeps and manually control them. This allows you to focus on landing your creeps abilities, and body blocking people trying to escape. Practicing this method will help your micromanaging skills, and will make life a lot easier when controlling multiple units.



The uses of shift queueing are endless, and you can do some really cool things with it. Practice, and try stuff out.

The Creeps - Small and Medium Camps

As a Chen player, you should know what each neutral creep is capable of. With the exception of the Mud Golems, and most of the small camps, each creep camp leader can be of some use at different stages of the game. Being familiar with what each creep is capable of is important to being effective as Chen. There are 4 types of camps in the jungle on both sides of the map: Small, Medium, Large, and Ancients. This section will cover the small and medium camps.

Small Camps

The Kobold Camp



Camp Leader: Kobold Foreman

Speed Aura

The Kobold Foreman's cruel efficiency increases his movement speed and the movement speed of all nearby allies.

Radius: 900
Bonus Movement Speed: 12%


The Kobold Foreman has a decent passive movement speed aura. It could be useful when roaming around, but he has very low hp, and can be killed very easily. In my opinion, don't bother with it unless you absolutely need a creep right that second and there are no other camps available. If that's the case, have it follow you by issuing a follow command on yourself or micro it behind some trees, and hope it doesn't die instantly from AOE.



The Kobold and Troll Camp



Camp Leader: Kobold Foreman

Same as the camp above, but comes with two trolls instead of kobolds.



The Ghost Camp



Camp Leader: Ghost

Frost Attack

The Ghost launches an eerie attack that chills her enemies to their bones.

Movement Speed and Attack Speed Slow: 20%
Duration: 1.5



Aside from having an incredibly annoying attack speed debuff and movement speed slow, she's too squishy to use in most cases. It's possible to use her for a very early gank on the safe lane (it's hilarious to watch people panic and try to kill it), but you would be much better off with a bigger creep.




The Vhoul Assassin Camp



Camp Leader: None

Envenomed Weapon

The Vhoul Assassin has soaked his weapons in his own blend of painful predator venoms. Heroes recover from the poison more quickly.

Damage per Second: 2
Duration on Creeps: 20
Duration on Heroes: 10



This camp consists of 3 Vhoul Assassins that hit you with a small dot every time they auto attack you. These things are useless to control because they do very low damage and die instantly. Just kill these for easy gold and move on.





The Hill Troll Camp



Camp Leader: Hill Troll Priest

Heal

The Hill Troll Priest lays his holy blessing upon the target ally, replenishing some health.

Range: 350
HP Healed: 15
Delay: 0.5s
Mana Cost: 5

Mana Aura

Provides bonus mana regeneration to all nearby allies.

Radius: 900
Bonus Mana Regeneration: 2


They recently changed the Hill Troll's heal so it could be set to auto cast. This creep could be useful early game to assist your mid or safe lane by having it sit back near tower and heal your teammates. Like the rest of the small camp creeps, it's very fragile so it could easily be killed. In most cases, you should probably just clear the camp and move on.




The Harpy Camp



Camp Leader: Harpy Stormcaller

Chain Lightning

The Harpy Stormcrafter releases a high-voltage bolt of electricity at the target enemy, dealing damage. The bolt jumps to other nearby enemies, losing power with each jump.

Range: 900
Jump Range: 500
Initial Damage: 140
Damage Loss Per Jump: 25%
Maximum Targets: 4
Cooldown: 4s
Mana Cost: 50


This is by far the most useful small camp creep. If you find one of these early, you can send this to a lane to constantly harass an enemy. This creep will force them back to base if they stick around, or at the very least use up all of their regen and zone them away from the creep wave. The range on the nuke is huge, the mana cost is low, and the damage is big. Sit back and stack some camps, and use this guys nuke on cooldown. Your teammates will thank you for it.

Medium Camps

The Mud Golem Camp



Camp Leader: None

Magic Immune

Useless, fat, and annoying. Kill and move on.




The Ogre Camp



Camp Leader: Ogre Frostmage

Ice Armor

The Ogre Frostmage summons an invisible layer of icy air that surrounds the target friendly unit, increasing its armor and temporarily slowing any melee enemies that dare attack it.

Bonus Armor: 8
Duration: 45
Movement Speed Slow: 30%
Attack Speed Slow: 20%
Slow Duration: 5
Cooldown: 5
Mana Cost : 50


This creep is nice to have around when pushing towers, and can be useful against teams with melee carries and semi carries. It's very squishy, so you have to keep it away from danger. To give you an idea how strong his buff is, the difference between Lich's Ice Armor and the ogre's is 1 armor and you can have it very early in the game. This guy's buff lasts 5 seconds longer, and slow debuff duration lasts 3 seconds longer. Quite strong.




The Small Satyr Camp



Camp Leader: Satyr Mindstealer

Purge

The Satyr Banisher knows every trick in the book, allowing him to remove debuffs from allies or buffs from enemies. His trickery also slows the enemy's movement. If the enemy is a summoned unit or an illusion, it takes damage as well.

Range: 200
Duration: 5
Damage to Summons: 400
Cooldown: 5s
Mana Cost: 120

Mana Burn

The Satyr Mindstealer removes a fragment of his enemy's soul, burning away some mana and dealing damage equal to the amount of mana burned.

Range: 600
Mana Burned: 100
Cooldown: 18s
Mana Cost: 50


Neither of these creeps are very useful. The smaller satyr purge has too small of a range, and the creep is way too fragile to waste mana on controlling it. The mindstealer is a little more sturdy, but not by much, and the cool down on mana burn is too long to bother with. Kill these for fast gold and XP and move on.

The Creeps - Medium Camps continued and Large Camps

The Wolf Camp



Camp Leader: Alpha Wolf

Critical Strike

The cruel Alpha Wolf attacks his enemy's unprotected vitals at every opportunity, inflicting critical damage.


Critical Chance: 20%
Critical Damage: 2×

Packleader's Aura

The Alpha Wolf's ruthless attacks do extra damage. His commanding presence inspires nearby allies to attack ruthlessly as well.


Radius: 900
Bonus Damage: 30%


Another squishy creep, but worth having for the aura. It stacks with Vlads and Vengeance Aura

Large Camps

These are the camps you want to focus on. They provide the best creeps in the jungle, and give the most XP and gold per camp clear.


The Centaur Camp



Camp Leader: Centaur Conqueror

War Stomp

The Centaur Conqueror's powerful hooves stomp the ground, stunning and damaging nearby enemies. Heroes recover more quickly.

Radius: 250
Stun Duration: 3
Hero Stun Duration: 2
Damage: 25
Cooldown: 20s
Mana Cost: 100

Swiftness Aura

The seasoned Centaur Conqueror attacks more quickly and inspires nearby allies to follow suit.


Radius: 900
Bonus Attack Speed: 15



This camp will also spawn in the medium camps, which is great because it's one of the best creeps in the game to control. It has a good aura, and a powerful 2 second stun. The range is small, so it can be tricky to get up next to people sometimes, but as long as you keep your centaur in the front of your pack, you will find opportunities to land a stun. This creep is also decent for pushing because of the attack speed aura. I'll always send my Centaur past the tower to scout and try to zone people coming to defend the push. Nobody wants to get caught by the stun and most people will instantly turn around when they see one running up to them. Always try to keep one of these controlled if possible, they're too good not to have.



The Wildwing camp



Camp Leader: Wildwing Ripper

Toughness Aura

The Wildwing Ripper's fury numbs it to attacks and inspires nearby allies to withstand more blows


Radius: 900
Bonus Armor: 3

Tornado

CHANNELED - The Wildwing Ripper calls on the spirit of the wind, creating a sentient Tornado that he can control. The Tornado slows nearby enemies and does damage. It is invulnerable and can move anywhere.

Cast Range: 500
Duration: 40
Cooldown: 70
Mana Cost: 200


Tempest

The Tornado's overpowering winds slow all nearby enemies, flinging debris at them and inflicting damage every second. Enemies closer to the center of the Tornado take more damage.

Radius: 600
Near Unit Radius: 150
Movement Speed Slow: 15%
Attack Speed Slow: 15
Near Damage per Second: 45
Far Damage per Second: 15



The Wildwing is another great creep with multiple uses. The Toughness Aura is perfect for pushing towers with Ring of Basilius and Mekansm. With all 3 you will be giving every unit around you 7 bonus armor (after you use Mekansm's restore active). If you get your Mek fast, and have one of these creeps in your pack, talk your team into pushing a tower somewhere quickly, because it will go down with little effort. The Tornado spell is another cool feature of the Wildwing. It's good for harassing, stopping a push, and throwing down outside of a team fight. It's also a great farming tool to kill stacked camps while jungling (Skip to the Jungling section for a detailed explanation).


The Hellbear Camp



Camp Leader: Hellbear Smasher

Thunder Clap

The Hellbear Smasher claps his massive hands together, creating a deafening blast. The blast damages nearby enemies and throws them off their footing.

Radius: 300
Movement Speed Slow: 25%
Attack Speed Slow: 25
Slow Duration: 3
Damage: 150
Cooldown: 12
Mana Cost: 100


Good for farming jungle camps quickly with Thunder Clap, and it's a great creep to gank early with. Not many heroes can stand up to Hellbear beating them down at early levels, and the 150 aoe nuke on top of the slow is quite good. The damage from clap alone hurts more than a max damage rank 1 Test of Faith. I know I said to try to get level 3 before you gank earlier in this guide, but consider it if you get a Hellbear right off the bat and have disables in your lanes.



The Large Satyr Camp



Camp Leader: Satyr Tormenter

Shockwave

The Satyr Tormenter tears open an unstable rift to the underworld, creating a shockwave that travels in a line along the ground, dealing damage to enemies it hits.

Cast Range: 700
Distance: 800
Starting/Ending Radius: 180/200
Damage: 125
Cooldown: 8
Mana Cost: 100

Unholy Aura

The Satyr Tormenter's demonic communion allows him to emanate regenerative power, increasing the health regeneration of himself and all nearby allies.

Radius: 900
Bonus Health Regeneration: 4



This isn't one of my favorite creeps to grab, but it does have it's uses. It can help clear out jungle camps, especially the smaller satyr camps, and the nuke damage is awesome for early ganks. The HP aura is a nice bonus when combined with other auras and Mek. It's also good lane harass for mid lane if you have time to walk it out there. If possible I'd prefer to just stack this camp and Tornado it down with a Wildwing for a nice XP boost.

The Large Troll Camp

Camp Leader: Dark Troll Summoner

Ensare

The Dark Summoner tosses netting around an enemy's feet, briefly immobilizing the unit, though the unit can still attack and use abilities. Interrupts channeling abilities.

Range: 550
Duration: 1.5
Cooldown: 20
Mana Cost: 150

Raise Dead

The Dark Troll Summoner stirs the ground underfoot, raising the remains of trolls long dead, bringing to life two skeleton Warriors who will fight at his side.

Duration: 40
Cooldown: 25
Mana Cost: 50


This is my favorite creep to pick up at any point in the game. Ensare is great for ganks and can easily set up a Centaur stun or Hellbear Clap. It can root people through Black King Bar, and will interrupt channeling spells like Black Hole. Also, if you manage to get a few trolls back to back, you can start a very big push by using Raise Dead on cooldown. With 3 Trolls you can have up 12 extra units smacking on a tower at once. It's a pretty squishy creep, so you want to take care of it and be mindful of its positioning in fights.

Jungling

Jungling is Chen's speciality and the jungle will be your home for the most of the early game. You should be familiar with the layout of the jungle, how to stack correctly, and where to stand so you don't block camps from respawning. I'll also give you some tips on how you can protect it, and how to clear it effectively and efficiently.

The Layout of Camps

Yellow: Small Camp
Orange: Medium Camp
Red: Large Camps
Blue: Ancients

Stacking and Efficiency

Stacking camps is a very important part of jungling at all stages of the game. You can stack for yourself to be efficient while clearing, and stacking for your carry later into the game will give them a nice boost as well. Camps will respawn every minute (x:00 on the game clock), so if you won't be able to clear a camp before it will respawn, stack it. You don't want to block any camps and miss out on the XP. A blocked camp will set you back, so always pay attention to the game clock.


The large and medium camps can be pulled at x:52 and x:53. The creeps will chase you for no longer than 7 seconds and will start running back to the camp afterwards.


These are the spawn areas of the camps. You do not want any unit (heroes, neutrals, wards, ect) inside these white boxes or the camp won't respawn. These images are also a good guide to blocking camps with wards. (I did not create these images and hopefully the person who did won't mind me using them in this guide)

Protecting your Jungle

You want to keep your jungle safe from invaders. Good players will try to interrupt you, but as long as you take some precautions you won't get caught with your pants down.

If you bought the observer wards, you will want to decide where you want to place them before the game starts. The first thing to consider is if your offlaner needs to bring the observers with him. Since 6.79 I have found that warding the enemies pull camps isn't a big deal like it used to be. Heroes like Timbersaw and Bounty Hunter will just leach xp from the pull, and harass or kill the support doing the pulling. The camp that is pulled doesn't give as much xp as it used to, and because of the day/night changes (night starts at 4 minutes and lasts 4 minutes) most supports end up roaming earlier now, so they're not chain pulling like they used to. If they prefer to have the wards, it's not a big deal, let them take the wards to the offlane. Otherwise, figure out which rune you want to ward and go from there. If you think mid will be ganked a lot, a rune ward on their left side might be a good idea. If you think you will be invaded a lot, get a defensive rune ward in front of the entrance to your jungle. You can put the 2nd ward on the other rune if you want to be extra safe. I typically go with a defensive ward for my safe lane, either in lane near their tower so they see anyone TP'ing in, or near the entrance of the jungle so they can see anyone walking into our jungle from lane.


After you bought your items, you want to get into your jungle as soon as possible. You want make sure you aren't being invaded by their team, or in case a lone support or offlaner is walking into your jungle to ward your camps. The best places to hang around before the game starts are the areas that give you the most vision of where people could come from.

Radiant side:



This spot will give you vision of someone entering the jungle from the river, and you will also see anyone trying to ward the magic bush.




This spot is good if you think someone will come in from lane to try to ward your camps.


Dire side:



If you can get your lane support to guard this spot, while you stand on the staircase leading towards the river, you will spot anyone attempting to enter your jungle.

Jungling Continued - Wildwing Stacking and Routes

I'm going to give this topic it's own section because of how important it is when trying to get fast levels.



Wildwing Jungling

I've mentioned earlier in the guide that you can use the Wildwing Rippers tornado ability to clear stacked camps. Chen, Enchantress, and Doombringer can all use this technique to speed up their farm and XP. It does require some luck, but it's a little bit more reliable now that camps won't respawn the same camp twice in a row. You can still get unlucky, but its not as bad as before. The general idea is to stack one camp and clear two others every minute. After 4-5 stacks you will use a Wildwing Ripper to tornado a stack down for a big bonus in XP and gold.

Radiant Side

After you ward and protect your jungle from any invaders, you will want to head over behind this large camp before the creeps spawn (0:30) and position yourself so you can see into the camp from the cliff.



As soon as the creeps spawn, control the leader and kill the remaining creeps. If you get a Hellbear or Satyr then use its abilities to clear the rest of the creeps quickly. When everything is dead send your creep over to the medium camp near mid lane and park it there. Immediately make your way over to the other large camp and stand here:



Pull the camp at 0:52 or 0:53 and walk in this direction.




As soon as the creeps turn around, go up to the medium camp and clear it with your first creep. Then, send it down to the first large camp and walk back around to the cliff. If the other creep isn't too low on health and still has mana, I'll use it to clear the small creeps and then control the leader. Next, move the creep away from the camp so it doesn't block the next spawn, and head back to the stacked large camp and stack it again. Do this as many times as you wish, but after 4-5 stacks try to clear it. You will want a Wildwing Ripper and cast its tornado right in the middle of the camp and stand back and enjoy the gold.




Be careful not to cast it too far into the camp, or the creeps will aggro your Wildkin and you will have to move it. You'll have to wait a bit to try again because of the long cooldown on tornado.



Don't let this keep you from watching lanes and going for ganks. Often times you can get a very fast level 6 if you gank in between stacking. If you get unlucky and can't get a Wildwing Ripper, then just keep clearing the large camp and do some ganking until you can find one. If the stacked camp has a Wildwing, just grab it so you can clear the rest of the creeps. Easy way to do this is to aggro the camp and back off, and then grab the Wildwing when the creeps turn around and run back to the camp. It's easier to target it when they're split up and moving.

Dire Side

We'll be doing the same thing as the Radiant side, but we'll be stacking a medium camp and not a large. (if you have a really cool lane support, have him stack the other large camp and let him split the xp with you when you kill it.)


Start out near this large camp, and position yourself behind the rock on the ground so you don't block the camp.




Once you have cleared the camp send your creep over to the old small camp (new medium camp) and walk chen over to the medium camp near the cliff. Pull that camp up the stairs in this direction.




As you walk up the stairs move to the medium camp to your right and kill that camp. Afterwards, head over to the large camp and get a new creep and/or kill that camp. Repeat this process until you get 4-5 stacks and clear. The major difference with doing this on Dire is that you could potentially get a Mud Golem camp. If this happens you have to improvise and forget stacking that camp and gank, or just keep stacking and kill the golems after you tornado the others. You're unlikely to get more than one golem camp in a stack, so its not the end of the world if one pops up while stacking.



In this game I was able to help out my safe lane early and secured a couple kills before I took this stack. If you hit level 6 before 6 minutes, you're doing very well. Use your level advantage to help out your lanes as much as possible.


**I also highly recommend that you use a sentry or at the least an observer ward on the cliff next to this camp. Nothing is worse than the enemy team watching you stack only to come harass you when you try to kill the stack. You don't want them getting a boatload of free XP, so play it safe when you play on Dire and buy sentries at the start if you plan on doing this.

Ganking

The most important factor that goes into a successful gank is communicating with your team. If you intend to gank a lane, tell them in advance and don't just show up in their lane unannounced. Simply pinging isn't enough either, so don't be lazy. Use your mic or at the very least type it out so they know you're coming. A failed gank is almost always the result of lack of communication. Coordinating with your team is the single most important part of a team game. People can't read minds, so try to have an open dialog with your teammates at all times.


Positioning

Another important factor that goes into a successful gank is positioning and not only your positioning, but the position of your teammates, the enemy, and the position of the lane creeps.




This is a very basic example of positioning for a gank in the safe lane. You can easily flank them here and cut off their retreat. Be careful when moving in to lane, you don't want to give yourself away until the very last possible second. The lane creeps give a good amount of vision and you could be spotted walking past the trees if you're too close.




Always lead with your creeps, and have your melee creeps in the very front. Be sure to communicate with your team before hand who you want to focus down first. If you split damage on two different heroes, it's possible you might walk away without a kill.


Ganking Paths


There are many paths you could take while ganking, and some can be a little dangerous. The most dangerous are the paths you take when wanting to flank behind and dive enemy towers. I can't stress enough how important communication is when attempting to this. You need to be sure that your teammates know what you plan on doing before you do it, and if you're unsure then don't do it. It's not worth the risk.

Safe lane

These paths are the easiest ganks for the safe lane. These will be the most common and most successful ganks you'll attempt when coming out of your jungle. Against most solo offlaners, these will be a little harder to pull off. Solos tend to hang back as far as possible to avoid these types of ganks. Opportunities may come up, but they are rare and most solos have escape mechanisms. If the offlaner isn't too high level (this is important, because it's possible he might be able to kill you if he is), a good way to gank them is to tell your teammates to push the wave to their tower, while you cross the river and come up behind their tower. Like I said earlier it's very risky to dive under a tower like this, but if you communicate you'll be fine. You also want to make sure that nobody is missing, or are carrying TP's before hand, or you won't be fighting just the offlaner.

Middle Lane

Middle lane ganks can sometimes be a little tricky, but the benefit to setting back the enemy mid lane is well worth the effort.



These are common paths to take when playing on the Radiant side. The red paths are the safer paths to take when the lane is pushing towards your tower, and the orange paths are tower diving paths when your lane is pushed to their tower. Smoke and/or night time is a must for ganking mid, as most map aware players will spot you coming in. Mid ganks can be a little tougher to finish if you can't flank their position well. Unless your mid can lock them down long enough for your creeps to catch up to them, make sure you can flank them completely before committing to the gank.




Same as above but switched for playing on Dire.

Off Lane

The orange path ganks absolutely require smoke, unless you're 100% sure they don't have wards. The red path ganks are a bit safer and work if your lane is pushed, or if you know your offlaner is about to get tower dove. It's usually a good idea to attempt these ganks with the backup of your mid laner to ensure their duo or tri lane gets wiped out. If these ganks work, they almost always result in a downed tower, which really sets back their carry and denies them map control of their farm lane.

Using Smoke

You should use smoke any time you can you can afford to do so. It gives you a movement speed boost, and will guarantee that you won't be spotted by wards. By the time people spot you, your creeps will already be right on top of them.

I also find that a good time to use smoke is in the situation where you know you were spotted by wards. People don't expect you to go for them again so quickly and they tend to play more aggressive in lane when they have vision. This is a perfect time to play mind games with them and gank them with a smoke. If they can't rely on ward vision to keep them safe, you will give your lane a huge advantage. They will always question if you're about to jump on them.

Playing against passive laners

Most people think passive laners are hard to gank, and they can be if you only take standard ganking paths. However, they are also the easiest people in the world to tower dive. Like always communicate with your teammates and have them push the lane so you can dive them safely. Come from behind the tower and have your creeps attack first and tank the tower hits while you and your teammates do the rest of the work. Take down their tower if possible right after.

Night Time

Everyones vision is reduced at night time, which can be the difference between a successful and failed gank. Try to plan aggression for the night cycle and also be more careful for roaming enemies. Wards are invaluable during night time, so make sure they're placed during this time.



Last but not least, before you go for ganks, try to picture in your head how the gank will play out. Take your enemies, teammates, and your abilities, level, and items into consideration. If you lack the proper disables to kill a hero, it might be worth waiting until you get another Centaur or Troll. If you have a lot of disable in lane, then you want to gank for them a lot to help snowball their lane. If you're about to gank a level 8 Timbersaw, and you still don't have Hand of God, it likely to be a horrible idea. Think things through, and try to predict how people will react when you come in to gank them. If you think someone will try to run into the side shop when they see you, outsmart them by sending one of your creeps in that direction to cut them off. Little things like that will help in all stages of the game. Always try to be one step ahead of the other players.

Mid/Late Game Goals

During the early game, your goals are to get levels in the jungle, gank and help your lanes, and farm your core as fast as possible. Mid game and beyond is a little more situational. There are things that you always want to be doing, and some things that depend on the situation in different games.


Towers, Warding, and Map Control


Towers

No matter what kind of game you're in, or if you're losing or winning, vision and map control are your top priorities. Warding is one part of map control, but taking advantage of Chen's pushing power and destroying towers will also help give your team map control. By destroying a tower you take away a possible structure for them to teleport to, and you remove their vision of that area. Your creeps will be able to push farther into their lane, allowing you more space for your team to move into that part of the map, and provides less space for the other team to farm safely. Pushing and defending your towers is crucial to map control, I can't stress it enough.


Warding and Vision


A general rule when warding is to never walk into a blind spot on the map if too many enemies are missing. If you need to get vision of an area quickly, bring some teammates with you and prepare to fight. The best time to ward is when you already have vision of the area and nobody is around to contest you. If you stay on top of your ward timers, you'll reduce the time you have to go into blind spots to ward. You will be dewarded from time to time, so change up your ward placements and make it harder for them to keep doing it.

A good habit to get into is warding an area after a successful team fight, skirmish, or after destroying a tower. For example, after taking the enemies safe lane T1 tower, It's a great idea to ward in their jungle and take control of that side of the map. You will want wards that give vision of common paths they might take to farm camps, or flank you while pushing their T2. Dewarding their vision to these areas is also crucial to controlling that part of the map. If you catch them and kill them in their own jungle, they will be very hesitant to return to that area, which gives them less options for farm and gives you a huge advantage. The less vision a team has, the more likely they are to make mistakes. Vision wins games, so make it your top priority.


Roshan

One area you want to control as much as possible throughout the game is the river area in front of roshan. This is a very common area to get into deward battles, and you want to make sure you win them. You never want the enemy to sneak in a Roshan kill and you want to always have the option of safely killing him yourself. It also gives you vision of the bottom rune, which is always useful. Sentry wards are crucial for controlling this part of the map.


Ancients

Another area you want to keep control of is your Ancient camp. People underestimate just how much xp and gold your carries can gain from this camp, so keep it safe for them and stack it if you're ever in the area. The Radiant side Ancient camp is a common place for both defensive and aggressive warding because of the vision it gives you of the top rune, so make this area a priority to deward when you can.


Preparing for Team Fights


Another aspect of mid game and beyond is preparing to deal with the skirmishes and team fights that will occur after the laning phase. You will want to take both teams hero compositions into consideration. Will you need any specific items to deal with one of their heros? Should you focus on ganking and setting back one of their carries? You always want to ask yourself these questions as the game goes on. Experience and practice will help you make these decisions and every game will be different.

Try to get in a habit of occasionally looking at the scoreboard and checking both teams levels. If they have a slight level advantage, you will want to step it up. If on the other hand your team has the level advantage, you will want to be more active and apply pressure to keep it. Try to look at the enemies items when possible through the game, and report to your team if you see game changing items like a gem, BKB, smoke, and so on. Knowing what your enemy will try to do before they do it is an important part of winning fights throughout the game.

Also, as a support you will want to always be aware of your positioning. Be aware of heroes that can jump on you and punish bad positioning. Take their spells and the ranges into consideration and try to position yourself safely away from them. Positioning is everything in team fights, and the more you focus on having good positioning, the safer you will be. Your teams positioning in general is also very important. Avoid taking fights where you're fighting uphill or in areas you don't have map control of. A common mistake I see players make all the time (myself included) is taking fights they shouldn't, where they shouldn't. These kinds of mistakes add up over the course of the game and are usually the most common reason for losing.


Map Awareness


A common theme in this section is that each game is different and you will have to adapt to different situations. No two dota games are ever alike, so it's important to work on your game awareness and map awareness. Look at your minimap frequently and watch enemy movement, check their items, keep track of their levels, and adjust depending on the situation. Practicing and making these things a habit will help you make good decisions overall. For example, move your camera to the different lanes while your farming creeps. You don't have to always be watching yourself farm, and you'll be able to spot better gank opportunities this way. Try to glance at your minimap every few seconds, and move your camera to a spot if you see something that catches your eye. If you carry a TP on you (which you should always try to do), you might be able to turn around a fight and/or be able to save someone with a clutch Hand of God.

Final Thoughts

That wraps up my guide. I hope it was helpful for any newer Chen players. Feel free to leave me feedback, positive or negative. I'll try to keep it updated if there are any game changes that would affect the information in the guide.

GL HF

[Gibbous]

This has shown me how to beast with Chen.
gg no re

[Hanamichi Sakuragi]

Nice, im gonna try it today!

[Good man!]

thx for the guide. especially the part for creeps

[Happiness]

Thank you, this guide really helped

[[CAU]D@B@!TU]

ddd

[[WEDC]grandmasterB]

this is wath someboddy new to a heroe wants, detailed and argumented explenation of how a heroe works. normally i hate chen to play with (love him on the other team, food) but maybe just maybe i ll give him a try :-)

[Smak]

nice guide

[RicardoCasaba]

frigging amazing guide, thanks a bunch

[|«AIn'T iT FuN»|]

good guide

[Ryoiki]

thanks for the guide