Chen/Guide

Hero

 

Strategy

 

Equipment

 

Gear

 

Talents

 

Relics

 

Responses

 

Sounds

 

Animations

 

Lore

 

Old Abilities

 

Changelogs

 

Known Bugs

 

Gameplay

Playstyle
Chen is a support who can jungle, and can use his persuaded creeps (thanks to Holy Persuasion) to gank and push early on. Chen is able to slow his adversaries with his Penitence, and can heal all allies and neutral creeps under his control with Hand of God. His reliance on micromanagement and map awareness makes him a difficult hero to master, but utilized properly Chen has the ability to gain a powerful early advantage for his team, which can allow them to end matches quickly.
Pros	Cons
Natural jungler. Possesses global heal. Many disables from creeps. Strong ganker in the early game. Effective pusher in the early stage of the game.	Hard to play , hard to micromanagement. Dependent on getting and keeping good creeps. Heavily dependent on teammates and creeps. No escape abilities. Not playing properly will make enemies gain significant gold advantages. Squishy and can be easily countered by almost any heroes in the game. Seriously weak against multiple enemies. No burst potency at all. Needs to end game as soon as possible because his strength decreases over time. Almost completely lose effectives in the late game.

Lane Support

• Scout the small camp with your courier so that you don't lose time walking back and forth.
• Take Holy Persuasion level 1 if Chen can find a good creep to dominate his lane, e.g. Harpy Stormcrafter or Hill Troll Priest.
• Ask your carry to cut the trees around your outpost to see immediately at 1 minute if the small camp is blocked or what creeps it spawned.
• Otherwise, take Divine Favor level 1 for increased sustain to harass the enemies.
• Scout the medium camps in your jungle with your courier to get a Ogre Frostmage, a level 1 creep that grants Ice Armor to you and your carry.
• Max Holy Persuasion to control more and higher level creeps and increase their attack damage, helping teammates in ganks and pushes.
• Gank mid as early as possible with a Mud Golem or Satyr Banisher.
• Get an observer ward in the enemy main jungle and if possible in their triangle, so you can take the creeps from the enemy jungle.
• A Ghost + Vhoul Assassin are good for harassing in lane, so consider taking Penitence early. Same goes for ganks with a Satyr Banisher.
• Buy a Buckler and a Headdress

Mid Game Support/Utility

• In most games, an early Mekansm with a value point in Divine Favor will win you the early team fights. It builds into Guardian Greaves, which you have to buy at some point of the game anyway.
• If you have a push-heavy line up or a line up that cannot get towers quickly and safely, get Kobold Foreman, Alpha Wolf and/or Hellbear Smasher so your creeps get to the tower faster and your catapult does more damage. Consider buying Helm of the Dominator, Drum of Endurance and Buckler. Get a lot of creeps with Attack type "Basic". You can find the list under Attack damage type. Use Divine Favor to get strong team fight heroes to the tower push (not your underfarmed, jungling carry).
• If you have a gank-heavy line up, consider buying a Helm of the Dominator for the extra movement speed for Centaur Conqueror, Satyr Banisher or for your Alpha Wolf, to keep up with your ganking cores. Drum of Endurance and Kobold Foreman gives your team extra catch and Mud Golem, Dark Troll Summoner and Ghost extra ranged slow/root/stun.
• If you have a line up that wants to split push and jungle, stack multiple camps with your creeps, get cheap creeps from the small camp with damage type "Piercing" (Attack damage type), so you don't feed gold to the enemy, get wards for the river and a smoke for 1 ward in the enemy jungle. Try blocking the enemy camps with sentries and creeps from spawning after you farmed them (Chen is a fast jungler). Use the Skeleton Warrior from the Dark Troll Summoner to constantly scout for the enemy – you can have up to 4 of them, which means 4 free small wards. Make a Hill Troll Priest follow your jungling carry so he can spam his spells through Mana Aura more often.
• If you are up against a high Magical damage line up, get a Pipe of Insight and think about buying a Helm of the Dominator and getting a creep with Cloak Aura with it. Holy Persuasion gives only 1000 hp at max (without the level 20 talent) and Helm of the Dominator gives 1500 hp and you want this creep to live through fights.
• If you are up against a high Physical damage line up and armor reduction, get Guardian Greaves, a Ogre Frostmage and the Toughness Aura from the Wildwing Ripper.
• If you are up against split push, like from Nature's Prophet, Enchantress or etc. or have lost one set of barracks, get creeps from the small camp with damage type "Piercing"(Attack damage type) and creeps with AoE spells, e.g. Hellbear Smasher, Satyr Tormenter, Harpy Stormcrafter, Ancient Black Dragon and put them between the trees to depush.
• Farm Aghanim's Scepter if you need a strong dispel to dispell AOE stuns like Ravage, or to save your cores when stunned, by long duration spells like Fiend's Grip or Dismember, without going out of position with your hero.

Late Game Support/Utility

• Get Guardian Greaves if your team doesn't already have one.
• Get Aghanim's Shard for an Ancient Granite Golem for Granite Aura (does not stack with itself). The Fireball from the Ancient Black Dragon is a good spell for combat and push and stacks like the Dragonhide Aura with itself, while the Toughness Aura from the Wildwing Ripper does not. Combo it with some stuns and roots to get the most out of the unit.
• At level 25 get the right talent, because Hand of God still has a 120 sec cool-down and and almost all creep auras fully stack ( Cloak Aura does not stack with itself anymore).
• Your job for the late game is simple: get your team ready as fast as possible, hinder the enemy in their farming, and keep your team alive. This includes warding the fighting areas by the objectives (tier3 towers and Roshan), scouting with creeps and healing.

Carry Build

• To play Chen as Carry, you have to understand that, if you want to carry with creeps, you have be able make the creeps strong enough to kill the enemy before he can kill them. To accomplish this, you will need a lot of xp and gold, for this the keys are smart rotations between the jungle and the lane paired with ganks (abuse Smoke of Deceit and the global transportation of Divine Favor). So your built-in powerspikes are around your lvl 3 Holy Persuasion with Helm of the Dominator, lvl 15 with Aghanim's Shard and 20. Try to match those powerspikes with some additional powerful Items. Usually, if you reach lvl 25, you made some big mistakes and are about to lose the game. Between those powerspikes, you should focus on split pushing with creeps, farming and pushing not contested towers. When you hit lvl 20, you should have at least finished an item like Solar Crest, Nullifier or Bloodthorn to be able to contribute meaningfully to team fights and ganks outside of raw damage and chaos. As a carry, you should not let your creeps die during fights, so don't just simply march them into the enemy, but wait for a setup/initiation from your team.
• You almost always lane Chen as a core solo to get the biggest possible window in which your creeps are strong. Usually, you use Holy Persuasion on the ranged creep to out last hit and deny creeps much more easily than the enemy, because of the piercing dmg the ranged creep does.
  • In the offlane, you push that way the first wave into the enemy tower so you get the second near your tower. You try to get lvl3 as fast as possible so you have 2 creeps and you can start doing all kinds of stuff like cutting every wave with 1 creep and dragging it behind your tier 1 tower to deny their all creeps, or harass the enemy support and core away with your superior dmg and regen.
  • In the mid lane, you can choose between Penitence and Divine Favor, whether you want to harass the enemy out of lane or you have to keep your creeps alive against superior wave clear. With lvl 5, get a creep with a stun, at that time you should have gotten Helm of the Dominator and be able to kill the enemy midlaner or use this timing to push a tower in any lane.
  • In the safelane, you try to deny as much creeps as possible so you can stay near your tower. If you have an ancient camp near your lane you almost always go Penitence at lvl 2 or 4 so you can start farming ancients early at lvl 5 with your lvl3 Holy Persuasion. Get a creep from the big camp to tank for you and a Kobold Foreman to get between camps faster with your creeps. Use one of your early creeps to stack some camps for you to farm later and pull the lane.
• Your skill build is the same as the support build as you will have to sustain you in lane, but you should consider taking instead 1 or 2 points in Penitence to pose a threat to the enemy in lane and be able to farm ancients later faster. You can farm ancients with 2 ranged creeps from the small camp but it is really slow, so 2 and a big creep from the big camp is a lot faster.
• For the lane and jungling, get a Headdress. Best Creeps for jungling and last-hitting are the ranged creeps from the small camp, as they deal piercing damage(Attack damage type). They usually deal more dmg than ranged creeps from the lane.
• Your first items should be Helm of the Dominator, as it gives you more flexibility with the creeps and a good way to catch enemies with stuns and roots.
• With the Aghanim's Shard almost any ancient creep is great when you get it early, the best thoughout the game is Ancient Black Dragon, because of his split-/pushing potential and with Fireball as a source of none committing source of dmg and area control/denial (multiple instances of the spell stack).
• From here on, you can build Solar Crest, Desolator, Eye of Skadi, Assault Cuirass, Nullifier and Bloodthorn.
• For the highest right-click DPS, you should get the Ancient Granite Golem, or non-ancient creep Wildwing Ripper, Alpha Wolf, and Hellbear Smasher or Ancient Thunderhide to give the golem frenzy. The Vhoul Assassin is great against heroes with high HP regen. But, for team fights, the best is the Ancient Black Dragon with 50% magic resistance,2000hp and a lot of splash dmg between Fireball and Splash Attack. Additionally, the Dragonhide Aura does stack with itself. Usually, having enough stuns to chain stun enemies is pretty game-winning too.
• When you have spare money, get Drum of Endurance, Scythe of Vyse (Maybe you are doing something wrong).
• Great creeps for split pushing until you hit your next timing this are: Ancient Black Dragon, Alpha Wolf, Hellbear Smasher, Dark Troll Summoner, Kobold Foreman as they don't feed too much money.

Ability Builds

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

Talents

Hero Talents
+200/+10 Hand of God Heal/Heal Over Time	25	Hand of God applies a Strong Dispel
+1200 Holy Persuasion Minimum Health	20	-30s Hand of God Cooldown
+14% Penitence Slow	15	+12 Holy Persuasion Damage
-2s Holy Persuasion Teleport Delay	10	Penitence Deals 175 Damage

Tips & Tactics

General

• While Chen is a force to be reckoned with in the early game, he loses much of his potency in the late game. Because Chen depends on the strength of his creeps to overpower enemy heroes and push down towers in the early game, his greatest weakness is to allow the enemy to get enough farm and levels to easily deal with his creeps, rendering them useless. As such, Chen must attempt to gain a powerful early lead for his team, and try to crush the enemy before they become strong enough to simply farm his creeps and turn them into a liability.
• Chen can buy early Smoke of Deceit to approach a gank undetected by wards. Keep in mind that Smoke of Deceit has replenishing time of 10 minutes and maximum stock of 3. Therefore, Chen should buy one right at the start of the game and constantly thereafter.
• From the jungle, start ganking at level 2 with Smoke of Deceit when you have Penitence and another disable from a creep.
• Chen is usually played as a jungler, as Holy Persuasion allows him to convert a neutral creep to do his bidding. The creep can be used to farm other neutral camps, using its physical attacks and abilities to kill other neutrals while tanking their attacks to keep Chen safe. Furthermore, the neutral creep can use their active abilities to assist Chen in ganking the enemy, on top of adding their attacks to deal more damage to the gank target.
• At the beginning of the game while waiting for neutral creeps to spawn, Chen should block a lane, most often mid, and then try to harass if he can.

Abilities

Penitence

• Penitence applies a debuff to the target enemy unit, slowing them while increasing attack speed of allies, including creeps, when they are attacking the target.
• An early level of Penitence can help increase the odds of a successful kill when Chen rotates to gank enemies with the help of his creeps, as it as a very long cast range and the slow and attack speed bonus can make a big difference.
• While the slow is not very strong compared to those possessed by other heroes, Penitence can be cast as a slow debuff to aid escaping teammates. The ability's long cast range allows it to be used from relative safety, and can hinder enemies that are trying to pursue a weakened teammate.
• Use Penitence on Roshan so allies can take him down faster.

Holy Persuasion

• Holy Persuasion is Chen's signature ability, allowing him to convert non-friendly creeps, whether they are enemy or neutral, to fight by his side. It also increases the converted unit's maximum HP if it is below the spell's threshold.
• Taken at level 1, Holy Persuasion is what allows Chen to jungle. Given a source of mana replenishment, Chen can farm safely and reliably in order to get levels and gold to become effective. Chen can choose to max this ability out, as each additional level allows Chen to control more creeps simultaneously, gives access to stronger creeps, and increases the survivability of weaker creeps.
• Be active immediately from the start, using converted creeps to farm, stack neutral camps, harass the enemy in-lane, scout enemy movement, and disable enemies during ganks.
• In the laning phase, neutral creeps usually overpower enemy heroes. Thus, an army of neutral creeps and Chen, with their combined abilities, easily dominate and control the laning phase.
• Keep trading hits with enemies using the neutrals, the enemies will have trouble retaliating, while Chen does not lose as much HP if he sits behind his creeps.
• Assigning command groups to converted creeps allows them to be micromanaged and issued individual commands or moved as a group. Proper management of Chen's creeps is crucial for playing the hero effectively.
• Control creeps to body-block enemies to prevent them from chasing or running away as effectively.
• Like other controllable units, creeps can provide strong benefits to Chen's team no matter their abilities or survivability. They can be moved around to scout enemy movement and provide vision, extremely useful at night, or can be used to safely check inside Roshan's pit. As with body-blocking enemy heroes' movements, they can also get in the way of enemy spells as well, such as Sacred Arrow, Fatal Bonds, or Meat Hook.
• Conversely, beware of enemies that can take advantage of the creeps' numbers and turn them against him. An Echo Slam or Overwhelming Odds can deal heavy damage to allied heroes by using the creeps as additional multipliers, Astral Spirit can absorb additional attack damage and movement speed for Elder Titan, Sleight of Fist can deal large amounts of cleave damage if Ember Spirit has a Battle Fury, and so on. Beware of what abilities enemy heroes have that can counter your creeps, and plan accordingly.
• While creeps from small camps have low damage, they can be quite powerful if their abilities are used properly. However, the existence of only one small camp in each jungle makes obtaining a specific creep unlikely, on top of the small creep camp usually being used to pull lane creeps.
  • The Kobold Foreman from the Kobold Camp or Hill Troll and Kobold Camp can be a useful utility creep to provide increased movement speed to Chen and his creeps. The aura can help initiation creeps to close the distance faster, or allow them to traverse to their destination more efficiently.
  • The Hill Troll Priest from the Hill Troll Camp is a useful utility creep for the early game. Its mana aura can help keep Chen and his creeps' mana topped up, as well as that of teammates, and the heal can be extremely helpful for keeping Chen's congregation alive and for healing Chen himself and his teammates, increasing their survivability in the laning stage.
  • The Ghost from the Ghost Camp can inflict a slow on its target, reducing their movement speed and potentially allowing Chen and his team to catch up to fleeing enemies and hit them with harder disables. Its low level also makes it good for harassing early in the game when Chen has only one or two levels in Holy Persuasion.
  • The Harpy Stormcrafter from the Harpy Camp possesses the Chain Lightning ability, which deals a surprising amount of damage at low mana cost and cooldown. It is an extremely powerful harasser and pusher, as it can apply a large amount of magic nuke damage to an enemy and force them out of the lane. The nuke can also be used to farm neutral camps or push lanes to take towers.
• The medium camps contain some useful creeps with strong abilities.
  • The Centaur Conqueror from the Centaur Camp is one of the most well-rounded creeps, as its high health makes it a beefy fighter and War Stomp allows it to stun enemy heroes for 2 seconds each. Amassing multiple Centaur Conquerors allows Chen to push very strongly, or to chain-stun an enemy with consecutive stomps.
  • The Alpha Wolf from the Wolf Camp can be a strong creep to obtain in the mid and late game. Its Packleader's Aura can greatly boost your carry's damage output based on their base damage, giving your team an advantage in fights.
  • The Satyr Banisher from the Satyr Camp and Large Satyr Camp is a surprisingly strong creep that possesses a strong utility ability. Converting the Banisher will more than double its HP, negating its low natural health. Its Purge can be used either to remove debuffs from Chen's allies or Chen himself, or to greatly slow an enemy every five seconds while also removing buffs.
  • The Satyr Mindstealer from the same neutral camps is a useful harassment creep. While its Mana Burn has a respectably long cooldown, it costs very little mana to cast, allowing to be used to whittle down an enemy's mana and HP repeatedly, forcing them to return to base.
  • The Ogre Frostmage from the Ogre Camp is a useful defensive creep that can be useful depending on both teams' lineups. Its Ice Armor ability provides additional armor to allies and reduces the effectiveness of enemy melee attacks due to the attack speed slow. It can be a powerful creep to have if your team has several heroes that can benefit from additional armor, such as Huskar and Phoenix, or if the enemy has melee carries that depend on their right-clicks to win fights. Moreover, the armor can make pushes more effective by providing lane creeps and Chen's flock with additional armor to tank creep attacks and tower hits.
  • Mud Golems from the Golem Camp provide beefiness and a short-interval disable. Hurl Boulder inflicts a short-duration stun at long range, useful for cancelling channeled enemy abilities, hindering a foe long enough to hit them with a longer duration disable, or breaking Linken's Sphere. The Mud Golem can also split into two Shard Golems, which can further disable an enemy with the same disable. You can actually use Hurl Boulder three times in succession: after the initial Hurl Boulder by Mud Golem, use Holy Persuasion when at max units on a fresh new creep will cause the Mud Golem to die, splitting it into two Shard Golems so you can use Hurl Boulder two more times. You can use this tactic when ganking in the early game for the long stun duration and high nuking power.
• Large camps contain the most powerful creeps short of ancient creeps, many of which can be utilized to great purpose.
  • The Satyr Tormenter from the Large Satyr Camp is a useful nuking and harassing creep. While it is very slow, its Shockwave can be used to harass down enemies during the laning stage, and can also be used to nuke down creep waves and neutral camps. Furthermore, its Unholy Aura can be a very strong pushing aura, as it provides health regeneration to Chen (stacks with other health regeneration auras including Helm of the Dominator), his congregation, and any nearby lane creeps attempting to take a tower.
  • The Hellbear Smasher from the Hellbear Camp is a beefy fighter that can be useful as a disabler and pusher. Its Thunder Clap can be used to slow gank targets, making them easier to chase and hit with unreliable disables, or as a damage nuke to farm or push, and if killed or sacrificed with Martyrdom, its Death Throe: Power grants a powerful buff to allies.
  • The Wildwing from the Wildwing Camp can be used as a reliable magic damage dealer, harasser, and pusher. By channeling a Tornado, Chen can either slowly whittle down a neutral camp that has been stacked multiple times, harass an enemy with an invulnerable tornado, or wear down lane creeps during a push.
  • The Wildwing Ripper from the Wildwing Camp possesses Hurricane, an ability that can displace any unit akin to Force Staff and can be used for trapping fleeing enemies or to help Chen or an ally escape. Its Toughness Aura also provides armor to all nearby creeps, increasing their physical toughness.
  • The Dark Troll Summoner from the Troll Camp can summon more creeps with Raise Dead, allowing Chen to jungle more effectively or provide extra pushing power.
  • The Hill Troll from the Troll Camp can Ensnare enemies, granting Chen a decent targeted disable to help set up for allied heroes or creeps like the Centaur Conqueror.
• Ancient creeps can only be converted if Chen possesses an Aghanim's Shard, and even then only based on how many levels of Hand of God he has, at the maximum of three. However, they are significantly more powerful than other creeps.
  • Ancient creeps generally have high magic resistance, letting them shrug off most enemy nukes, and the Ancient classification allows them to ignore many abilities. As such, bringing ancient creeps to a fight can provide a powerful advantage since the enemy will be unable to kill them as easily, if at all.
  • The Ancient Black Dragon from the Dragon Camp is primarily useful as a pusher, farmer, and damage dealer. Its Splash Attack can make short work of creep waves, while its Dragonhide Aura can give nearby allies an armor bonus. Fireball is a powerful damage-over-time ability that can be used for pushing or zoning out enemies.
  • The Ancient Granite Golem from the Large Golem Camp possesses one of the most powerful auras available to Chen, increasing the maximum health of all nearby units with its Granite Aura. Applying the aura to Chen's teammates can make them much harder to kill in teamfights.
  • The Ancient Thunderhide from the Thunderhide Camp can be a formidable pusher and buffer. Frenzy can be used to boost its own attack speed or that of an Ancient Black Dragon, allowing it to make short work of enemy creeps, or on on an allied carry to greatly increase their damage output.
  • The Ancient Ice Shaman from the Frostbitten Camp has Icefire Bomb, one of the only neutral creep abilities that affects buildings. It can be used to whittle down towers when pushing, but otherwise has less utility than other Ancients.
• Chen's creeps do not always have to be at his side; they can still be controlled even if Chen himself is dead. Therefore, micromanage to accomplish as much with the creeps as possible.
• Holy Persuasion increases the maximum health of smaller creeps, giving them more survivability in fights and ganks. You may find it worthwhile to convert small creeps with special abilities, as they can accomplish more due to their increased health.
• Try to avoid allowing the enemy to kill Chen's creeps. Not only does this provide the enemy with gold and experience, but Chen will be forced to find another creep to convert, wasting time and mana. Each of Chen's creeps must ultimately serve a purpose for his team, so losing them to the enemy can set him back considerably depending on its role.
• Be especially wary of certain heroes that can make short work of Chen's creeps. Heroes that can instantly destroy them like Doom, Enigma, and Lifestealer can remove them from play instantly, and benefit from killing the creeps as well. Furthermore, Enchantress can simply take control of Chen's creeps and use them against him, Crystal Maiden can kill your creeps with Frostbite, and Lion can render them impotent by removing their mana pool.
• When jungling, you sometimes want to convert weaker creeps rather than the largest one available since converted creeps provide no gold or experience, and while it can be better utilized for farming, converting it also denies Chen the maximum possible gold and experience gain from that camp.
• When cast on himself, Holy Persuasion summons Chen's creeps to his current position after a short delay. This can be important for gathering his creeps to prepare for a gank or push, or to prevent the enemy from killing them for gold and experience. This also allows him to split-push with the creeps and then quickly rally them back for a fight.

Divine Favor

• Divine Favor increases health regeneration of allied targets and grants them armor.

Hand of God

• Hand of God is a global healing spell that is capable of restoring health to all of Chen's allies and also his converted creeps.
• Hand of God's greatest strength is its ability to heal all teammates, no matter where they are. This allows Chen to save teammates that are being ganked across the map, as well as heal his team without having to stand directly next to them in teamfights.
• Beware Hand of God's long cooldown, as using it once will render Chen unable to use it for at least two minutes. Use it wisely, as casting it to heal a teammate who is being ganked may end up wasting it anyways if they are in a hopeless situation, also damage over time will force Chen to use it prematurely, potentially wasting it.
  • It is better to cast Hand of God earlier in a fight than later (as long as it is needed), as it continues to heal over time.
• Keep in mind, Hand of God is Chen's most costly spell, so be sure to keep Chen's mana pool up so that he can cast it if it is needed.
• During a push or teamfight, do not be afraid to push Chen's creeps to the limit, as Hand of God will restore their health too. Timing creep aggressiveness with the health of Chen's teammates is the key to making maximum use of the spell.
• With the appropriate Talent, the spell is a global strong dispel on all your team mates and controlled creeps, which can be a really strong counter play to break the enemies counter-/initiation with spells like Ravage, Echo Slam or Reverse Polarity.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango gives Chen the ability to sustain his health. Generally converted creeps should be used to tank neutral camps while jungling, however, so health regeneration can be skipped for other items. Therefore, you should share your Tango with your teammates right at the start of the game.

• Clarity is useful for replenishing Chen's mana pool, which is important given how frequently Chen must cast Holy Persuasion while jungling. Keeping Chen's mana up allows him to jungle continuously.

• Iron Branch grants attribute bonuses for some more health, mana, and damage; use this item with Tango to double health restoration.

• Smoke of Deceit aids Chen and allied units in early rotations with invisibility and movement speed.

• Observer Ward is crucial to purchase regularly as Chen, both as a support and as a pusher. Providing map vision to his team allows Chen to keep an eye on enemy movements, which in turn allows him to position himself and his creeps to best meet the threat, or to push an undefended tower.

Early game:

• Boots of Speed give Chen more movement speed, crucial for moving between jungle camps faster, as well as for extra mobility while rotating for ganks with his creeps. Getting within range to cast Penitence on an enemy hero can slow them enough for follow-ups.

• Medallion of Courage applies an armor debuff on enemy target to kill them faster, especially when combined with Penitence's attack speed buff. It also applies an armor buff on an allied unit that may allow them to tank tower hits when pushing. Chen can upgrade the item to Solar Crest later on if he wants the slow.

Mid game:

• Arcane Boots replenishes Chen's and his creeps' mana pools, ensuring that abilities are always ready to be used. Furthermore, keeping allies' mana pools topped up allows them to use their abilities more often, useful when pushing towers.

• Mekansm, purchased early enough, allows Chen to push down towers quickly as he can heal his creeps and teammates to prevent the enemy from easily defending. In teamfights, it gives Chen an additional ability with which to heal his team, on top of Hand of God and Divine Favor.

• Glimmer Cape gives Chen yet another way to protect his teammates from the enemy, cloaking them in invisibility while also increasing their magic resistance. The active can also be cast on a converted creep to help it get closer to an enemy to initiate with a disable.

Late game:

• Guardian Greaves combines Mekansm and Arcane Boots, saving Chen an inventory slot. The aura gives Chen's team a survivability advantage in fights, while the active can heal them, restore mana, and remove debuffs from Chen that may be preventing him from supporting his team.

• Holy Locket is a strong pick giving you an enhanced HP and Mana pool, some extra stats, increased HP regeneration and an active that restores up to 300 HP and mana when fully charged. The real strength in this item relies in the 35% heal amplification it gives, which also applies to Mekansm and Guardian Greaves; granting huge amounts of burst healing, greatly increasing your survivability and supporting ability.

• Force Staff is powerful in Chen's hands. It gives him more intelligence and health regeneration, allowing Chen to cast his spells more readily. The active can quickly re-position Chen either to initiate or escape, and do the same for allies. The active can also be cast on a creep to give it a quick burst of movement to get within range for a disable.

• Eul's Scepter of Divinity is a cheap mana item that gives Chen some powerful benefits. The increased intelligence and mana regen help Chen to cast his spells more frequently, and the bonus movement speed helps him with mobility for ganking, chasing and escaping. The active also allows him to make himself temporarily invulnerable if jumped on by the enemy, can remove debuffs from himself, or can be cast on an enemy to disable them long enough for a creep to disable them further.

• Scythe of Vyse gives Chen all-around attributes and greatly increased casting ability. The Hex gives Chen a targeted instant hard-disable which is very powerful in teamfights and ganks, as it can set up chain-disables with Chen's creeps.

Situational items:

• Vladmir's Offering is a strong teamfight and pushing aura that greatly benefits Chen's creeps and allies. The armor aura greatly increases survivability against physical attacks and tower hits, and the mana aura lets them recover mana more readily for casting spells. The lifesteal can allow creeps, both converted and allied lane creeps, as well as heroes, to maintain their HP during pushes and become a bigger threatt against towers.

• Helm of the Dominator gives one more creep, good attributes, as well as attack speed and health regeneration aura.

• Drum of Endurance gives Chen attributes, increasing his survivability and giving him a larger mana pool. The active can allow Chen and his creeps to move more swiftly to chase down a gank target or escape enemy pursuers.

• Pipe of Insight is a powerful teamfight item. It grants increased magic resistance to Chen, while providing an aura that gives his team and his creeps health regeneration and magic resistance. The active can be used to protect his congregation, preventing the enemy from instantly bursting them down with magic nukes.

• Solar Crest allows Chen to apply an armor debuff on the enemy from range. Alternatively, Chen can use it to grant allied target armor, attack speed, and movement speed, keeping them alive and buffing them during fights and pushes.

• Ghost Scepter allows Chen to temporary ignore physical damage, crucial for enhancing his survivability in fights. The inability to attack is of little hindrance to Chen, since he relies on casting his spells and using his creeps' abilities more than on his physical attacks.