What is up with Chen?
Chen received one of the biggest reworks in patch 7.20, and the community is still debating how the hero should be played. He no longer has access to bigger creeps from the start of the game, but now he has tools for significant lane presence that make him pretty much a new hero.
Chen isn’t particularly impressive overall. On average, he wins 44% of his games and is one of the least popular heroes in pubs. That situation, however, drastically changes in the higher brackets.
Hero’s win rate in 4k games is solidly above 50%. Granted, his pick rate is still incredibly small, with him appearing in ~1.5% of games, but at least we know that in the hands of dedicated players he can be successful.
Understanding Reworks — Laning Chen
Having a maximum creep level restriction on Holy Persuasion means that Chen can longer start the game with a strong friend to bully the enemy in lane. Possibly the best you can do is Harpy Stormcrafter and while the Harpy does provide a decent amount of harass through Chain Lightning, it also pushes the lane.
Looking at our guides section we see that current Chen players generally favor maxing out Divine Favor first. The ability scales incredibly well, with each level doubling the attack damage bonus, while also increasing the regeneration of the target by 25 at max level, on top of a 25% heal and regeneration bonus.
With a 360 starting mana pool Chen gets three uses of this ability at level one, but given how it has a decent duration and a very helpful effect for contesting creeps early in the game, the effect should not be underestimated. It also boosts regeneration from consumables, such as Tango, and the overall healing effect is actually much closer to a comparable level of Warlock’s Shadow Word.
Reworked penitence with a 70 mana cost and a 5-second duration at level one is also pretty good in aggressive lanes. By boosting both attack damage and attack speed of your carry, you can get incredible results in the early laning stage. Naturally, it works best with more aggressive heroes that can capitalize on early bonuses to two DPS stats or who need some extra tankiness to engage safely.
With a carry who is capable of winning his lane or needs only a small push to do so, Chen can be a very powerful laning support, if he focuses on his first two abilities. You can also take control over the enemy catapult with a single point in Holy Persuasion, to push your advantage even harder early on.
Traditional Chen
Playing Chen in a traditional manner is much harder after the reworks. Having an extra beefy body with decent damage in lane was a major boost. It secured the lane, annoyed the opponent and made it so that your carry generally didn’t have to contest the creeps—played well Chen could zone out two opponents with relative ease.
Right now this playstyle is not supported too well—despite minimum base health of 1000, low-level neutral creeps simply don’t offer the required damage output or provide utility spells. Satyr Tormentor with his Shockwave and a regeneration aura could win a lane on his own, Centaur Conqueror could prolong the disables and secure easy kills, while Hellbear Smasher had a nice combination of utility and damage.
To play Chen traditionally, you will need to make sacrifices. You could come to lane with a level 1 Holy Persuasion and be a glorified creep, or you can delay the Holy Persuasion in favor of other abilities until level two and three. Creeps don’t spawn until the first minute anyways.
With level 2 you do have some relatively decent options: Ghost from Ghost camp can be very helpful in aggressive lanes. Harpy can be decent, especially if you are facing something like Enigma, who can shove in the waves and get chip damage on tower, while threatening tower dives. Hill Troll Priest is also a very underrated creep, who can provide 30 HP/sec regeneration and a very powerful 2.5 mana regen aura. Though micromanaging him can be very problematic, since his heal doesn’t prioritize heroes on auto-cast.
With level 3 and two points in Holy Persuasion you will get access to both Conqueror and Smasher and from it you can slowly transition into playing Chen traditionally. You still can’t get Tormentor or Dark Troll summoner at this point, but Conqueror and Smasher do their job relatively well.
Closing Thoughts
It is hard to predict what the Chen meta is going to end up converging on—the hero became less specialized, but is a lot more flexible now and for better Chen players it will probably mean evaluating the matchup first and committing to build second.
Win rate above 50% in higher brackets means that the hero is playable, but probably either only in the hands of experienced players or in some very specific matchups. We will keep a close eye on one of the most iconic heroes in Dota who now feels like a very different character.
How can you do a writeup like this and not mention the power of holy persuasion recall? This makes Chen god-tier for deathball lineups and being able to fight, buy someone back, and give them free tp boots is insanely powerful. Try it out with a Huskar lineup.
Still, hard hero, at least for me lol
I don’t like this change to Chen. His third skill is largely RNG, if you manage to find harpy or ghost then you can dominate your lane early on. If it’s kobold or gnoll then congrats you’ll be useless for another 2 mins
@Flying Fish with your logic KotL is a better user for recall as he has huge lane clear. Chen’s clearance rely on shockwave which makes him unreliable.
@bohringame except they took it away from KotL. Chen is the only hero with this ability. It's incredibly powerful to be able to summon the other support, get a kill in a sidelane, then have them tp back with nothing lost. Having access to this in the laning phase is very strong with good communication.
HE CAN RECALL COURR ATM MY CARRY CAN FINALLY GET 2*WB WITHOUT GETTING COURR STOLEN UNTIL MINUTE 15.
Gaben add courrier stealing for report motive plz.
A hero only viable if party, using him in pub will give you a bad time, most of the time
What Espada said, his penance has some fun meme interactions with Deathward from WD, Shadow Shaman ultimate Venomancer snakes and Clinkz new Ultimate, it gives them all a free moonshard making party stack pub games very fun! In pubs he is godly support for Huskar it gives him crazy regen damage and attack speed.
Chen only problem that will keep him out of the meta is that he lacks a hard disable to be a reliable pos 4/5 in this meta playing supports without hard disable is very useless since you really need to kill stuff in lane because of exp rework, getting early-mid game kills is very viable now.
Chen cant reliably secure a kill and doesnt have a nuke, so Shadow Shaman, Skywrath Pugna Venge Ogre Silencer Dazzle, Lion are better pos 4 than him, Chen cant effectively babysit a carry as a pos 5 so those things will keep him out of this meta unfortunately, to wait until he is lvl 4 and can take a good creep is a giant waste of time.
TLDR: Chen reworks are nice and all but he is very niche pick and doesnt fit in current meta.
@Espada using chen in pubs can be viable, you just need good teammates and nice heroes in order for him to work. and in the noob pubs, the chen players mostly suck on the hero.
I dunno, since nerf to sending back I dont find this hero interesting anymore. He is still a good lane dominator and best healer. But I find Treant Protector and Sky much better as pos 4 now.
I've been playing him a bit again after the nerfs knocked him down in 7.18. The Divine Favor ability is very strong on Luna, PA, or Meta Terrorblade. If you divine favor + mekanism + Hand of god it is a ton of heal to a hero that's about to die and can turn team fights.
we need snith
Snith basically said the hero got dumbed down and is more of a lane support than ganker. Also he's a better 5 tbh.
I dislike the change very much. Skilled players knew how to play this hero and liked relying on creeps to win the game not the other abilities, at least not that much. The days with sick early bodyblocks is over. They made Chen for noobs. This is not what i expected and even i dont want to play him anymore. Not much,at least.
I hate 7.20 Chen. He used to be my favorite hero thematically, now he's watered down and boring. I played Chen to collect sick creep armies in the laning stage, not to be a buff/debuff bot.
@raskasbw feel u bro ! hes so fukin lame now
Chen's strength is now in penitence. At level 1 a Chen / Abbadon combo can just run enemies down, silence and slow them, and hit them for absurd dps.
A value point in persuasion in time for the catapult stops push. And you just buff your carry to constantly kill.
Other fucking broken heroes for penitence: Ursa. Troll. Huskar. Clinkz. But maybe the best is Abbadon.
Start with blight stone and build it into solar crest to keep your carry dominant, then vlads or locket.
Once you win a team fight recall your catapults you stored in fountain and push for rax before 15 mins.
Also, why is no one taking veno mid when on radiant? He can drop an obs ward for vision and farm the camp just below the lane while getting lane XP and gold and still getting in last hits, the camp is free. Once the 1st ward expires if he wants to stay in lane he can do it to the ancient camp above lane too.
A short guide for 7.20 Chen:
2 heroes Chen incredibly stacks with:
Phantom Assasin and Troll Warlord.
Both have some Attack Speed from abilities. Both have high physical damage potential. Both miss heal and some disable/slow.
Just dominate the Satyr Banisher with it's Purge, and come to gang lane. 3 sec cooldown on Purge and a low of Physical DPS helps to kill anyone without a blink. Invisibility is easily countered by dust.
If there's no banisher, take any creep with slow/stun. Even Tornado creep if you take level 2 persuation.
At level 6-9 these combinations can easily push with maxed Divine Favor, actually it doubles DPS of Troll or PA.
As from new items - both Locket and new solar crest is great for him.
Generally I think new Chen is all about collaboration with Phys DPS-er. Even 2 such heroes can incredibly dominate lane and make great impact and snowball.
I dont know how you play chen but i play him uping 3 ability on 5ft min mark' then take the catapult, let it go to the base and then you can summon catapults when you need to push
New Chen is very nice but a bit lackluster. Spells are too reliable on teammates.
You can still play him as a ganking 4 but it requires team coordination instead of using creeps to do it. Smoking to the mid-lane and using persuasion to pull one of your teammates in for a 3v1 gank can secure midlane really hard for your team.
Chen's boring now and my 1.6k games of chen is done
ЧЕН ИМБА ПАТЧА
ЛИЧНО Я СЧИТАЮ ЧТО ЧЕН-НЬЮ МЕТА, А ТАК ЖЕ ИМБА ПАТЧА. ЕДИНСТВЕННЫЕ ПЕРСОНАЖИ КОТОРЫЕ ПРИБЛИЗИЛИСЬ К ВЕЛИЧИЮ ЧЕНА(CHEANS)-ЭТО ПУДЖ(RYDJ) И ГАНТЕЛЬ С ДИМОЙ