Chen Abilities and Strategy

• Flying Kick can be used on any enemy unit, so you can target Minions or Walls to quickly go from danger to safety.
• Always land a Basic Attack between Keg Smash and Breath of Fire to maximize your damage output.
• The damage over time from Stagger can be mitigated with the Shield provided by Fortifying Brew or completely negated by Storm, Earth, Fire.
• Other than to escape from danger and contest a Control Point, Wandering Keg can be used to push a single enemy Hero towards your team and/or to push multiple enemy Heroes away from your team.
• Immediately after casting Storm, Earth, Fire, you can quickly use Storm and Fire to empower Earth for a strong engage.

Flying Kick (Q) Chen

• Brew: 10
• Cooldown: 5 seconds

Kick through target enemy, dealing 120 (+4% per level) damage.

Flying Kick is a Basic Ability that, at the cost of 10 Brew, allows Chen to quickly reposition behind an enemy while also dealing a relatively small amount of damage to them.

You can use it either offensively—to close the distance between you and the desired enemy Hero—or defensively—to escape from a dangerous situation, in which case you may prefer to target enemy Minions or even enemy Walls (the small ones on the external side of each Tower protecting a given Gate).

Flying Kick always places Chen on the opposite side of the targeted enemy, something that makes it an excellent tool to body block retreating enemy Heroes in order to damage them and/or allow the rest of your team to get closer and help you secure the kill.

Keg Smash (W) Chen

• Brew: 30
• Cooldown: 1 seconds

Deal 50 (+4% per level) damage and soak enemies in Brew for 3 seconds, Slowing them by 10%. After 1.25 seconds, the Slow is increased to 40%.

After being used, this ability becomes Breath of Fire.

Breath of Fire

Deal damage and Ignite Brew-soaked enemies.

Keg Smash is a Basic Ability that, at the cost of 30 Brew, deals a small amount of damage and applies Brew to enemies in the targeted area, a debuff that Slows enemies and can be Ignited with Breath of Fire.

In order to clear Minions efficiently, we recommend to aim Keg Smash towards the Wizard Minion that is in the middle of the wave. While the damage done by Keg Smash is relatively low, this move will make you apply the Brew debuff to all the Minions nearby, setting them up for Breath of Fire that will deal the majority of damage.

After using Keg Smash, it will be replaced by Breath of Fire with 1.25 seconds of cooldown. Remember to use a Basic Attack during that small time window.

Breath of Fire (W) Chen

• Brew: 10
• Cooldown: 0.25 seconds

Breathe a cone of flames, dealing 85 (+4% per level) damage. Enemies that are soaked in Brew are Ignited, dealing 171 (+4% per level) additional damage over 3 seconds and adding 1.5 seconds to the duration of the Slow from Keg Smash.

After being used or after 6 seconds, this ability becomes Keg Smash.

Keg Smash

Damage and Slow enemies.

Breath of Fire is a Basic Ability that, at the cost of 10 Brew, deals area of effect damage in a cone-shaped area in front of Chen.

In order to maximize your damage output, you should use Breath of Fire on the same targets you just damaged with Keg Smash because it deals bonus damage to enemies having the Brew debuff.

After using Breath of Fire or after waiting 6 seconds without using it, it will be replaced by Keg Smash with 5 seconds of cooldown.

Stagger (E) Chen

• Cooldown: 18 seconds

Damage taken over the next 3 seconds is prevented. Once this effect ends, Chen receives 75% of the damage taken over 5 seconds. This damage cannot be modified.

Stagger is a Basic Ability that negates all damage taken for a few seconds and then applies 75% of that damage to Chen.

Reducing and delaying burst damage is a useful tool to have at your disposal because it can give you enough time to Shield yourself with Fortifying Brew or to get healed by your Healer.

Keep in mind that the Armor reduction from enemy Forts and Keeps still applies during Stagger.

In this section we discuss how this Heroic Ability works and give some tips on how to use it. If you are looking for a detailed explanation on when and why you should pick it, check out the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.

Wandering Keg (R) Chen

• Heroic
• Cooldown: 50 seconds

Roll around inside an Unstoppable barrel with 70% increased Movement Speed and 25 Armor, dealing 59 (+4% per level) damage to enemies in the way and knocking them back. Lasts for 5 seconds.

Wandering Keg is a Heroic Ability that turns Chen into an Unstoppable barrel with high Movement Speed and some Armor that can be used to Displace enemies into dangerous positions or to escape in case of danger.

Wandering Keg can be used in various ways, from most common to most situational:

1. to push an enemy Hero towards your team and all other enemy Heroes away;
2. to push enemy Heroes away from your team, helping allied Heroes to disengage;
3. to deny enemy Heroes to contest a Control Point (eg. a Boss);
4. to escape from danger.

An issue you may encounter while using Wandering Keg is the difficulty of controlling it to Knockback enemy Heroes in the desired direction instead of accidentally helping them.

You can find more details in our Wandering Keg guide.

In this section we discuss how this Heroic Ability works and give some tips on how to use it. If you are looking for a detailed explanation on when and why you should pick it, check out the dedicated section in the Talent Build page.

Storm, Earth, Fire (R) Chen

• Heroic
• Cooldown: 120 seconds

After 1 second, Chen splits into three elemental spirits for 12 seconds, each with 70% of Chen's maximum Health and a unique Ability. The last spirit Ability that is cast is empowered. If all three spirits are killed, Chen will die as well.

Storm can grant the spirits a Shield.

Earth can leap to an area and Slow enemies.

Fire can grant the spirits Attack Speed, damage.

Storm, Earth, Fire is a Heroic Ability that allows Chen to split into 3 Elemental Spirits that have 70% of his maximum Health each and give him access to unique Abilities in place of Basic Abilities.

When all the Elemental Spirits die, Chen dies too. When Storm, Earth, Fire ends, Chen returns with exactly the same amount of Health he had while successfully casting it. In case you do not remember it, you can read that value in the bottom-left corner.

When you cast Storm, Earth, Fire, remember that the unique Abilities unlocked respond to the following rules:

• they can be used only once;
• the third one being cast will be empowered (read below for more);
• when an Elemental Spirit dies, the corresponding unique Ability becomes unusable.

The unique Abilities offered by Storm, Earth, Fire are three.

• Storm is a survivability tool. When not empowered, gives a Shield to every Elemental Spirit for a few seconds. When empowered, it extends the duration of every Elemental Spirit from 12 to 17 seconds and empowers the Shield from 400 lasting 3 seconds to 750 without a time limit.
• Earth is an engage tool that allows you to close the gap with the enemy Heroes with a jump towards a target area within 9 range. When not empowered, deals 32 damage and Slows enemies hit. When empowered, it deals 128 damage and Roots enemy Heroes hit when empowered.
• Fire is a damage boost that increases Attack Speed and Attack damage for 5 seconds to every Elemental Spirit, by 50% when not empowered or by 75% when empowered.

While it is generally safer to engage with Storm, Earth, Fire already active to avoid being interrupted while channeling it, sometimes you may need to cast it to completely remove any amount of damage over time that you would receive from Stagger.

The additional bodies can be used to body block enemy Heroes, especially when they are Slowed and/or near unpassable terrain.

Fortifying Brew (D) Chen

• Cooldown: 7 seconds

Chen drinks from his keg, gaining 50 Brew and 180 (+4% per level) temporary Shields per second, up to a maximum of 540 (+4% per level) while drinking. Shields persist for 4 seconds after he stops drinking.

Fortifying Brew is a Trait that can be channeled for up to 3 seconds and gives 50 Brew per second, lasting indefinitely, and 180 Shield per second, lasting 4 seconds. This is the only way for Chen to generate Brew needed for casting some Basic Abilities— Flying Kick for 10 Brew, Keg Smash for 30 Brew, and Breath of Fire for 10 Brew.

If you get interrupted or start executing another action during Fortifying Brew, you will get an amount of Brew and Shield proportional to the time you spent channeling it.

Even if we assume to cast all Abilities that cost Brew on cooldown, all you need to keep going is 50 Brew every 6.25 seconds, something you can get by channeling Fortifying Brew for about 1 second (on average) every time it is available.