I saw a breakdown of controlled creeps being treated like a huge pile of effective gold in fights, and it made me wonder how people should think about Chen’s impact. Is the raw net worth number just misleading here, or is there a better way to judge his strength?
Is Chen basically carrying way more value than his net worth shows?
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NorthboundKite
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Yeah, the normal net worth number misses a lot because it only counts items on the hero, not the extra bodies and auras he brings into a fight. With Chen, the real question is less “how much gold does he have” and more “how much extra stats, damage, disable, and aura coverage is he adding to the whole team?”
The controlled creeps can act like a pile of cheap utility that would cost way more if you tried to buy it normally. That means his net worth can look modest while his fight presence is way higher than a similarly farmed support. So the useful comparison is often not farm parity, but whether the enemy can actually ignore the creeps without losing the fight.
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I’d be careful with the huge “effective gold” style math. It is a decent way to show why the hero feels oppressive in a good setup, but it can also overstate things if the creeps are out of position, die before contributing, or get wiped by AoE. A lot of the value is conditional, not automatic.
So if you are judging Chen in a real game, look at conversion rate. Did the extra units actually enable a tower take, win a skirmish, or give vision and auras that changed positioning? If yes, then the low net worth is kind of fake. If not, the numbers are just a theoretical ceiling.
HarborMint:
That’s the part people skip. A clean spreadsheet can make a support look absurd, but the field test is whether the setup survives contact with real spells and real map pressure.
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From a draft and itemization angle, the bigger takeaway is that Chen can force enemies to buy answers they did not want to buy. If the lineup needs extra magic damage, summons clear, or strong area control just to keep the creeps from taking over fights, then his “effective value” is coming from how much reaction he demands.
That is why his impact often feels outsized. He can make the enemy spend spells inefficiently, and that trade is not reflected in his personal inventory. So yes, the raw net worth is a bad standalone measure, but it still matters as a survivability check. A low-net-worth Chen who keeps his army alive is much scarier than one who loses it on entry.
InkHarbor:
This is probably the cleanest way to think about it. You are not just comparing gold, you are comparing what each side has to spend to get the same outcome.
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PebbleCircuit:
Right, and the annoying part is that some of that value is hard to price at all. The creeps can tank, scout, body block, and force awkward target priority, which is not really something a gold estimate captures cleanly.