-This is my main Chen build. It is all around solid, and can be played regardless of enemy or ally team comps. Remember, Chen is a TANK/CHASE HERO!!!! He has a little bit of assist, but his MAIN jobs (in my opinion) are to tank crazy amounts of damage and chase fleeing squishy heroes (he excels at chasing enemies).

-Chen is one of my favorite heroes and is basically the only tank I play. Please give him a try! He is well worth it and a ton of fun! Don't write him off simply because the pros don't play him often.

-Your Combo When Laning vs Heroes or Minions: Flying Kick, Keg Smash, Fire Breath, Drink Brew until Flying Kick is up again. Rinse and repeat. You can add some auto attacks in there as well if you want.

-Your Combo When Team Fighting: Keg Smash, Fire Breath, Drink Brew, then SIT drinking brew until you are completely done drinking the brew or needed to retreat. SAVE FLYING KICK for the escape when tanking!! This way you can Flying Kick onto a minion or deep in your territory enemy. You're not dealing much damage in a team fight as it is, and simply want to keep applying your AOE DOT to the enemy, then shielding for as long as possible while the enemy pointlessly attacks you.

-Your Combo When Chasing: Flying Kick, Keg Smash, Fire Breath, AA (Auto Attack), AA, Flying Kick, Keg Smash/AA, AA, AA

-Where to Fight/Tank: Try to tank as Chen in chokes as much as possible. This will focus the enemy to attack YOU rather than your team's DPS (which they shouldn't be able to reach because your are blocking the choke).

-Merc Camps: Chen can easily solo the siege giants. Other than this, it's generally advised by me to never solo any other camp. It will take a decent amount of time to solo the siege camp as it is, so if you do decide to do this, make sure you line up your fire breath so it can hit both giants at the same time.

-Talent choices on tiers 4,5,and 7 can be adjusted depending on opponent team compositions (although I usually prefer not to). See below.

-Tier 1: I never take anything other than Regeneration Master. The regen is excellent, especially with our tier 2 talent. Grounding Brew is mediocre at best as Chen's shield is already enough damage mitigation. Keg Toss is useless as we want to be close to our enemy for our combo to hit. Consuming Flame is ok if really trying to maximize damage and you have another tank on the team, but I still prefer the regen either way, as it helps massively late game.

-Tier 2: Swift Reflexes is a better version of Block, but your brew shield prevents this damage as it is, so Swift Reflexes is unnecessary. Brew costs aren't an issue for Chen, and the fire breathing arc is large enough to hit a wave and combo as it is, so Deep Breath isn't useful at all. Occasionally, I will take Deadly Strike if I'm not the main tank and our team is REALLY lacking damage. As it is, Chen is excellent at chasing and taking down squishy heroes, so the extra 50% damage on the flying kick just isn't a big enough deal to pass up on the survivability of Amplified Healing. Extra heals from other sources, and extra regen from your Tier 1 Talent choice. Good synergy, and long life make this an easy choice.

-Tier 3: Full Keg just not needed,and the shields from Combat Stance already last long enough to mitigate damage. Ring of Fire WOULD be an excellent talent choice here... If it wasn't for Chen's most powerful talent (even more than pressure point at tier 6). Brewmaster's Balance just does so much, and you can potentially have both abilities up at 50 brew (happens more often than you'd think). More regen to keep you topped off and synergize with our Tier 2 Talent? Check! Ability to hit keg smash and fire breath when being chased by an enemy in order to get a huge bonus to movement speed and escape safely (or reach a fight quickly)? Check! Ability to have both of these if we maintain 50 brew? Yes please.

-Tier 4 HEROIC: I'll almost always take Storm, Earth, and Fire due to it giving us a huge amount of health if at low life (Pandas will summon with full health, and don't expire until time runs out or all 3 die). It also allows us to escape bad situations with the jumps. And one of my favorite ways to use them... They allow a HUGE amount of body blocking! Forget one hero, take 3 and corner that enemy, dealing moderate damage while trapping the enemy hero and letting your allies finish them off! Occasionally I will take Wandering Keg if I need a faster escape (instantly become the keg rather than a small delay which happens with Storm, Earth, and Fire) and the keg is fast and can get away quickly or save your allies if they are being chased (remember with brewmaster's balance you should be able to get away after saving your allies even if your keg expires while near the enemy). Also and perhaps most importantly about keg is it offers a mini stun to cancel channeled abilities while making you unstoppable, this means ETC can't mosh you and you can cancel his mosh with the keg, or cancel the spirit of Nazeebo's, and so on. The BIG problem with keg is you take damage to chen while in the keg. If the keg dies, you die. Overall, I just believe the panda pals are much better suited to escape and block and deal damage, but the keg should definitely be chosen if the situation makes sense.

-Tier 5: Brew Strike will never hit enough heroes to make it useful, and even then it wouldn't be useful by much at all. A touch of honey is ok if playing against a 3+ melee enemy comp. The ability to slow to 40% with one spell against 3 or more heroes is pretty good, but against more normal comps (1-2 melee front liners) it doesn't shine the way I would like it to. Relentless is good if playing against 2-3 stunning enemies with the damage to back it up, but my go-to choice is usually Enough to Share. The ability to give your brew shield to teammates as well is very good. Especially because of how often chen needs to drink, and the fact that when tanking you want chen to be drinking as much as possible. But BE CAREFUL! The radius for this talent is moderate, meaning it will group your team up pretty nicely for an enemy Maw or Mosh Pit, and other similar spells. This means against certain heroes, you should be passing on Enough to Share and taking Relentless, even though Enough to Share will be your normal choice here. In my opinion, the Tier 5 talent choice is the most up in the air talent due to game at hand and hero comps for Chen.

-Tier 6: Bottomless Mug is useless, the cooldown on brew is already short enough as it is. Bolder Flavor seems good on paper, but is just unnecessary. The brew on its own gives a good enough shield and doesn't need to be buffed any further. Combination attack is, again, good on paper, however it just gets massively outshined by pressure point with a 90% slow. Even if the enemy hero is faster than Chen normally, using pressure point then beating on them for a few hits and then chasing quickly due to brewmaster's balance (keeping brew below 50 by using your combo) and pressure pointing again is deadly late game against really any squishy hero. See how this build is really coming together with synergy?

-Tier 7: Your two talent choices here that affect your heroics are just very pointless. Keg is already fast and long enough, and our desire as chen is to tank and/or be an excellent chaser. The tiny extra bit of damage from a panda being summoned every 4 sec that you use an ability is just unneeded. I would really love this talent IF it triggered on every single ability use. But it doesn't, so let's not speculate. Hardened Shield is great and if you are having trouble staying alive or for some reason need even more damage mitigation then you are fine taking this, but Bolt of the Storm is the right choice here in my opinion. Bolt gives SO much utility. It allows you to escape and chase, and this fits in with our plan for Chen to be a tank that chases.

Hope this guide has helped some of you give this awesome hero a second look rather than just writing him off due to the pros not play him much! Please leave me some feedback and give this guide a vote!

And more importantly...

Give Chen a shot! The pandamonium will be worth it!