Swish895's Guide to Basic Sand King (6.81b)

Introduction to the Guide

---

---

---

Sand King is my favorite hero, and has been for about two years now. With his recent rise in popularity, I have seen many players not using Sand King to his full potential, so I decided to make this guide to help people who don't know how to use Sand King learn how to improve their performance with him. I hope everyone learns something from this, and if you have any suggestions please feel free to comment.

---

Pros and Cons of Sand King

Pros:

+Has a stun that is pretty easy to use and has the potential to hit multiple enemies

+You can stun people without targeting them

+ Has a spell that makes him Invisible, allowing him to disjoint some projectiles

+ Has one of the best Team Fight abilities in the game

+ Can counter push, and push, very well with his passive

+ Can Jungle quickly after some levels into his Sand Storm

+ Can rip apart an enemies HP with Sandstorm early game if an ally stuns the enemy

---

Cons:

- Epicenter can be canceled

- Very low mana pool early-mid game

- Passive ability can push lane if you get it early

- Horrible auto attack potential

- Silences render him useless

- Not too tanky compared to other Strength Heroes

Skills

Burrowstrike:

Potentially multi-target stun

Can be targetable, but also is non-targetable(this means that you can click on an enemy to use it, or you can click on ground to use it. Using it on the ground allows you to burrowstrike someone who is invis at that spot).

Not too long of a Cooldown

You can also use this skill to juke around. You can climb impassible terrain with burrowstrike, and go through trees and many other things. Also, you can escape some hero's lockdowns (Nature Prophet's Sprout, EarthShaker's Fissure, etc)

You can doge some projectiles by using burrowstrike.

In rare cases, you might even use this to put more distance between yourself and an enemy if they are chasing you.

Sand Storm:

Channeled, so if you move it will end

If an enemy is inside the Sandstorm and is stunned or trapped in the AOE of it, it does massive damage in a short amount of time.

Can be used to disjoint some projectiles

Useful for jungling once you have a few levels in it

Caustic Finale:

The only Passive ability on Sand King

Is great for pushing and counter pushing, and can help you jungle if you don't have mana for Sand Storm

However, it is useless early and mid game unless you are mid, or your team is doing an unusual fast push strategy.

In mid, you can use this against melee heroes to harass them when they go for last hits/denies

Late game, a good combo when pushing is to Burrowstrike a creep wave, then attack the creep with the lowest HP (normally the ranged), to blow up the whole wave so your wave takes no damage

Epicenter

This is Sand King's best ability, and why he is picked most of the time.

This is one of the best teamfight abilities in the game, but can be tricky to use effectively.

Sand King channels for 2 seconds before his ultimate starts, so you want to be in a location where there is little to no chance of you being stunned, silenced, or disabled since the Ult will cancel, forcing you to wait a long time before you can try to use it again.

Getting a Blink Dagger allows Sand King to be a bit away from the fight, start his ult, then blink onto the enemies.

What position should Sand King be, and what lane is he best in?

Sand King is very versitile as far as lanning goes. I have played him in every lane, solo, duel, and tri, jungle, ect.

Sand King can work well in all lanes, just not at level one jungling. Anything but jungle is good for Sand King. You need to adjust your build and ability levels depending where you are.

As far as farm priority is concerned, Sand King is best as a Soft Support/ Semi Carry. He does not scale into late game well, but can dominate mid game with a couple core items, his Blink and Arcane Boots. He can continue to have a large impact late game if he manages to farm a Scepter and a Veil of Discord.

Sand King, on the 1-5 scale, should normally be a 4. If he is the hard support he will go to 5, if he is mid or solo offlane he might become the 3, and very rarely the 2. He will never be the main hard carry, simply because his Right Click potential is very low.

So in review, any lane but jungle at the start, and normally position 4 for farming.

What you want to always do as Sand King, no matter the lane

Always buy a Blink Dagger. The synergy with your abilities and Blink is just too good to pass up. There is no better item for Sand King than a Blink.

Always buy Arcane Boots as your first boots (later you might swap for Boots of Travel) You need the mana it gives you.

Always show up for major teamfights if your ult is online. You are one of the best teamfighters in the game, take advantage of that!

Remember that if someone needs to stay back and defend, you have amazing counter push abilities.

Friends and Foes of Sand King

Friends:

Disruptor

Enigma

Magnus
-They have abilities than can group enemies together and contain them for a period of time


Crystal Maiden

Keeper of the Light
-They are friends, because they give you more mana, a thing Sand King always is hungry for


Shadow Shaman

Sven

Faceless Void
-If you use Epi and blink into Chrono, the Epi still works even though you are frozen. Sven has a multi-target stun, and bonus movespeed for you. Shaman can keep enemies in place if he is good. Ward trap 1, Hex 1, and shackle another for you to use ult easily.

---

Foes:

Silencer

Drow Ranger

Riki

Death Prophet

Skywrath Mage

Night Stalker

You get the idea. Anyone with a Silence is a Foe of the Sand King, since he is a caster. Special mention to Silencer, as he can silence you from anywhere on the map, whereas the other Heroes need to be close to you.

Also there are some more Foes of Sand King, such as:

Disruptor
Disruptor is a real pain for Sand King, because he can Glimpse you away from the battle after you use Epi and Blink into the midst of Disruptor's team. Also, you cannot burrowstrike through Kinetic Field, and Static Storm silences you.

Storm Spirit
A good Storm Spirit player is the bane of Sand King. Storm Spirit can jump over to where you can channeling Epi, and use Electric Vortex to cancel your Epi. The fact that he has Ball Lightning allows him to always get to where Sand King is preparing to fight, unlike other heroes. He also normally builds items that are annoying to you, such as Orchid Malevolence.

Pugna
If Pugna drops his Nether Ward before a fight breaks out, it is extremely difficult to pull off your epicenter combo. It is difficult, since when u channel Epicenter, the ward will blast you if you are in range. The attack disables your Blink Dagger for 3 seconds. Epi only channels for 2 seconds, leaving 1 second of you ultimate that gets wasted. Try to destroy the ward or be out of range of it(but still in range to blink into fight), before beginning your Epicenter channel

General Tips

You can clear jungle camps in an efficient amount of time when you have a level 2

Sand Storm or higher. Use the jungle wisely to get a fast Blink Dagger and Arcane Boots. It is best to stack a large camp 2 or 3 times before beginning the sandstorm, as it will take nearly the same amount of time no matter how many creeps are in a camp to clear the camp.

If you want to use Epicenter on a single target to get an important kill on your own (Example: you are near a snowballing hero that does not have an escape, say, a Dragon Knight or something like that. If the enemy is just farming away, and you have enough mana and see that an Epicenter would kill the enemy hero, try this trick: Burrowstrike them, but make sure you burrow so that you end up directly behind them. The stun from the Burrowstrike plus the turn rate on the enemy hero gives you enough time to channel Epicenter without them being able to stun you, IF you begin channeling directly after you burrowstrike.

I have more tips that I will add soon.

Update Log

---

6/16/14 - Created Rough Draft of Guide
6/18/14 - Continued working on draft and formatting
7/1/14 - After a break, continued work on the rough draft.
7/2/14 - Published the rough draft of the guide

---

Please comment any suggestions/tips for Sand King, or of the formatting of the guide, as this is my first guide and I have very little knowledge of how to make it look nice.

---