You were expecting...Sandy Claws? 6.79

Introduction

Sand King is an elusive f*cker that can rape you, your family and your housepets in seconds.He can be difficult to catch but otherwise easy to kill early on.Requires above medium skill to be played properly.

Items

(Note:you may have to buy a courier now and then but only if there is no other support or he's a as*hole)
Starting items: not necessary to be the same I often go with 3xClarity
Bracer: Gives you much needed survivability early on
Arcane Boots: they give you the means to keep the pressure and stay on the lane longer
Blink Dagger: THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ITEM.You can still land sick ults without it but you need wards in most cases.Always get a dagger it makes your life much easier(get around the 25 min mark after all you should not take the carry's farm and go for assists than kills but the sooner the better)
Now the Late Items:To get an idea on Veil and Shiva

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Ult=Damage
Ult + Veil=20% more damage
Ult+Veil+Shiva+Aghanim=A ******* ton of damage
1.If they have a fragile team go for veil and shiva.You wont need BKB cause you'll blink on them and your ult keeps on going even after you're dead.2.If they're the beefy hitter sort go for heart and blade mail so you can live long enough to stun them more.In case #1 you should still go for heart and blade mail afterwards
Personally I rarely get BKB your goal is to blink on them nuke and distract them so your team can get the jump on them.If you die from their Ults its still mission accomplished.Dont fear death.Even so you wont die often.If they drop their spells on you thats better for your team.Around Level 20 disassemble Arcane Boots and get Travel

Skills

Burrow Strike: Your bread and butter skill.Use it to get in or out of a fight

Sand Storm: Dont get levels 3 and 4 before you max Q and E you wont need more than 40 secs duration.Stay hidden while your Q recharges or wait till someone comes to help.Its rare for someone to buy sentry wards or dust for you so dont worry.You can also disjoint spells with this

Caustic Finale: Use it to melt waves of creeps so you can get your groove on (DONT STEAL YOUR CARRY'S FARM)Also this skill is awesome if you're solo vs their melee carry

Epicenter: This is the point of your existence.It lasts even if you die so positioning is vital.

Summary

1.Charge Ult
2.Blink in
3.Stun and pop Veil/Shiva or both if you have them
4.Sand Storm and stay there no one will buy dust for you
5.When Q recharges go help whats left of your team to hunt down whats left of theirs

Wards help you out a lot

XP XP XP XP XP All you need is xp and your core costs 3600 so its not that much.Farm if you can but if you're solo vs 2 all you need is to stay alive and get lvl 6 as fast as possible. Make a hole in the treeline with tangos and charge your ult there while they're pushing your tower hopefully you'll get an easy solo double kill and voila thats some gold right there.

Ranked Play

A roaming Sand King with a good start can bring you victory on his own but otherwise he's not popular for high class matches.He can be a potent support with just his core items and placing wards and carrying dust and smokes around

Pros / Cons

-Has serious mana problems till you get Arcane Boots
-Weak to stuns
-Long CD's
-horrible attack
-slow
+high damage output
+Combo is not that hard to pull off but you can still screw up
+Very good solo short/suicide Dont waste your time going mid with him you're much more useful on the lanes
+hard to catch if you have mana

Creeping / Jungling

Pick up any loose creeps you stumble upon
The Hierarchy of Farming is as follows Carry
Initiator
Support

Team Work

Sand King lanes very well with carries or other nuker/disabler heroes
he can keep the carry safe and get him kills or if paired with a colleague they can pwn their lane hard



Weak Against: Drow Ranger, Sven, Slardar or in other words silence/stun/reveal

Conclusion

Sand King is my favorite hero and from all my games with him I've found that this is the most practical way to play.Feel free to expand on my ideas and change item and skill builds according to the situation.Share impressions and thoughts

tR14k@ta