Is Sand King strong again in Dota 2?

Sand King is one of the most recognizable heroes in Dota 2. He’s been around for more than 15 years and played a key role in many editions of The International.

In recent years, we haven’t seen that many Sand King games, and the hero is only picked in roughly 6.4% of pubs at the moment. But his win rate is 52.5%, which is really good. So what makes Sand King a great hero, even though he’s a niche pick?

Sand King’s strengths

Sand King is now a Universal hero and that means he benefits from all kinds of items in ways that were previously unimaginable. On top of that, he is very hard to lane against, especially by melee heroes.

If the enemy picks a hero like Spectre or Ursa, Sand King will give him a very hard time during the first 5-10 minutes of the game. His Burrowstrike is not as strong as before and only stuns for 1.2s at level 1. But it deals good damage (100-280) and can be cast from a range of 500-650 units. The cooldown of this ability is 15-12s.

At the moment, people tend to play Sand King using a combination of Sand Storm and Caustic Finale. Upgrading these two abilities in the early game can generate massive AoE damage that not only gives SK an easy way to farm. It also makes him a threat to the enemy carry.

If you also want to use Borrowstrike, you’ll need plenty of mana. But if you only spend it to cast Sand Storm, you will sustain yourself quite easily and the enemy side will find it difficult to stop you from farming. The creep wave will always be pushed into the enemy tower, which makes last-hitting harder for your opponent.

Sand Storm deals 25-85 damage per second and can reach 105 DPS with the level 10 talent. If you also buy a Radiance, this hero can be a real menace in team fights during the mid-game.

Caustic Finale deals 70-130 damage. It also deals 10-22% of max HP as damage. Furthermore, it slows movement speed by 14-26%, which is a great addition to the Orb of Venom, which you should always buy when playing SK.

Finally, the hero’s ultimate, Epicenter, can be used to destroy an entire team in Roshan’s pit or anywhere else on the map. All you need to do is blink in and Borrowstrike at the right time.

Header: Valve Corporation