Sand King

Crixalis the Sand King is a melee strength hero with one of the highest area of effect damage outputs in the entire game. All four of his abilities can affect multiple enemy units, and can combo quite well with each other. He is one of the most versatile Heroes in the game as he can push, initiate, support, gank, and even semi-carry if he does well. Late game his effectiveness diminishes as none of his abilities scale, but he can still function to support carries with Burrowstrike and Epicenter's slow. He is also versatile enough to be able to go to any lane with at least moderate success. He works well as a participant in a dual lane or trilane, but can also solo very effectively against melee enemies as Caustic Finale discourages enemies from approaching the creeps. His main role in the team is to deliver a devastating initiation, delivering both stuns and slows to the enemy team. Crixalis is also very effective at escaping and dodging with two low cost, low cooldown abilities that disjoint projectiles and can escape enemy damage. Burrowstrike allows him to tunnel underground and resurface in a short line, dealing damage and stunning all targets it hits. Sand Storm is used as escape mechanism and to do area of effect damage. Caustic Finale serves as a strong harassing tool against enemy melee heroes or as a followup after he Burrowstrikes a creep wave, allowing him to farm quite effectively. Finally, his ultimate, after a short channeling time, delivers a vast amount of area of effect damage and slow centered around himself which necessitates a safe way to channel the ability like the purchase of a Blink Dagger.

Recommended items
Starting Items:
 * and give Sand King good attribute bonuses, particularly strength, which helps to alleviate his low base strength, giving him more survivability.
 * One each of s and provide health regeneration to help you survive the laning stage.
 * At least one is recommended, since Sand King's mana pool is quite small. Even with stat items, he can only cast  twice before running completely out of mana. Being able to cast Burrowstrike multiple times in-lane allows Sand King to be a very aggressive support that increases his team's chances of getting First Blood.
 * As a utility support, Sand King should buy early support items such as the and s.

Early Game:
 * is useful on all support heroes, Sand King included. A full-charge Magic Stick allows him to replenish a large fraction of his HP and mana, the mana giving him enough instant burst regen to cast one more time to escape or ensure a kill.
 * give Sand King the mobility he needs to catch up to enemies and cast on them. Because Sand King's spells are so reliant on positioning, getting Boots as early as possible can enable him to be more active on the map.
 * provides great all around attributes, especially to Sand King's strength to give him more HP and base damage.

Core Items:
 * gives Sand King more attributes and the ability to store more charges. The burst mana regen is particularly important since Sand King's mana pool is quite small throughout all stages of the game, so having the mana to cast his spells is extremely important.
 * are built on Sand King both to increase the size of his own mana pool and to allow him to replenish his own and his teammates' mana, a crucial duty for a support. As requires copious amounts of mana, Sand King must bolster his mana pool if he is to be able to initiate properly with his ultimate.
 * should be the first core item that Sand King builds, as it greatly extends his reach and mobility, allowing him to initiate with or . Particularly, combined with Burrowstrike, Sand King can instantly jump on and disable an enemy from up to 2000 range away.
 * is important to carry on all heroes. For Sand King, being able to show up to any engagement and add Blink-Burrowstrike to the mix can be a very powerful asset to have.

Situational Items:
 * greatly increases Sand King's initiation range and significantly augments the lethality of . The longer-ranged allows Sand King to catch significantly more targets with the stun from farther away, especially when combined with Blink Dagger, and applying  to all struck enemy heroes deals significantly more nuke damage without requiring Sand King to attack them. The item also improves Sand King's overall stats, particularly his HP and mana to give him more survivability during an initiation.
 * is a very strong utility item on Sand King, as he can cast it immediately before blinking in with a Burrowstrike-Epicenter-Sandstorm combo.
 * is a good mid-game item that gives Sand King survivability. The intelligence bonus shores up his mana pool, while the armor and active can give Sand King more survivability in teamfights if the enemy chooses to focus him.
 * gives Sand King immense survivability against physical damage, as well as another slow and damage nuke. Using the active alongside can drastically slow enemies down, keeping them inside the radius of the ultimate.
 * can allow Sand King to channel his ultimate without worry of being interrupted by most enemy spells. It can be a handy item to have if you can't rely on making clean initiations, or need to do more in a teamfight without being disabled.
 * greatly increases the size of Sand King's health pool, allowing him to do more in teamfights before falling.
 * , while costly in terms of mana, is a very strong initiation and utility item that can improve Sand King's reach. The improved attack speed aids with utilizing, while the magic resistance improves his survivability against magic nukes. The active, cast on himself, allows Sand King to stealthily approach targets in order to initiate with Blink-Burrowstrike, or allow an ally with initiation spells to do the same; if needed, it can also aid in channeling by providing invisibility. It can also be used defensively, giving caught allies an escape window if the enemy has no ready detection.
 * s are extremely useful on Sand King, as he is a very strong de-warder despite being a melee hero. Possession of both Blink Dagger and Burrowstrike allows him to blink onto high-ground ward spots, place a Sentry Ward and destroy any Observer Wards he finds, and then Burrowstrike back down to safety.
 * can be a useful utility item that aids Sand King in chasing enemies. Combined with Caustic Finale, Sand King can greatly slow enemies' movement speed.
 * is a good utility item, as Sand King has quite low base strength and can benefit from the mana regen. As he is already a very strong ganker, Sand King can easily get the charges he needs for the active, which allows him to heal himself or teammates, or add more damage to any ganks he participates in.
 * is extremely strong on Sand King, as it allows him to displace himself even more on top of Blink Dagger and Burrowstrike. It can extend his initiating range to 2600 (3250 with Aghanim's Scepter), or allow him to displace allies and/or enemies in engagements. As well, it provides him with intelligence, giving him a bigger mana pool and gives him a small amount of HP regen as well.
 * can be a very strong utility item to build on Sand King. It increases his base movement speed, granting him even more mobility, and gives him more mana and mana regen, allowing him to effectively ignore his mana requirements. The active ability can be used on enemies as an extra disable, or on Sand King himself for temporary invulnerability, such as immediately after a successful Epicenter combo.
 * is a good utility item to build. It increases Sand King's resistance to magical nukes, useful due to the manner in which he initiates with Epicenter, and the active can shield himself and teammates from magical damage for a time.
 * can be a useful durability and utility item to purchase on Sand King. As he already has survivability issues due to his low armor and mediocre strength, buffing up his physical survivability can allow him to do more in fights, particularly as he is a melee hero who can take full advantage of the damage block, and the active gives all of his teammates immense resistance to physical damage.
 * is a very expensive item to build, but gives Sand King many strong benefits. It gives him stats across the board and a self-sustaining mana pool, and the active gives him yet another instant hard-disable that he can use on the enemy.

Trivia

 * In a very old version of DotA, there was a bug that caused the final pulse of Sand King's to deal over 10,000 damage. The only unit that was able to survive this was a super beefed up  that was used to measure the amount of damage dealt by the ability.
 * Another old bug involved using on an allied creep. When Sand King got into Burrowstrike range of the creep, he would move all the way back to the position of the creep where you first clicked on it. Because it only worked on allied creeps, the most common usage of it was to quickly get back to base.
 * Gabe Newell has claimed that Sand King is his favourite hero.
 * Sand King's responses contain several cultural references:
 * Sand King's line, Skg rare 01.mp3 "Like the sands through an hourglass, these are the days of defeat." is an allusion to the soap opera Days of our Lives's introduction line, "Like sands in the hourglass, these are the days of our lives.".
 * Sand King's line, Skg rare 03.mp3 "All we are is sand in the wind..." is an allusion to the song Dust in the Wind song form the band Kansas.
 * The line Skg kill 09.mp3 "You were expecting... Sandy Claws?" is most likely a reference to the stop-motion film Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.
 * The line Skg rare 02.mp3 "I will show you fear in a handful of sand..." is an allusion to the poem "The Waste Land" by T. S. Eliot.
 * The line Skg illus 02.mp3 "We three Kings of disorient are..." is an allusion to the Christmas Carol "We Three Kings of Orient Are", by John Henry Hopkins, Jr.
 * The line Sand rival 17.mp3 "The sand of silence." is most likely a reference to the song "The Sound Of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel.
 * The line Skg killspecial 01.mp3 "The King is dead. Long live the King." is most likely a reference to the traditional proclamation made following the ascension of a new monarch in various countries. This may also be a reference to the Megadeth song "Kill the King"
 * The line " Sand rival 04.mp3 Lion, you are king of nothing" may be a reference to the film "The Lion King".
 * Sand Storm's sound makes use of Skg ability sandstorm 04.mp3 this and Skg ability sandstorm 03.mp3 this voice line of Sandking.

Gameplay
 Strategy & Tips Counters & Matchups

Audio
 Responses Sounds

History
 Lore Old Abilities Changelogs