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. Sandstorm 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.

Tips

 * If laning against one or more melee heroes, Caustic Finale can destroy their ability to farm by making sure each time an enemy creep dies, it causes area of effect damage.
 * Blink Dagger is a commonly built item for Sand King, used to initiate after channeling your Ultimate. The combo of Ulti+shift click blink is a strong way to enter team fights with the element of surprise and deal a ton of area of effect damage.
 * Epicenter's potential damage is high. A full blast of level 3 epicenter will result in 1100 magical damage (before magic resistance) dealt to all heroes within its radius.
 * After initiating, Sand Storm will protect you from auto attacks as well as deal damage to any enemy who stays in the area.
 * In early game, hitting each creep once with Caustic Finale, followed by Burrowstrike will deal large damage in that area and can potentially kill any enemy hero who happens to be there.
 * An effective early game combo involves using Burrowstrike on an enemy so they end up facing away from you and then immediately casting Epicenter. If done correctly, the enemy will be unable to stun you out of the channel phase and it will almost guarantee a kill.  You should discontinue this around mid game, as you will need to save your ultimate for teamfight situations.
 * The philosophy behind Sand Storm is that the enemy will grow bored of waiting for you to end its channeling, or will be too busy with the rest of your team to care about you. Note that while you cannot be hurt by autoattacks during its channeling, area of effect spells affect you fully. In the cases where the enemy has an AOE stun such as Lina's Light Strike Array or Invoker's Deafening Blast, it might be better to use Burrowstrike as an escape tool.
 * Linken's Sphere is also a great item on Sand King since it gives him survivability and makes the channeling of Epicenter more difficult to stop. Pipe of Insight is another good survivability item for Sand King.
 * A second disable such as Orchid Malevolence or Scythe of Vyse are also great items.
 * Urn of Shadows is also a very viable item for a middle lane Sand King or one who wishes to keep ganking.
 * Sand King can be played as an early game jungler by stacking the neutral camps and killing them off with Sand Storm. However, it may be better to jungle from level 3 onwards, as Sand Storm is much more powerful at level 2. A capable jungle Sand King will be able to farm a Blink Dagger and Boots of Speed by 8 or 9 minutes.
 * Veil of Discord provides just as much added magical damage as an Aghanim's Scepter but the debuff amplifies the magical damage output of all your allies as well, making it a somewhat superior choice over Aghanim's Scepter.
 * A maxed out Caustic Finale will allow Sand King to split push very effectively and is especially helpful in countering large creep waves during the late game.

Trivia

 * In a very old version of DotA, there was a bug that caused the final pulse of Sand King's Epicenter to deal over 10,000 points of damage. The only unit that was able to survive this was a super beefed up Pudge that was used to measure the amount of damage dealt by the ability.
 * Another old bug would allow Sand King to travel huge distances (almost half of the map) with Burrowstrike, by using it on a faraway 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, "Like sands in the 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, "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 "Were you expecting... Sandy Claws?" is most likely a reference to the stop-motion film Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
 * The line "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 "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 "The sand of silence." is most likely a reference to the song "The Sound Of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel.