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Aether is not needed on SK. It delays your blink unnecessarily. SK is a hero who's impact drastically changes the moment he gets a blink. Furthermore unlike lion, you can very reliably farm a blink at a good timing.
After blink, aether is no longer attractive too. Force provides greater initiation range plus additiomal mobility. Agha is flat out superior for double its cost. I'd generally lean towards force, as I view Agha to be a luxury item. After force (and Agha), I find aether to be an overkill.
Then there's euls and Bkb. Euls make you more slippery because it means dust don't work against you. Bkb is required for certain games.
I don't like octarine on SK, feels like sandstorm and burrow CD are already decently short, while epi is not his most important spell. I also don't quite like veil or Shivas (I personally view Shivas as a crap item on all heroes). I prefer additional utility in the form of hex and refresher. Alternatively you can get ac for your team. Eblade dagon 5 has special mention because it is very underrated as a late game luxury item.
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The first couple times I did Aether aghs and blink and I had more mobility than an Antimage but then I realized I didn't need the Aether to keep that exact same experience but could instead devote that to BKB, force or Euls.
Do people still max Burrow then Sand then Caustic? I've been favoring caustic against melee cores over more than a value point in sandstorm that i basically only use to escape. Caustic is actually so good during the laning stage if you can get 1 hit on each creep and then finish one of them off.
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Caustic is generally only good if you lane SK, which means you're 1-3 position. 4-5 SKs generally gets blink from the jungle, at which point you ignore caustic completely. If jungle, you likely want to level Sand over Burrow a little at start. Being 1-2-0 at 3 and 2-3-0 at 5 helps jungling a lot. Then you can go back to Burrow > Sand after or something.
For laning SK im not sure, its so uncommon. But im guessing 1-2 value pts in Caustic then Burrow > Sand > Caustic and get your blink from lane creeps/kill and not jungle.
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I think the new veil is just so good. 18 Int and bonus stats, 6 armor, great regen, it helps your entire team's DPS (if magic ofc) and it has great build up. It's just so superior stat and build-up wise to force. With tranqs veil on a good timing you're already so tanky that you can bridge your spell CD's without dying. With the added perk that you never have to go back to base for health.
I usally go a value point in caustic now, it slows for 30% so you can chase down that low target that doesn't quite die. You can also double stack some camps by aggro'ing at :40 and tapping a creep as they run back to the camp around :47. When I don't need to get burrowstrike as a safelane support I use it to stack both small and big camp every minute.
I'm not really sure about Octarine, you get an 8 second CD ravage and you become almost unkillable, it's the point where I start feeling like a god as SK so maybe that's why I like it. The combo with blademail also seems really good at that stage where all BKB's are 5 second and you have 100% uptime of either burrow, blademail or sandstorm. Hex seems very good in the same category though, I just like tanking DMG.
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So there hasn't been any posts in here in awhile. How is Sand King now after all of these buffs?
I heard offlane SK is a thing, and how viable is he as a roaming support? He needs a few items to be really effective, and I'm not sure he can really "solo" support in pub games effectively if you are the sole source of wards for your team.
6.88b
Reduced Sand Storm cooldown from 40/30/20/10 to 34/26/18/10.
Reduced Epicenter mana cost from 175/250/325 to 150/225/300.
6.88
Increased base strength from 21 to 22.
Reduced Epicenter cooldown from 140/120/100 to 120/110/100.
6.87
Increased attack range from 128 to 150.
Rescaled Sand Storm max channel time from 20/40/60/80 to 50 on each level.
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On July 29 2016 06:24 VandenPlause wrote:
So there hasn't been any posts in here in awhile. How is Sand King now after all of these buffs?
I heard offlane SK is a thing, and how viable is he as a roaming support? He needs a few items to be really effective, and I'm not sure he can really "solo" support in pub games effectively if you are the sole source of wards for your team.
6.88b
Reduced Sand Storm cooldown from 40/30/20/10 to 34/26/18/10.
Reduced Epicenter mana cost from 175/250/325 to 150/225/300.
6.88
Increased base strength from 21 to 22.
Reduced Epicenter cooldown from 140/120/100 to 120/110/100.
6.87
Increased attack range from 128 to 150.
Rescaled Sand Storm max channel time from 20/40/60/80 to 50 on each level.
Navi has been running him offlane and mid and crushing. The offlane SK is a dual lane though. Game two of Navi vs EG at Starladder shows the power of offlane SK.
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Anyone pick greedy supports with melee safelane, you pick this hero and win the game.
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I just played a Sand King who went mid and maxed Caustic Finale.
We won despite losing mid to this hero hard, how do you beat this because it was just insane the amount of damage he was outputting.
He's spamming this hero too and almost never loses.
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On August 09 2016 21:43 Torte de Lini wrote:
I just played a Sand King who went mid and maxed Caustic Finale.
We won despite losing mid to this hero hard, how do you beat this because it was just insane the amount of damage he was outputting.
He's spamming this hero too and almost never loses.
A ranged midder should be able to at least not die vs him. What "wins" the game vs. him should be everything elese that wins against a fat midder: crushing the other lanes and not giving him to many free kills once he has blink.
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He's not popular as much right now but Zeus shits on SK pretty hard. Bolt cancels W and reveals. More importantly, ult cancels sk blink and wastes his ult often. I'd imagine he's among the better Laners vs sk cause you never have to go near the wave, and sk's more or less going to farm regardless of your ability.
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On August 09 2016 21:43 Torte de Lini wrote:
I just played a Sand King who went mid and maxed Caustic Finale.
We won despite losing mid to this hero hard, how do you beat this because it was just insane the amount of damage he was outputting.
He's spamming this hero too and almost never loses.
which hero were you playing?
as ahw says, its pretty hard to prevent sandking from farming. you usually just stand back and try to trade lasthits
sandking autowins vs most melee heroes with a caustic build... some melees like dk might be able to stalemate to a farm war
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beat sandking is so easy... i have 1k games on him and have done mid / support / offlane the whole shit
his starting armour is shit. if you're a range hero with some poke it's so easy to shut him down. caustic only works if:
1.
mid lane 1v1 against a melee
2.
offlane 2v2 with a strong support and enemy has melee carry
any ranged core shit on him so hard with any form of poking. People just don't know how much damage caustic does when it goes off in a chain reaction. as long as you stay out of it you'll be more than fine.
definitely a situational pick, although with the current emphasis on roaming supports and jungling rather than babysit safelane he has been picked more
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Let’s talk about this hero some more. His new sandstorm made his laning stage so much better. I’ve only been running him as a 3 though. Seems every time I tried 4 SK, I just feed too much.
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Imo he's just not good as a 4 anymore. Borrowstrike lvl 1 and 2 is still very weak for roaming, caustic lvl 1 is still shit and sandstorm might be a good defensive spell now, but hardly enables any pressure plays as a 4.
Like once he's lvl 3+ he's okayish and once he gets blink he's pretty godlike, but getting there as a 4 while having impact is pretty hard.
Agreed that he's decent as a 3 though.
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One of the top offlaners in divine/immortal from what I see.. lanes very well, farms and pushes fast and safe, extremely high magic damage mid game, scales well with talents, offers initiation, can build all utility...
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He kinda acts like the old Broodmother Spider Web in the lane. He can't actually be harassed too much with Sandstorm active without forcing the opposing support into a sentry fight. Difference is that the carry takes a good amount of damage just by standing in the zone which can force awkward repositions and deny last hits. I notice in a lot of pro games, a value point is taken in Caustic Finale to double down on the farming and harass and I like that.
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EPT
