Dota 2 Heroes Spotlight: Crixalis the Sand King
Introduction
Crixalis the Sand King is a melee strength hero who contributes significantly to the success of his allies in team battles.
He is commonly regarded as an initiator, especially once he is equipped with a blink dagger. His abilities synergise quite well with his role as an initiator, while also giving him the potential to support his team and also harass his opponents in order
to keep them under-farmed and vulnerable throughout the course of the game. With diverse and devastating abilities at his disposal, Sand King is definitely a formidable force to be reckoned with and a huge asset for his team.
Burrowstrike
Burrowstrike is Crixalis’ first ability. It is an active 650-range skill that enables him to stun all enemies in his path. Once the skill is maxed out, Sand King deals 280 damage to enemy units in his path and stuns them for 2.17 points. One thing to note
here is that once enemies are struck by Burrowstrike, they are sent flying into the air for 0.52 seconds and it is only after they return to the ground that the actual duration of stun comes into effect.
The skill is extremely useful for obvious reason and becomes even more devastating once used in combination with his ultimate that we will talk about later on. Burrowstrike also helps Crixalis to clear creep waves at a greater speed and thus increases his
capacity to farm significantly.
Sand Storm
Sand Storm is Sand King’s second ability. It is a channelling 525 Area of Effect (AoE) skill that envelopes him in a sandstorm. When activated, it causes Crixalis to become invisible while dealing 80 damage per second to the enemies caught within it at its
highest level. The Sandstorm can remain activated for 80 seconds at its highest level. Once the channelling is stopped, there is a slight delay, 1.5 seconds to be precise, before Sand King becomes visible to his enemies. The skill can help him to avoid imminent
death as well as increase his capacity to harass his enemies early game.
Caustic Finale
Even though Burrowstrike can aid Sand King in farming, it is his third ability Caustic Finale that is truly his bread-and-butter when it comes to gathering gold at a great rate. The passive skill can additionally help him in harassing as well, which is a
good thing keeping the late game in mind. When Sand King strikes an enemy, he places a debuff on that target. The debuff remains applied to the target for eight seconds and if the target dies within that duration, it explodes dealing 220 magical damage in
a 400 AoE. The units that explode do not leave any corpse behind, which can come in handy if you are up against the likes of Earthshaker.
Caustic Finale does not work on allied units, thus denying them will not cause them to explode or deal damage.
Epicenter
Epicenter is Sand King’s ultimate. It is one of the most fearsome ability in Defense of the Ancients (Dota) 2, especially if Crixalis has a blink dagger in his inventory. Once activated, Sand King channels the ultimate for two seconds before emitting damaging
pulses. At its highest level, Epicenter emits 10 pulses of 110 damage each and additional slows the movement speed of the target by 30 percent. As the pulses are based on his current position instead of the position at what he had initially casted the spell,
getting a blink dagger works extremely well for him. While magic immunity blocks the damage from the pulses, the slow still goes through.
Sand King can purchase Aghanim’s Scepter as it improves his ultimate by increasing the number of pulses from 10 to 12, while lowering the cool-down from 100 seconds to 80 seconds.
While Sand King is a pretty powerful hero, he is not recommended to beginners as it requires a lot of experience to unleash his true potential.
Tags: