Dotaology: History of Sand King

[@DennisTheTall]

We all know that Sand King is great, but what would you add/change about him?

[@bb-im6hf]

as was mentioned, his shard does not have that big of an effect, so maybe if we could replace that with for example the Dust Trail, that might be nice

[@ruditya4219]

Maybe give him shard rework. Change it to a new skill would be a good one. Then name it Bite The Dust

[@xxEchoDecayxx]

Sand King needs more stun

[@NateCummings]

Bring back his fun chanting when he used to channel sandstorm; I miss it so

[@traviscarey7615]

I would give him a guitar and put him on a plateau and then call him Rock King

[@kevinmoore7173]

Love the cc identifying him as "Craigslist the sand King"

[@aboodyboi]

You forgot to mention his ulti getting changed from a channeling spell to a cast point which made him way easier to use

[@rdsasuke1]

He was one of the most played heroes back in the day. Probaly because he had one of the few flashy ultimates in the game.

[@jmas081391]

because he's like an expensive version of Earthshaker skill wise. Also Epicenter kind of lacks damage nowadays and lacks impact mid to late game.

[@sandz000]

thats noob me in dota 1 , carry sandking ftw!

[@bazookaschoolboy]

old sand king's epicenter was like a nuclear bomb haha good ol' days

[@JeffersonPuhawan]

@@bazookaschoolboy more like a death sentence once cast

[@krugersavage6347]

I remember more than 10 years ago spamming SK, literally 1 hit combo stun then epi deletes razor lmao

[@anarariunbat1726]

I think u missed a significant change that was made they changed the ult s channeling to cast time which means that u can stop the epicenter after u cast it it makes it way more reliable and if u get interrupted in the past ur ult would be used with out the ult ever starting.

[@RapFa-Hater420]

The ult is channeling now it used to be cast animation before now u can cancel the channeling without using ult

[@gusdanielgozar]

@@RapFa-Hater420 its no longer channeling. As per the original comment, it was changed into cast time which is a different thing from channeling :D

[@muhammadwalid8440]

I like sand king in dota 1, so cool

[@xxJinraixx]

@@RapFa-Hater420 instead of the 2 second delay being a "channeling" (which if interrupted or cancelled before the pulses come out or the channeling animation is finished makes the skill go on cooldown) it was converted into a cast point (think SF's Requiem of Souls, which has a 1.67 sec cast point before the souls come out), the latter of which does not go into cooldown if interrupted or cancelled.

[@Tintelinus]

One of my favorite thing about Sand Kings voice lines is how they have some frankly bizzare pop culture references. "Like the sands through an hourglass these are the days of defeat" is a reference to the soap opera Days of our Lives. He has two likes referencing Christmas themed things "Where you expecting Sandy Claws" referencing Nightmare before Christmas and "We three kings of disorient are" referencing We Three Kings of Orient are. There are also two music references and one line referencing a poem. I have no clue why Sand King of all heroes have a bunch of really damn random references.

[@pvshka]

Iirc, Warcraft3 units in general just used to have a bunch of cultural references, so maybe it's kinda a remnant of that.

[@arbiesaur]

We missed you, King!

[@DennisTheTall]

I missed you ;)

[@prapy11]

@@DennisTheTall can you do the history of towers ( scourge and sentinel towers to how it changed to radiant and dire). The previous sentinel towers looked so sick!!!

[@canni5760]

Honestly, both dust trail and entrench seem like fun spells, and I'd like to see either of them added to Sand King as a shard. Beats the hell out of what he has now.

[@noahwuwungan7533]

i agree, dust trail would be a more interesting and impactfull agh shard upgrade than 1-3 pulse of epicenter

[@Felipecarlosrocha]

You gain dust trail on the lvl 25 talent.

[@noahwuwungan7533]

@@Felipecarlosrocha better as a lvl 15 talent or make its number really broken

[@markmillerftw]

dust trail would be cool

[@funfacttrivias2121]

For sand kings skill now should stay but instead they should make another hero maybe like Sand kings brother with those skills would be great

[@shadowremorse]

i am surprised that dennis fail to mention on the version when sandking is released, burrowstrike doesnt go in cool down if u hit something while targetting the ground

[@WoobertAIO]

Oh god that's so fucking broken lmao

[@namnnamn1911]

I didmt even heard that he said something about sk ult that can be stop now

[@PoonDestruction]

Or the fact that at somepoint, caustic finale debuff only lasted .1 seconds, meaning you had to get the last hit for the effect to trigger.

[@lekrieg8618]

@@PoonDestruction yeah but it triggered off of ANY damage right? If i recall, as long as sk got the kill they popped. So if you pop a single creep and kill 3 more, the 3 creeps will also trigger caustic explosion.

[@PoonDestruction]

@@lekrieg8618 No, it was an orb effect (yes, the kind that didn't stack with Sange/Lifesteal/Desolator/Lightnings/Skadi) with a fraction of a second duration, so it only worked when you got a last hit (via right click) on an enemy. Edit: Technically Sand King doesn't have to be the one to get the last hit for CF to trigger, but the likelihood that someone else lands a killing blow .1 seconds after you attack was very low (especially considering the channeled storm/uncancellable ulti).

[@Khetzal-NLG]

Fun fact or bug! At the early versions if you died while burrowed, the next time you burrowed, there was a chance that you could use epicenter which was doing insane dmg. You could actually see crits aka red numbers appear.

[@wabachi]

13:16 as a small funfact, king's ultimate in dota1 was actually thrall's ultimate in w3

[@Virtus2]

The introduction of his Sandstorm skill got me

[@haninditohaidarsatrio7393]

My favorite line from Sand King comes from the time we type thanks in chat 'To you, my loyalty' Just like Jugg's 'I will not forget this', but having much more charisma

[@rence234]

Damn Dota 1 sand king is basically "MA THERE'S A WEIRD CAT OUTSIDE"

[@RakuenAram]

I think you forgot one of the major Sand king changes that made him way better and viable: A couple patches ago he received a major buff which allowed him to cancel Epicenter. It was no longer a channeling ability it had a cast point, that meant if you cancelled it, it would no longer be on cooldown

[@chewji7249]

I like that Darude -sandstorm reference. Dennis u forgot to mention that caustic finale even works on the creep that enemy denies. Making meelee heroes almost impossible to lane with him

[@J.Applejuice]

Love this series Dennis! Thank you for another episode.

[@marioniers]

i think you missed one big thing with SK before the epicenter is a channeling skill, so being stunned bakes it go on CD it was then changed to a castpoint, which meant that being stunned wont make it CD. this is a big change imo

[@SantaClawztheSamurai]

Finally. I been waiting for this for so long... SK is my favourite hero since WC era

[@StayVCA98]

Yehey we missed this 😭 Thank You Mr. Dennis for making the time and effort in creating these vids!!

[@joefebri3236]

He is my favorite back when I still played, I mean he/it was the coolest looking hero around!

[@bremsstrahlung2306]

The CGI of SK in dota2 sucks, while CGI of SK in dota1 is better imo

[@MarooTK]

There was also a bug/feature back in WC3 day where some spots in the map will let sand king burrowstrike into it and emerge much farther than it should be. Those spots were called wormhole back then.

[@WoobertAIO]

24:30 Sand King's aghanim's shard real utility isn't for his ganking, but for pursuing enemies after cleaning a lane or after ganking. You just walk alongside them and don't even bother attacking them, since your shard will both apply damage *and* slow them down all the while your Burrowstrike is recharging. It's pretty much the same as Pudge's Rot, except you don't damage yourself when using it.

[@tulirongtuliro]

I think one of the real reason they made that shard for SK is that when you use ult then dagger the first pulse always goes to waste. So to offset that they made that shard that goes off every 700 distance.

[@spiralingspiral72]

You forgot the change (i think it was 7.29 or something) that changed Epicenter from channeling to a cast animation. This change was really huge, as you can try to threaten enemies and cancel it if they retreat

[@mojtabarezaei4333]

Lol I love threatening enemies with it, it's so cool once I remember that Pa initiate on me, i used it then cancel it, he run and comeback, i did it till like 5 times and at last he died in sandstorm😝.

[@thedukeofmayhem]

Took some time but here it is. :D Thanks for keeping up with this, dude. Highly anticipated by someone who started playing since 2004. Cheers! Congratulations on your new cat!

[@omkarghadge3590]

The return of the KING !

[@NothingVideot]

This made my evening, thanks for the video!

[@MAMAJUGO]

I'd say lol's fiddlesticks also took a page from Sand King's book, with his ult being the whole "channel for 2 seconds, blink, and have a giant AoE DoT that follows you" thingy

[@floreskyle1]

When I first played LoL Fiddle is the very champion that attracted me because of his ult alone, being similar to Sand King.

[@Captain1nsaneo]

7.20's change also had another affect. Sand storm used to persist after you stopped channeling for a second or two but if you restarted channeling by casting the spell again the damage aoe would update but the visual effect would not. You could slowly walk away from your stand storm and bamboozle the enemy team into trying to find you where the effect was.

[@shadowcurtain]

i loved Magmus so much and at one point is that the stun at max lvl used to be higher than the channel time for ult

[@bonneil2506]

YOU'RE BACK!!! YOU'RE FINALLY BAAAACK!!! ♥️♥️♥️

[@BoneWalker]

13:44 Back prior to his most recent rework, Rammus had Tremors as his ultimate. He'd stir up the earth around himself, causing earthquakes in ticks, dealing damage and applying a stacking slow each tick. The aoe was centered on rammus and lasted a fair bit longer, and had a wider range than current soaring slam's aoe.

[@howard6340]

Thank goodness you are back

[@BruhMeme85]

died when dennis said that Riot invented scorpions

[@Youmu_Konpaku_]

Merry Christmas Dennis And have the best new year. Happy to cya back :D

[@howlingdawn4k]

You forgot the biggest buff of all time that Valve made his ult from channeling to normal ability thay you cam cancel before casting like SF’s requiem

[@krimsonmelm3714]

I was expecting sand storm and he really adds it.What a king

[@AccipiterSmith]

You have returned. And i also miss playing DOTA 2, its been a year since i stopped playing it due to pandemic.

[@fireattack1]

For the Heroes of the Storm, probably should mention that Earthquake was Thrall (Far Seer)'s original ultimate in War3, predating Dota or Sand King. The way you worded it sounds like they copied Sand King.

[@yiroij6296]

Glad to see new video after waiting for centuries

[@mochammadfuadhakim7731]

Yes sand king my number 1 hero , i didnt get a lot of win with this guy but had a lot of fun playing it

[@ka-pow9032]

Thanks for giving us one final video before 2021 wrapped up! Love your work!

[@pzhda]

The first time I played sand king I was literally like: This hero should be a meta nuker why is it not About 80k damage in every game ever since

[@flavioarantesdoamorimbarce95]

Thank you. Good to see you back

[@necromancer8478]

good to have you back !!

[@kshinclair2548]

I always got this tight nostalgic pain in my chest every time someone show wc3 dota videos

[@angryhobo212]

Oh my god I'm early! These videos are the best, you're a legend

[@ngeeee222]

Please update more of this..been watching you a lot

[@uzainizarizi9728]

One of my favorite hero responses in the game.

[@GLIEPNIR]

Oh wow... He's alive? Well damn... Welcome back dude.

[@nathanlamaire]

I love the channel that also takes ports of bootlegs/neighbor games into the history.

[@YuvrajSingh-hl2dv]

good to see you back

[@lightofheaven4381]

Great video as always Hope you will also do a history about visage, he's just the most peculiar hero in DOTA

[@crumbie9919]

I remember the days when I first started playing dota1 and against sandking. We were just waiting to die when he ultied not knowing that we can cancel it before he can start. =(

[@karuiGaming]

Return of the King!

[@kemexX]

YES!! Dude i miss you so much

[@krugersavage6347]

Sand King was the first dota hero where I finally got a solo kill (against an AI of course), he was also the hero I was using back then when I learned how to build items (after buying recipes), specifically the battle fury where it was perse + claymore + mith hammer. Impale then channel epicenter was so satisfying and it ensures a level 6 kill LMAO

[@mzc_crazy3769]

Can't wait to be here when you get to 100,000!

[@MuscleM100]

When he said, "Written by You suck at dota" I felt that

[@crumbs7826]

Looks like someone remembered what their password is. Amazing work.

[@eskeleto702]

Another cool little trick back in the Entrench days of the Sand King was, Entrench in front of a tower and die. You can Entrench and melee hit creeps and heroes whenever you want.

[@loganmyall660]

I looked at undying old abilities thinking about his old ult and the things that have happened to him are really weird. For instance he had necros heartstopper aura for a while. I would love to see a video on him or something lmao

[@Zipfile6]

Delicious. Finally, some good f****** content.

[@majdalmohanna3038]

We need more of this

[@nightshadehelis9821]

Anyone else remember when Priestess of the Moon was a new hero? Her ultimate at the time was hilarious. She would charge an enemy like SB and you had no control until the enemy died. Basically, people would notice they were being charged and TP to base, which guaranteed you would die.

[@jrbg4174]

THANK GOD! A NEW UPLOAD

[@azugrem]

I was caught off guard when a vanguard card popped up on screen at 9:57 hahah didn't know you played vanguard

[@kilat1791]

Sand King was the hero I fear back in WC3 DotA and he is also my favorite hero now because of his playstyle. He is my go to hero in PvE custom games because I can just afk in an area where enemies clump and let the sandstorm slowly kill them.

[@LeoZoro13]

I enjoy all of ur videos so much. Ur awesome dude

[@GearDiego23]

Missed you my man

[@haniefknight]

perfect time for me, because im still running leveling every dota2 heros to lvl 5 , now my sand king still in lvl 3... it sufffering so much when use sandking in the begining.. but as my experience using sand king, increase.. i feel happy because this hero is good, and a good things is i dont needboots/shoes for this hero,,, just want to enemy come closer to activate the ultimate epicenter

[@mohammadsaddam4560]

Damn, sand king is my first ever DotA main. The first time i know the concept of initiator i feel like a playmaker

[@franstim1273]

Long time no see.. wellcome back asmr guy

[@uzundeprem5743]

I love this series so much man

[@manuelmarce2544]

Who among you here remember when SK back in WC3 days can use a pseudo Impale when you click the Burrowstrike in his portrait?

[@qwerdf12]

youre vids makes me so happy! thank you!

[@myomaru817]

Loving the translation "Craigslist the sad king"

[@H1ghscor3]

you forgot to mention the epicenter buff, You can't press stop before because it will be on cool down. Now you can cancel it anytime if you are hesitating to use it.

[@WritingWithAli]

Thanks for this vedio, Crixalis is my fav hero

[@ttc5590]

Oh, you're back

[@ksamp7531]

Been a while, welcome back

[@pagnakaze]

The Return of the King!

[@tacogodboomdogg]

A change I would make is remove current shard ability and make shard upgrade make enemy vision reduce by 80% while in sandstorm.

[@gunduznagyev6154]

that's great idea !. and logically that's true. in sandstorm you can't see everythinh normally. eyes gonna full of sand eventually you will become like blind.

[@mojtabarezaei4333]

Omg you spoke true science, Yes that would be great to see, actually sand strom should be the most fenomenal spell as it's sandkings home.

[@MegaTeddybearTan]

Entrench had this cool bug that if you died while burrowed you could then cast all your spells while underground meaning you can stealth cast burrowstrike and epicenger

[@oscara1573]

One of my favorite heroes, my first rampage was with crixalis

[@phukewe4730]

Wow that trogdor the burnitor reference in the voiceline just sent me back to 2004

[@stranger3135]

missed your videos!!!

[@johncarlosayo830]

Here in the Philippines you would always here someone shout "Stun Epi, Stun Epi" on computer shop back in DOTA 1 days.

[@jfaker214]

Id love to see one of these on Undying. I remember him being a completely different hero way back and he was an insane pusher and laner. You'd go Offlane UD and you'd have T2 towers by like 15 minutes and could just 1v1 almost any hero

[@dogzs11]

He's Back!

[@fja3omega]

One of my fave heroes. Dust trail rocked.

[@antihero8603]

Ey, look who's back!

[@veldandi2443]

I really love Heroes of Newerth

[@kholi9441]

SK's ult back in DotA 1 was too OP.

[@Y0sh1no5am]

"Subscribe to Dennis strikes a perfect note!"

[@ShadingNight]

It's been 3 years since I started watching Dennis. Still haven't played Dota. More than likely won't. Still gonna watch him though.

[@ChrisX_212]

Dota would later implement Rammus' rolling skill in Pangolier's ult. Just saying, once the Warcraft 3 era is over, they're free to take tips from other MOBAs. Anyway, I think I'd be VERY interested to see a video about Sven, my favorite hero (and often called manliest hero in Dota). I'd love to see how he evolves throughout the time. I still remember those good times his quotations are riffed with "Sven is here to pump you up!" (Which also made it to one patch note later)

[@faaiznazzun1525]

Reworked Scepter that caused Caustic Finale apply to every Hero hit even to illusion and that was nightmare on illusion Hero. I remember on pub game Sandking with Scepter can wipeout PL illusion army with just 1 burrowstrike. Suddenly become counter for illusion Hero. Miss that day, lol

[@Kexoms]

Something you didn't mention was that his ultimate became cast point from channeling and that his new set of talent made him funky

[@sammehlberg6664]

Ah the bad old days. When caustic finale had to be the last hit to work