First report peru ty

Second good job

It used to be that finale was always the second ability to max, and now it's about 50/50 :thonk:. I believe that as this new patch settles in, we'll see less of sk and more of slardar, being that both he and templar have received buffs while sk got some nerfs. My two cents is that this king's reign is reaching it's end.

In other news,

Currently the Enchanted Mango has a 33.51% win rate. This is unacceptable. It is our duty as fellow gamers of the DotA 2 community to put this item in the position of power it deserves. It has been there for us when we needed mana for reincarnation, when we had that clutch nyx stun saving our teammate's life, and when we accidentally used it in fountain before the runes even spawned. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

^ Upvote

Echo Slam has an instant cast point as well. Shaker also has far more disable overall, but he falls short of Sand King when it comes to early tempo.

We can definitely learn from Pros (and DotAbuff statistics) that when it comes to the 4 position there is no question what items reign supreme. Blink Dagger, Euls, Force Staff, and Shadow Blade are seemingly ubiquitous pickups that offer unmatched utility.

''One of highest skill ceilings''? Can't compare to Chen - skill gap between those 2 is huge, both are pos 4. I don't think Sand King's skillset is that hard, quite the opposite, no matter how effective.

High skill gap mean you could SK on the most effecient way such as 3 man burrowstrike.

Хороший обзор. Сам недооценивал героя до последних обновлений L.O.L
Буду иметь в виду и всё таки научусь играть на Короле Песков:)

Great article as always. Could you make an article or at least a short comment explaining why Axe is not popular in current meta? For me it is strange, because he is strong laner which is important nowadays, and he also received buffs for 2 patches straight.

I would if I actually had an answer for you)) Theoretically Axe should be consistent in getting to his Blink, since worst case scenario he can jungle. He has a BKB-piercing "disable" on a pretty low cooldown, he has a decent ultimate that allows for teamfight snowballs and Battle Hunger can be ridiculous in lanes. I don't know why the hero isn't picked and I am not confident enough to try him offlane in high-mmr games, since a) I primarily play support b) Divine meta is mostly heroes in the pro scene and I don't want to tilt my teammates before the game even starts)

So for now I think it is better to wait and see, whether some pros decide to try him out. I honestly think he can be a decent pos 4 as well, especially against greedier offlane melee heroes.

Сильнейшая только после Лилюка

Лил сильнейшая четверка, разве нет?

too bad his ult with scepter doesn't work with illusions ;p (pls explosion)

is there any way to change how stop is required to halt sand storm? before it was just move required but now we need to stop action...completely fucking up my plays with sk...someone pls tell me how to get it back to move required

^ its in ur game setting :D
I don't need to press stop i can just walk

лил один из лучших четверок снг. Первым назвать кого-нибудь из них сложно, так как каждый в определенной ситуации поступает по своему. Поэтому я считаю что и лил и роджер классно играют на достойном уровне.

@Boundless Strike in Gabens' Ass

Settings>Options>unmark Channeled abilities require hold/stop

@#Archont2018Challenge @KawaiiSocks

As a pretty heavy Axe player, I think I can offer my opinion on the matter.

Axe as a hero requires a good lane, but his laning abilities are very one-dimensional. In the laning stage, the hero is good against melee carries like PA or Jugg, and can zone them out using helix while harassing slightly with an early level in battle hunger, and threatening kills with call if the carry comes close. That is the ideal scenario. The problem is that Axe also loses the lane pretty hard to a single counter pick. For carries, MK, Luna, Gyro and Drow can easily shut down Axe with a single support. For 4s and 5s, any support focused on magic dmg or countering tanky heroes would work. Slows are exceptionally powerful because Axe has no mobility. Jakiro and Venomancer can shut down Axe alone. WD makes life exceptionally hard if the enemy carry has any damage whatsoever.

If Axe has a bad lane, things go south pretty quickly. If the carry gains a significant level advantage over Axe, his Helix damage becomes less and less of a threat, and the enemy carry can threaten kills easily on his own. If Axe has no gold income, then sustain becomes an issue, as does saving for blink. In comparison to other initiators, Axe NEEDS his blink. Without a blink, Centaur can gap close with his ultimate, Slardar with sprint, SK can still stun from a decent range with caustic/sandstorm followup, Clock can rely on his skills, and ES can at least fissure from range and walk closer. But for Axe, he needs his blink before he has an option other than running at the enemy and hoping for the best.

The idea that Axe can jungle for his blink is also not really reasonable. With the nerf to jungle gold and xp, and reduction of damage Axe can output to jungle creeps from the removal of Iron Talon, the nerf to Helix damage at low levels, and before that the change of Helix damage from physical to pure (with reduced nominal dmg), makes Axe a poor jungler before at the very least lvl 3, which may not be that easy to reach if the enemy knows what they are doing. By the time you get your blink, it may be far too late. After blink, Axe also has a second item timing to hit, which is blademail. If Axe has problems surviving a fight, which is likely since a poor lane probably means skipping vanguard, getting to it after blink may also be difficult, since at that point 5 manning becomes common, and pickoffs become less easy.

Another perspective on Axe is a look at his skills. Call and Helix are vital. The other two are not really as useful. Battle Hunger's damage and slow are not that important past the laning stage or in long chases, but you can't really afford to put too many points because you need the helix damage and at least one level in Call. This means a 1 1 4 1 build at level 7 most of the time, and past that stage battle hunger becomes relevant anyway since it becomes harder to deny a last hit and damage is not that strong. The dunk is nice early on, but the damage scales exceptionally poorly on one hand and doesn't offer immediate utility on the other. Compared to Slardar, Centaur, Clock and SK whose ultimates impact the fight early on, Axe's dunk just feels anemic and slow.