Let's make SW viable again

[SweetBro]

We discuss random builds, test them, until we find something that works.

Testing Runed + Shards

[SweetBro]

First game went okay. I was stuck in a 2v1 lane bot vs pyro and flint so I didn't much farm. But, I managed to come back strong with 460 gpm.

Build order was Runed -> Steam -> Vestments -> Riftshards -> Sol's -> Assault.
Finished 8-7-26

[SweetBro]

Second game went really poorly. I was forced into mid lane zeph. Only managed to get runed up before half my team DC/AFK.

[Sandtrap]

I know! Let's try helm->mock->fws/heart/geos

[ExiledTyrant]

:HelmOfTheBlackLegio :Steamboots: :BarbedArmor: :WhisperingHelm: :Thunderclaw: :Brutalizer: before

:SacrificialStone: :Steamboots: :BarbedArmor: :ChargedHammer: :SymbolOfRage: :Brutalizer: after

[SweetBro]

Ooh, I like the barbed pick up. I think I'll try getting it post my runed. I don't see why you'd wanna pick up symbol of rage though since by that build he isn't hitting too hard to make it worth while the farm.

[ExiledTyrant]

Ooh, I like the barbed pick up. I think I'll try getting it post my runed. I don't see why you'd wanna pick up symbol of rage though since by that build he isn't hitting too hard to make it worth while the farm.

burst healing to negate the firs tload of damage being delt to you during the fight. just pop barbed and hammer and rush in the use helm to heal back the damage. you basically wind a big bloated sac of damage absorbtion that spits out tons of chain lightning over the course of the fight. can usually drop 2 or 3 people before dying even if you didnt land a single hit.

[PrestonLee]

it isn't rocket science..
Core: :Steamboots: :HelmOfTheBlackLegio :firebrand: :NullfireBlade: :GeometersBane:

Then pick up a luxury depending on situation: :FrostwolfsSkull: :DaemonicBreastplate :Mock: :Wingbow: :ElderParasite: :Genjuro: :Brutalizer: :ShrunkenHead: :SymbolOfRage:

Then finally disassemble :HelmOfTheBlackLegio into :BehemothsHeart: and/or :Nullstone:, grab another above luxury if you don't disassemble into both heart and nullstone

If mock luxury is chosen then it can be taken earlier when the farm permits; you can consider spellshards luxury if you take mock. Lowers ulti and nuke cooldown and makes your mock buttrape :p

Tada, viable sandwraith that isn't that useless! Well, at least in comparison to other Melee carries

I even skip hotbl half the time, I don't play him as a tonk, I play him as a dps Melee carry that excels in cleaning up teamfights/insta-supporting ganks with your huge deserted dps and huge aoe trailing slow, not "I farm mock for 20 min, build tank, press R and hope enemy team is stupid enough to not buy barrier/shrunkens or I lose" build.

tl;dr - Geos is core or you're doing it wrong :p

[KAB00000000M]

Have you ever tried:

:EnhancedMarchers:
:AbyssalSkull:
:BarbedArmor:
:NullfireBlade:

It is a early jungle build. And you can kill people so fast. It is really good. Some old dota players did it in some games. I can't remember the game id.

[zorzs]

isnt jungling with :sand: way too slow? also he really needs that early tanky items

[Sandtrap]

Why is everyone considering nullfire as a core item now that it doesn't propogate to the illusions? Wasn't something you should pick up every game even before the nerf and it doesn't really synergy with sw at all now.

[ExiledTyrant]

no idea. he doesn't really have the attack speed or steroid to warrent dumping as much gold into an item like nullfire and still gain as many benefits as he could from other items.

if you want to jungle early you can make a whispering helm and do ancients by as early as level 7 with just helm and a creep depending on what you get. helm also helps you gank easier and clear jungle much faster before you have items to do so.

[PrestonLee]

Nullfire is great because:

1. If they are isolated you can purge them so they can't run to a position where they can avoid deserted damage
2. helps greatly for chasing targets that are fleeing
3. Gives good attack speed because of the agi, which makes you able to get more deserted procs
4. Mana burn obviously, to help chip at a targets mana so they'll end up not being able to retaliate nor run when getting focused by sw
5. gives +int which he could use with his low mana pool

it's not really core, but it's definitely a strong pickup to consider as it synergizes greatly with his deserted true damage passive.

Most people are too hellbent on focusing on capitalizing on sw's dissipate that they tend to forget that deserted pretty much destroys heroes running away in cleanup situations, and nullfire accentuates deserted greatly, making sw the ultimate clean-up hero. It doesn't matter that much that it doesn't propagate to illusions anymore, it's still a strong pickup on him.

Geos is also taken for the extra mobility to stick to your target like glue, the extra attack speed to abuse that deserted proc, and the disjoint is just always great for getting rid of debuffs and/or confusing the enemy in teamfights, especially because both sandwraith and his illusions can unit+tree+cliff walk thanks to his nuke.

[SweetBro]

I think SnY does pretty much all that (Minus the burn and int which ins't enough for one more Q cast fyi) and also makes him tankier which synergizes better with Dissipate.

[Mankrik]

It's not nearly as much damage, though. And purge is a pretty big deal, both offensively and defensively. People seem to forget you can purge yourself of some pretty significant debuffs. Good examples include smitten, crippling volley, swarm, leech/facehug, and I believe crippling pollen.

[PrestonLee]

I think SnY does pretty much all that (Minus the burn and int which ins't enough for one more Q cast fyi) and also makes him tankier which synergizes better with Dissipate.I also think frostburn is situationally great, and you can get both nullfire and frostburn as well, making your chasing power huge. Fws+Geos disassemble(+abyssal) is also strong on sw as well.

Like above said though, nullfire gives you a lot more auto attack dps and purge is underrated, and nullfire+Geos leaves your attack mod slot open to Allow you to consider symbol of rage which is effing huge coupled with Geos+nullfire dps. Granted this is a lot of farm, it has potential to do WAy more dissipate damage than your average shitty hotbl+heart+barbed tonk build (lifestealing back yields much more ehp so long as you're auto attacking) along with the big auto attack damage from the agi pickups.

going back to opening post, runed axe is kinda lol.. I'd only pick it up if you got raxed and need a *fast* creep clearing utility; then with agi/aspd pickups you'd be able to use cleaver effectively. any other reason is kinda troll on sandwraith lol, just get mock if you want that big farming tool.

[bigtfatty]

He's been nerfed to oblivion so unless you got a boner for SW, play somebody else till he gets changed.

[Shocker420]

Why is everyone considering nullfire as a core item now that it doesn't propogate to the illusions? Wasn't something you should pick up every game even before the nerf and it doesn't really synergy with sw at all now.

Sw uses illusions more than any other hero.Since only base damage is used by illusions all the agi in nullfire is nice. I cant remember if illusions get the extra attack speed from the agi too but that would make it even better.

A lot of times he is ignored in fights whether its the confusion of his illusions or being able to come in and out of fights from anywhere. Being able to chip away at mana and have 2 strong slows makes him a lil more of a threat mid game.

[LuckyStrike`]

He's been nerfed to oblivion so unless you got a boner for SW, play somebody else till he gets changed.

lol my sentiments exactly, though sw is a pretty fun pubstompin hero who can rage any noob :P

[Sandtrap]

The reasons for nullfire are really bad tbh, currently it's basically a pure dps item (albeit a decent one for sw) and this isn't what he needs at all (it's not as bad as all the people getting shieldbreaker on sw, but mostly for the same reasons). The dmg output of mock and nullfire on sw isn't even close to the same level and once mock is acquired focusing on survivability is usually the main priority (fws, heart), if you do need more damage a geometers is far superior to nullfire in most situations, with the added bonus of some survivability.

I don't see why people value the purge higher on sw then on other heroes, especially when he already has a slow in his skillset. The mana burn isn't particulary strong on sw compared to other heroes either, he has no built-in way to increase his ias and shouldn't build ias items in most games.

Nullfire is in no way a weak item, I love to pick it up in many games, but since the nerfs to illusions/nullfire it's a item that should be picked up depending on your opposition (hb, monarch, etc) and not a core item on basically any hero (possibly excluding nh, for obvious reasons). Nullfire isn't significantly stronger on sw then some other agi hero with a geo's bane (the added illusion dmg from the ulti isn't that significant, and he takes comparatively bad advantage of the slow and burn), so if you don't get it on them you don't really have a strong case for getting it on sw.

Edit: For everyone making the case that nullfire helps his ulti a lot, the difference between doing a ulti at level 16 with mock+steams and mock+steams+nullfire should be between 0 and 40 damage/target over the entire duration, depending on ms and armor. Assuming that the target has normal ms and armor (350, 10) the damage increase should be about 10 dmg (please correct me if my numbers are incorrect, they honestly seem low even to me). This simply isn't enough to make nullfire significantly better on sw over some other agi hero (which most likely needs the slow more and has superior ias to make better use the burn).

[PrestonLee]

The reasons for nullfire are really bad tbh, currently it's basically a pure dps item (albeit a decent one for sw) and this isn't what he needs at all (it's not as bad as all the people getting shieldbreaker on sw, but mostly for the same reasons). The dmg output of mock and nullfire on sw isn't even close to the same level and once mock is acquired focusing on survivability is usually the main priority (fws, heart), if you do need more damage a geometers is far superior to nullfire in most situations, with the added bonus of some survivability.

I don't see why people value the purge higher on sw then on other heroes, especially when he already has a slow in his skillset. The mana burn isn't particulary strong on sw compared to other heroes either, he has no built-in way to increase his ias and shouldn't build ias items in most games.

Nullfire is in no way a weak item, I love to pick it up in many games, but since the nerfs to illusions/nullfire it's a item that should be picked up depending on your opposition (hb, monarch, etc) and not a core item on basically any hero (possibly excluding nh, for obvious reasons). Nullfire isn't significantly stronger on sw then some other agi hero with a geo's bane (the added illusion dmg from the ulti isn't that significant, and he takes comparatively bad advantage of the slow and burn), so if you don't get it on them you don't really have a strong case for getting it on sw.

Edit: For everyone making the case that nullfire helps his ulti a lot, the difference between doing a ulti at level 16 with mock+steams and mock+steams+nullfire should be between 0 and 40 damage/target over the entire duration, depending on ms and armor. Assuming that the target has normal ms and armor (350, 10) the damage increase should be about 10 dmg (please correct me if my numbers are incorrect, they honestly seem low even to me). This simply isn't enough to make nullfire significantly better on sw over some other agi hero (which most likely needs the slow more and has superior ias to make better use the burn).^you bring up good points; the main reason nullfire/Geos build should be considered over a heart/barbed etc. build though is later in the game with your tanky mock sandwraith build, you are much more likely to getting hardcountered by a decent team.

when push comes to shove in late game, your average ranged carry is going to poop all over a survivability based Sandwraith because he will outkite, out-dps and outcarry a sandwraith who's dps comes solely from mock and dissipate damage; all that carry needs is a shrunken, a lifesteal and some dps pickups, of course along with a decent team to disable sw. It definitely doesn't help when barrier idol is picked up on the enemy team either, making almost all of sandwraith's dps moot. When this happens, there's very little a sandwraith can do except get out carried in this state because he did not buy the right items to outcarry another hard-carry.

However, if a build where sandwraith's auto attack dps is taken into account, it's much harder to counter. For example, a sandwraith's auto attack dps with mock+Geos+nullfire is MUcH more reliable than a sandwraith with a mock+heart+fws. the Geos+nullfire sw will have much more attack speed and mobility than a heart+fws sw, and also be much harder to focus down or kite because of the increased mobility, purge, and disjoint, granted he is squishier.

today's metagame trends also revolve highly around either heavy ganks early game or big pushes mid-game; in general sandwraith with a hotbl rushed into mock has no chance for even getting that kind of farm vs any decent team before getting raxed or just getting ganker into oblivion (unless it's just a big outplaying snowball rape or they let you free farm like idiots for 20 min), hence the reason people are calling him trash tier nowadays (along with all his nerfs). This is why items like an earlier nullfire, frostburn etc. are being brought up, they help sandwraith fit a bit more into the current metagane trends where he can be a bit more useful early on with utility mana burn, purge, and a deserted build for cleaning up.

the case brought up as to why nullfire is great on sandwraith wasn't because of the damage output on the item per se, but because again it accentuates one of sandwraith's overlooked abilities: deserted. Nullfire's agi allows sandwraith some decent attack speed along with the extra damage he's getting from the mana burn and agi stat, AND the purge allows sandwraith to stop an isolated target in its tracks and molest them with deserted procs, being unable to run away taking huge damage WHILE losing mana on top of that. Especially earlier on in the game, that mana burn, extra attack speed and purge utility is BIG for helping clean up in teamfights, something sw excels at over other heroes with his trailing slow and global ulti.

A steams+hotbl+mock+fws on the other hand takes WAY too much farm-time to get going and is inevitably ineffective vs decent teams. Doing a build like tha only works when you have the luxury of free farm (which means one of two things; either you're getting carried by your team for the first 2o minutes of the game, or your opponents are just bad and you're taking advantage of their shittiness in order to outcarry them with a build that is easily countered by decent players anyway, in other words it ddn't matter what you built :p).

I'm not exactly saying a survivability based sandwraith is completely ineffective.. in certain team setups where you have other teammates doing a major chunk of dps besides you, you WILL want a survivability based sandwraith to soak up damage while maintaining threat with a mock. However, if you're relying on sandwraith to carry the game alone, builds like hotbl+mock+heart+barbed etc will not cut it if the enemy team manages to make it to really late game; they'll be able to ignore your dps and focus you down without much trouble with barriers/shrunkens, which is why building to include his auto attack dps should be considered as well, and agi items shine here because they increase sw's attack speed for deserted procs while also giving him decent auto dps and utility (Geos, nullfire, genjuro) as well as more presence earlier on.

Sorry, my thoughts are jumbled up in random paragraphs, I didn't have time to reread what I wrote and my time fell short while writing this :p

just my opinions, sw has always been my favorite Melee hard carry, and i've been playing him since I was a big noob and saw as he went from underpowered to overpowered and then nerfed again into what he is now :p

[Meatball]

codex level 3?
its good

[Sandtrap]

@Preston, the issue is really that sw's steroid skill (deserted) is far inferior to basically every other hardcarry. The build you suggest may work, but in those situations just having a different carry whose skillset actually is focused on direct dmg will usually be more beneficial.

I don't really see how a aa dpsing sw is harder to counter unless you pick up a sh (which will make the build extremly slow), yes he can't be quite kited as easily (thou even a tankbased sw should pick up geos and possibly fws, so it isn't far superior regarding this) but mock+dispersion is far more reliable dmg output then actually getting in range to aa and he drops far more easily. Truly hardcountering a good tanking build is extremly hard, especially since you'll pick up items like geos and possibly wingbow if the game does go on late. You will either stay in the teamfight for the entire duration putting out heavy damage, or require a massive amount of commitment from the enemy team to drop you.

The current meta does make sw less effective, no matter the build, but even against a good team getting helm+mock is pmuch always possible before 30 minutes if you know what you are doing (most of the time significantly earlier) and your team should be built around this. That this build is useless at a high level of play simply isn't true, since I play at a quite high level:).

[PrestonLee]

@Preston, the issue is really that sw's steroid skills (deserted) is far inferior to basically every other hardcarry. The build you suggest may work, but in those situations just having a different carry whose skillset actually is focused on direct dmg will usually be more beneficial.

...

The current meta does make sw less effective, no matter the build, but even against a good team getting helm+mock is pmuch always possible before 30 minutes if you know what you are doing (most of the time significantly earlier) and your team should be built around this.fair enough points :)

again wasn't saying you're wrong, just trying to steer building sw in a different way of playing besides focusing on the dissipate route.

keep in mind, the thread was opened to talk about different ways of playing sandwraith, so I was just arguing that building him with more agi-oriented item pickups allows him a bit more use earlier on with a more aggressive deserted build, and your argument seems to be he doesn't need a change-up of item pickups at all if played well, which I also agree with.

Really, if you know what you're doing then most builds are Situationally viable, it really just depends on what is needed based on situation. It's just people who tend to post in these forums asking about builds DO NOT adapt very well, nor farm very well, and a tanky sw with a late mock/late everything just isn't going to do much vs decent players :p

[Juicenewton]

Honestly lets not, while i am in favor of making every hero viable sand wraith is the one exception, why you ask?

A hero that is a time bomb is stupid, sand wraith gets mock, the game is over, this is a retarded concept and other than a full rework of the hero there is no way to change it.

[Sandtrap]

Except that it isn't over when he gets a mock right now. You could easily make him significantly more viable during the early game by buffing his starting stats/curse/deserted and keep his late game in check by keeping his ulti/dispersion at the weaker level it's currently at.

If you disagree, please tell me what about the hero concept that ensures that it's a time bomb regardless of the numbers.

[Shocker420]

Been having a lot of success lately by leaving his defensive passive at 1 and maxing his attack passive then playing aggressively. Also skipping mock has been very nice. Can pretty much get any item and he owns. He really just needs a helm/steam boots and maxed attack passive to start picking off heros and doing nice damage. Charged hammer is pretty nice on him cause the attack speed and the ability buff both his passives. A thunder claw after helm helps with farming since you wont have a mock. A early geobane is also pretty nasty on him. Made a team insta concede after I ulted and tped to a lone gauntlet and geo'd/killed him in half a second.

Can always go elder parasite if you be careful when using it or your team is already doing well. Hes so illusive and tanky its pretty ez to use the elder to its max potential while staying alive. Its a pretty much guaranteed kill on a hero thats alone.

[Shocker420]

Well just went 16/0/19 500 gpm with helm/steam/mock/geobane build. I had a barbed armor that I didnt get to use much and a basher/doombringer on the way when they conceded. The standard boring build is really good on him but not too fun. You can always go the standard helm/mock then get fun items after that and it usually works.