Shiv bloodletting buff

[jonah.virtanen]

Currently I find that Shiv's Bloodletting allows him to be countered too easily, as he'll often struggle to make up the damage difference and actually live through the deferred damage due to limited regen options, even against non-lethal DoTs like Pocket's Affliction and the spirit item Decay (only 1250 souls to effectively counter him!).
I'd like to suggest making the active portion of Bloodletting a dispel as well. As this would be a pretty massive buff to the character, I do feel it would require the active portion to have a longer cooldown, or perhaps only make the active usable while Shiv is in Rage.

 

[michael.sg]

Playing Shiv, after mid-game I can't even approach another player to use anything but the knives. Instant denial of play (skills, moving). Dead in 3 sec. 60 sec wait. Abuse by my team.

Looks like a fun game, but actually turned into skill elitism, gang roaming, picking on the weak, verbal abuse.

 

[larswillemsen]

Affliction being able to kill Shiv still feels like an oversight of some sort, even though it is not technically incorrect for it to do so.

It is absolutely not true that Bloodletting is anywhere near a net negative for Shiv, and the lacking healing options is also untrue. Shiv can get an incredible amount of value out of Spirit lifesteal. With a few knife hits up he's practically impossible to kill due to Bloodletting. He is arguably the most survivable hero in the entire game if he plans his engagement right. Just having to purchase Debuff remover in the Pocket matchup is not a big deal for him, especially considering he's otherwise extremely strong against him.

 

[michael.sg]

The oversight is there's a strict skillset and drinking 5 coffees to play the game at all. It's worse than Counter-strike & Dota combined.

 

[LuckySeven]

Eh, applying a dispel on bloodletting would be wild, but maybe they could make it like Kunkka's ghost ship buff where the damage itself cannot actually kill you.

 

[Sarus]

drinking 5 coffees to play the game at all

so basically this game was hand-crafted for me

 

[Matty x.x]

Shiv should in no way be buffed and instead be nerfed every patch, infact his entire weird tacked-on rage passive could be removed and he'd still be a great character. The fact he's left largely unchecked since release is ludicrous as his only big nerf was on release-day for one ability and he's still just ridiculous, which really says alot about the balance in the game. And no, I like playing him as I do alot, but we should be honest about unbalance in the game no matter what.

 

[abramsonly]

Shiv should in no way be buffed and instead be nerfed every patch, infact his entire weird tacked-on rage passive could be removed and he'd still be a great character. The fact he's left largely unchecked since release is ludicrous as his only big nerf was on release-day for one ability and he's still just ridiculous, which really says alot about the balance in the game. And no, I like playing him as I do alot, but we should be honest about unbalance in the game no matter what.

agreed. so many unbalanced things in this game and for some reason (people who dont even develop the game) get really mad at criticism / feedback that will help this game become so much better than it is in its current state. played against a shiv that 1v4'd my team with ~11k souls and didnt die. ive bought decay, healbane, toxic bullets.. doesnt matter he doesnt die and can wipe teams basically on his own

 

[larswillemsen]

Shiv should in no way be buffed and instead be nerfed every patch, infact his entire weird tacked-on rage passive could be removed and he'd still be a great character. The fact he's left largely unchecked since release is ludicrous as his only big nerf was on release-day for one ability and he's still just ridiculous, which really says alot about the balance in the game. And no, I like playing him as I do alot, but we should be honest about unbalance in the game no matter what.

I don't think Shiv is that far from balanced anymore. He's probably a bit too strong still, but nothing as excessive as you make it out to be.

The hero's damage is 90% Slice and Dice, and it's a very close range ability. He is weak in lane, doesn't have a good weapon for playing pure economy (Haze and Vindicta will get 90% denies against the guy) and is very item dependent. My only real problem with the guy is that he's nearly impossible to shut down once he gets rolling. You can't deny his Bloodletting - there is no "break" in the game similar to Dota 2. This makes him a very unappealing target for hard cc, as he just dies significantly slower than any other hero and therefor either gives his team a shitload of space or outright survives the lockdown.

Compare him to e.g. prenerf Kelvin. Now that was a truly bizarrely broken hero. Kelvin just autowon every single objective by just existing. Triple denying enemies any form of gun damage for 10 seconds. Massive mobility for the entire team to do urn. Valve is applying modest iterative nerfs and they were still HUGE.

 

[Matty x.x]

I don't think Shiv is that far from balanced anymore. He's probably a bit too strong still, but nothing as excessive as you make it out to be.

The hero's damage is 90% Slice and Dice, and it's a very close range ability. He is weak in lane, doesn't have a good weapon for playing pure economy (Haze and Vindicta will get 90% denies against the guy) and is very item dependent. My only real problem with the guy is that he's nearly impossible to shut down once he gets rolling. You can't deny his Bloodletting - there is no "break" in the game similar to Dota 2. This makes him a very unappealing target for hard cc, as he just dies significantly slower than any other hero and therefor either gives his team a shitload of space or outright survives the lockdown.

Compare him to e.g. prenerf Kelvin. Now that was a truly bizarrely broken hero. Kelvin just autowon every single objective by just existing. Triple denying enemies any form of gun damage for 10 seconds. Massive mobility for the entire team to do urn. Valve is applying modest iterative nerfs and they were still HUGE.

I just think that several things are very unbalanced in the game currently which makes sense for it being so early, but since certain things are so glaring they shouldn't go unchecked for so long either like they don't have data to nerf things by now. This patch was honestly one of the worst ones yet for balance as they barely changed anything surprisingly besides a good nerf on Kelvin even though he's always top-tier regardless. An all around nothing-patch and boring for 2 weeks while the same BS continues to happen with items or characters alike. No new character for over a month either as they are undecided on 2 whole abilities for the upcoming character based on what was said in their discord as if they need community help so early into this game's development, just disappointing, but I shouldn't really rant in someone else's thread.

 

[Sarus]

hey are undecided on 2 whole abilities for the upcoming character based on what was said in their discord as if they need community help so early into this game's development

asking for community participation is perfectly cool, and icefrog has always encouraged and implemented community ideas

 

[Matty x.x]

asking for community participation is perfectly cool, and icefrog has always encouraged and implemented community ideas

Uuh sure, it's cooler to accept community participation than the opposite... but i also find an issue with it with how game devs hired for a job to develop a game need community suggestions from people that largely have no idea what they are talking about, let alone in a discord or forum alike where plenty are underage or just plain dumb. It's not just one little suggestion about a numbers thing or even one ability, it's 2 whole abilities at the least and there's barely any characters yet... way too early to run out of ideas and be confused.

Magic carpet is a community thing and that's absolutely terrible too, it is a complete gimmick item only in the game because of a person that thought it was cool to have Aladdin in the game to make some epic play only with one specific character or too, as it is either entirely useless or broken depending on the state the item is in or the character it's used on, as it's already been buffed twice too. Community suggestions should be taken very critically and sparingly.

 

[abramsonly]

I don't think Shiv is that far from balanced anymore. He's probably a bit too strong still, but nothing as excessive as you make it out to be.

The hero's damage is 90% Slice and Dice, and it's a very close range ability. He is weak in lane, doesn't have a good weapon for playing pure economy (Haze and Vindicta will get 90% denies against the guy) and is very item dependent. My only real problem with the guy is that he's nearly impossible to shut down once he gets rolling. You can't deny his Bloodletting - there is no "break" in the game similar to Dota 2. This makes him a very unappealing target for hard cc, as he just dies significantly slower than any other hero and therefor either gives his team a shitload of space or outright survives the lockdown.

Compare him to e.g. prenerf Kelvin. Now that was a truly bizarrely broken hero. Kelvin just autowon every single objective by just existing. Triple denying enemies any form of gun damage for 10 seconds. Massive mobility for the entire team to do urn. Valve is applying modest iterative nerfs and they were still HUGE.

yea we don't have the same copy of the game then lol its ok

 

[IgorNL]

I don't think Shiv is overpowered, I even think he's weak, I've played with him and against him, the character is totally dependent on items, he's practically useless in the early game, his 1 only starts to deal damage after it's maxed out, the slice and dice is only good when he's at max rage because it increases damage by 25% and hits 2x, Shiv is a character that only gets strong when the match is almost over, if the match lasts 50 minutes Shiv will get a lot of kills, but they usually end in 20-30 minutes, in that time either Shiv farms a lot of souls to build his build quickly or he'll be useless in the match, he's one of the worst characters for the early game, his knife is ignoreable, the slice and dice does almost no damage, his weapon is by far the worst in the game, it takes forever to charge the rage bar and without it he doesn't do anything, Shiv is a character that needs a lot of stuff to function and so you just have to keep your distance and he'll barely do anything will cause you damage, Shiv is a noob killer, if you don't know what you're doing you'll die in the blink of an eye but if you know how to play, you'll kill Shiv before he gets close to you, the problem is that people want to throw themselves at Shiv, take all his skills and still win, it's obvious that they'll die that way. If there's a character that deserves a buff, it's Shiv. Keep your distance, use slows and stuns and you'll win without any effort.

Shiv needs t4 items, needs to charge his fury, needs to reach the enemy to land his skills, while there are characters who just stand far away holding M1 and deal triple the damage of Shiv's entire combo, characters who kill you without even using their skills, just keep shooting like morons.

 

[Sir Gamer]

I agree with the premise, nowadays Shiv spends most his time surviving, he's only good in about the middle game. And if you see a carry Shiv, that probably due to the matchmaking sleeping on the job again.

If tracklock to be believed and if my math is correct, Shiv currently sits at 47% winrate (top-1% elo too), which means Shiv's strength is about 64% of an "average" hero... which is pretty bad.

Though I disagree with the proposal. Shiv benefits from items that can also give him colossal spirit lifesteal (above 100% even!), so his survivability is good. Problem is, Shiv is too busy surviving because he struggles to kill enemies. And that is because his bleeding needs to much time to soften the enemy, by that time the victim can retreat or call for help.

A more interesting solution, imo, would be to buff his speed and stamina, to allow him engage and disengage more easily, and then give him more charges or faster cooldowns, so that he will be constantly wearing out his enemies with bleeding and stuff, while staying in safety. Yep, that won't necessarily give him more kills, but the winning is not exactly about kills. This will also give him a slightly more unique role than before.