Shiv Rework Idea

[Cellery]

I've seen a lot of conflicting opinions on Shiv's kit. Plenty of people find Bloodletting and Killing Blow incredibly frustrating to deal with and plenty of people who play the character are not happy with the current direction of his balance changes.

Serrated Knives feel useless, Slice and Dice feels unreliable, Bloodletting is frustrating to deal with since you cannot really interact with it and there's no way to tell how much damage he's deferred and Killing Blow's reset reset can feel incredibly frustrating with it having effectively a 100% up time. This also leads to him being incredibly weak in public matches but incredibly oppressive in the highest levels of play. Because of all of this I'd like to propose a rework, making changes of varying impact on all of Shiv's abilities. I hope you all like it and that this is at least considered! Thank you for reading this :>

 

[B33N P0IS0N]

Is it heat? [Yes.]

 

[soulburn2101]

Banger

 

[vinniregister]

I do like keeping the "Deferrence" but on-demand and on a cooldown. Would Killing Blow still be point and click or would it be more of a dash or a leap type move?

 

[Cellery]

I do like keeping the "Deferrence" but on-demand and on a cooldown. Would Killing Blow still be point and click or would it be more of a dash or a leap type move?

It would still be point in click. It's basically unchanged apart from reverting the range nerf, the tier 2 giving more range and the refresh being for only 8 seconds

 

[ReportingBugs]

I've seen a lot of conflicting opinions on Shiv's kit. Plenty of people find Bloodletting and Killing Blow incredibly frustrating to deal with and plenty of people who play the character are not happy with the current direction of his balance changes.

Serrated Knives feel useless, Slice and Dice feels unreliable, Bloodletting is frustrating to deal with since you cannot really interact with it and there's no way to tell how much damage he's deferred and Killing Blow's reset reset can feel incredibly frustrating with it having effectively a 100% up time. This also leads to him being incredibly weak in public matches but incredibly oppressive in the highest levels of play. Because of all of this I'd like to propose a rework, making changes of varying impact on all of Shiv's abilities. I hope you all like it and that this is at least considered! Thank you for reading this :>

Knives imo should have impact damage increased from vanilla, but bleed dps to go down. Landing knives is not as easy, especially to keep up the stacks, on a target no less. You are essentially making bleed Shiv a monster. It is also gutting the spread mechanic with rage.

Dash would be absolutely broken. Not at all healthy. Have you seen gameplay clips of shivs in hallways or in a teamfight? That extra 0.06 is going to stack up, much harder, with healing? The fact the cooldown is down earlier by 3 seconds, is scary. It is also scary he can cancel it, it gives him potential to dash back and forth even more. Especially how you can summon echo at will with small% of rage? Then you pair it with echo shard? That's asking for an infinite feedback loop. Throw vortex web in the mix too? What about it being paired (the dash cancel) with shotgun jumps as well from the walls, and infinite shotgun slides?



Do or die I like a lot more - better than current! Well done!



Ultimate extra range is gonna make it more powerful, however the last point into it will gut the power of shiv quite a bit. Why would you need to reset the ultimate, when you could, for example, just kill them all? You have to factor the cast time, and how you can negate it or whatever. Going for an ult, the targets will try to flee or respond. 5 man ult certainly takes skill - it's not like instant, or that you can't predict for it.

Just think about the combination. You dash, gain unstoppable, then cancel then jump right into an ult? There will be hard time countering with that.

 

[Cellery]

Knives imo should have impact damage increased from vanilla, but bleed dps to go down. Landing knives is not as easy, especially to keep up the stacks, on a target no less. You are essentially making bleed Shiv a monster. It is also gutting the spread mechanic with rage.

Dash would be absolutely broken. Not at all healthy. Have you seen gameplay clips of shivs in hallways or in a teamfight? That extra 0.06 is going to stack up, much harder, with healing? The fact the cooldown is down earlier by 3 seconds, is scary. It is also scary he can cancel it, it gives him potential to dash back and forth even more. Especially how you can summon echo at will with small% of rage? Then you pair it with echo shard? That's asking for an infinite feedback loop. Throw vortex web in the mix too? What about it being paired (the dash cancel) with shotgun jumps as well from the walls, and infinite shotgun slides?

View attachment 84284

Do or die I like a lot more - better than current! Well done!

View attachment 84286

Ultimate extra range is gonna make it more powerful, however the last point into it will gut the power of shiv quite a bit. Why would you need to reset the ultimate, when you could, for example, just kill them all? You have to factor the cast time, and how you can negate it or whatever. Going for an ult, the targets will try to flee or respond. 5 man ult certainly takes skill - it's not like instant, or that you can't predict for it.

Just think about the combination. You dash, gain unstoppable, then cancel then jump right into an ult? There will be hard time countering with that.

I put the Unstoppable on full rage and tier 3 because he'd be spending rage for the other benefits instead of having them passively so rage is more of a resource to be spent, and the problem with those clips of him getting those big resets in a fight (especially in a hallway) is that no one uses anything like Slowing Hex, Sleep Dagger, etc. to stun him and they all bunch up allowing him to get the resets. The dash cancel also would make him go a shorter distance so it would be harder to hit enough people for the resets, it wouldn't just make him recover sooner. I also increased the scaling on dash because his damage amp on Rage would be lower (at tier 2 currently it's 21% but he doesn't get the damage amp increase on tier 2 so it stays 15%). The reason I went with the changes I made to knives was to incentivize the bleed more given that's a main selling point of the character. The temp resets were to specifically address his strength at the highest levels of play where he is broken almost exclusively due to Bloodletting and his execute. It also makes Killing Blow work more like other resetting executes in other MOBAs.

 

[ReportingBugs]

I put the Unstoppable on full rage and tier 3 because he'd be spending rage for the other benefits instead of having them passively so rage is more of a resource to be spent, and the problem with those clips of him getting those big resets in a fight (especially in a hallway) is that no one uses anything like Slowing Hex, Sleep Dagger, etc. to stun him and they all bunch up allowing him to get the resets. The dash cancel also would make him go a shorter distance so it would be harder to hit enough people for the resets, it wouldn't just make him recover sooner. I also increased the scaling on dash because his damage amp on Rage would be lower (at tier 2 currently it's 21% but he doesn't get the damage amp increase on tier 2 so it stays 15%). The reason I went with the changes I made to knives was to incentivize the bleed more given that's a main selling point of the character. The temp resets were to specifically address his strength at the highest levels of play where he is broken almost exclusively due to Bloodletting and his execute. It also makes Killing Blow work more like other resetting executes in other MOBAs.

But isn't giving it constant unstoppable going to counter that, especially on a good shiv who has good mobility? Especially being able to cleanse it with the new do or die?

Resetting executes in Mobas are typically instant, like Darius' level 3 ultimate in LoL, Viego. There are various as well. Having it 8 seconds seems quite penalising. But yes, the bloodletting and execute are his strongest point. The dashes would make him absurd in lower levels of play, and would be still strong for the reasons I mentioned above with a good Shiv.

1.5 * 1.15 = 1.725 spirit scaling
1.44 * 1.15 = 1.656 spirit, goes up to 1.7424 = 1.44 * 1.21, with higher full rage damage bonus.

You are getting almost the strength of later shiv, early.

Overall, this is a buff to the dash, due to how much it comes out, how it shaves 3 seconds off at base, how it can't be cancelled, how debuffs can be refreshed instantly, and the damage is still above 1.4 spirit scaling. That and also the unstoppableness to it.

New dash cd:
12 seconds base, 12 * 0.8 = 9.6
9.6 - 8 = 1.6 cd.

Vanilla:
15 * 0.8 = 12
12 - 8 = 4 cd

Clearly, it is overall a dps dash buff. Good in low elo, and good on high skill shivs because of mobility and finding openings.

You're starting to see the absurd numbers, right? This is a low elo stomper, and considering the counter play you get with unstoppable + cleanse with 3? And the fact you can summon echo on will?

These changes also hurt gun shiv as well (less damage on full rage).

 

[Cellery]

That is a fair point actually. Thank you for bringing this to my attention! I'll make some adjustments based on your feedback!

 

[Oleg-fav]

i really like his current knives actually, it's the only long-distance poke he has outside of his gun. They are also really good at stacking de-buffs from spirit items. And it is also not beneficial to throw them mindlessly like wraith cards - you want to target the same hero when the bleed is almost over to stack it's damage up to infinity. Peak design ability

 

[ReportingBugs]

That is a fair point actually. Thank you for bringing this to my attention! I'll make some adjustments based on your feedback!

No worries!

Here's my advice:
1) Watching Poshpop is really good. Very informative content. Deathy is good. I caution Metro, due to his history of being inflammatory and being quite difficult in higher elo co-operation.

2) Play quite a bit of games, focus on improving bit by bit. When you start reaching top 15% ish, that's when you start getting a vague sense of the game (I still have quite a bit of ways to go, I'm only 900 hours - Oracle 2!). When playing, just try all kinds of stuff, get a feel for things. Don't be shy to make mistakes. But pay attention to mistakes bit by bit. I learnt the most trying fun silly wacky stuff, and then I start paying attention to pros and I bridged the gap from there. "High elo" is when the game collapses to a particular state, which happens around the 2-1% mark. It is less about being better than most people, but being so much higher in standard deviation, you start to understand how everything collapses. Emergence. I have yet to achieve this personally myself. It takes dedication and love.

3) Pay close attention to damage numbers, the souls you have, the souls they have, and associate that with numbers. Get a feel for it. You gotta feeeeeel the numbers.

4) When you have a feel for it, start running some calculations on items that in theory should make them strong. I absolutely spent a full day in training alone, just working on theory crafting and asking things I can min-max. Yes - it is very much time well spent - you actually get better in the game by... not playing the game? It's studying the game, actually. Is very fun, stimulates the mind A LOT.

5) Bad games happen. You'll win 40%, even if you play like poo, you lose 40% even if you do godsent, but that 20% you can change. Do what comes natural, and assess things after 10+ hours later, something like that.

6) Your brain lowkey is tryna do smart things, but faster with less mental friction. Let yourself go a bit autopilot for some actions on repitition, but also be concious about what you're doing. You want to be in the middle.

If you stress too much, it's anxiety. Otherwise, you're gonna be angsty and tight (aroused). If it's hard but you're being too sloppy, you're autopiloting (relaxation). Not entirely flow state, and you're just... in control. Which is good. But the BEST is when you're so locked in, and you're a bit angsty, but a good kind. It's like you're irate, but you're motivated to push through with high confidence and focus, and it doesn't drain you. Rather energising. That is flow. Eventually when you realise your brain autolocks in, eventually you can filter all the chaos and pull off some crazy things. The top 2-1% does this automatically. Completely different way of playing. One day I'll get there. I love deadlock....

The idea is about synergy, mitigating weaknesses, being reflexive (to current game cons), raw numerical power, but also exploiting slight bits of nuance that most players would overlook.

It's a skill that CAN be learnt! Keep trying!

 

[Oleg-fav]

I caution Metro, due to his history of being inflammatory and being quite difficult in higher elo co-operation.

Not metro lmao, when graves was released he was arguing with his chat that toxic bullets and duration are bad on her. That was my first and last impression of metro

 

[ReportingBugs]

Not metro lmao, when graves was released he was arguing with his chat that toxic bullets and duration are bad on her. That was my first and last impression of metro

On a flamethrower no miss item, with spread, with a way to stop you from getting closer (2 and 4), with a decent build up rate? lol what

Deathy called out his takes indirectly, not naming by name, just the stance, and Metro got all upset and tried to pick a fight with Deathy being very abrasive whilst Deathy was just trying to talk about the game balance at hand. Even Metro agrees deathy was in the right and he's being exaggerative with his "just rush green".

 

[Ukie]

In all seriousness, some of these are ridiculous. 4 cd on knife on lvl 1 just to gut his most fun mechanic? Cmon bro, shiv didn’t die for this…

 

[ReportingBugs]

View attachment 84305
In all seriousness, some of these are ridiculous. 4 cd on knife on lvl 1 just to gut his most fun mechanic? Cmon bro, shiv didn’t die for this…

Oh yeah, good point! Yeah, bleed shiv is gonna be way too strong! Also considering bleed dps is going up. Completely ridding the charge aspect of it too! Easily strongest 1st point rush for knife shiv.

 

[Ukie]

The whole idea of shiv is that you’re homeless before rage and god once it’s stacked. It’s supposed to be the axiom of the character, but it’s up to Valve on how they want to shape it. Basically you want some tools on how to get rage(your knives and gun) and your main damage(dash) as well as some sustain since you play up close(which is bloodletting) and a powerful finisher, which is 4. I just think his current gameplay loop is quite enjoyable(otherwise I wouldn’t have 1000+games on him with sub 50 wr lol) and if anything should get changed its his knives because they’re either too strong or a complete nuisance. Ult is just his backbone mechanic and is too enjoyable to use to change it.

 

[Cellery]

No worries!

Here's my advice:
1) Watching Poshpop is really good. Very informative content. Deathy is good. I caution Metro, due to his history of being inflammatory and being quite difficult in higher elo co-operation.

2) Play quite a bit of games, focus on improving bit by bit. When you start reaching top 15% ish, that's when you start getting a vague sense of the game (I still have quite a bit of ways to go, I'm only 900 hours - Oracle 2!). When playing, just try all kinds of stuff, get a feel for things. Don't be shy to make mistakes. But pay attention to mistakes bit by bit. I learnt the most trying fun silly wacky stuff, and then I start paying attention to pros and I bridged the gap from there. "High elo" is when the game collapses to a particular state, which happens around the 2-1% mark. It is less about being better than most people, but being so much higher in standard deviation, you start to understand how everything collapses. Emergence. I have yet to achieve this personally myself. It takes dedication and love.

3) Pay close attention to damage numbers, the souls you have, the souls they have, and associate that with numbers. Get a feel for it. You gotta feeeeeel the numbers.

4) When you have a feel for it, start running some calculations on items that in theory should make them strong. I absolutely spent a full day in training alone, just working on theory crafting and asking things I can min-max. Yes - it is very much time well spent - you actually get better in the game by... not playing the game? It's studying the game, actually. Is very fun, stimulates the mind A LOT.

5) Bad games happen. You'll win 40%, even if you play like poo, you lose 40% even if you do godsent, but that 20% you can change. Do what comes natural, and assess things after 10+ hours later, something like that.

6) Your brain lowkey is tryna do smart things, but faster with less mental friction. Let yourself go a bit autopilot for some actions on repitition, but also be concious about what you're doing. You want to be in the middle.
View attachment 84300
If you stress too much, it's anxiety. Otherwise, you're gonna be angsty and tight (aroused). If it's hard but you're being too sloppy, you're autopiloting (relaxation). Not entirely flow state, and you're just... in control. Which is good. But the BEST is when you're so locked in, and you're a bit angsty, but a good kind. It's like you're irate, but you're motivated to push through with high confidence and focus, and it doesn't drain you. Rather energising. That is flow. Eventually when you realise your brain autolocks in, eventually you can filter all the chaos and pull off some crazy things. The top 2-1% does this automatically. Completely different way of playing. One day I'll get there. I love deadlock....

The idea is about synergy, mitigating weaknesses, being reflexive (to current game cons), raw numerical power, but also exploiting slight bits of nuance that most players would overlook.

It's a skill that CAN be learnt! Keep trying!

Thank you so much for the advice! I'll keep all of that in mind!

 

[Cellery]

I've seen a lot of conflicting opinions on Shiv's kit. Plenty of people find Bloodletting and Killing Blow incredibly frustrating to deal with and plenty of people who play the character are not happy with the current direction of his balance changes.

Serrated Knives feel useless, Slice and Dice feels unreliable, Bloodletting is frustrating to deal with since you cannot really interact with it and there's no way to tell how much damage he's deferred and Killing Blow's reset reset can feel incredibly frustrating with it having effectively a 100% up time. This also leads to him being incredibly weak in public matches but incredibly oppressive in the highest levels of play. Because of all of this I'd like to propose a rework, making changes of varying impact on all of Shiv's abilities. I hope you all like it and that this is at least considered! Thank you for reading this :>

Okay I have made an update to this rework idea based on feedback. I wanna make the bleed a bigger part of the kit overall but I also don't want the knives to be overcentralizing in his kit. I've decided to make the knives more like the current version but with higher base impact damage but keeping the scaling on the impact and bleed damage the same otherwise. I've changed the tier 3 from increasing the damage to instead apply bleed on melees to maintain the close range knives idea while not limiting the thrown knives, as well as having the amount of ways to apply bleed compensate for the lack of increases to the bleed DPS (as it stacks faster). I've reverted most changed to Slice and Dice and have reduced the tier 2 damage increase but allowed Slice and Dice to apply bleed as well as compensation. Killing Blow has remained mostly the same with the exception of the reset duration MUCH longer. Do or Die goes unchanged, I just wanted to send it for easy access to see how everything fits together.

 

[B33N P0IS0N]

Okay I have made an update to this rework idea based on feedback. I wanna make the bleed a bigger part of the kit overall but I also don't want the knives to be overcentralizing in his kit. I've decided to make the knives more like the current version but with higher base impact damage but keeping the scaling on the impact and bleed damage the same otherwise. I've changed the tier 3 from increasing the damage to instead apply bleed on melees to maintain the close range knives idea while not limiting the thrown knives, as well as having the amount of ways to apply bleed compensate for the lack of increases to the bleed DPS (as it stacks faster). I've reverted most changed to Slice and Dice and have reduced the tier 2 damage increase but allowed Slice and Dice to apply bleed as well as compensation. Killing Blow has remained mostly the same with the exception of the reset duration MUCH longer. Do or Die goes unchanged, I just wanted to send it for easy access to see how everything fits together.

Hold on, Rage based ricochet is genius. It gives more purpose to the very situational full Rage bonus.

 

[ReportingBugs]

Okay I have made an update to this rework idea based on feedback. I wanna make the bleed a bigger part of the kit overall but I also don't want the knives to be overcentralizing in his kit. I've decided to make the knives more like the current version but with higher base impact damage but keeping the scaling on the impact and bleed damage the same otherwise. I've changed the tier 3 from increasing the damage to instead apply bleed on melees to maintain the close range knives idea while not limiting the thrown knives, as well as having the amount of ways to apply bleed compensate for the lack of increases to the bleed DPS (as it stacks faster). I've reverted most changed to Slice and Dice and have reduced the tier 2 damage increase but allowed Slice and Dice to apply bleed as well as compensation. Killing Blow has remained mostly the same with the exception of the reset duration MUCH longer. Do or Die goes unchanged, I just wanted to send it for easy access to see how everything fits together.

Just from scanning - looks a LOT better.