ilindsey007
New member
Current State
Let's address the elephant in the room before continuing, I am a Shiv main and I am also aware that he is likely the best character in the game. His rage passive gives him access to straight-up more powerful versions of his abilities for basically free (doing/taking damage the thing he does the most with his kit and playstyle). There have been attempts to remedy this before by restricing rage buildup to hero damage, but it doesn't seem to have been effective enough at making him balanced. His ultimate is also incredibly powerful to the point of it being the focus of many of the current popular builds. This makes sense as a brawler with a 0 cd, movement based, execute is incredibly good. IMPORTANT I am not proposing this change solely for balance reasons, but because I also think it would be cool and flow better.
The Rework
Change Shiv's passive rage buildup mechanic with a system just like Silver's ultimate charge buildup. He is unable to use his ult until he accumulates enough "bloodlust" (which is accumulated like current rage through doing/taking damage but faster). It will fill up his ult icon, just like Silver, and allow him to cast his ult. IF he successfully executes someone with his ult, he is enraged and gains the current benefits of his rage passive as a TIMED BUFF, if he does not execute someone maybe he gets the buff for 0.25x the time or not at all idk. This would almost certainly require the current rage benefits and ult numbers to be tweaked as he would not be able to cast his ult by default.I think this would bring him down a bit and in-line with the power level of the other members of the roster. By making this change he would not be able to start fights with the rage buff, which I think is a major reason for him feeling overtuned. This change increases the requirements for activating rage to be basically getting a kill which would make the passive much less "always-on" like it is currently. A good shiv will still do good, and he would be more inline with his "enraged hunter" aesthetic as well.
