Deadlock: The Best Shiv Build

Shiv stands out as a formidable hero in Deadlock, renowned for his strategic prowess in bleeding adversaries and striking with lethal precision. His versatility allows for various build pathways, each enhancing his unique strengths and mitigating his weaknesses.

This guide focuses on a build that leverages Shiv’s Bleeding Damage over Time (DoT), maintaining constant pressure on opponents and keeping their health precariously low. This tactic sets the stage for Shiv to execute timely and devastating attacks, marking him as one of Deadlock’s standout heroes. Perfect for newcomers and seasoned players alike, this build maximizes Shiv’s potential and provides a robust foundation for dominating in-lane skirmishes. Join us as we delve into the optimal setup for Shiv, ensuring you harness his capabilities to the fullest.

Best Items For Shiv In Deadlock

Shiv excels in Deadlock by softening targets from afar before closing in for decisive kills. His combat technique involves harassing foes with his Serrated Knives, then swiftly engaging with Slice and Dice, and delivering potent shotgun blasts. If enemies still stand, his Ultimate, Killing Blow, ensures they don’t for long.

This recommended build emphasizes maximizing Spirit Power and cooldown reduction, enabling Shiv to frequently unleash his abilities, keeping pressure high throughout the game. By equipping items that enhance these aspects, Shiv can consistently perform at his peak, dominating skirmishes and securing victories with his relentless assault. Here’s a detailed look at the best items to amplify Shiv’s predatory prowess in Deadlock.

Laning Phase

Primary Weapon Choices:

• Close Quarters: Bolsters Shiv’s damage during face-to-face confrontations, making it ideal against other melee-focused opponents like Pocket.
• Vitality Options: These selections are crucial for sustaining Shiv’s presence in lane, ensuring he remains a viable threat even under pressure.

Spirit Enhancements:

• Extra Charge: Start with this to gain an additional Serrated Knife, enhancing Shiv’s harassment capability right from the beginning.
• Mystic Vulnerability: Follow up with this item to increase the damage your knives inflict, amplifying your poke and pressure.
• Mystic Burst: Equip this third to boost the impact of Slice and Dice, making your engagements more lethal.

Supplementary Choices:

• Enduring Spirit and Extra Stamina help maintain your stamina for prolonged fights.
• Healing Rite (optional): Provides a healing boost, useful for staying in lane longer and maintaining pressure on your opponent.

This strategy focuses on enhancing Shiv’s natural aggression and sustain, enabling him to dominate the laning phase by maximizing damage output and resilience.

Core Items

Primary Weapon Upgrades:

• Soul Shredder Bullets: Amplify Shiv’s damage output against tankier foes, shredding their defenses.
• Slowing Bullets: Apply a slowing effect to keep enemies within reach, enhancing Shiv’s chasing capability.
• Close Quarters: Continues to boost Shiv’s close-range damage, essential for his burst damage playstyle.

Vitality Enhancements:

• Spirit Lifesteal: Vital for survival, particularly if you’re finding it challenging to stay alive in skirmishes.
• Healbane: Useful beyond its anti-heal properties; it provides a critical heal-on-kill that is crucial for Shiv’s survival during extended fights.

Spirit Enhancements:

• Improved Cooldown: Essential for reducing the cooldowns of Shiv’s abilities, allowing more frequent use of his skills.
• Mystic Vulnerability: Increases the damage enemies take, synergizing well with Shiv’s aggressive bleeding tactics.
• Rapid Charge: Speeds up Shiv’s ability recharge rates, enhancing his sustained combat effectiveness.
• Improved Burst: Further increases the damage output of critical abilities, making Shiv’s bursts deadly.

Strategic Purchase Tips:

• If you are ahead, prioritize offensive Spirit items to capitalize on your lead by maximizing damage.
• If you are behind, focus on Spirit Lifesteal and Soul Shredder Bullets first to improve durability and gradually wear down opponents.

Consider selling early-game items for slot efficiency or upgrade them if they continue to provide value into the mid-game. This approach ensures Shiv remains a formidable force, capable of adapting to the flow of the game and maintaining peak effectiveness.

Luxury Items and Flex Slots

Enhanced Weapon and Survival Upgrades:

• Point Blank: Maximizes damage output in close encounters and adds a slowing effect to bullets, essential for controlling movement in tight fights.
• Siphon Bullets: Boosts Shiv’s max HP with each hit, rewarding aggressive play. Eliminating an enemy grants additional HP stacks, though dying will cost stacks, adding a strategic layer to maintaining survivability.
• Leech: A critical upgrade that increases both bullet and spirit lifesteal, enhancing Shiv’s sustain in combat while providing a significant boost to weapon damage, spirit power, and overall health.
• Superior Stamina: An excellent choice for enhancing mobility with extra dodge charges, crucial for dodging high-impact abilities.

Defensive and Utility Gear:

• Bullet/Spirit Armor: Tailor your defense against the dominant damage type on the enemy team, whether that’s more physical (Bullet) or magical (Spirit).
• Mystic Slow: Applies a debuff that slows enemies’ movement and attack speed when they take spirit damage, complementing Shiv’s aggressive playstyle.
• Escalating Exposure: Adds a stacking debuff that amplifies spirit damage taken by enemies, making Shiv’s attacks increasingly lethal the longer he engages.
• Mystic Reverb: Enhances an ability to not only slow but also hit again with a burst of spirit damage after a delay, ideal for Shiv’s Slice and Dice.
• Improved Spirit: Boosts Shiv’s spirit power, health regeneration, sprint speed, and health, pivotal for late-game survivability and effectiveness. Upgrade to Boundless Spirit for even greater enhancements.

Strategic Purchase Recommendations:

• If you are ahead, prioritize Spirit-centric upgrades like Mystic Slow and Escalating Exposure to maximize damage output and control.
• If facing challenges, focus on defensive items like Leech and the appropriate Armor to bolster Shiv’s staying power in skirmishes.

This late-game strategy ensures Shiv remains a dominant force on the battlefield, capable of swiftly taking down key targets and sustaining through prolonged engagements.

Shiv Skill Priorities

Begin by unlocking Shiv’s Serrated Knife ability and immediately enhance it to gain an additional throwing knife. Next, focus on Slice and Dice, enhancing it twice to bolster its burst damage potential. This sets a strong foundation for your early to mid-game engagements.

Following this, allocate upgrade points to Bloodletting and Killing Blow to diversify your combat capabilities, preparing Shiv for various battlefield scenarios.

For mid to late game strength, prioritize further upgrades to Serrated Knife. Maximizing this ability early on amplifies both its initial damage and its bleed effect, which systematically weakens opponents and makes them vulnerable to your more powerful finishing moves like Slice and Dice and Killing Blow.

This upgrade path ensures Shiv is equipped to handle skirmishes and team fights effectively, maintaining pressure on opponents throughout all phases of the game.

Conclusion

Mastering Shiv in Deadlock revolves around a strategic build that leverages his unique bleeding abilities and aggressive close-quarters combat style. By focusing on a blend of Spirit Power and cooldown reduction early on, Shiv can maintain pressure with frequent use of his Serrated Knives. Transitioning into mid-game, prioritizing items like Soul Shredder Bullets and Spirit Lifesteal helps him stay formidable in skirmishes. For late-game dominance, luxury items such as Point Blank and Leech enhance his survivability and damage output, ensuring he can close out games by taking down key targets effectively. This guide provides a solid framework for both new and experienced players looking to optimize Shiv’s potential and dominate the Deadlock arena.