DeadlockDeadlock Shiv Guide and Overview

Shiv is all about controlled aggression. His kit synergizes in a way that encourages you to set up favorable fights and quickly close in for the kill. If you like having options and being able to spot weaknesses to capitalize on quickly, then Shiv is for you.

Strengths

• Great poke in lane and can win trades using his defer damage passive.

• Excellent Mobility with dash and Ultimate.

• Can clear camps fast and move quick to gank.

Weaknesses

• No CC outside of a slow.

• Squishy - If you get locked down your defer damage won’t help you.

• Need to be close range to win the fight, so requires a delicate balance.

Underlined = Scales with Spirit

Serrated Knives (1)
Throw a knife that damages and slows an enemy. Each additional hit adds a stack and refreshes the debuff duration, causing the damage to increase per stack.
2 Charges	2s between Charges	19s CD
5s Debuff Duration	35 Damage	5 Bleed DPS Per Knife
Ultimate Unlock: While rage is full knives will ricochet to another enemy and apply a slow to enemies they bleed. 35% Movement Slow

Maxing the knives gives you an extra charge, makes enemies bleed longer, and finally ups the damage considerably. If you want to poke people, this is your skill.

Tips for Serrated Knives

• If you want to max this skill early, then you should definitely get Extra Charge and the potentially Rapid charge it builds into. Mystic Reach is also a good idea.

• Bleed stacks, so you can really hurt players if you get multiple in a row, creating an opening for a quick finish when they are slow.

• Remember knives ricochet to champs when you have full rage from your ultimate, so you can really hurt groups of enemies.

Slice and Dice (2)
Perform a dash forward, damaging enemies along the path. Ultimate Unlock: While rage is full an echo of Shiv retraces the dash path after a short delay, damaging enemies again.
105 Damage	12m Dash Range	16s CD

Maxing your mobility skill allows you to do it more often, do more damage, and reduce the cooldown by 2s per enemy hit, for a max of 6. Combined with the first one, that makes your dash a very low cooldown.

Tips for Slice and Dice

• If you max your dash early, it becomes an incredible damage source, especially when farming neutral camps because you will hit 3 targets easily and reset the cooldown.

• If you aren’t maxing it, think very carefully about dashing as it is a big commitment. Remember you can gap close with your ultimate and then dash out if things don't go according to plan.

Bloodletting (3)
Take only a portion of incoming damage immediately and defer the rest to be taken over time. Activate to clear a portion of the deferred damage.
30% Incoming Damage Deferred	10s Deferred Damage Duration	21s CD
On Activate: 40% Deferred Damage Cleared
Ultimate Unlock: While rage is full the amount of damage deferred is increased. 15% Incoming Damage Deferred

This defensive skill defers damage and allows for clever play if you invest in it. Maxing this stretches out the duration the deferred damage takes place over, the cooldown of your ability to clear, and then finally the amount of damage cleared.

Tips for Bloodletting

• You really need to understand your incoming damage to use it optimally.

  • If you use the clear too early, you don’t get much value out of it.

  • If you hold the clear for a while, you can just ignore a huge amount of damage taken. However, the longer you hold the more risk at play.

• Using this well gives you a huge upper hand in lane trades early on.

Killing Blow (4)
Activate to leap towards an enemy hero and instantly kill them if their health is below the kill threshold, otherwise deal 200 damage to them.
20m Range	20% Enemy Health Threshold	95s CD
Passive: Damaging enemies fills you with rage. While at full rave, Shiv gains increased damage and special properties on his other abilities.
+25% All Damage

You spent all that time doing mental math and making enemies weak for this skill.

Killing Blow immediately finishes the fight if done correctly and maxing it allows you to move faster, do it at a higher threshold, and finally, resets the skill on successful finisher.

Tips for Killing Blow

• You always want to save this for when opponents are low, but remember that sometimes you need to close a gap and this skill is an excellent gap closer.

  • This is especially true in the early game where everyone is sub 1000 HP. The 200 damage is more than 20%!

  • 20% of a tanky player’s health is still 20% (or 28% if talented), so if you have this hand for a tank it’s going to be brutal.

• Remember the passive component of rage build-up and how it affects your other skills! Get that rage up and keep it up with bleed in fights, or farming neutrals out of fights.