Graves vs Shiv

Do

• Plan for Divine Barrier Divine Barrier 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorPress +55s Cooldown +0.2s Cast Delay +1.5 Out of Combat Regen +6s Buff Duration +600 Barrier +10% Ability Range +10% Radius Builds from Guardian Ward — know which tier it sits in so you are not improvising at the shop.
• Know what Slice and Dice looks like. It is the cooldown this lane revolves around.

Avoid

• Walking to lane on the same path every wave against a hero with Shiv's engage range.

Do

• 830 max health with 0% base resists and 6.5 m/s move speed — he is not actually tanky, he just delays damage
• Shotgun falloff starts at 20m, so a long-range laner (Silver, Sinclair, Grey Talon archetypes) simply outranges him all lane
• Jar of Dead Jar of Dead Passively banks a charge whenever something dies near Graves. Crowd Control none at base; the tier-2 upgrade adds roughly a 30% movement slow for about… Damage roughly 16 spirit per Deadhead hit at base spirit power (deadlock.one, patch… Defensive tier-1 upgrade returns a small heal (about 5 health) when a death is… 1 heals Graves a small amount for each death collected 2 Deadhead hits apply roughly a 30% slow for about 1 second 5 +2 additional Deadheads and +4 seconds of lifetime charges off every creep death, so a lane Graves is winning snowballs the ability's uptime

Avoid

• Serrated Knives Serrated Knives 16s Cooldown Shiv throws a knife that damages and bleeds the target. Crowd Control Applies a movement slow with the bleed; Damage 32 impact damage plus 10 bleed DPS per knife stack over a 5s debuff; 1 1 AP: +2s debuff duration 2 2 AP: +2 charges (four knives available for a full stack dump) 5 5 AP: +7 bleed DPS per stack, and +0.01 spirit scaling on the full-Rage impact damage give him free chip at range with 2 charges on a 16s cooldown, which wins the health-bar war without him ever entering shotgun range
• Bloodletting Bloodletting 25s Cooldown A portion of the damage Shiv takes is not applied immediately; Damage No damage dealt. Defers 30% of incoming damage over 6s; activating clears… Defensive His entire defensive layer — effectively an on-demand partial heal for… 1 1 AP: -15s cooldown (25s to roughly 10s) 2 2 AP: +40% of deferred damage cleared on activation 5 5 AP: +15% of incoming damage deferred means losing a trade does not mean losing the lane — he defers 30% of the burst and clears 40% of it back

Do

• Their first real spike is ult unlock — respect it from that point, not before.
• Your spike is ult unlock: Borrowed Decree Borrowed Decree 20m Range16s Duration140s Cooldown Plants a gravestone that spawns Ghouls over time. Crowd Control area slow on Ghoul detonation Damage roughly 115 spirit on Ghoul detonation and about 40 melee per upgrade tier; Defensive a gravestone placed on your own walker or guardian turns a defensive hold… 1 +25% Ghoul move speed and about -15s cooldown 2 +10s duration 5 Ghouls deal roughly +5% of the target's current health as damage when they die, and… converts her into permanent lane and objective pressure even while she is elsewhere on the map

Avoid

• Taking an even fight against Shiv on their spike timing when you could take the same fight ten minutes later on yours.

Do

• Watch for Serrated Knives. Any cleanse or debuff-removal item wipes the whole stack, not one knife — use it once he has built 3-4 stacks, not on the first
• Play heroes with Hard CC and zoning — his entire fight plan collapses if the leap or Slice and Dice is interrupted mid-commit

Avoid

• Spending your own escape before Slice and Dice is on cooldown.

• Serrated Knives Ability 1

  The tool that keeps you inside everything else Shiv throws — applies a movement slow with the bleed; at full Rage the slow on bleeding targets is 35% (mobalytics 2026).

  • Any cleanse or debuff-removal item wipes the whole stack, not one knife — use it once he has built 3-4 stacks, not on the first
  • Break line of sight to deny stack refreshes; the debuff falls off in 5s (7s at 1 AP) once he cannot re-hit you
  • Because he has no native anti-heal, a single healer or a Restorative/Extra Regen Extra Regen 800 souls Tier 1ArmorPassive +2.5 Health Regen +1.5 Out of Combat Regen purchase fully negates bleed chip between fights
• Slice and Dice Ability 2

  His gap-closer, his escape (forward only) and his damage amplifier. Hitting heroes with it is how he keeps it up in extended fights.

  • It is a straight fixed-length line — step perpendicular to his facing, not backwards, and the dash overshoots you
  • Time your own displacement or Stun for the dash frames; a Stun landing as he commits leaves him inside your team with no second mobility tool
  • Deny the 5 AP cooldown refund by not clustering: each hero he clips through returns 2s to the dash
• Killing Blow Ultimate

  An anti-carry tool: it converts any low-health enemy into a guaranteed kill from 12m away, and at 5 AP it resets on a successful execute so he can chain through a team.

  • Track the threshold, not your health bar: above roughly 18% (23% at 2 AP) he only deals 200 damage, so the panic point is much lower than it feels
  • A single burst heal that pushes you back over the threshold wastes his 145s ultimate entirely
  • Never be the lowest-health hero standing within 18m of a Shiv with ult up; he leaps to the target, so distance is a real defence
• Bloodletting Ability 3

  This is what lets Shiv survive the initial burst of a dive he loses. It turns a spike of incoming damage into a bar he can partly delete, which is why he can commit into a fight that should kill him.

  • Do not disengage when Shiv 'survives' your burst — the deferred pool is still ticking into him, and continued pressure kills him where backing off gives him a free reset
  • Force him to use the active early in a fight; on the base 25s cooldown he cannot clear a second burst
  • Burst damage is worse against him than sustained damage. A single spike gets deferred and cleared; steady DPS outpaces both the deferral window and the clear

1. 1 Slice and Dice

   Slice and Dice first. It is his engage AND his disengage on one 16s cooldown; a Shiv who dashes at a trooper wave or a durable frontliner has no way to reach or leave your backline for the next 10-16 seconds

2. 2 Bloodletting

   Then Bloodletting's active. Force it with a burst from a durable body early in the fight — on the 25s base cooldown he cannot clear a second spike

3. 3 Serrated Knives

   Bait Serrated Knives charges in lane: both charges on a 16s cooldown with 2s between means an empty charge bar is a real trade window

• No native healing reduction and no native healing — enemy sustain both undoes his damage and denies his execute Strong evidence
• Poor teamfighter: everything in his kit is single-target and his shotgun falls off past 20m Strong evidence
• One directional mobility ability means Hard CC on the dash or on the leap ends his fight Strong evidence

• Killing Blow executes you outright below 18% (23% with 2 ability points) from 12-18m away — no positioning, wall or escape ability saves you once you are under the line Strong evidence
• Stacked Serrated Knives plus the full-Rage current-HP impact damage will walk your health bar down to that threshold from outside shotgun range, without him ever committing Strong evidence
• Slice and Dice at 2 AP shreds your Spirit Resist per hit, so the follow-up bleed and any Spirit Damage from his team lands amplified Strong evidence
• Bloodletting means your opening burst does not actually register — you spend your cooldowns, he clears 40% of the queued damage, and then executes you Strong evidence
• At 5 AP his ultimate resets on a kill, so a single low-health teammate dying inside your group starts a chain that can take three heroes in one fight Strong evidence
• You are exactly the target Shiv is looking for — low durability, no exit. Expect them to ignore your frontline entirely and open on you, and to do it at the moment your team's attention is elsewhere. Your positioning has to assume they are already past your tank. Strong evidence

• Play heroes with Hard CC and zoning — his entire fight plan collapses if the leap or Slice and Dice is interrupted mid-commit Strong evidence
• Keep a burst heal for the execute window specifically: any heal that lifts a target above the 18-23% threshold wastes his 145s ultimate Strong evidence
• Keep fighting after he 'survives' your burst — Bloodletting defers the damage, it does not remove it, and disengaging is exactly what lets him clear it Strong evidence
• Outrange the shotgun: his weapon falls off from 20m to 41m and his only closer is a 12m line dash on a 16s (10s at 1 AP) cooldown Strong evidence
• Cleanse Serrated Knives once he has 3-4 stacks up, not on the first knife; one cleanse removes the whole stacked bleed Strong evidence
• Do not let a single low-health hero stand alone within 18m of him with ult available — grouping denies the pick and denies the 5 AP reset chain Strong evidence
• Killing Blow is one cast aimed at one person and that person is likely you, which changes the shape of the answer. Effective health is the wrong axis — a hero who can pick you out of a fight will simply wait until the number is beatable. Counterspell Counterspell 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorPassive +23s Cooldown +20 Spirit Power +6s Buff Duration +0.8s Spell Parry Duration +50 Bonus Health +5 Spirit Power negates a single ability outright, which against a one-cast threat is a hundred percent mitigation for 3,200, and the read is easier than it sounds because a single-target ultimate has to be aimed at you to work. Strategic
• Shiv's bullets are among the fastest in the game and you have little mobility, so you will not dodge their gun; the answer is the item that changes what their bullets do rather than where you stand. Plated Armor Plated Armor 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorPassive +1s Cooldown +30% Deflection Percent +50% On-Hit Prevention Percent +130 Bonus Health deflects bullets outright and — the part most players miss — strips their on-hit build-ups, which is the only clean answer to Silencer Silencer 6,400 souls Tier 4WeaponPassive +12% Spirit Resist -25% Spirit Damage Reduction +2.5s Silence Duration +6s Debuff Duration +10s Immunity Duration , Toxic Bullets Toxic Bullets 3,200 souls Tier 3WeaponPassive -40% Incoming Healing and Inhibitor Inhibitor 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorPassive +150 Bonus Health +5s Debuff Duration -30% Damage Penalty +10% Weapon Damage -40% Incoming Healing stacks landing on you. If 6,400 is too far away, Battle Vest Battle Vest 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorPassive +18% Bullet Resist +3 Out of Combat Regen +65% Life Threshold +22% Weapon Damage +7% Fire Rate at +18% Bullet Resist is the efficient Tier II step and Bullet Resilience Bullet Resilience 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorPassive +35% Bullet Resist +5 Out of Combat Regen at +30% (with a further +15% below half health) the Tier III one. Strong evidence

• Immediately after Slice and Dice is spent — he has zero mobility for 16s (10s at 1 AP) and 830 HP with 0% base resists Strong evidence
• Right after Bloodletting's active is used: the 25s base cooldown means the next burst hits him at full rate with a partially loaded deferred pool Strong evidence
• While Killing Blow is on cooldown (145s base) he has no execute and no second gap-closer — this is the window to force objectives Strong evidence
• During the 2.8s shotgun reload, which is long for a weapon he must be inside 20m to use Strong evidence
• Rage meter empty: without full Rage his knives lose the current-HP impact, his dash loses the echo, and his deferral drops from 44% back to 30% — check the meter before engaging him Strong evidence

• Shiv closes distance on a cooldown and you have no exit, so in the 0-6 minute window your Guardian is your escape item. Fight with it behind you and inside its range, not beside you: their gap-close has to end somewhere, and ending it inside 116 DPS of Guardian fire is the only punish you own before you have items. The moment the Guardian falls at around 6:00, that safety disappears and the matchup gets materially worse — plan your first defensive purchase for that timing. Strategic
• You have real objective damage, which makes the Guardian your win condition in this lane rather than Shiv's health bar. Guardian resistance scales from +50% down to −50% across roughly the first twelve minutes since 05-22-2026 — it gets softer, not harder, so the pressure you can apply grows every minute from about 6:00. Guardians also have no ability-damage reduction, so spirit works on them at full value. Older guides claiming Guardians toughen over time are wrong. Documented

• Your objective damage is the lever in this matchup and the Walker timing is where it pays. Walkers sit around 65% damage resistance early and decay toward −65% by minute 18, so the same rotation that accomplishes nothing at 12:00 kills one outright at 17:00. Each Walker your team destroys also unlocks an extra item slot for the whole team, so the take is a build spike for five other people, not just souls. Remember a Walker is invulnerable unless someone is within 22m. Strong evidence
• There is a hard behavioural change at 20:00 in this matchup: respawn goes from 35 to 38 seconds as of 09-16-2026, and you are the hero Shiv can pick off without a fight starting. Three seconds does not sound like much until you price it against the Rift's 7-minute cadence and the Urn at 20 and 25 — a single death now reliably costs you presence at the next objective. Past 20:00, stop taking the solo camp that is one rotation from their side of the map. Documented

• You have peel and Shiv is the dive threat, so your job in the fight is not damage — it is being in range of whoever they are jumping on. Position between their entry point and your squishiest teammate and hold your peel tool for the moment they commit, not for the moment they appear. Strategic

• Shiv dives, and you do not have an exit in your kit. This is the clearest item priority in the matchup: buy a movement or escape active before you buy your next damage item. A damage item does not help you if the fight starts with you already dead. Strong evidence
• Divine Barrier (vitality T4) — This lineup gets its backline assassination from Shiv. Buy on supports to cleanse a focused ally's debuffs and shield them through a burst window from across the fight. Documented
• Slowing Hex Slowing Hex 1,600 souls Tier 2TechPress +29s Cooldown +3.5s Duration +0.1s Cast Delay +16% Move Speed -26% Dash Distance (spirit T2) — Buy it when an enemy repeatedly uses a movement ability or item to dash, blink or fly out of your kill window. That matters here because of the backline assassination from Shiv. Documented
• Vortex Web Vortex Web 6,400 souls Tier 4TechPress +42s Cooldown +4s Duration +0.2s Cast Delay +0.5s Tether Duration +28% Move Speed -36% Dash Distance +8% Ability Range +8% Radius Builds from Slowing Hex (spirit T4) — Buy to set up team wipes against scattered, mobile enemies — it groups them and takes away their escapes at once. That matters here because of the backline assassination from Shiv. Documented

• The usual error against Shiv is treating Serrated Knives as something to react to rather than something to pre-empt. By the time it is on you, the decision has already been made. Strategic