Graves vs Victor

Do

• Plan for Scourge Scourge 6,400 souls Tier 4TechPress +35s Cooldown +10s Duration +0.25s Cast Delay +40% Spirit Resist +100 Bonus Health +20% Debuff Resist — know which tier it sits in so you are not improvising at the shop.
• Know what Shocking Reanimation looks like. It is the cooldown this lane revolves around.

Avoid

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

Do

• Low base move speed (6.3 m/s) outside of the Jumpstart Jumpstart 4.5s Duration30s Cooldown Victor shocks himself for a percentage of his current health, then converts that into a large burst of health regeneration and a sharp movement speed boost, both of which decay over the… Damage Self-damage of 15% current health; Mobility +3 m/s base move speed, decaying; Defensive 100 total HP regen base, +70 more at T2 (~170 total); 1 +3 m/s move speed (on top of the base +3 m/s) 2 +70 total HP regen and -8s cooldown (30s base) 5 +1 charge, +50% Debuff Resistance, -50% duration on existing debuffs, and increased… window makes him easy to collapse on
• Both Jumpstart and Aura of Suffering damage him, so he starts most fights below maximum health
• 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

• Jumpstart's 100-170 regen lets him sustain through prolonged health trades without buying sustain items
• Pain Battery Pain Battery 28m Range2s Cooldown A battery that fills passively as Victor takes damage from any source, including his own self-harm abilities. Crowd Control T1 applies a 32% movement slow for 2s on hit Damage 100 base spirit; T2 adds +50 Defensive T3 heals Victor for 15% of his missing health per hero hit, which is the… 1 +32% movement slow for 2s on hit 2 +50 damage 5 heal for 15% of missing health per hero hit, plus increased spirit scaling converts incoming lane harassment into a 100-150 damage counter-punch, so passive poke feeds him

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 Victor on their spike timing when you could take the same fight ten minutes later on yours.

Do

• Watch for Shocking Reanimation. Walk away from the corpse. The Stun and the 200-375 damage are centred on where he died — take a few steps and the whole ultimate hits nothing
• Fight him outside the 8m Aura of Suffering radius — Vindicta from Flight Flight 13s Duration42s Cooldown Vindicta lifts off and flies freely for an extended duration. Damage +10 spirit damage per bullet while airborne (T3 adds +10 more with improved… Mobility 13s of free flight on a 42s cooldown; Defensive Being airborne dodges most ground-targeted abilities and puts her out of… 1 +50% base ammo capacity during Flight 2 +10s duration (13s base up to 23s) 5 hero kills refresh Flight's duration; , Venator's bolts, Wraith's Card Trick Card Trick 500m Range0.6s Cooldown Dealing weapon damage generates cards of a random suit, which she can then throw. Crowd Control none directly Damage 45 spirit base (about 0.55x spirit scaling); Mobility A Club card grants +24% move speed 1 +2 charges 2 +40 damage and increased spirit scaling 5 all suits improved and a higher chance for Jokers and Full Auto Full Auto 5s Duration45s Cooldown For a short window Wraith's fire rate increases and every bullet carries bonus spirit damage. Damage +2 spirit damage per bullet on top of her weapon damage 1 -20s cooldown (45s base down to 25s) 2 +10% fire rate and +3s duration 5 unlimited ammo and increased scaling on spirit damage per bullet all beat him without ever entering it

Avoid

• Spending your own escape before Shocking Reanimation is on cooldown.

• Shocking Reanimation Ultimate

  The cooldown that decides the fight. Diminishing slow from the death wave, then a 1.5s Stun on reanimation (T3 adds +1.5s, so up to 3s).

  • Walk away from the corpse. The Stun and the 200-375 damage are centred on where he died — take a few steps and the whole ultimate hits nothing
  • Do not commit your own ultimate to 'finish' a low Victor; the kill is going to be undone regardless, so save Telekinesis Telekinesis 10m Range2.3s Duration150s Cooldown Lifts one enemy hero into the air, holding them helpless for a couple of seconds, then slams them toward a location Wraith chooses. Crowd Control stunned during the 1.25s channel, then the target is airborne and unable to… Damage 100 spirit base (about 1.0x spirit scaling); Mobility none for Wraith — she channels for 1.25s while aiming the throw 1 +100 damage 2 -45s cooldown (150s base down to 105s) 5 +1.5s debuff duration and +6m throw and cast range , Assassinate Assassinate 55s Cooldown Scopes in for a long-range rifle shot. Damage 90 base spirit plus up to 90 bonus against targets under 50% health (T2 adds… Mobility none — she is scoped and stationary during the charge 1 -15s cooldown (55s base) 2 +80 maximum bonus damage 5 +4% weapon damage per kill (from +6% to +10%) or Goo Ball Goo Ball 11s Duration150s Cooldown Viscous becomes a large ball of goo that rolls around the map, damaging and briefly stunning any enemy it slams into. Crowd Control 0.5s stun on impact (T3 adds +0.3s); Damage 110 base (about 1.0x spirit scaling); Mobility High-speed rolling with wall bounces and a double jump, for 11s (T3 adds… 1 -25s cooldown (150s base) 2 +70 damage and +20% to both resists 5 +7s duration, +0.3s stun duration, and +0.2 spirit scaling for the reanimated body
  • Count the cooldown: 240s base, roughly 145s at T3. A Victor whose Reanimation is spent is a 800 HP brawler with no escape and can be dived freely
• Pain Battery Ability 1

  The control here is bought rather than baseline — T1 applies a 32% movement slow for 2s on hit.

  • Do not free-hit a low Victor with chip damage — every bullet you land charges the battery he will heal off
  • Spread out: the discharge hits each target once, so a group standing on one another all eat a full 100-150
  • Apply anti-heal BEFORE he discharges, not after — the heal resolves on hit, so Healbane Healbane 1,600 souls Tier 2ArmorPassive +8s Duration +7 Spirit Power -35% Incoming Healing or Toxic Bullets Toxic Bullets 3,200 souls Tier 3WeaponPassive -40% Incoming Healing needs to already be on him
• Jumpstart Ability 2

  His engage-and-sustain button in one. The self-damage tops off Pain Battery, the regen out-heals the cost several times over, and the speed lets him close on a backliner or leave a lost fight.

  • Anti-heal now holds through Jumpstart at reduced duration — buy Healbane or Toxic Bullets and apply it before he casts, and the 100-170 regen is largely wasted
  • Burst him inside the Jumpstart window rather than after: the regen is a heal-over-time, so a single large burst (Vindicta's Assassinate, Yamato's Power Slash Power Slash 12s Cooldown Yamato channels for around a second and a half to build up a sword strike, then releases it as a ranged slash. Crowd Control T1 adds a 32% movement slow for 3s Damage 145 spirit at full charge (about 1.96x spirit scaling), with T3 adding +150… Mobility none — she is channelling 1 +32% movement slow for 3s 2 -4s cooldown (12s base) 5 +8m cast range, +150 damage, and increased Spirit Power scaling , Wraith's Full Auto window) beats a slow drip
  • The self-damage means he enters every fight already below max; a ranged poke hero denies him the ability to Jumpstart safely at all
• Aura of Suffering Ability 3

  No control at base; the upgrade is what changes that — T1 applies a 20% move and dash slow to enemies inside the aura.

  • Leave the 8m bubble and the ramp resets
  • Do not contest a Walker, Patron or Urn while standing in the aura; take the objective trade elsewhere or wait him out
  • The T1 20% slow also slows dashes, so plan your exit with a Stamina jump or a teleport (Wraith's Project Mind Project Mind 25m Range50s Cooldown After a brief channel, Wraith teleports to a chosen location at range. Mobility Teleport up to 25m (T1 adds +15m, so up to 40m) after a 1s interruptible… Defensive T2 grants a 300 barrier for 5s on arrival, scaling with Spirit Power 1 +15m cast range (25m base up to 40m) 2 300 barrier for 5s on arrival, scaling with Spirit Power 5 -32s cooldown (50s base down to 18s) ) rather than a dash

1. 1 Shocking Reanimation

   Shocking Reanimation first and above everything — force the revive with a cheap commit, then win the real fight during the 145-240s downtime

2. 2 Jumpstart

   Jumpstart second: make him burn it as an escape rather than an engage, which removes both his mobility and his regen for 22-30s

3. 3 Pain Battery

   Pain Battery third: it discharges on a short 2s cycle once charged, so the goal is not to bait it but to be spread out and anti-healed when it goes off

• Zero ranged threat; everything happens inside 8m Strong evidence
• 6.3 m/s base speed is among the slowest, so outside Jumpstart he cannot chase or flee Strong evidence
• Self-damaging kit means he is frequently low, and burst heroes can execute him before Pain Battery refills Strong evidence
• You win by being somewhere else and Victor wins by being everywhere at once with four friends. That is a clock matchup with fixed hands: the Rift at roughly 11:00 and every 7 minutes after, and the Urn at 10, 15, 20 and 25. Your split has to be timed so that you are cashing a structure during the minutes they are grouped for one of those, and back or unreachable during the minutes they are not. Splitting on a schedule that ignores the objective clock just hands them a 5v4. Strategic

• Aura of Suffering ramps from 13 to 58+ DPS (up to ~92 at T2) with a 20% move/dash slow, so any fight he drags out inside 8m he wins on attrition Strong evidence
• Aura of Suffering at T3 makes everyone inside take +16% damage from all sources — his team's burst is amplified just by his presence Strong evidence
• Pain Battery discharges for 100-150 spirit to everyone around him and, at T3, heals him for 15% of his missing health per hero hit, so chip damage on a low Victor is actively counterproductive Strong evidence
• Shocking Reanimation means killing him near your team stuns you for 1.5-3s and does 200-375 damage before he stands back up at 50-100% health Strong evidence
• Jumpstart gives +3 to +6 m/s of burst speed for a forced engage on a backliner who thought they were out of a 6.3 m/s hero's range Strong evidence

• Fight him outside the 8m Aura of Suffering radius — Vindicta from Flight, Venator's bolts, Wraith's Card Trick and Full Auto all beat him without ever entering it Strong evidence
• Buy anti-heal (Healbane, Toxic Bullets) and apply it BEFORE he Jumpstarts; as of the 03-26-2026 patch he no longer purges it, he only resists it, so the debuff sticks Strong evidence
• When he dies, immediately step away from the corpse — the Reanimation Stun and 200-375 damage are centred on the death location and hit nothing if you leave Strong evidence
• Save your Hard CC and your ultimate for the reanimated Victor, not the first health bar; a Warden Binding Word Binding Word 15m Range34s Cooldown Curses a targeted enemy hero. Crowd Control 1.75s immobilise (T2 adds +0.75s, so up to 2.5s) if the target fails the… Damage 110 (about 2.44x spirit scaling) when it lands Defensive Rooting a diver in place is a strong self-peel 1 Warden deals +20% bullet damage to trapped heroes for 5s 2 +0.75s immobilise duration 5 -14s cooldown (34s base) and silences the target until they escape or are immobilised or Viscous Cube on the rebirth ends him for good Strong evidence
• Punish the cooldown gap: 240s base (about 145s at T3). Track it and force the next objective while Reanimation is down Strong evidence
• You do not have the CC to reliably break Shocking Reanimation out of your own kit, so buy the cheapest thing that does: Silence Wave Silence Wave 3,200 souls Tier 3TechInstantCast +42s Cooldown +3s Duration +0.1s Cast Delay +90 Bonus Health is the only area Silence in the shop and the standard answer to channelled ultimates. Area matters because you do not have to win the aim duel — you have to cover the spot they cast from. Note the alternative, 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 , parries a single ability outright but requires a read; Silence Wave forgives a bad read, which is why it is the buy when interrupting is not your specialty. Strong evidence
• Victor contributes through abilities, which makes a hard Silence worth more against them than any amount of resist. Focus Lens Focus Lens 6,400 souls Tier 4TechPress +40s Cooldown +4.5s Duration +0.1s Cast Delay +35% Damage On Expire +10% Fire Rate -9% Spirit Resist -30 Spirit Power +12s Resist Reduction Duration Builds from Spirit Sap is the sharpest version: 4.5 seconds of single-target Silence at 20m, plus 30% of all damage dealt during the window applied when it expires, on a 45-second cooldown. Against a caster that is not a defensive purchase — it deletes their entire fight participation and then charges them for it. Strong evidence

• Any moment Shocking Reanimation is on cooldown (240s base, ~145s at T3) — he is an 800 HP hero with no escape and no second life Strong evidence
• The channel between the death wave and the reanimation: enemies who walk out during it take zero and he comes back alone Strong evidence
• Immediately after Jumpstart is spent — he is back to 6.3 m/s and can be kited by anything with a dash or a gap-close Strong evidence
• Right after he self-damages with Jumpstart, before Pain Battery refills: that is the lowest-HP, no-heal, no-counter-punch state in his loop Strong evidence
• Any long-range trade at all; he has no ranged ability in the kit Strong evidence
• Being stunned by Victor now pauses your reload rather than restarting it, as of 09-16-2026. That quietly changes when it is safe to reload in this matchup: a reload caught by their Stun resumes where it left off instead of costing you the whole cycle, so the old rule of never reloading inside their engagement range is too conservative now. The compensating change is that parrying also pauses your reload, so a defensive parry no longer buys you free reload time. Documented

• You have real objective damage, which makes the Guardian your win condition in this lane rather than Victor'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
• You get value from moving around the map and Victor does not, but the 09-16-2026 patch made that harder to convert early: tunnel breakables Crates Breakable Streets, rooftops and tunnels — about 500 of them Ordinary breakables. Each has a 60% chance to drop souls; a Tough Crate always drops, for double. Souls 23 souls a crate, 60% of the time +2 a minute now spawn and respawn on 5 minutes rather than 3. The off-lane income that used to make a rotation pay for itself is roughly 40% less frequent, so before 6:00 a rotation has to be justified by pressure on Victor or on the Guardian, not by the breakables you pick up on the way. Documented

• The first Unstable Rift lands around 11:00 and then every 7 minutes, and Victor beats you in exactly the fight it creates. Use the telegraph: a world-only visual appears on a random side-lane bridge roughly 60 seconds before the global announcement and map marker, which is the single biggest piece of free information in the mid game. Spend those 60 seconds either grouping or deliberately taking something elsewhere — the one thing you cannot afford is arriving at a Rift bridge late and alone. Strong evidence
• 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

• Shocking Reanimation is a channel, which means the fight is decided by whether you can break it. Hold one interrupt — a Stun, a Silence, or a displacement — specifically for that cast rather than spending it on the opening trade. If you have no interrupt, the answer is line of sight: leave the area entirely rather than trying to out-heal it. Strong evidence
• You are not going to kill Victor in a normal teamfight and trying to is how fights are lost. Treat them as terrain: fight around them, spend your damage on whoever is behind them, and only commit to killing them once anti-heal and shred are actually online. Strategic

• Riding a zipline in Victor's line of sight is worse than walking. Enemy hero damage while you are riding knocks you off for 15% of your max health, a 2.5-second Stun and a fall — for a hero with your health pool that is most of a death handed over for free. You gain knockoff immunity only after 3 consecutive seconds of riding, signalled by a blue particle effect, so the dangerous part is the first three seconds. Mount out of their sight line, not near it. Documented
• Victor wins by choosing where the fight happens. Take your position before the zoning goes down, not after — once the area is committed you are fighting on their terms, and walking in to contest it is exactly the mistake the kit is built to farm. Strategic

• Victor heals through damage, so healing reduction is not optional here — but pick the right application route. Anti-heal arrives two ways: bullet-applied (Toxic Bullets, T3) builds up through gunfire, and spirit-applied (Healbane, T2) lands off Spirit Damage. Buy the one that matches how you actually deal damage, or it will never apply. Documented
• Victor is a durability check, and the maths favours shred over raw damage here. Resistances stack multiplicatively, but shred is pooled and then subtracted from total resist — so the higher their resist climbs, the more each point of shred is worth. Against a stacked tank, resist reduction outperforms another flat damage item. Documented
• If Victor buys Dispel Magic Dispel Magic 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorInstantCast +45s Cooldown +10% Spirit Resist +3s Buff Duration +250 Heal Amount to purge your anti-heal, bullet-applied reduction re-lands on your very next shot, while spirit-applied reduction has to wait for your next ability. That asymmetry is a real argument for the bullet route against a hero who will buy a purge. Strong evidence
• Scourge (spirit T4) — Buy on supports to harden a focused ally against a caster team while adding pressure damage. What you are answering here: Victor's Shocking Reanimation. Documented
• Majestic Leap Majestic Leap 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorInstantCast +45s Cooldown +5s Interrupt Cooldown +100% Air Control +50% Air Control +32% Move Speed +2.5s Slow Duration +8s Barrier Duration (vitality T3) — Buy to escape ground-based lockdown and to rotate across the map quickly. That matters here because of the zoning and area denial from Victor. Documented
• Stamina Mastery Stamina Mastery 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorPassive +2 Stamina +18% Stamina Recovery +23% Air Jump/Dash Distance Builds from Extra Stamina (vitality T3) — Victor's Shocking Reanimation — that is the stuns and Hard CC this answers. Buy when dodging telegraphed abilities and disengaging is how you survive. Strong evidence

• The instinct here is to buy Dispel Magic as your answer to Victor and then find it greyed out at the exact moment you need it. Dispel Magic cannot be cast while you are stunned or asleep, and it cannot remove a Stun at all — it purges what comes with the Stun, not the Stun itself. Against Victor the item you actually want is the pre-cast kind (Unstoppable Unstoppable 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorInstantCast +60s Cooldown +5.5s Duration +125 Bonus Health +25% Debuff Resist Builds from Debuff Reducer , which also cannot be activated once you are already stunned) or the automatic kind (Indomitable Indomitable 6,400 souls Tier 4ArmorPassive +55s Cooldown +10s Duration +10% Bullet Resist +10% Spirit Resist +20s Cooldown On Apply +2 Out of Combat Regen Builds from Reactive Barrier , which cleanses the next Hard CC with no input from you). Documented
• Anti-heal against Victor is bought correctly and applied at the wrong moment. Healbane's reduction runs for 8 seconds from your Spirit Damage and Toxic Bullets' runs while the bleed is up — both are windows, and re-applying the same source before it expires does not stack a second instance. The mistake is opening the fight clean and reaching for anti-heal once they start healing; by then you have spent the fight. Land it before they commit, then keep the window refreshed rather than re-triggering it. Strong evidence
• The reflex buy against a hero who keeps deleting you is Metal Skin Metal Skin 3,200 souls Tier 3ArmorInstantCast +24s Cooldown +5s Duration +12% Bullet Resist -20% Dash Distance +20% Gravity Scale , and against Victor it does nothing. Metal Skin is bullet-damage immunity only — Spirit Damage, abilities and every status effect pass straight through it, and you pay −1.5 m/s move speed and −20% dash distance for the privilege. The three big defensive actives are deliberately orthogonal: Metal Skin stops bullets, Unstoppable stops statuses, Ethereal Shift Ethereal Shift 6,400 souls Tier 4TechInstantCast +37s Cooldown +4s Duration +5s Buff Duration +30% Spirit Resist +20 Spirit Power stops everything but disables you. Victor is a spirit threat, so it is the last two you are choosing between. Documented
• The finishing heavy melee on Victor is worse than it feels. Melee Damage is mitigated twice — once by Bullet Resist and again by Melee Resist — so it is the single worst damage channel to point at a stacked-resist target, and the wind-up is long enough for a parry that stuns you for 3 seconds with no Debuff Resist reduction available. Finish with your gun or an ability, not with melee. Strong evidence
• The specific error is walking into Victor's area denial after it is already down, because your team is in there and you feel late. You are slow enough that entering a committed zone is a one-way decision — you will be inside it for its full duration, not for the two seconds you intended. Arrive before the zone or arrive from the other side of it; arriving into it is how this matchup is lost even when your team wins the fight. Strategic
• The Unstable Rift capture point is a 20m circle on a bridge, capture only progresses when no enemy is inside it, and everyone standing in it is revealed on the minimap. That is a purpose-built trap for Victor. The mistake is treating the circle as the objective: you do not need to stand in it, you need them not to. Contest from outside the radius, deny with a single body at the edge, and let their Area Damage land on empty bridge. Strategic