King of the Streets [Melee Hybrid Shiv]

Left to right, top row to bottom row.

Either cheap or better early.

Look into sustain on the right.

Defensive items and alternate playstyles.

You've got a lot of options. Pick based on what might help the most.

Ordered by how much value I think they have. (Except Magic Carpet.)

Items from other categories that haven't stood the test of time. Not ordered.

Shiv's abilities gain amazing benefits with their third upgrade. However, this build mostly ignores Slice and Dice and Bloodletting. Instead, Lifestrike is rushed to give Shiv enough sustain to close out fights. He doesn't have much time to do so, but he's also the character who should take as little time as possible to fight. It should also be noted that while there are the traditional Melee items, the Weapon items make Shiv's gun somewhat strong, given that you use the alt-fire inbetween other parts of your kit.

While Shiv can be built with a focus on either of his first two abilities, this build assumes that you play with Melee first and foremost, along with the alt-fire and Knives for longer range attacks or extra damage. Knives can be a huge DPS boost with some investment, Slice and Dice gives a burst of damage that mixes up your position or can act as a simple dash to dodge certain abilities, Bloodletting lets you negate some damage every now and then, and Killing Blow is self-explanatory. Ult gets maxed late in the build because you can usually use the rest of your kit to close out most kills (and there are a ton of ways to deny it now).

Early on, the build has two tracks you can follow: Ranged and Melee. Buy ranged items for lanes where poke is dominant over brawling to keep your pressure up from range. In brawling lanes get more melee items to put up a strong fight, because there will be a lot of them. There's more bias towards melee items in the Lane category, but if poke becomes a problem then Early Situational should have useful items you can grab.

I don't divert from the main build too often. As mentioned, I'll skip the defensive Spirit items (Resilience and Strike/Snatch) when Spirit damage isn't a problem. After Rapid Recharge, I buy considering what I need to fight. If there's nothing to worry about, I go for Crushing Fists immediately.

I start considering defense around Crushing Fists. This includes upgrades, so I don't just buy Debuff Reducer then grab Point Blank, but instead I get both Debuff Reducer and Remover (if I need it) before continuing in Core. Some items are there for alternate playstyles. I don't typically use Restorative Shot, Weighted Shots, etc., but I don't think they're bad options to use either, which is why I leave them for people who prefer them over other items in Lane or Core.