King of the Streets [Melee Hybrid Shiv]

Melee items for fighting, Ranged for poking.

Either cheap or better early.

Mostly looking at reinforcing Melee, then pivoting into Spirit later. Look into Sustain on the right.

Buy counters after Point Blank.

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.)

Shiv's abilities gain amazing benefits with their third upgrade, except for Bloodletting. So, this build mostly ignores it, and instead Lifesteal is focused 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 fairly 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 for close-medium range damage. Knives can be a huge DPS boost once you land them, Slice and Dice gives another burst of damage that mixes up your position or can act as a simple dash to dodge certain abilities, Bloodletting with Healbane can let you survive at 0 given that you kill someone before you die, and Killing Blow is self-explanatory. Killing Blow is maxed out later because you can usually use the rest of your kit to close out most kills and there are a ton of stuns/negations that can deny it and the refresh nowadays.

The items in the Lane category have two tracks to follow: Ranged and Melee. Buy ranged items for lanes where poke is dominant over brawling to keep your pressure up from range. For the opposite type, buy melee items to put up a strong fight, because there will be a lot of them. In either one, Bullet Lifesteal is a valuable healing tool, although it can be harder to use in more poke-heavy lanes. You should buy all of them, but the order can change how you handle the lane.

Almost all of the items I buy with this build come from Lane or Core. Excluding Situational picks, I usually always buy in order up to Leech, but after that my next item mostly depends on what I need to counter. Spirit Snatch/Colossus for Spirit defense, Frenzy for Gun defense, Superior Cooldown to turn 1vX fights (with Slice and Dice & Leech).

I start considering defense after I buy Surge of Power, as written in the Situational description. 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, Decay, Torment Pulse, 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.

As of 5/8, I can't update the build's description. I'll write here for the time being. I've overhauled the build a little, moved some items out of Core/Lane and moved a few in. I got a few matches in and think it's pretty good for the time being. 5/10 - I've moved around some items and added annotations for new items.