Playing Infernus against Shiv

Moderate threat

Everything below is generated for Deadlock patch 09-16-2026 from Shiv's current kit, a kit-based model and a mechanics rule base. Each line carries its own confidence label.

Quick summary

Threat: Moderate threat
Main problem: Killing Blow executes you outright below 18% (23% at 2 AP) from 12-18m away — no positioning, wall or escape ability saves you once you are under the line
Your main advantage: You lock them down harder than they lock you (Infernus 2/3 against Shiv 1/3).
Primary rule: Do not commit before Slice and Dice is gone. 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
Key item: Divine Barrier — Shiv gives this team real backline assassination. Buy on supports to cleanse a focused ally's debuffs and shield them through a burst window from across the fight.

Strategic No measured result for this specific pairing, so this rating comes from the kit model: 3.6/12 pressure. The largest single factor is burst versus your durability — Shiv burst 2/3 against your durability 1/3. Derived from trait ratings. Shown because this pairing was not in the harvested win-rate dataset.

What should I do right now?

Before lane

Plan for Divine Barrier — 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.

During lane

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
Napalm harasses the enemy laner and clears the wave in a single cast, so he farms and pressures simultaneously

Avoid

Serrated Knives 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 means losing a trade does not mean losing the lane — he defers 30% of the burst and clears 40% of it back

Mid game

Their first real spike is ult unlock — respect it from that point, not before.
Your spike is laning 0-10min: Napalm plus Afterburn is one of the strongest lane harass packages in the game

Avoid

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

Teamfights

Watch for Killing Blow. 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
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.

Abilities to watch

Killing Blow Ultimate

The defining anti-carry tool in this group: 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 125s ultimate entirely — this is the highest-value heal in the game against him
- 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
Serrated Knives Ability 1

This is the ability that actually kills you — Applies a movement slow with the bleed; at full Rage the slow on bleeding targets is 35% (mobalytics 2026). Everything else in the kit is set up by it.
- 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 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
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

Abilities to bait — in this order

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. 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. 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

Matchup overview

Their structural weakness: No native healing reduction and no native healing — enemy sustain both undoes his damage and denies his execute Why this is shown: Shiv's weaknesses. Strong evidence
Their structural weakness: Poor teamfighter: everything in his kit is single-target and his shotgun falls off past 20m Why this is shown: Shiv's weaknesses. Strong evidence
Their structural weakness: One directional mobility ability means hard CC on the dash or on the leap ends his fight Why this is shown: Shiv's weaknesses. Strong evidence

What they do against you

Killing Blow executes you outright below 18% (23% at 2 AP) from 12-18m away — no positioning, wall or escape ability saves you once you are under the line Why this is shown: Authored from Shiv's kit. 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 Why this is shown: Authored from Shiv's kit. 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 Why this is shown: Authored from Shiv's kit. 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 Why this is shown: Authored from Shiv's kit. 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 Why this is shown: Authored from Shiv's kit. Strong evidence

How you counter them

Play heroes with hard CC and zoning — his entire fight plan collapses if the leap or Slice and Dice is interrupted mid-commit Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Shiv. Strong evidence
Keep a burst heal for the execute window specifically: any heal that lifts a target above the 18-23% threshold wastes his 125s ultimate Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Shiv. 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 Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Shiv. 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 Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Shiv. Strong evidence
Cleanse Serrated Knives once he has 3-4 stacks up, not on the first knife; one cleanse removes the whole stacked bleed Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Shiv. 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 Why this is shown: Authored counterplay against Shiv. 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 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. Why this is shown: Counterspell negates one ability; enemy single-target ultimate against a hero with durability 0-1. Strategic

Trading

Immediately after Slice and Dice is spent — he has zero mobility for 16s (10s at 1 AP) and 830 HP with 0% base resists Why this is shown: Shiv's vulnerability windows. 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 Why this is shown: Shiv's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
While Killing Blow is on cooldown (125s base, -30s at 5 AP) he has no execute and no second gap-closer — this is the window to force objectives Why this is shown: Shiv's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
During the 2.8s shotgun reload, which is long for a weapon he must be inside 20m to use Why this is shown: Shiv's vulnerability windows. 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 Why this is shown: Shiv's vulnerability windows. Strong evidence
Your trades against Shiv changed on 09-16-2026: dashes and light melees no longer pause gun cycle time. Your damage output and your repositioning are no longer competing for the same seconds, which is the single biggest gain for a long-cycle weapon in this patch. Practically, that means you can now dodge the opening of their burst and keep your cycle running, so the correct trade against a burst hero is no longer stand-and-shoot — it is move-and-shoot, and it costs you nothing to do it. Why this is shown: 09-16-2026: dashes and light melees no longer pause gun cycle time. Verified
Parry is your best tool against Shiv's arrival and it is now a commitment rather than a hedge. Since 09-16-2026, parrying during a dash cancels the dash and its momentum, so you cannot both reposition and hold F. The cooldown maths makes the decision for you: a successful parry costs 0.5 seconds and stuns them for 3 with no Debuff Resist reduction possible, while a whiff costs 4.5 seconds — against a hero who arrives on a cooldown, that whiff is the entire window they needed. Why this is shown: 09-16-2026 parry cancels an in-progress dash; parry cooldown 0.5s on success, 4.5s on whiff; 3s unreducible stun. Verified

Laning

What they want in lane: Serrated Knives 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 Why this is shown: Shiv's laning strengths. Strong evidence
What they want in lane: Bloodletting means losing a trade does not mean losing the lane — he defers 30% of the burst and clears 40% of it back Why this is shown: Shiv's laning strengths. Strong evidence
What you can take from them in lane: 830 max health with 0% base resists and 6.5 m/s move speed — he is not actually tanky, he just delays damage Why this is shown: Shiv's laning weaknesses. Strong evidence
What you can take from them in lane: Shotgun falloff starts at 20m, so a long-range laner (Silver, Sinclair, Grey Talon archetypes) simply outranges him all lane Why this is shown: Shiv's laning weaknesses. Strong evidence
Your lever: Napalm harasses the enemy laner and clears the wave in a single cast, so he farms and pressures simultaneously Why this is shown: Infernus's laning strengths. Strong evidence
You are a strong laner, so know where the income actually goes. Trooper souls are split among players within roughly 45m of the orb or 30m of the killer, and two players nearby take 54% each rather than 50% — a duo lane is slightly net-positive for the team and clearly negative for you individually. If you are winning the lane against Shiv, holding the wave alone at range from your partner is worth real souls per minute. Treat the exact distances as community-sourced. Why this is shown: Soul sharing radii of 45m/30m and the 54%/36% split are single-source; the directional effect is reliable. Uncertain

Mid game

Their spike — ult unlock: Killing Blow makes every low-health enemy within 12m a guaranteed kill and turns on the Rage passive that upgrades all three basic abilities Why this is shown: Shiv's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
Their spike — 1 AP into Slice and Dice: -6s cooldown (16s to 10s) lets him engage and still hold an exit dash in the same fight Why this is shown: Shiv's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
Their spike — 2 AP into Killing Blow: Threshold rises from 18% to 23% and full-Rage damage jumps, widening the window where a fight is already lost for the target Why this is shown: Shiv's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
Their spike — 5 AP into Killing Blow (late 35min+): Cooldown reset on elimination plus a 20s recast — one successful pick becomes a chain of executes through a whole team Why this is shown: Shiv's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
Your spike — laning 0-10min: Napalm plus Afterburn is one of the strongest lane harass packages in the game Why this is shown: Infernus's power spike timeline. Strong evidence
Your spike — Napalm tier 3: +17% damage taken and -33% healing turns him into a native anti-heal and a team-wide damage amp Why this is shown: Infernus's power spike timeline. Strong evidence

Positioning

Riding a zipline in Shiv'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. Why this is shown: Zipline knockoff: 15% max HP, 2.5s stun and a fall; knockoff immunity after 3 consecutive seconds of riding. Verified

Build adjustments

Divine Barrier (vitality T4) — Shiv gives this team real backline assassination. Buy on supports to cleanse a focused ally's debuffs and shield them through a burst window from across the fight. Why this is shown: Answers: enemy-backline-threat, enemy-dive, enemy-slow, enemy-burst. Verified
Slowing Hex (spirit T2) — Shiv gives this team real backline assassination. The community-standard answer to escape artists: buy it when an enemy repeatedly dashes, blinks or flies out of your kill window. Why this is shown: Answers: enemy-backline-threat, enemy-mobility, enemy-dive. Verified
Vortex Web (spirit T4) — Shiv gives this team real backline assassination. Buy to set up team wipes against scattered, mobile enemies — it groups them and takes away their escapes at once. Why this is shown: Answers: enemy-backline-threat, enemy-mobility, enemy-dive. Verified

Common mistakes

If you learned to play this matchup before 09-16-2026 you probably dash away from Shiv and parry on the way out. That no longer works: parrying during a regular dash now cancels the dash and its momentum, so you parry standing still exactly where they wanted you. Parry first and dash second, or accept that the parry is a commitment to hold ground. Note also that a whiffed parry is a 4.5-second cooldown against a hero who only needs one window. Why this is shown: 09-16-2026: parrying mid-dash cancels the dash and its momentum; parry whiff cooldown 4.5s. Verified

Analyse this against your whole enemy team

A single matchup only tells you part of the story — which enemy to actually focus, and what to buy, depends on the other five. Open the tool with this matchup pre-loaded and add the rest.

Open in the matchup tool

Other Infernus matchups

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The other side

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Sources and method for this page

Shiv's kit and counterplay were compiled from 5 sources, cross-checked for patch 09-16-2026. Threat ratings compare this pairing against Infernus's own baseline win rate rather than a flat 50%, because ranking by raw win rate produces the wrong answer for heroes whose overall win rate is not 50%.

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