Poison Shiv over AC on CP heroes

Vainglory Discussion Heroes, Builds, & Items
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#Note I am talking about heroes with CP aspects in their basic attacks.

We have all seen the Hybrid Idris build where Idris unlocks both paths through PS+WP infusion.
That was nerfed through a perk change.

The power of Poisoned Shiv is that it combines the attack speed of AC with the mortal wound of spellfire and the healing of Eve in one item.

It also has a natural build path through swift shooter and boe, natural meaning there are no downsides to the buildpath.

Item slots are limited and Poisioned Shiv can fill in somewhat for 3 items.

The key to this strategy is to build Raw (high amount) Crystal damage and forsake the utility items like AC SF and Eve and build PS instead making room for more crystal items. The lost CP from AC is easily gained through buying Raw CP.

PS SG/FB DE BM/CW/FB aegis Boots.

A build that gives you 300+ CP with DE Scaling, boosted attack speed mortal wounds and healing. All lifesteal (vampirism) is universal lifesteal.

If you open up with boe and a crystal bit or a swift shooter all of your skills and attacks will heal you.

When you play a hero who doesn’t deal base Crystal damage Poisioned Shiv won’t apply your build crystal through your basic attacks (Adagio/Skaarf etc) on them AC is better.

However Reim, Idris, Malene, Lorelai, Blackfeather, Lyra and others have at the very least a crystal component to their damage which will trigger through your faster attacks by Poisoned Shiv.

Poisoned Shiv is located in the WP tree but most of its effects are universally applied.

TLDR:
Build Poisoned shiv + High CP
On heroes who deal crystal damage through attacks.
Bonuses are: Mortal wounds, Attackspeed, universal healing in one item slot freeing up other slots.

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Example:

Eve SF DE AC=215 base CP with healing, mortal wound, and attack speed.

PS SG DE=235 base CP with healing, mortal wound, and attack speed which is one item less and more CP.

(PS doesn’t grant all effects that Eve SF and AC grant but still it is worth looking into)

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@idmonfish and other high rollers/strategic minds. I would like to determine the actual viability of this move.

@Guest_78 you are always a critical thinker too…

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This is my opinion: I think it may be viable in those heroes who have CR on their AA but are not reliant of them to do damage, for this i will use CP Vox. CP Vox has CR on his AA, but for dealing damage it’s not his AA but the resonance bounces, so using ps wouldn’t affect your damage as much and you will be reducing the healing the front liner recieves, making him more vulnerable. So I would consider PS in CP Vox is the enemy has a clear front liner to heal. For Reim I don’t think it’s effective as he can just abuse SF and I find Idris too reliant of the AA but with a maybe as he can’t abuse SF and his AA already have a good CR. For Lyra… depending on the playstyle, because although she can use the A to apply SF, she doesn’t want to always be wasting the heal in doing so.

Conclusion: I think it’s a good possibility to test in mainly Vox and captain Lyra, a little less viable in CP idris but also possible. The rest of them I don’t think so. Malene always have something up so applying SF shouldn’t be difficult and using the AA to apply PS could put her in a bad position.

I hope this helps! It’s an interesting idea that given the opportunity I will test for sure.

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I tried PS Lorelai which wasn’t bad.
PS DE CW BM…

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I didn’t think of Lorelai XD
I guess it depends on your playstyle as some players use her AA as the maajor source of damage instead of a bonus, and in that case AC is better, but if you use her more as a mage with a bonus in her AA (using the abilities for the damage and the AA if they get close during the cooldown) then I think it could work.

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I’m thinking of running it with Lorelai. My core crystal path with her is Dragons Eye and Clockwork. Usually I’d just use Spellfire with a CP hero, but her A doesn’t activate it, so it’s worthless on her. Poison Shiv might be good since her third damage item tends to be flexible anyway, and she tends to be a hybrid utility character anyway.

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Boe early game also helps surviving and translates into PS lategame.

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I tried it a few times on Lorelai; it would probably be worthwhile if I were going more captain-y, but it drops her damage a bit too much as a carry. She needs to start with crystal bits to do threatening damage at low level, so she can’t use BOE in the part of the game where it might help, and later on the heal is worthless to her since she has no other WP. I honestly do better just focusing on damage.

If I were playing her as a pure captain, I might still used it as a utility item, but AC, AS, and BM are all better options for her carry path.

On most other CP characters, SF accomplishes the same thing. Lorelai gets nothing out of SF, but basically anyone else is probably better with that if they need mortal wounds. I was hoping it would help, but Lorelai seems to be better just doing more damage with her A than trying to worry about mortal wounds.

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Her activates SF…

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True her A does her B and C don’t.

I saw a Vainglorious Lorelai go down in flames with no damage… She is so hard to play lol…

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Huh. I just checked it out again, you’re right of course. I tried it months ago and it wasn’t working (or wasn’t displaying anyway) I haven’t tried it recently. I’m kinda embarrassed now.

In that case there is little reason to give her poison Shiv.

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No, imagine you are against an hypermobile comp, hitting you A will be quite hard and unreliable, so using the AA would be the better option, making PS a possible item to apply MW.

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Poisoned shiv increases your dps. Grants reliable mortal wounds and offers good healing on top of that.

So there are ample reasons to build PS.