League-of-legends – When is Statikk Shiv better than Phantom Dancer

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I've really been trying to get good at the marksman/AD Carry role lately, and itemization for the role has been fairly confusing for me.

A lot of guides recommend Statikk Shiv now, and I still don't understand why. Phantom dancer is statistically much better in terms of damage output, so of course it's a little more expensive. Still, the return for the expense seems to be much greater.

So my question is, in what situations would I want to buy Statikk Shiv and not Phantom Dancer? The only reason I can think of is Statikk Shiv may help with split pushing, but I don't find myself split pushing on the marksman role very often since I obviously never take teleport and normally the team needs me for damage in any potential teamfight.

Best Answer

Season 6

Statikk Shiv:

  • 200g cheaper than Phantom Dancer
  • 5% movement speed always
  • Passive that allows you to improve burst potential. Damage can critically strikes and scales with critical damage.

Phantom Dancer:

  • 5% more attack speed
  • 12%(+7% over shiv) movement speed but is conditional (only active when near an enemy).
  • The last enemy "hit" deals 12% less damage to you.

Analysis:

Really it comes down to the same key points. Statikk is for burst. Works best on mobile champs (e.g. Shaco or Tristana). Slightly cheaper. Phantom Dancer however has lost some of its desirable advantages over Statikk Shiv. (Incoming speculation) With its new passive it seems like it may be more geared to situations in which the ADC might not have peel or is split pushing perhaps. This comparison isn't as important with the Season 6 changes since they're trying to make builds more situational (or at least that's the idea anyways).

Pre-season 6 Answer

Statikk Shiv:

  • 300g cheaper overall than Phantom Dancer.
  • 1% more movement speed.
  • Passive that allows you to improve burst potential on a champion.
  • Increased Wave-clear potential however this is a weak argument (imo).
  • Builds out of Avarice blade so it would allow the ADC to make gold a little faster.

Phantom Dancer:

  • 10% more attack speed.
  • 10% more critical strike chance
  • Champion ignores unit-collision (I don't recall this but the wikia says so)

Picking Statikk Shiv over Phantom Dancer:

  • Champions with large dashes or blinks: Shaco, Tristana, Corki, (maybe even Ezreal).
  • Champions with damage modifiers: Shaco, Pantheon, Talon, Vayne.
  • Champions with certain items (or both): Infinity Edge or Hurricane.
  • Champions you want more burst on (personal preference really): Gangplank, Graves, etc.

Picking Phantom Dancer over Statikk Shiv:

  • Any champion you know you're going to go to late game with that isn't covered in one or more of the categories above.

Conclusion:

Remember that this isn't law, this is mostly theory. It mostly comes down to preference but if you're looking for some guidelines follow these and they should help. The reasons for those listings are because Shiv's passive gains charges faster by moving in any way and it's affected by damage modifiers, but most of all it's personal preference. They're both great items with their own purpose, if you find your play-style compliments one of them better, use it instead.

Statikk Shiv seems to be an early-to-late game item allowing you to burst enemies a bit better and obtain it a bit faster.

Phantom Dancer is more of a late game item as it more item-slot efficient (meaning it gives more stats from a single item).

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