A fighting game fanboy's take on a Riven rework

Arcus Diabolus·9/15/2016, 4:05:39 AM·1 votes·386 views

I've been playing Riven for a little while now. Hands down my favorite champion to play, without question. Perhaps the whole reason I started playing league in the first place. However, its impossible not to notice all the people who dislike playing against Riven because of her current kit. Not so much that Riven is over powered, but really annoying. So I've decided to offer a open ended discussion to you all as to how we can healthily change her without changing her core design, that of a combo based fighter.

As a avid fighting game player, I saw the similarities she shares with fighting games and I really wanted to take what I knew about general fighting game mechanics and apply them to Riven in a way she can make use of in a Moba environment, so I took some staple bread and butter moves you typically see in fighting games and stuck em to Riven's abilities to see how you all took to it.

The goal, in essence, was to tone down Riven's general mobility, give her a resource that actually makes sense for her, and force Riven to think on her feet about what she needs and when.

Before I begin: I'm well aware this looks a bit overloaded. I never meant this to be a set in stone idea, so by all means feel free to critique as you guys feel necessary.

Riven's Fighting Game Inspired Rework

Passive - Runic Blade: Stacks of Runic Blade beyond the first are removed. Riven can now only hold one stack at a time and must use each one in order to get another to use. (Change optional, seeing how her abilities aren't spamable for mobility anymore, therefore she can't E>Q>Q>Q then auto three times to gap close then use all of her stored stacks to inflict decent damage anyway.)

Resource - Resolve: Riven's resource bar works like a fighting game super meter. That said, it is chopped up into 4 parts, each representing 25% of her meter to a maximum of 100%, logically. Riven gains's resolve quickly by dealing damage, slowly by taking damage and considerably slowly by passively gaining Resolve while under 35% of Riven's maximum health. Riven can spend 25% of her Resolve to enhance her abilities, giving them different or improved properties. Riven can also spend either 50% or 100% of her Resolve to unleash a "super" that is a expensive but powerful move. Abilities un-enhanced would be below average and not particularly note worthy, but enhanced abilities would be a cut above average in terms of usability and versatility.

Q - Broken Wings: Still a three cast ability, but the way it operates and the way Riven uses it is significantly different. The plan was to remove all the separate dashes on Riven and gave her a single larger dash so she didn't have quite the same mobility as before. With Resolve activation on her Q, she gains damage and much needed movement speed to be able to stick to her targets like her old Q was meant to do.

1st Q: Riven dashes toward her cursor and damages enemies in front of her as she arrives. Doesn't require a target. Longer, more viable dash on its own than any one of Riven's current smaller dashes on their own. 2nd Q: Riven deals AOE damage in front of her with no additional affect. No dash. Requires a target to cast. 3rd Q: Riven knocks the opponent away quickly for a short distance. No Dash or knock up. Requires a target. RESOLVE Broken Wings: Increased ability damage and increased movement speed for 1 second. (Costs 25% Resolve each time, to a total of 75%. Uncertain of this number. Depending on use, this may need to be adjusted somehow)

W - Ki Burst "Hodouken": Changed from a 360 degree AOE stun to a generic skill shot with a twist. Can hit projectiles from enemy abilities and cancel them out. Collides with the first enemy unit struck as well. RESOLVE Ki Burst: Changes the number of "hits" Ki Burst does to 2, allowing Riven to hit up to two projectiles, minions or monsters before dissipating, effectively allowing Riven to fire through projectiles and units. All hits are taken by enemy champions and epic monsters struck, with 50% reduced damage with each hit after the first to the same unit. (Costs 25% resolve)

E - Valor "Shoryuken": Changed from a Dash and Shield. Now instead gives Riven a static .5 seconds of complete untargetabilty and invulnerability and damages any unit that happens to be in front of Riven. If Riven successfully "dodges" an enemy ability this way, enemies struck are knocked back away from Riven. RESOLVE E: Enemies struck during a successful dodge of an ability are instead knocked up. (Costs 25% resolve)

1st R - Blade of the Exile: Mostly unchanged. No cost. 2nd R - Wind Slash: Costs a flat 50% or 100% resolve (undecided). No longer fires in a cone but in a line. Behaves like ki burst, except the number of hits is 5.

An additional change was considered, where all abilities after the first would have some other effect depending on what was the first ability used in a single combo, with the hope of forcing Riven to think about what ability she was going to lead with since it would change the focus of the combo she was attempting and she could only makes that decision once before each engage, but was scrapped because it would make her more overloaded when coupled together with the Resolve Resource system adding additional properties already. This idea was inspired by damage proration in fighting games, where depending on what attack you used first, the damage of all other moves afterword would be altered based on how difficult it is to lead with. In layman's terms, fast and light leading attacks are for light damaging combos and are typically safe to use. Combos starting of a slower, heavier and relatively unsafe attack, especially off a counter hit, would do considerably more damage. This idea isn't out the door QUITE yet, but have no Idea how to apply such a mechanic in a fun way that doesn't overload Riven. I really would like to see it work, however.

Again, feel free to provide input as you see fit. My one and only rule is that any changes to this are with the goal of Riven's playstyle in mind. Bonus points if your idea is fighting game inspired somehow.

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