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Riven Rework(nerf-ish?)

Shroom Junkie··1 votes·481 views

Okay, so, there's obviously a ton of Riven haters out there(Me included). She's tanky, she deals damage(a lot of which is AOE), becomes more tanky with damage, has tons of dashes for chasing and running away, and has hard CC with her W and 3rd consecutive Q.

So, I don't think Riot should necessarily nerf her, but I think they should rework her. Obviously the dashes are part of what makes Riven, her. But I think they're a bit overpowered with the AOE damage, stun, and the shield which literally makes her tanky for being more bursty.

So... reworks. Let's go over the current abilities first.

Passive - Runic Blade

Riven's abilities charge her blade for 5 seconds, causing her to do 20/25/30/35/40/45/50% of her total attack damage as bonus physical damage on her next basic attack. The amount increases at level 3, and every 3 levels from there on. Riven can store up to 3 charges, and can only expend one at a time.

Q - Broken Wings

Riven strikes out in front of her in a short line. This ability may be reactivated 2 additional times. 1st and 2nd Use: Slashes forward, dealing 10/30/50/70/90 (+40/45/50/55/60% Attack Damage) physical damage to all units she comes in contact with. 3rd Use: Leaps forward and slams the ground dealing 10/30/50/70/90 (+40/45/50/55/60% Attack Damage) physical damage and knocking nearby enemies up. This leap can cross unpathable terrain. Riven will target the unit your cursor is hovering over, or if no targets are present, Riven will simply strike the direction she is currently facing.

W - Ki Burst

Riven's sword emits a burst of runic energy that shocks nearby enemies, dealing 50/80/110/140/170 (+100% bonus Attack Damage) physical damage and stunning them for 0.75 seconds.

E - Valor

Riven does a quick dash in the direction of your cursor and becomes shielded, blocking up to 90/120/150/180/210 (+100% bonus Attack Damage) incoming damage for 1.5 seconds.

R - Blade of the Exile

Riven's weapon surges with spiritual energy for 15 seconds, granting her 20% extra Attack Damage (+20% bonus Attack Damage), increased Range on her damaging spells and attacks, and the ability to use Wind Slash once. Wind Slash: Riven fires a shockwave that deals from 80/120/160 (+60% bonus Attack Damage) to 240/360/480 (+180% bonus Attack Damage) physical damage to all enemies hit, increasing based on how much Health they are missing.

Okay, now for the reworks.

Passive - Runic Blade

I think this is fine-ish. I think it shouldn't stack, so that Riven is forced to Q-Attack-Q-Attack-Q-Attack or otherwise only do one of the charged attacks, and seeing as its a runic magical thing, I think it should deal magic damage so that armor penetration doesn't affect it. Granted neither would armor, but it would probably reduce the damage to be honest.

Q - Broken Wings

I think Riven's Q should not be AOE, but single target. It dashes obviously, and deals damage to whatever target is hit first. It would increase the damage from 60% of AD to 80% of AD though, to compensate for less team fight/skirmish power. And, I think the cooldown should be like Yasuo's Q - lowered by attack speed and not cooldown reduction.

W - Ki Burst

Okay, I think this should be a little nerfed.... I think it shouldn't do all that damage. If Riven is to have hard CC like this at all, I think she shouldn't do that much damage with it. In fact, personally, I don't think it should do any damage at all. But for Riven mains' sakes, I'm going to say keep it at the base damage, and allow nothing extra.

E - Valor

Now, this is the main problem I, and many other players, have with Riven. She can have so much damage, and because of this E, sustain so much and bait out an all-in just to find out they get completely wrecked. I think it shouldn't do 100% of AD. I think it should do the base shield, plus 15% of her maximum health(so, she can either be tanky, bursty, or a balanced mixture, but not a strong form of both like she is now).

R - Blade of the Exile

To be honest, I don't find much problem with this. Though I do think that execute should be lowered. Make it a much smaller AOE, though maybe keep the range, and the damage is crazy. Maybe lower it to 50/75/100(+70% AD) to 150/250/400(+150% AD).

So, give me your thoughts, any other reworks that they could do or whatever, and yeah.... As for any mistakes in calculating or whatever I may have made in these, I as well as many(I stress the word 'many') others think I am still a bit(I use the word 'bit' loosely) noobish. Silver 5 scrub y'kno, but I tried my best, and if its bad I doubt Riot will add it, so, don't hurt me pls item 3070

5 Comments

Lord Dusteon3 votes

Okay, so looking over your ideas.

Passive: So a rather large earlygame buff (your armor doesn't counter her entire damage), large lategame nerf (as you can't itemize for the magic damage), and the stacking doesn't seem to change anything with good rivens (unless they tried to combo their abilities without forcing an autoattack in constantly for everyone)

Q: ...So, you removed her main waveclear, forced her to build AS, a stat she doesn't really want to begin with, and "compensated" her with .6 AD. I repeat, you removed her entire AoE component meaning this change is only good in 1v1s. Which means she's even stronger in lane but even shittier than she already was in teamfights. Somehow I don't think making her laning more obnoxious and then making her already meh lategame even worse is a good idea.

W: So you looked at the melee range .75 second AoE stun and thought "yup! Riven needs to lose the entire scaling on this, because losing an entire 1.0 AD ratio won't make this skill almost entirely useless!". For comparison, that means leveling this ability up will shave one second off the time and add a whopping 30 damage. As in, it will literally never be upgrade past level 1 until Riven is forced to as the ability gains absolutely no worthwhile features from an upgrade point except 1 second less cooldown.

E: So now that you've made her W almost useless and made her Q useless past 15 minutes, it's time to change her E. First, the shield is now weaker at any point after she buys an AD item (which she kinda needs to function as the only thing she offers to a team is a lot of damage and two short ranged short duration CCs). Second, the shield is completely out of place. Her kit is a bruiser-assassin; she's squishy, and makes up for that, being melee, and being telegraphed by having decent mobility, survavibility if she uses E correctly, and 2 short CCs. As in, if she builds defence she loses out on every stat she needs to be an actual threat, as without damage there is zero reason to pick her over an actual assassin, actual bruiser, or tank. While this nerf is the least noticeable if behind (as the shield scaling at 18 is ~300 shield), it's EXTREMELY noticeable when even or ahead as she cannot itemize for her shield then.

R: Not much to say; it's a nerf to the bases, buff to the ratios close range and ~even long range (assuming you meant to change it to total AD from bonus).

So overall, you make her even worse to fight in lane and even more useless in a teamfight against competent players. Not sure how this solves any problems.

ShinTwist2 votes

From any objective standpoint, she's actually one of the best designed champions in the game. She doesn't need a rework, she needs better press.

Shroom Junkie2 votes

{quoted}

From any objective standpoint, she's actually one of the best designed champions in the game. She doesn't need a rework, she needs better press.

Why would you think that? Like, serious question. I myself think she's unbalanced... like Cho'gath or the sort. Damage output, tankiness, and CC all in one champion, and because of the passive, the more damage you deal, well, uh, the more damage you deal... lol. Just seems kind of unfair that a champion can destroy anyone that can't silence or outsustain her(which is hard). So, Garen or Tryndamere would be good characters, but even then, a good Riven could stop a Tryndamere ult, or could get out of reach for a Garen silence then initiate. And with all the dashes, you can't really kite around her being ranged, unless your maybe Kalista or something.

ShinTwist2 votes

I know you think that, I disagree, but being well designed doesn't just have to do with balance.

Riven is a champion with limitations who thrives within them. Her kit is the most dynamic in the game, and her mobility, while noteworthy is surprisingly limited. She has a total of 600 range in dashes, and they're locked at 450~ MS, with no way to improve them. In patch 5.8, Riven moved faster using ghost blade than her dashes if she had boots 2, this is true of any champion with 345 MS or higher.

Her damage is gated by her melee range, if she wants to close the gap on someone she sacrifices her damage and survivability which are tied to her dashes in the form of her shield and well, damage.

She has an incredibly high skill cap, and a middling skill floor, meaning she's not inaccessible to sub-diamond plebians like ourselves. She's hard to learn, but she can be used, and she actually remains viable all the way up to challenger due to her high skill cap making her impressively strong and fluid when mastered. Good luck mastering her though.

Everything Riven does requires some form of thought or decision making. She's a strong champion, or was before the patch, but she's very unforgiving.

She's also one of the most fun champions to play as, and if you're not drinking the boards kool-aid, against. She has some of the most fun and hilarious match ups.

Renekton crushes her, but it's fun to do and to try to prevent, it's a very active aggressive lane. Garen too, but she can kite him out with stuns and Q's and try to whittle him down, if she outplays perfectly, she can even win. Lee Sin vs Riven is... I can't even describe the fucking madness, lol. It's such a fun, stupid lane. Hell, mid lane too. Ever played Kassadin vs Riven, Orianna vs Riven, or Karthus vs Riven? Kayle vs Riven is hell on Earth, it's a mad dash to kill the other, farming is secondary.

She has clear strengths;

She's mobile, with good sustained damage, no resource, and strong scaling.

She has clear weaknesses:

She's extremely weak to kiting, very squishy, has bad bases, and trades that damage for mobility. Also helpless when her Q is on CD.

I honestly wish we had more interesting kits like Riven's.

Wolfram Oxford1 votes

I think all they need to do is an early damage/AD scaling nerf just for early levels though. If they nerf her early game it will give players a chance to keep her from snow balling. By the way riven isn't such an imbalanced champion, a lot of tanks can destroy her and if she is the one to initiate a fight she will get chained cc'd and die, having a riven on your team sacrifices a lot of your initiation unless flash third q into w, and it makes it so your adc will do less because now the enemy is armor stacking and hp stacking. Riven isn't really a problem as I see it, especially in this tanky meta.

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