Letting Riven deal with tanks.

tldr at the bottem

So there have been a few Riven threads recently with some balance ideas, some very cringy and some kinda eehhh. And with the recent Hashinshin talks, (bless his heart since he was featured for something not toxic this time), its time to talk about top lane and Riven. Right now, the best way to play Riven is with full Lethality or mostly Lethality, and the worst way to play her is as a bruiser and standard fighter. Lethality is successful right now because the current state of the game is revolved around the early game and snowballing leads. One kill bot lane will win that lane, one death in top lane can mean the loss of a tower after one gank. In addition, everyone HAS TOO MUCH DAMAGE. Everyone can oneshot everyone else, and even though Riot has stated that this is intentional in order to gather sufficient data for more balance work. It is creating some problems. These problems manifest in the form of games ending waaaaaay too early, too much damage across the board, and top lane being a hell hole.

As Hash as brought up, top lane consists of tanks, Jayce, ranged, and AP. Melee Carries, Fighters, and Juggernauts are simply left in the dust, and this is mostly due to the rune changes. Melee Carries are underwhelming when faced against tanks, Fighters have very bad keystone choices when faced against other fighters and tanks, and Juggernauts........ I'm not sure, but it's probably the same reason as fighters.

I want to highlight one top laner in particular who is both doing well and very poorly at the same time, . Riven was designed as a fighter, not an assassin, and should be played as such. However, the current state of the game favors Riven as an assassin instead of her intended playstyle. Lethality Riven is a big ball of burst and one-shotyness thanks to and , as well as Electrocute and Aery. Electrokute only works on a few toplaners and while Riven is one of them, it only works when going assassin. Aery, despite being good, is a curse. This is a SUPPORT keystone. Yes, Riot made the runes with the intention of Champions having a wide range of options, but letting fighters and assassins efficiently use a Support based keystone is ridiculous. This is still a problem because instead of nerfing the cooldown like they should have, they just nerfed the damage, which in the end changed almost nothing for the early game, and hurt the supports who are meant to take it in the first place. As a bruiser/fighter, Riven's options are Press the Attack and Aftershock. Aftershock is actually kinda good, but Press the Attack is....not. The reason the fighters are hurting is because their Fervor replacement is objectively worse and placed in a tree that has almost nothing good for them besides tenacity. So while Riven is good as an assassin, she is horrible as her intended fighter variant.

This is where my main issue is. Riven is simply outclassed by every other fighter and top laners in general. This may sound weird but bear with me. In top lane, most if not all fighters have an innate way of dealing with other bruisers and tanks. has True Damage, % health damage, and mixed damage. has True Damage and % health damage. has True Damage and Armor Penetration. has % health damage and mixed damage. just has a ton of % health True Damage. has % health damage. has Armor Penetration on his barrels, and a True Damage upgrade to his ult. has True Damage and Armor Reduction. has % health damage and mixed damage. has % health damage. has True Damage. has % health damage and Armor Reduction. has mixed damage. has % health damage, mixed damage, and Armor and Mr reduction. has Armor and Mr reduction and mixed damage. has % health damage. has % health damage. has % health damage. has % health damage and Armor Reduction. has True damage. , oh god nerf this monster. (% health damage, a ton of it) has % health damage. has Armor reduction, even tho its like never used. has % health damage. has % health damage. has % heatlh damage and Armor Reduction. is satan. has % health damage, and Armor and Mr reduction. has % heatlh true damage. has Armor reduction. has Bonus Armor penetration. has % health damage.

All of these things are a way of dealing with the health and resistances built by the other laner and other tanky champions. This is where Riven comes in. She has none of this. Not only that, but her damage is PURE FLAT physical damage. The only thing you have to do is stack armor, which can only be countered by itemization. But you may ask, "Isn't that what Dank Cleaver is for?" and you might be right.....might. As it stands, right now is probably the worst season for Riven to build Black cleaver.....ever. Your only true option to deal with tanks and fighters, besides stacking Lethality, is Black Cleaver, and this is the case because getting early Last Whisperer and upgrades delays your survivability too much. Black cleaver went form a + build path to a + build path, which hurts Riven. The extra health may be nice, but the loss of early AD, especially when getting components, hurts Riven more the health benefits. Things got even worse when Black Cleaver's Armor reduction was lowered from 30% to 24%, making the people who build it even less effective. Building this right now should be good, but it's not, and this is because the build path leaves Riven with less damage and completing it feels worse when you are up against other top laners who can out-sustain and out-damage you for most of the laning phase when you don't go Lethality.

This is my solution. Just give Riven some form of Armor Reduction. She doesn't need % health damage, even though it would be nice, she doesn't need true damage, and she doesn't need magic damage. Having all physical damage is one of her intended weaknesses because it allows her to be more easily countered. The change may seem contradictory to this statement, but in the current game, when I can build the exact same items as another fighter, and they can make any defenses I build meaningless and deal the same if not more damage, this kind of change seems necessary.

The bright side to this change is that it will only really affect her fighter playstyle. Catoring the reduction effect to her DPS will ensure that you will not be able to easily proc the effect on assassination targets; but if this is still a problem, then it can be changed to BONUS armor reduction, with a very small flat amount. This will especially help her when she is behind, because the reduction can help her stay relevent. A change like this may only work if some damage is taken out somewhere else from her kit, and that's fine, as long as it is taken from her main burst.

I have a few ideas for how this can be implemented, and I will name the effect Shatter (it just seems very fitting thematically for her) . The first is making it applicable from her passive. For example, every 3rd Runic Blade proc (within a given amount of time) applies Shatter, reducing the enemy's armor for a few seconds (possibly with a way to extend the duration). Note that this does not mean every third consecutive hit on a champion, only the every third Runic Blade proc in general, meaning you space out your q's on minions, get the 3rd hit ready , then go in. For a Riven who wants to assassinate people, this will do nothing for them because their burst combo will not include 3 auto's, and if it does, all of their damage will happen before Shatter is applied. You could also make it apply from her 3rd Broken Wing's proc, or an additional effect on Valor if the shield is broken. You could also make it a stackable effect so you can have some immediate use instead of waiting for the 3rd hit.

This is something that has irked me for a long time and I want to know what you guys think. Do you think I'm crazy? Do you agree with how the current toplane is a cancer circus? Do you agree that Riven needs a little more love? Do you think there is a better way to help her deal with tanks and help her as a fighter in general? Let me know what you think. And sorry for this post being kind of long.

tldr; With the nerfs to Black cleaver and lack of proper runes for fighters, Riven is left in the dust because she has no real way to deal with fighters and tanks besides Cleaver. My solution is giving her a form of Armor Reduction.