Why does Riven have that much damage and mobility with low cooldowns and no resource?

IsIsGankedParis·Jan 30, 2015·5 votes·3,720 views

I want an honest explanation as to why she has such high damage early along with great mobility and low cooldowns on every single spell of hers.

9 Comments

mvargusJan 30, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Darius Only,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Azih2qQA,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-01-30T20:14:28.539+0000)

I want an honest explanation as to why she has such high damage early along with great mobility and low cooldowns on every single spell of hers.

Riven has no real healing or sustain, only the one CC in her W which can be interrupted as it has a casting time, and is probably one of the squishiest top lane fighters. I've played her and found her to require very good timing to get the most of her Q-aa-Q-aa-Q trick with the cancelled animations. If you mess it up you are inviting a quick counter and time looking at a countdown timer while you wait to respawn.

She also can only backout after initiating by sacrificing an attack move and activating either Q or E to dash away and usually she'll use one of those to initiate, so she often is making an all or nothing play when she moves to attack another champ.

I won't say she's easy to fight against. If the player of Riven has the timing down they turn her into a powerhouse quickly and she will snowball with a lead, but if you can force her to stay away and make it so her Q attack runs into minions, you can bully her back rather easily. Its only if you try to go toe-to-toe with her when you aren't tanky that she can dominate and seem OP.

Belisarius09Jan 30, 20151 votes

Personally I'm opposed to the "No-Cost" resource type. I think Riven could and should be an energy type.

Every resource type, be it mana, energy, rage, or hp cost has it's own strengths and weaknesses.

No-Cost resource though.... I haven't a clue what the weakness to that resource type is. The first thought that jumps to mind would be higher cd's since the resource type is no cost. But then you realize there are champions like Yasuo, with extremely short cd's and the no-cost resource type. So honestly I can't give you an answer, it bamboozles me just as much as it does you.

redniwediSJan 30, 20151 votes

In theory they are supposed to be gated by cooldowns and lower stats/scaling.

Lord DusteonJan 30, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Personally I'm opposed to the "No-Cost" resource type. I think Riven could and should be an energy type.

Every resource type, be it mana, energy, rage, or hp cost has it's own strengths and weaknesses.

No-Cost resource though.... I haven't a clue what the weakness to that resource type is. The first thought that jumps to mind would be higher cd's since the resource type is no cost. But then you realize there are champions like Yasuo, with extremely short cd's and the no-cost resource type. So honestly I can't give you an answer, it bamboozles me just as much as it does you.

For giving them a cost, that's bad and would require upping their damage/utility/tankiness even more. Energy users have pretty good laning, though are bad in extended fights due to their resource limitations (200 hard cap (fuck you energy runes), making them run out of energy quickly after 1-2 combos if they don't get their energy return mechanic repeatedly). Mana users are limited in lane, but once out of laning normally are fine due to having enough resource for 4+ combos easily. Both users though have different drawbacks, normally in the resource.

For Riven specifically, her drawback is not in a resource but her stats and kit. Her hp regen is abyssal, and her main gapclosers + escapes (Q) make her give up damage unless she was already standing on you. In addition, she's a melee with little kill potential without her ult, being extremely fed, or chasing you for 10+ seconds. While she is strong when used correctly, she relies heavily on getting kills and snowballing early, and is still weak in teamfights (unless heavily fed).

Belisarius09Jan 30, 20151 votes

I'm really surprised I was down-voted. I didn't say anything negative about Riven.

But, what do you guys think? I think making Riven energy based could be viable without breaking her kit. In return some of her cd's could be shortened, or maybe some of her stats could be buffed. And like every other energy champion, she could have some mechanic to regain energy if she successfully pulls off a certain move. Maybe if she successfully stuns? Thoughts?

Also, what are the drawbacks of the "no-cost" resource type?

Togekiss24Jan 30, 20151 votes

Higher cooldowns compared to other champions, but even then it's not that big of a deal.

With Riven in particular, her passive allows her physical damage to get buffed the more spells she casts, which is why she is able to go toe-to-toe with most champions.

The challenge is keeping that passive buff up, and when playing a champion that is actually not as durable nor sustainable compared to other bruisers, that is a challenge (speaking from someone who plays Riven, here), because otherwise she loses that damage spike.

Finally, I wanted to add that she shares the same weaknesses many other bruisers have. Lanes vs. Teemo , Jayce , or even Quinn give Riven hell.

mvargusJan 30, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I'm really surprised I was down-voted. I didn't say anything negative about Riven.

But, what do you guys think? I think making Riven energy based could be viable without breaking her kit. In return some of her cd's could be shortened, or maybe some of her stats could be buffed. And like every other energy champion, she could have some mechanic to regain energy if she successfully pulls off a certain move. Maybe if she successfully stuns? Thoughts?

Also, what are the drawbacks of the "no-cost" resource type?

For Riven the drawbacks were noted two times by people who posted.

First, Riven has terrible base stats compared to most others. She doesn't heal well at all. In exchange for having the "no-cost" resource, she is one of the weaker characters unless properly fed Second, Riven's tricks need to be performed almost perfectly or you don't get the kill, and if you fail you often end up chasing, which can usually mean you run into another champ and end up looking at a grey screen and waiting for a respawn.

Riven already has fairly short CDs and with even 25% CDR can pretty much spam her Q and E. A buff to her stats might be nice, but it would change her from what she is. Right now she's a finicky to play fighter who requires very little "management" of her cool downs, but requires a lot of attention to timing her attacks in order to make them work.

The fact that there are Riven players out there who have put the effort into mastering her play is not a good reason to demand a change to her kit. There are some rather obvious weaknesses to her play and if you take some time you can learn to beat her.

The ChinJan 30, 20151 votes

Riven has pretty unforgiving cooldowns at early levels, learn to abuse them. TBH the only way to really learn it is to play riven.

Drunk RummateJan 30, 20151 votes

riven has a lot of drawbacks

she loses damage on her abilities if she uses them to gapclose

she has very poor sustain

her Q and E require movement to cast and are therefore prevented by root spells, so she can't shield or deal much damage when rooted like many other champions

her W stun duration is amongst the shortest CC abilities in the game, as is her knockup

her scaling is fairly low and so she does very little damage unless she builds 3 or more damage items (unlike lee or jarvan with their 200% scaling and %hp passives). this leaves her as a very squishy target.