Purposed Riven Mini-rework
I jotted this this down this morning so I wouldn't forget it. I thought it could be a viable idea but I'm also pretty tired so who knows.
My thoughts are keep her kit the way it is, but make it so that instead of being a no-resource champ, make her spells cost a percent of current health like Vlad/Aatrox/Mundo/Morde/Zak.
This [as with other champs that use health as a resource] wouldn't greatly impact Riven's mid/late game considering it is very popular for Riven to rush Hydra and at some point grab a Bloodthirster. Also most of the time Riven doesn't build to much extra health, so the %current health doesn't end up costing you to much flat health. To counteract the self harm caused by casting her low CD, easily spammable spells, you could add a heal into her passive. Ex. Spells cost 5% current hp, Passive: Riven's blade gains a charge for 5 seconds every time she casts an ability, stacking up to 3 times. Each of her basic attacks consumes an available charge to deal 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% AD bonus physical damage and heal Riven for 4% of her maximum health. [Could even be %missing health heal for some olaf style masochistic fighting, but this post is only looking into %max heal numbers] You could do a number of things with her e shield, (cost of spells turned to grey health for X seconds, added to the shield on use/50% dmg blocked heals you/using passive during shield heals for more/extends duration)
What this does:
- Keeps all of her current offensive capabilities but makes her more volatile early game. She can still snowball, but shes not invincible when she does.
- Having her spells cost % current health and her passive heal % max health, even without life steal, [if using her passive] she wont be sitting at full health all the time, but she wont be killing herself off. Ex. 5%current cost, 4%max heal would equalize at 80% max health.
- Using her passive efficiently/not over stacking has a greater influence. Forces her to decide if its worth the health to use her 4 low CD gap closes to cross a great distance in a short amount of time. Creates a trade off for her high damage + high mobility.
- No longer lets her use qqewq to get quick damage and cc for "free". [With no lifesteal] while casting and using her passive she sits at 80% health, so essentially while shes in playing aggressive she trades the extra damage from her spells and passive for 20% of her max health. [Keep in mind this is not including life steal or regen (both of which she gets from Hydra)]
- She keeps her mobility and escape potential, but when she runs the 100m hurdle she'll be out of breath by the end. If her spells cost %current health she cant kill herself with them, and can continue spamming till she gets back to base, but she has to trade off this incredible mobility for portions of her remaining health. The numbers for this [to show its not as much health as it seems] Ex. Riven is at 50% health, qqqeqqq, 7 jumps at 5%current leaves her at 35% health. [20% Leaves her at 14%][10% leaves her at 7%]
Reason for post: I just was on the forums and someone mentioned that they felt riot should raise her CDs to put her on par with other top laners like her, and I thought, why not just make her spells cost health and let her do the poking for you, and that thought turned into this. Let me know what you think! Maybe riot will even see the post who knows haha.