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Why I hate Riven (hear me out)

TheDevice··7 votes·1,241 views

the REAL reason I hate Riven is because her kit is so isolated design-wise. No other champion has that style of play to the extent that she has. You can say "oh well isnt that a good thing? Why should they all be the same?" Yet in practice many of the top lane fighters share a common theme

I can't really go through all the types of champions and similarities like Xin and Trynd and whatnot. My point is that so many of these auto attack champions when there is CLEARLY room for champions who can be more like Riven and even Fiora now.

Champions who have active ways to defend themselves (not just relying on itemization/stats) to outplay our opponents. One of the major reasons I think Riven hasn't been nerfed that hard is because Riven is a champion you can REALLY main. There are so many ways to play her and so many ways to out-think and outplay your opponent.

But again, the issue I take with that is there are SOOOOO many meat-head-like champions (Xin, Trynd, Trundle, Volibear, Udyr, Olaf...even my beloved Aatrox) who's ENTIRE kit's "skill cap" consists of continually auto attacking as much as you can while making very simple threat assessments. Thats it. Thats all it takes. Can I kill them? Then go in and auto attack as much as you can. Is the threat too high? Don't go in and die. Thats it.

With riven you can do so much more. Even when you're behind the range of skill her kit allows the player can easily allow them to come back and even win 1v1's vs enemies with a lead. I'm in complete AWE sometimes that Riot has made rivens successful and popular playstyle so exclusive to her kit only. IT ANNOYS the hell out of me lol. Thats actually why I don't play her.

I also don't want to play champions that everyone and their freaking uncle plays like Riven or Lee Sin.

Her style of play is so exclusive and yet Riot continues to pump out champions like Aatrox who I thought was PERFECT for that style of play. He was this elegant fighter who came at the right time to turn things around. But no... just another tyrndamere / xin xhao offspring.

I think Riot is also afraid to nerf her because of her vast fan base. How many pro players (or pro level players) main riven? Fuggedaboutit. There are players like BoxBox and so many others who ONLY play riven. How many other champions can you say have a fan base like that? And korea? FUHHGEDABOUDIT! The numbers don't lie, shes so popular because her kit has so much depth.

People can almost compare her with Lee Sin but I disagree to an extent. I think their only REAL similarities are their number of dedicated fans. Lee has depth, I won't lie about that, it's obvious; but Riven still out-classes him as far as range of mechanics available.

This is also why Riven feels so broken and overpowered is her exclusive kit. Lee Sin shares that similarity but with Riven is even more pronounced. You have all these other champs like Tryn, Olaf, Trundle etc who pretty much have a similar range of mechanical depth (pretty simplistic).. and then you have RIVEN who just has all these toys at her disposal to outplay you.

TL;DR I just wish Riot was more lenient with allowing other champions to have as much depth and not allowing only certain champs like riven to have all the fun.

T_T

13 Comments

O Fallen Scholar2 votes

She is a champion from S1. What did you expect? If she was released in S4 or S5, she would be a lot different.

Balmor02 votes

Man i wish they wold have done more of a interesting kit on Aatrox hes ability's seem to be very similar to other champions ability's. His Q is like rivens with shorter range longer cd takes away % hp harder to hit. W blood thirst jax empower . Ult has a lot of similarity to rivens ult without the execute without the ad scaling and dmg boost. Revive passive is not that unique. Attack speed boost is similar to jax passive attack speed boost but with lower scaling.

MLDzXnRRR1 votes

Smashing the keyboard is a style of play? Right...

Balmor01 votes

Have you ever tried to play riven she is a lot harder than just smashing your keyboard. I hate riven but i don't deny that she need skill to play but she has way to many ways to outplay you then other top champs. She has lots of dashes 2 hard cc on low cd and a ult witch gives her range dmg boost and a wide area execute.

Merathin1 votes

You're right her kit is overloaded, and imo Riven is a toxic champ. Definitely if she isn't banned and people who don't main her insta pick her and think they can 1v5.

Or people who don't counter pick her, and let her actually 1v5 eventually...

Balmor01 votes

Yup a lot of people don't know how to play her and go to rank to feed because they think they can just 1v5. And when she gets a lead it is a lot harder to come back in a 1v1 because she has so many tools to advance her lead and if you don't have a lead over her pre 6 she can torrent dive you and execute you giving her a lead and you lose lane.

MLDzXnRRR1 votes

{quoted}

Have you ever tried to play riven she is a lot harder than just smashing your keyboard. I hate riven but i don't deny that she need skill to play but she has way to many ways to outplay you then other top champs. She has lots of dashes 2 hard cc on low cd and a ult witch gives her range dmg boost and a wide area execute.

She maybe is alot harder, but depends on your enemy. Good Riven doesn't give a chance to fight her - she will stun and knockup you. So you die while CCed. If you have a chance to win the fight, she will run away and noone can catch her. Giving a manaless champion so much mobility and CC is stupid. Garen has shit dmg scaling compared to her, no hard CC, no dashes and if goes AD just gets kited and bursted. Morde no CC. Yasuo conditional CC. Kata - no CC.

Balmor01 votes

I agree her kit is way to overloaded witch gives her a lot more tools to outplay you compered to other champions witch makes no sense at all for her to have such good scaling and so many tools to outplay you

MLDzXnRRR1 votes

{quoted}

I agree her kit is way to overloaded witch gives her a lot more tools to outplay you compered to other champions witch makes no sense at all for her to have such good scaling and so many tools to outplay you

Lategame you can't even fight her, if she has Ghostblade - getting critted for 1500 + dmg from Riven is very fun.

Balmor01 votes

The thing is that if you win lane and game goes late and she can 1v5 you that is because you din't close out the game. But that is a problem with riven she can go full dmg and not be so punished for it unlike other champons

Merathin1 votes

Gangplank

Baby Ghoul1 votes

I completely agree that many other champions, especially in top lane, need that kind of depth that she has.

They're working towards it, look what they accomplished with Fiora. Previously she had no depth gameplay wise. However Riven's kit is a bit BS. She has no resource bar, and yet she has great base stats, 2 forms of hard CC, a shield, high mobility, and an execute. It's bonkers that Riot thinks that's okay.

I do think that she requires skill to play, but that isn't an excuse for all of that stuff in one champion. It needs to be toned down in a thoughtful way. There's no cost or punishment for anything she does, and that's not right.

When I lose to a Riven, I rarely feel like I was out played fairly. I feel like we exhausted ourselves dueling, but she was able to face roll her abilities at the last second to finish me off or get away. It doesn't feel great at all.

TheDevice1 votes

so yeah. I mean even just in my last game I was sion. I main sion. He's a really fun champ. But when faced with riven there is nothing I can do. She dashes everywhere out of my attacks, shes canceling animations to deal INSANE damage, shes interrupting my casts, and its over. Now I might be wrong but sion is simply not a good pick vs riven but really there's not many tops who have nearly as many tricks as she does. Darius? no. Garen? Well early game I can beat a riven with garen because I can silencer her out of her Q. But a really good Riven will know how to beat me. With Garen you are limited to what he can do.

So yeah. Meh.

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