Can we take another look at Riven??
Riven is easily my favorite champ, I will make no secret about this. Joining League toward the beginning of Season 3 after a bunch of Fighting games such as Blazblue, Riven's play style was easily the closest thing to that and immediately got my attention. I loved being able to combo as I saw fit like in my beloved fighting games rather than simple 2 or 3 ability combos of other champs in league. I played Riven a lot, but then I noticed something, everyone started picking her as well. Soon enough, she was pick/ban for the rest of the season and I rarely got a chance to use her.
The problem sat squarely in her ability to snowball really hard. As a lane bully, she did so much to harass an opponent the earlier the game was, so she could get about 2 or 3 fairly easy kills by 10 minutes, more if you were particularly reckless and bloodthirsty. Naturally, I knew she had issues. This was apparent, and I did agree there was something that needed to be done about her while also giving people effective counter strats for dealing with her.
When the Riven nerfs finally rolled in, they hit her early game very hard with only slight buffs to her late game. At first, this looked ok, a fair balancing idea, even. But then I came to a realization. Riven without her early game pressure is very weak. Even in S3 when she steamrolled the enemy teams, she still needed those early kills in order to go off. Without them, she lacked the ability to work the way she needed to. She would lack the burst to make her a decent assassin, but couldn't sustain or tank hits and just generally last long enough to be a distraction or any other useful member of the team. Even compared to other fighters, she was merely mediocre. She absolutely NEEDED those kills in order to play the game, or else she is literally just sitting on a team waiting for the 20 minute mark.
Nowadays? Riven is extremely weak at the points she is meant to be at her strongest and even weaker late game. The nerfs to her early game shut out the possibility of her getting to her late game. Unless you are truly pro tier at Riven (and I'm not), she doesn't stand a chance anymore. The nerfs hit her perhaps too hard in the wrong places.
The options I give to you are but simple ones.
The first option I wish to see is Riven's early game restored to her S3 stats, while slamming her late game. This way, she can continue to bully the enemy early game and still have some meaning mid game and then Rightfully switch the role of carrying to the late game champs of her team, whoever they might be. A way of doing this would be to slap her scaling and buff her base damage. This is the more favorable idea.
The second option is to nerf the early game, while giving her the correct late game buffs one would expect of a late game AD carry. She would naturally be forced to play like Nasus or whoever and farm until she can start being relevant. This would be a total switch to her playstyle and I would like to avoid this in favor of the first option, but it makes sense in the long run if we dont use said first option. A way of doing this would be reducing the base stats of her abilities and spiking the scaling.
In closing, Riven is too feast or famine at this point, where if she wins, she wins hard, but if she loses, she is perhaps the most weakest champ in the game. She is too unreliable to see competitive play and this needs to be addressed. Feel free to add suggestions as you see fit, but keep it reasonable. I'm looking for balance, not a hate war against Riven or excessive Riven fandom. I get that Riven can't be both a AD carry and a lane bully at the same time, and hopefully my suggestions help address that.
TL:DR; Riven is too feast or famine, being Riven's play style is focused on her early game, and without proper ability to properly play early game, she has a hard time for the rest of the game. Changes I propose is to buff the her early game in exchange for her carry potential late game OR instead to nerf her early game and give her the late game she needs as a AD Carry.
