@Riot Proposed Riven passive change that can make her healthier and better balanced
Riven as a whole is a small failure in many parts that dont altogether make her terrible, but more so a second place at the science fair disappointment. Lore wise she's muddled. She's an angsty young woman whose lost her faith in "King and Country" whom is supposed to wield powerful blade and wind technique. She delivers in game by having the blade, but no evidence of the wind technique in almost any regard short of her R's second activation.
She also suffers from considerable balance issues due to her resourceless base, AD only scaling, and the biggest offender in league in terms of permissible opportunities to animation cancel. This combination makes it so that higher level players will always be able to push her kit further than lower skill leveled players in a fashion that isn't entirely fair for both sides. She's oppressive in high level play due to her only major counters in lane being her own cooldowns and just playing better than her. She's almost trash in lower level play because she's nerfed to keep her from being too strong up top and new players cant garner success with her nearly as well as they could hope.
With my proposed change I could fix several of those issues, alleviate the others, and do so by using some of your own in game mechanics as well as by simply changing her passive. Her Recently scrapped Edge mechanic was a good example of an attempt to add strength to the weaker player base that was only truly utilized by the strong. By gaining additional attack damage through the edge mechanic it promoted stronger and smarter trades on Riven players, but really only benefited the best players who could get the most of the damage bonus the fastest. So my proposed rework actually uses the exact opposite of the Edge mechanic. If more damage in long trades make the strong players stronger, then less damage in extended trades should make them weaker.
Riven's current passive Runic Blade Empowers her auto attacks with 25-50% of her total attack damage, scaling by 5% per 3 levels, granting her one charge of runic blade per ability use, banking up to 3 charges for use for up to 5 seconds.
I propose her passive be changed to Grace of the Wind. Rivens new passive will use a 100 point modified Yasuo flow bar in which she will gain 15-30% of her attack damage as a bonus to her auto attacks depending on the amount of Grace surrounding her blade. Riven will lose 10 grace every time she attacks an enemy champion and the bonus damage is half against minions. Riven's minimum Grace bonus grows by 4% per level and maximum by 6% per level. Riven will passively regenerate 1 grace per second, Gain 20 Grace upon activating Blade of the Exile, and 10 per champion executed by Wind Slash. Grace regeneration upon Activating Blade of the Exile is doubled for the duration of the ability.
Riven at lvl 1 with 100 Grace will do 30% per auto against champions. at 0 Grace she will be empowered by 15% per auto. Current Riven at lvl 1 will do 25% per auto per charge. At level 9 Grace of the Wind will do 28-48% of her attack damage While current Runic Blade at level 9 grants her 40% per charge. Level 18 Riven with Grace does 35% - 60% per auto attack while 18 Riven with Runic Blade does 50% per charge. Riven's grace of the wind bar will be visible below her health bar at all times to enemies and allies, while replacing her current empty resource gauge with a 0-100 Grace bar for the player to personally track rather than visually. Current damage gained from her passive can be seen by mousing over her passive to see the tool tip.
http://orig12.deviantart.net/c540/f/2014/351/4/1/riven_yasuo_by_l0rduck-d8a6tqk.png
Now to get to the point of these changes. Overall these changes throw in a low of numbers that don't seem to do much as a whole while some of it can be seen as a net buff that she doesn't need. In truth these changes can actually specifically target high level gameplay and actually leave low level gameplay almost completely unaffected.
High skill capped Riven players bully and harass in lane without end with many that consistanly and violently dive towers without repurcussion on the most skilled with a thorough understanding of Riven's kit. Thus by adding Grace of the Wind to Riven's kit, her reliability is now destabalized. Due to Riven players only needing to manage her cooldowns, once everything is up she is free to come and go as she please, with much of it often meaning dive and trade on as much of her own terms as possible. Grace of the Wind is intended to add terms to both top lane players to make things more fair and interesing.
By making her damage fluctuations visible to the enemy laner, they're capable of seeing and estimating when it would be more or less advantageous for either laner to attack Riven in lane. A full Grace Riven will look to engage, and a low Grace Riven will look to farm and restore before trading again. This will add a further decision making process into when it would be most wise to dive or trade beyond simply attempting to estimate the enemy Riven's cooldowns for when she comes in or not.
Grace of the Wind will also take power away from tower diving Riven and actually add it to tower hugging Riven. A Riven using consecutive dives and trades will have low Grace and minimum tower diving potential for securing kills, making her less oppressive. A behind and oppressed Riven will have high levels of Grace when hiding under tower that will allow her to trade and fend for herself to counter against dives and ganks. All of which benefit lower leveled players more than higher skilled capped ones.
One final benefit of Grace of the Wind is that it can add a decision making process to Blade of the Exile beyond using it at the onset of every fight. By granting a 20 Grace regeneration upon activation, Riven players have the option of micromanaging the Grace in one instance that can allow them to decide whether or not Riven needs to manage Grace for extended fights, or utilize her Ultimate's damage bonus for fast burst. In some instances such as when fighting tanks Riven may be better off utilizing several auto attacks before activating her Ultimate to maintain peak Grace for extended trades or team fights rather than just shooting for an instance damage steroid and joining the fray.
TL;DR Power is taken away from Riven's ability to lane bully and tower dive, power is added to her ability to play from behind and under tower when oppressed, counterplay and decision making potential is given to her laner, and decision making potential is added to her Ultimate beyond her current form which consists of "use at the start of every fight when off cooldown always."
Thanks for reading,
