Riven is balanced, animation canceling is healthy, please stop being dumb.

Hey everyone, I'm Prince Rivera, and I am currently a d5, but used to be (For all of s3 and s4) a very high diamond 1 Riven main. I told myself I wasn't going to do this, but I honestly cannot stand to watch people sitting here trying to make the same, damn, argument over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over.... and over again. It's quite honestly ridiculous and is starting to get a little annoying. So, without further ado!

Riven is in a very healthy place right now, so please, please please please, stop crying for nerfs. Her win rate is very steady at ~50% at every elo, she is occasionally picked in the pro scene, and she exists with an identity and a clear niche in the current meta. This is something most champions strive for. These are the statistics you look at and say, "Wow, good job riot. You did it!" Do you want to know why she has always maintained these statistics? Always? Through every season since release? I have one phrase for you all. Ready?

Riven is one of the most healthy, well designed champions in the game. Allow me to explain:

Riven as a character has a very well designed kit. It synergizes to create very cohesive, fluid gameplay that not only makes Riven effective but very fun to play. It has no clunky, odd feeling aspects about it, and within it's combos is a depth of potential that overall just honestly just works together. This is a good thing people. We want every champion to feel this way, regardless of their strength. This is just one of the many reasons removing her ability to animation cancel (Which is the glue that gives her kit it's beauty and grace) is NOT an option, and, hopefully, not something Riot is willing to do. But I'll speak more on this later.

As to her contribution to the game's health in itself? Riven serves as the only living example of an AD caster done right. Her damage is very roughly half spell half attack damage, and her strength is completely centered around the correct use of her abilities in the right succession given each specific situation. If she fails to do this, then as one would expect, in almost every situation she will fail. AS an AD caster, she exists very seldom in the pro scene as what we call a fighter, or basically the cross between our peeling tanky dps, and our diving crazy ham looking mofo assassin. This gives her the ability to do everything both roles can do, obviously, but also causes her to suffer from the jack of all trades condition. While she can do everything, no one can argue that a Riven can burst an ADC better then a Talon, or that she can peel better then a Gnar. Again, we're talking about people of equal skill.

Putting that aside though, I'd like to talk about her balance and the problem so many people seem to have with her. Riven is not difficult to beat in lane. From someone who plays her all the time and has played against literally every so called, "Riven master" (Brna, Korean double box, Westrice, etc) and won, trust me, I know. The problem is, especially as MMR drops, people succumb more and more to what I have dubbed the, "little pussy ass bitch" syndrome. We will refer to this as LPab syndrome for the remainder of this post. Basically, LPab syndrome is a disease that effects the mind of someone playing against a Riven. It's symptoms are simple, really. Whenever an effected person sees a Riven, they start playing like a little pussy ass bitch.

People, you need to think. YES, Riven is a very skilled trader. She deals a lot of damage - WHEN she uses every skill. And stop right there, because I know what you're going to say. "But, but prince! What if she...? What if she...???" What if she what? From levels 1-9 her cooldowns are massive. E and W are both sitting at 10 and 11, and her q sits at a whooping 14 and DOES NOT CHANGE. What the fuck are you scared of? Her walking menacingly at you? Her giving you the, "I'm gonna kill u in 10 seconds" glare? It's funny (Sorry I'm going to go off on a little tangent here), people are always bitching that Riven has SUCH LOW CDS. And I'm like, dude, have you ever fucking looked at her numbers? At max level they're 13, 7, and 6 respectively. That's higher then most champions. And you say, "But But, Prince, Riven ALWAYS itemizes 40% cdr!!!" Yeah she does. At level 15 she will normally have around 40% cdr, putting her q at 7.8 seconds. You really think that's short? Really? It's short given the skill sure, but then again that's the whole point of wasting gold to itemize 40% CDR. You don't think Riven would like to build merc treads? Instead she has to waste gold on the 15% from ionian boots. Ew. No one likes that.

ANYWAY. Back to what I was saying. Riven has high CDs. Especially in lane. This we've established. So what can you do with that? Not succumb to LPab syndrome! When she wastes all her CDs getting to you, instead of running away like a little bitch, turn around and, idk, hit her back? Here I'll even give you an example. You're playing Kha'zix, which is a lane that is heavily in Riven's favor. However, it's extremely volatile around 1-4. If you play right, Kha'zix can get a massive lead and tramp the lane for a long time. Here's what you do, okay?

You Cs.

Riven hits E-Q into you.

You immediate auto q w and begin backing up

She now begins auto canceling in your minions, let's mix a stun in, you cry for 2 seconds while walking backward.

You are now at roughly 40%, she is at like 60/70% because minions and your initial damage.

You now have around 7 seconds where she cannot do ANYTHING. So what do you do?

Run away and cry myself to sleep! Use that handy E skill of yours and auto Q her when she's isolated! Boom! That's another 250 damage. She just lost that trade. Congratulations! You've just won that trade. AND, AND, AND, since riven has literally the worst HP regen in the game, you will get it all back, faster! Hopefully you got from that what I wanted you to take, which was this: If Riven wastes her CD to fight you, she can't fight back. Throw everything back, and you will win that trade 100%.. This is how skilled players deal with Riven, and why she is not nearly as much of a problem in higher elos.

Oh, I almost forgot. Animation canceling. I'll leave off my post with this.

To be perfectly honest, I don't understand why everyone is so frustrated with this. Like people are acting like it's some gamebreaking bug that is one shoting everyone. Well let me set the record straight: Animation canceling IS NOT a problem. It is something that gives Riven potential. _It is _something that allows good Riven plays to stand out from people who decided to pick her up for the first time. It is something that makes Riven unique. Would you remove Heimerdinger's turrets? Olaf's Q slow? Azir's soldiers? Ryze's mana scaling? Of course not, these are the things that make them who they are. Animation canceling is the same thing. Not only does it offer a reward to people who practice and practice and practice to master their champion, but it offers a bit of depth to a character that would otherwise be quite honestly quite stale. They tried removing the animation canceling from Riven once. On PBE, and in exchange, buffed her Q to just automatically work faster. Wanna know why it didn't go through? Because it was a silly change that's only effect was to remove the potential in Riven's kit. There are plenty of things in this game that are sort of odd and buggy. Lee flash kick. Gragas E and Flash. Shen E and flash. These are things because they offer strategy, timing, and depth where there would otherwise be none. _Riven's Q works the same way. _