The Problem With Riven (Read before downvote pls, this isn't just another circlejerk)

Many people flame about Riven, and they are somewhat justified.
Here are my major problems with Riven: She's manaless She's too mobile Her shield scales with AD She has AD scalings on her AD scalings (aka her ult) She has a ranged AOE execute She has naturally good defensive stats (i.e. she gets MR per level) She has too much CC She snowballs too hard, and is incredibly weak when behind

Naturally, if I'm going to complain, I should offer some solutions.

I would like to see Riven have energy, as that would limit her spamming and require more thoughtful use of her abilities. This would also prevent her from abusing her mobility. Another option for the resource bar would be to show the charges of her passive.

Her passive is fine; in fact, it takes up some of her power budget while rewarding good mechanics, which is awesome. However, if she did use energy, it would be nice to give her higher costs but restore energy (10/12.5/15) on consuming charges of her passive. This would again reward higher level play while limiting Riven to an extent.

Her Q is her bread and butter move, and I would not change it much, except the energy. I would suggest something like 25 for the first two casts, and 35 for the third cast at all levels. Fully using her Q would cost 85 energy, but only 55/47.5/40 if you used the passive.

Her W is fine, but is kind of obnoxious because she doesn't need the extra CC. I would suggest an energy cost of around 65 at all ranks (this would be less with her passive).

I would change the scaling on her E shield to be 15% bonus health. Riven should not be rewarded defensively for building offensive items. That is just a stupid idea (like having shields scale with AP). I would suggest an energy cost of 60 at all ranks. This point seems to be the area of the most controversy, and honestly, the scaling isn't that important. Remember that a lot of what I say about game design is personal opinion.

Her ult giving her bonus AD that scales with her AD is pretty stupid, as it literally gives her AD scalings on her AD scalings. Instead, she should get flat AD, something like 40/50/60 bonus AD. The general trend is that champs with energy have no costs on their ultimates, so I would say Riven shouldn't be an exception. I think the enhanced spells and increased autoattack range are awesome, so those should definitely stay. Wind Slash is a core part of Riven, and also part of her lore (wink wink Yasuo wink wink). I would personally make the cone narrower, but increase the projectile speed. That way, it would be about the same difficulty to hit a single target, but would prevent her from chunking everyone's health.

How would this affect Riven? First of all, Riven wouldn't snowball quite as hard, because her shield and ult (not talking about Wind Slash) wouldn't scale with AD anymore. She would also get flat AD on her ult, making her stronger when she is behind. Second of all, the health scaling on her shield would reward bruiser builds more, including items such as Black Cleaver and Randuin's Omen. This would also prevent Riven from snowballing so hard, but reward her more for a mix of offense and defense. Defense items are usually cheaper, allowing Riven to be stonger when behind. The energy costs would also prevent her from snowballing so much, but would not be oppressive. Her base damages could be buffed as well in compensation. The energy costs would also prevent Riven from being too mobile. The passive would specifically reward her from going in, by restoring energy on basic attacks. However, it would not reward her from running away.

Riven would probably build: Ravenous Hydra, Black Cleaver, Bloodthirster, Randuin's Omen / Dead Man's Plate, Ninja Tabi / Mercury Treads, and either Guardian's Angel or Last Whisper.

Now if you've read all of this, flame away. Or offer constructive criticism :)

Edit: As someone pointed out, with all of these changes, it would be basically mandatory to buff Riven's health regen to normal levels. I changed the energy costs because they were a bit too high as JustMyBassCannon pointed out.

Riot has given Riven a resource on the PBE known as "Edge" (because Riven wasn't edgy enough already). Her Wind Slash damage now scales with stacks of Edge instead of missing HP. Edge is built up by proccing her passive (which no longer stacks), gives her bonus AD, falls off when out of combat, and is consumed by using Wind Slash.