How is Riven balanced?

feintfiend·Feb 20, 2019·202 votes·27,530 views

This patch she has a 54% winrate 14.7% pickrate (most picked champ top) https://u.gg/lol/champions/riven/build/

One of the best lvl 1s in the game, strong early and scales well lategame, manaless. When she gets she turns into a tank, god forbid she gets . She can build non lethality items and flash oneshots you while you're still stunned. Champ is absolute AIDs to play against, it feels like she has all the options and if they know the champ they autowin. Not to mention those ridiculous 500 hp shields every other second that get reuced even more with . This champ was straight up designed not to have a weakness. Oh wait my bad I gotta complain about // instead of the true soloQ cancer / /

Edit:LMAO at riven onetricks mass downvoting all the posts, Riot is already considering nerfs HAHAHAHAHAHA

307 Comments

Shiroe OkazakiFeb 20, 201947 votes

No champion should be able to Litterally cast every ability in one animation. She has low cooldowns a lot of cc a low cooldown shield and even her ult is on a low cooldown. All of her abilities are aoe too so she aoe one shots an entire team while being tank and can still fight after cause all her abilities will be back up.

feintfiendFeb 20, 201937 votes

My biggest problem is how she kills you instantly WHILE YOU'RE STILL CC'd and she can do this with bruiser items no lethality at all. She just flashes and its a garuanteed kill. Also her shield is waaaay too big for a supposedly "squishy" champ.

kingDeDeDariusFeb 20, 201916 votes

People say Darius is a counter, but in my experience, if the riven k ows how to play her well, she destroys Darius or at least can play very safe then destroy team. The opposite isn't true, Darius can't play safe if riven gets ahead because he has no mobility or Shields, can't dodge anything (other than pulling riven on q 3 to cancel, but her CDs are lower over so she can easily dash away and shield if it turns unfavorable), not to mention, if Darius gets ahead he doesn't have the tools to chase or dive her and can't snowball a lead near as well as her because he can't roam as easily or gap close without blowing flash or ghost in order to chase down weaker opponents

acoustic soulFeb 21, 20194 votes

People that tell you Darius is a counter probably have no idea what theyre talking about. Its one of the easier matchups.

DeusVultFeb 20, 201925 votes

When Riven was first released, she had a lot more damage and scaling on her skills. When players figured out that they could animation cancel literally everything in Rivens kit, Riot had a choice: get rid of the animation cancelling so as to bring her damage back into what it was originally intended, or reduce her damage to adjust for how quickly she could deal it.

Riot chose to reduce her numbers and leave the animation cancelling in , saying that it provided a higher skill ceiling (and made for flashier plays, as Riven at that time was a pick in LCS) What this really did though is create an enormous skill gap between those who could master the animation cancel combos and those who could not. A low elo Riven that cannot animation cancel is a joke. They actually deal 0 damage. A master tier Riven player can execute their entire kit in less than 1, maybe 2, seconds.

It was a poor choice by Riot

wildfox9TFeb 20, 20199 votes

riot and poor choices,name a more iconic duo

[sg-lulu]

MordepoolFeb 21, 201913 votes

Ashe item 3075

Gramps69Feb 20, 20199 votes

I think an underlying issue with all of this is the overabundance of CDR in the game today. Why does Shojin's Spear need 20% CDR with the Essence Flare passive?

Why does every lethality item need to give 10% CDR?

The only item classes that don't have good access to CDR are hypercarry items (mainly crit builds), and tank items for the most part (more exceptions, but it is a broader range of items).

I mean, look at the issues with Karthus now-- he can get Presence of Mind, Ultimate Hunter, and then his jungle build gives 10% CDR on the blue enchantment. Remember when you actually had to think about whether or not to use your ult instead of just spamming it with a Blitz-Q cooldown? Max-CDR Zed can have his level 3 ult up like every 36 seconds or something gross like that, same with Rengar, and guess what? Both champs buy Lethality items (that give CDR for some reason).

nargnargnargFeb 22, 20192 votes

Back in the day she could hit 40% with just brutalizer and ionian boots that gave 10 and 15 cdr.

The remaining 15 cdr was obtained at level 1 from runes and masteries

Warlord RhinarkFeb 20, 201918 votes

Give her an Enerby bar.

General Esdeath Feb 21, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Warlord Rhinark,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Zp5yRAxZ,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2019-02-20T16:53:59.904+0000)

Give her an Enerby bar.

They had an idea like this before with Edge iirc and every big Riven main tested it and came to the conclusion that it made her more balanced for low elo but in high elo she was too strong

Warlord RhinarkFeb 21, 20194 votes

{quoted}

They had an idea like this before with Edge iirc and every big Riven main tested it and came to the conclusion that it made her more balanced for low elo but in high elo she was too strong

I fail to see how. The addition of an Energy should make her weaker across all ELOs, unless she was buffed to compensate.

General Esdeath Feb 21, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Warlord Rhinark,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Zp5yRAxZ,comment-id=000400000000,timestamp=2019-02-21T06:54:27.853+0000)

I fail to see how. The addition of an Energy should make her weaker across all ELOs, unless she was buffed to compensate.

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/09/930-pbe-update.html

To make a long story short, you need to hold the energy to a certain point to prevent it from dropping, something higher elo people wouldn't have an issue with. 10% increase to damage means you can choose, if you're good enough at what I just mentioned, when Riven suddenly becomes too strong to fight. Imagine if Yasuo could hold his 3rd Q by auto attacking.

Warlord RhinarkFeb 21, 20194 votes

{quoted}

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/09/930-pbe-update.html

To make a long story short, you need to hold the energy to a certain point to prevent it from dropping, something higher elo people wouldn't have an issue with. 10% increase to damage means you can choose, if you're good enough at what I just mentioned, when Riven suddenly becomes too strong to fight. Imagine if Yasuo could hold his 3rd Q by auto attacking.

Well, yeah, there's the problem.

It's not an Energy bar at all, it's some kind of damage ramping tool.

This change didn't actually give her a resource that she needs to manage, as all of her spells are still free to cast.

The only thing this change did was just make already good Riven players, even better.

MíelláFeb 20, 201912 votes

Just like Yasuo, a high skill cap and unlike yasuo, a bit more counterplay. A good Riven, like a really good riven, will probably still eat your ass on a silver plate though.

feintfiendFeb 20, 201999 votes

High skillcap isn't an excuse for having no weaknesses.

MíelláFeb 20, 201917 votes

{quoted}

High skillcap isn't an excuse for having no weaknesses.

There are very clear weaknesses. You'll notice them if you play Riven.

feintfiendFeb 20, 201929 votes

What are these weaknesses?

The thigh guyFeb 20, 201958 votes

{quoted}

What are these weaknesses?

Her weakness is she loses lane to kennen like every other champion. (Sarcastic voice here)

No. She doesn’t have any weaknesses. If the riven player is even decent at her, she doesn’t have any. Her weakness is entirely dependent on the person player her.

Anime FizzFeb 20, 201914 votes

[{quoted}](name=The thigh guy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Zp5yRAxZ,comment-id=00000000000000000000,timestamp=2019-02-20T16:08:17.098+0000)

Her weakness is she loses lane to kennen like every other champion. (Sarcastic voice here)

No. She doesn’t have any weaknesses. If the riven player is even decent at her, she doesn’t have any. Her weakness is entirely dependent on the person player her.

So if the riven player is good enough she can become immune to CC in team fights?

Didnt knew that.

Riven has 0 reach into back lines without flash, its easy to pin her down with tanks and then kill her with your team before she does anything in team fights, assuming your team isnt 0-30.

But yeah, if your team picks a bunch of assassins with no frontline dont be surprised that riven can mop the floor, and that is not riven's fault.

feintfiendFeb 20, 201936 votes

"Riven has 0 reach into backlines other than flash" Except y'know, 4 dashes on extreemly low cooldowns Or her just hopping a wall to dive the backline Also why does it have to be a flashless riven? Riven with flash just dashes in, flashes, clicks stun and the teamifght is autowon kinda like malph R except she does assasin levels of damage

Anime FizzFeb 20, 201916 votes

{quoted}

"Riven has 0 reach into backlines other than flash" Except y'know, 4 dashes on extreemly low cooldowns Or her just hopping a wall to dive the backline Also why does it have to be a flashless riven? Riven with flash just dashes in, flashes, clicks stun and the teamifght is autowon kinda like malph R except she does assasin levels of damage

Are you silver?

Riven dashes are literally 200 range each, with all combined you get basically a normal gap closer worth of distance, and her Q is on a fixed 12s CD at all ranks, and riven actually loses damage if she has to use all of her Qs to get into a target (then she gets into melee range with nothing left).

Meanwhile someone like jax can leap strike every 3~4 seconds (or even less with shojin) and then unload all of his kit damage.

Why dont you play riven if shes so broken and strong and has no weakness like that? If you did you'd realise all of her weaknesses.

kingDeDeDariusFeb 20, 201923 votes

False, she has more combined dash than most opponents, and just as importantly, she can readjust because of the multiple dashes if she makes one bad dash, unlike most champs. Her e which doubles as a shield is super low cooldowns, and for almost no reason, on top all that she has two stuns.... A champ shouldn't have insane burst, incredibly flexible dashes, solid cc, range, aoe, decent dps, a ranged ability and pseudo tankiness all on the same kit, and have them all be strong features. The only thing supposedly weak on her is her lack of healing and not having ranged autos lol

The thigh guyFeb 20, 201932 votes

[{quoted}](name=Anime Fizz,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Zp5yRAxZ,comment-id=000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2019-02-20T16:14:38.846+0000)

So if the riven player is good enough she can become immune to CC in team fights?

Didnt knew that.

Riven has 0 reach into back lines without flash, its easy to pin her down with tanks and then kill her before she does anything in team fights, assuming your team isnt 0-30.

But yeah, if your team picks a bunch of assassins with no frontline dont be surprised that riven can mop the floor, and that is not riven's fault.

sigh “JuSt Cc HeR” the typical argument for any op garbage fire champion who needs to be gutted.

Goddess RivenFeb 20, 20199 votes

She also has lowest base healing of all top laners, she also has too many bad matchups in top lane as well.

To be honest, someone who has 500k+ mastery points on her and has learnt to animation cancel should perform better than a 50k points renekton even but truth is he just runs her down and out of lane and snowballs vs her... oh also jayce.... a good jayce is cancerous to the extreme, or fiora... or well so many other top laners also tbh including urgot etc... That shouldn't be possible, if you have 500k mastery points and constantly play her she SHOULD win those matchups because of her greater knowledge into the lanes but know what? She still loses against certain champs no matter how good she can be... Tbh if you pick squishies into her she will just build full lethality builds and insta kill you if she manages to get a slight lead or remain even till she can get one.

After playing her on multiple accounts, and leveling her on this one as well, even with likely over 400k points on her currently I still struggle in certain lanes and matchups horrifically.... to the point it feels so one sided that I hate myself for picking Riven due to how many counters she has in top lane... I mean what other champ do you usually end up feeding for your 1st 50k mastery points because of how difficult she is to play efficiently?

You get a feel of accomplishment when you start to win lanes and games, and even those with millions of points on her still lose matches against those with under 100k points on their champ... So tell me who is broken? The champs who require so little time to dominate lane and consistently win, or a champ that even with a million or more points on her will still find matchups difficult.

hrooza dota Feb 21, 20192 votes

i wonder have you fought a grasp sylas top? i fought a guy who try to learn riven and it felt one sided match because of W heal on sylas.

i wonder what a good riven would do vs sylas

Cotten Eyed JoeFeb 21, 20193 votes

Good Riven would stun Sylas every time he went in for a trade. Sylas needs to be in melee range to deal most of his damage. Riven is a champ who has a very good time fighting champs that walk into her(With the exceptions of certain champs like lane bullies)

Sylas heal is complete bs tho.

AtmosphereFeb 21, 20195 votes

"This new champion can one shot you with their new Q ability, only needing one point in it to do 99999 true damage!"

That's super broken, can you change that please!

Some idiot on the boards: "JuSt Cc ThEm ThEn!!!1!"

ZeyphelFeb 21, 20199 votes

Except that she has weaknesses. She is not tanky, she has no innate sustain, and you can play around her cds.

She trades mobility per damage/durability. If she uses E or Q to get near you she loses the shield or damage.

One thing is a champion having no weaknesses, and another is you not acknowledging them.

MordepoolFeb 21, 20199 votes

{quoted}

she has no innate sustain,

Do you need it with infinite shield spam?

and you can play around her cds.

That might be true if her build path didn't include so much CDR. As it stands now that statement is disengenious

She trades mobility per damage/durability.

Whoever she traded with must have gone out of business.

One thing is a champion having no weaknesses, and another is you not acknowledging them.

The same could be said about failures to acknowledge design flaws.

ZeyphelFeb 21, 20196 votes

{quoted}

Do you need it with infinite shield spam?

Riven, E CD: 10s early, decreased by 1s each level up.

This ability is usually maxed 2nd after Riven's Q, meaning that her E early game will still be 10s to 9s in early game.

In mid game, supposing she has 20% cd, and E leveled up 3 times, E's cd would be 6s. If not (no cd red.) it would be around 8s.

If you consider something with 6s cd spammeable, then be it. But if that is not the case, then your statement is not accurate, meaning that you can play around her cds.

The lowest that her E's Cd can get is to around 3.5s in late game.

As you have seen, your statement about her shield is not accurate. If you have another statement about her kit, bring it. I will keep answering your Statements with Facts

CloakAndGrenadeFeb 21, 20199 votes

Riven Maxes E in any difficult match-up to reduce the CD for fights. She rushes CDR in her build. Whether spear, cleaver, or deaths dance, she's going to have 20-40%cdr by mid-game, meaning that by minute 15 she's E'ing every 4 seconds. Spacing out about a second between each Q (perfect amount of time for an auto and attack-like move) and her E she can hop infinitely. That IS spam. The Idea that you can play around the cooldowns of a champion whose longest non-ultimate cooldown is going to be around 7-8 seconds by this point (her W, and Q if she wastes all three charges up front) is kind of ridiculous. Most top laners aren't going to have the cooldowns themselves to abuse that window. Darius and Fiora can but surprise surprise they are some of the few matchups that are considered 'tough' by most riven guides and even they come down to skill. This also kind of throws a wrench into your "Trades mobility for damage/durability". Especially given that she builds pretty much raw AD with some HP thrown in and her shield having an AD scaling along with its low cooldown Riven can become extremely durable especially when ahead. If she's spacing her cooldowns out and getting her auto attacks in between spells like she should be, she's not going to be left without tools very often. Now, a Riven that blows all of her CD's just getting to the opponent isn't going to live very long once she gets there but that's the players fault for wasting CD's.

Not to mention that most champions that can outpoke her are absolutely bursted by her combo. Gnar absolutely detonates long before he can transform if she manages to jump on him. Jayce can ult her away the first time but there's a strong possibility of him being dove pre-level six.

And let's talk about late game. Let's talk about a 1.5-second shield on a 3.5-second cooldown on a champion with a knock-up and stun (also on only a 3.5 second CD) that leaves you about a .75 window where she is unshielded and not CC'ing you. This shield that has a base stat of 215 (Janna's, for comparison, only shields 210 at max level) with a full 100% bonus AD ratio, meaning that at a minimum it's shielding for 435 (Assuming a cleaver, spear, Hydra, GA build, which is nowhere near the highest AD full CDR build available to her). 435. That's not a small number. Even at just the first two items, she's shielding 315.

How are these for facts.

TheTracer2Feb 21, 20198 votes

{quoted}

High skillcap isn't an excuse for having no weaknesses.

As a matter of fact being high skill cap should insinuate punishment for not playing her at her full potential.

The thigh guyFeb 20, 201926 votes

[{quoted}](name=Legend Alpha ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Zp5yRAxZ,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2019-02-20T15:16:53.837+0000)

Just like Yasuo, a high skill cap and unlike yasuo, a bit more counterplay. A good Riven, like a really good riven, will probably still eat your ass on a silver plate though.

High skill cap is what got ryze, azir, kalista and Elise gutted. Why is this garbage fire of a champion a different story?

Frosted TipsFeb 20, 201910 votes

No it was not the high skill cap, but how effective they are in competitive. Riven is shit in competitive, and that is the exact reason she was not played at worlds by one of the best Riven players in the world even though they 3-0 swept in their series.

The thigh guyFeb 20, 20197 votes

[{quoted}](name=Frosted Tips,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Zp5yRAxZ,comment-id=000000010000,timestamp=2019-02-20T16:40:27.328+0000)

No it was not the high skill cap, but how effective they are in competitive. Riven is shit in competitive, and that is the exact reason she was not played at worlds by one of the best Riven players in the world even though they 3-0 swept in their series.

It wasn’t pro play exclusively that got them gutted. It was their dominance by their mains in average play. Look at Elise for example. She has a kit, that is so good, they have to keep her gutted or she instantly becomes top tier and challenger becomes flooded with Elise one tricks.

Same with azir.

So these champions are insanely strong when mastered, and so they get gutted.

Riven is insanely strong when mastered (borderline unbeatable) so why the hell isnt she being gutted?

HopeStartsWithUFeb 20, 20196 votes

A Renekton/Jax/Fiora master would beat every Riven simply because Rivens biggest early game counter is DPS. She can't win against those champs unless they play really really bad.

The thigh guyFeb 20, 20194 votes

{quoted}

A Renekton/Jax/Fiora master would beat every Riven simply because Rivens biggest early game counter is DPS. She can't win against those champs unless they play really really bad.

They beat her. Until she gets deaths dance or sos. Then she easily beats all three of them.

HopeStartsWithUFeb 20, 20195 votes

Renekton yes, Jax and Fiora not so much. They scale much harder with items. Riven has to calculated every bit of CD and HAS to cancel her animations really well to beat them late game. If one of those fails the Riven will be dead for sure. Fiora can also block her CC with her W and Jax can literally block her AA's which takes a big portion out of Rivens damage.

Renekton can beat her if he gets ahead far enough. Deaths dance and SoS aren't really cheap items and Riven usually builds cleaver in between (or first) which delays that "power spike" even more.

kingDeDeDariusFeb 20, 20194 votes

Riven can crush Darius if she's good because she can easily dodge his Q's, outburst him, and escape. Eventually she gets fed enough to burst him in 3-4 seconds even when he's building tanky

Goddess RivenFeb 20, 20193 votes

Actually just counter Darius... simple as that... Delay your power spike but start with shield (with second wind helps counter bleed early) and pot, back get 3 rejuv beads and the bleed from Darius doesn't do anything really anymore... Can be done with any champ but if you learning the matchup then this helps make it easier to learn and less punishing...

Even works with Garen who gets COUNTERED by Darius....

And if you got long 3 start then all you need to do really is move closer to Darius when he q's so he cannot get that passive stack in and you almost always will win trade.... It's about outplaying and waiting on his CDs... a phase rush Darius however is something you want to play extremely safe into as Riven as he will make her his play thing with phase rush and running her down whenever she overextends...

Anime FizzFeb 20, 201912 votes

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Riven/

49.9% wr 13% pick rate

So broken guys, its easy to make up numbers i know, but the highest WR riven has got in the last year was 53% on the last patch before they re-reworked ER into shojin, which dropped her WR by 3% because its much worse.

Anyways, OP is using false data/numbers, where are the mods to remove this thread?

feintfiendFeb 20, 201911 votes

The fuck are you talking about? https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/8.22/diamond/plus/champion/Riven/Top/ Edit: This one is recent https://u.gg/lol/champions/riven/build/

Anime FizzFeb 20, 201926 votes

{quoted}

The fuck are you talking about? https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/8.22/diamond/plus/champion/Riven/Top/

We are not in 8.22, so good luck trying to use outdated data to prove your point.

feintfiendFeb 20, 20198 votes

50% winrate 13% pickrate (highest top) for a supposedly high skill champ those numbers are way too high.

Cloud273Feb 20, 201911 votes

{quoted}

54% winrate 9.1% pickrate (most picked champ top) One of the best lvl 1s in the game, strong early and scales well lategame, manaless. When she gets she turns into a tank, god forbid she gets . She can build non lethality items and flash oneshots you while you're still stunned. Champ is absolute AIDs to play against, it feels like she has all the options and if they know the champ they autowin. Not to mention those ridiculous 500 hp shields every other second that get reuced even more with . This champ was straight up designed not to have a weakness. Oh wait my bad I gotta complain about // instead of the true soloQ cancer / /

Post the link to the site where you got these numbers.

psychiclionFeb 21, 20193 votes

Not OP, but, https://u.gg/lol/champions/riven/build/ shows her with similar stats.

5050BSFeb 20, 20197 votes

When the new Conqueror goes live she will jump up even more. She is one of the best abusers of it because she can stack it insanely fast.

Storn SaroeFeb 21, 20197 votes

I feel like most the people that complain about Riven do not know how to play Riven.

WEAKNESSES:

For a start she is actually average lvl 1 due to poor base stats and generally relies on lvl 3 or 6 to reliably win trades in most lane matchups, even then she will still have no control over the lane against a lot of traditional lane bullies such as Renekton/Illaoi.
She has little sustain so high sustain champions like Vlad can normally harass and win out over time.
Without flash she gets absolutely bodied by a bunch of ranged champions like Vayne/Quinn/Jayce/Kennen, although she will smash them if they play disrespectfully and let her get on top of them.
If you don't group up in a teamfight for a 4-5 man stun/knock-up, then she is pretty bad in a front to back teamfight.
Her 'e' is required for a lot of her cancel combos (unless she builds Tiamat which is not as common atm) so forcing it out means you can normally win a trade against her in lane before she gets crap tons of CDR.
Anything with a dash cancel ruins her day (Poppy and Voli looking at you).
She falls off a bit in the late game and is outscaled by some juggernauts like Garen and Nasus (not to mention out sustained by them early).
Anything with a silence or point and click cc like fiddlesticks (who has both) ruins her day in teamfights (Morgana's black shield also deserves an honourable mention since she has no way of removing it).
She can't do anything in a siege if behind as she can't wave clear without being on top of the wave.
Speaking of which she is somewhat snowball reliant so picking a safe, neutralizing match up that can push the wave and keep her from roaming can also work if you are not confident.

What makes her feel ridiculous is due to her cc and mobility she can often dictate the pace of the lane even in losing match ups and opt out of bad situations much easier than other champions meaning she can be hard to punish as hard as other champs. Also because she prioritises CDR and has low cooldowns she has much smaller punish windows than other champions.

Saying all that she is definitely on the stronger side of things at the moment due to runes and items, so probably needs some light nerfs to compensate but the OP lying about her winrate shows this is just a kneejerk overreaction. If you look at all the champs listed by the OP, all of them when strong have high pro play presence except Riven, and when Riven is picked it is normally as a counter pick on red side. This is partially because what she brings isn't always suited to the meta in pro but also because she has a lot of bad match ups and her weaknesses are exploitable by a team that knows how to play around them (That and you need a lot of practice to be able to play her at that high of a level).