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Someone fix Riven

Chaos Open·10/26/2014, 2:22:01 PM·2 votes·806 views

I keep seeing these threads for champs that really don't need to be fixed, they are still halfway viable and if you play them smart you can do pretty good. Riven is another story.

I'm not entirely sure what their goal was with Riven, she seems to contain the worst parts of every other playstyle. She is the poster child for what a nerf can actually do with a character. Now I know, there are some of you out there that do well with Riven, but can you honestly tell me that there is not a lot of room for improvement?

Riven is a melee champ with both low health and low damage. Without being fed(which is no easy task, considering her base stats) Riven is going to have a tough time. If you took two people of equal skill, gave one Riven and gave the other player any top laner and the 2nd player will win.

I think Riot is under the assumption that she is supposed to be one of the mobility/agility fighters, but what has she got? Her Q which is her main source of damage(which doesn't do much damage) and mobility but is on a 13 second cooldown. Her stun is pathetic, who else has a .75 second stun? What are you supposed to do with that short of a window? It's nothing more than a minor annoyance, not only that but you have to be standing right next to them. Her other ability is the dash that is maybe a whole step, not enough to really be of much use as a dash Lucian travels further with his dash, and as a result she gets a weak shield that lasts for 1.5 seconds.

I can't see how changing the numbers around is going to fix this, I think she needs a complete Sion level retooling of her kit.

8 Comments

MAZZ1M010/26/2014, 2:28:14 PM4 votes

You're wrong on the last point. Those numbers used to be higher and Riven snowballed every game which is why she was nerfed to begin with. Numbers do change things with her.

I agree she's extremely hard to use. She could use a minor buff, but she doesn't need anything big. With enough practice, she does alright as it is. A better shield would probably do it.

Devack The Holy10/26/2014, 4:08:35 PM2 votes

The thing is, Riven's a rather touchy subject to talk about in terms of balance. If she gets buffed, people will start complaining that she's "OP" and start crying for more nerfs, despite being buffed even slightly. If she's nerfed, people start crying that she's been "gutted" and "is completely useless".

There's a few things that can change, that I think might make her better:

Lower the cooldown on her Q or make it lower the cooldown each time she levels the ability. A lot of players tend to max Q first, but then are locked with fewer escape abilities, since the cooldown doesn't lower with each level.
Increase the dash range. Personally, I don't think it fair that ranged champs can have dashes/blink that are much further than melee gapclosers, as it creates a rather unfair advantage. See: Caitlyn, tristana, Ezreal, Lucian, Quinn (to an extent), Vayne, and Kennen versus Riven and Shen, both of which are melee front-liners that have far shorter dashes than the ranged carries.
Bring the stun duration up to one second. This can create a larger window of opportunity for Riven to either kill her target, or escape if she finds herself in a disadvantageous situation. Right now, .75 seconds isn't enough, given the prevalence of gapclosers in the current meta.

Or, they can just rework her a bit.

MattZeeX10/26/2014, 2:35:11 PM1 votes

I agree with RustyMuffin's point, APPARENTLY she used to be super OP, I never saw much of her before the nerf so I don't know. I feel though as if we should just increase her stun to one second and maybe make it so Wind Slash can't be dodged by standing INSIDE RIVEN'S MODEL!!! THIS FUCKING PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH!!! I don't think the shield length matters THAT much, but it would be good to increase :)

ILoveTiramisu10/26/2014, 4:11:23 PM1 votes

riven is strong but she is also balanced? I think she is fine. She must be a bit OP as melee carry.

Kuroi8610/26/2014, 4:14:01 PM1 votes

The nerf was meant to raise the skill cap on Riven. It got to the point where only two or three top laners could EVER stand a chance against Riven in lane (I can speak from experience here.) She was simply overbearing against a lot of people, she'd grab the red pot, wait for lvl two or three, then all in you and you'd be dead before you could even realize what was happening. Riven snowballed too fast and too easily and was near impossible to stop once she started.

Dude, Riven vs most top laners is still advantage Riven (If the Riven player is experienced, you said equal skill, if both are experienced and good with the champs, then the advantage will often go to Riven.)

30 (+120 AD) per Q plus three basic attacks dealing 120% of her total AD, that's a lot more damage than you seem to think. Even level 1 with no runes, masteries or items that's still 30 (64.8) plus three basic attacks equal to 64.8 each. That's 289.2 physical damage before figuring resistances. And all that in quick succession with little room for an enemy to counter.

Her stun is pathetic, who else has a .75 second stun?

Pantheon, typically used to prevent an enemy from running while he uses HSS, for Riven it gives her time to get off most of her Broken Wings combo.

Her shield is meant to act as her damage negation, it allows her to avoid damage that would otherwise be unavoidable, it's a matter of using it wisely at the right point.

Eh, Riven isn't broken, she's just tricky to balance, and Riot has been working on her for quite a while, I doubt she'll ever get a rework as it's simply not needed.

Chaos Open10/26/2014, 4:24:05 PM1 votes

Guys, I'm not talking about "oh we can change this number and this number" fact is I don't think that simply switching the numbers on her existing abilities is going to do much. They need to sit down and think "what are we trying to do with this champion" and redo all of her skills to make her a match for other champs. You shouldn't have to practice a champ long enough that it could be considered a 2nd job. Saying "well, you can be good at Riven, all you need to do is feed for 200 games and you'll eventually start to get better" isn't a rational statement. This is above all, a video game, I am here to have fun, unlike the LCS players, I don't get paid to play League(and even the LCS players don't use Riven). Riven is not a fun champion for me, and when a game isn't fun, it's a bad videogame; why should I have to put a bunch of work into an activity I do in my free time?