Why Riven is so OP.

AzixZander7x7·Dec 10, 2014·2 votes·965 views

I mean I know it's kinda obvious but I just wanted to point out why Riven is so OP.

Two of her abilities grant her movement and like a shit ton of distance, her Q can be activated 3 times and shield once to grant her movement.
She has 2 really hard forms of CC, being a Stun and Knock-Up like the 2 most OP forms of CC, you literally can't do anything.
Her ult grants her atleast double the amount of her Atk range and a ranged skill shot projectile, along with her Passive granting her extra auto-attack damage in between abilitys
She's an offensive champ, so you build like straight damage on this champ who sounds like a fair tank, bcus of the engage and CC she has, but no straight fucking damage.
No Mana.... All CDR, like the fuck?!

Riven is just kind of too perfect, or well too well rounded it unfair.

3 Comments

Lord DusteonDec 10, 20143 votes

Decided to address these because I'm bored.

Did you know Renekton has only 205 less total dash range than Riven on one skill compared to her 2? And Lee Sin has 895 more range on 2 skills? It turns out Riven, while mobile, also has to use all of her damaging skills for the mobility; if she's catching up to you, her damage will be much lower.
Her CC is also ~1.25 seconds, max. Her combo requires much more time than that to complete, making her CC more of an interupt (stopping channels, slowing you down a bit) then a debilitating attack (such as Nasus's slow, or Morgana's Q).
First, her ult only gives 75 bonus attack range (for 200 range total), and her ranged projectile can only be used once, and the projectile requires the target to be missing more than 75% of their health before it reaches full damage. Otherwise, her passive is part of forcing Riven to do her combo for her full damage.
...A lot of champions build straight damage. There's literally an entire class dedicated to building straight damage, found normally in bottom lane. Complaining that someone built full damage is kinda stupid (hint, most tanks have actual CC that helps their team, and usually have TANk properties. Nobody goes "hey look this dude gets free critical strike, AD, and an AoE AD buff and slow with inability to die for 5 seconds! Sounds like a tank!").
...Again, a lot of champions don't use mana. Most champions that use mana are gated by it in return for having stronger skills (look at Anivia; she has extreme mana issues, but in return has great zone control and extremely high damage). Complaining that a glass cannon AD caster builds cooldown reduction is like complaining a marksmen builds crit; their entire job is spamming one thing (for casters like Riven, abilities + autos, for marksmen, autoattacks), and as such they build to do it.

Kuroi86Dec 10, 20141 votes

Riven is op, and many top lane champs eat her for breakfast still.

Drunk RummateDec 10, 20141 votes

What Dusteon said is pretty spot on. I'd also like to add that you've completely glossed over all of her major weaknesses.

She has incredibly low hp/5 making her very difficult to manage in lane. She's very weak against champions that have any reasonable form of sustain unless she's able to take them out in a single combo, and unless she gets an extremely favorable trade in lane she will be heavily out regen'd over the period of a minute.

She's extremely reliant on her shield to soak up damage at all stages of the game, making her much more vulnerable to crowd control. Without her shield she's essentially an adc with ~100 range.

Dusteon already said this but I want to reiterate it because I think it's important - all of Riven's mobility comes at the expense of something. Valor puts your shield on cooldown, so if you weren't attacked when you cast it that's a big chunk of damage you're going to take if they turn on you. I can't tell you how often I've blown my E to gapclose on Lucian only to have him turn on me and Q with a double crit lightslinger followup and just end me. Riven's Q is a big chunk of damage you're missing out on, and her execute requires the opponent to be very low in hp to be effective so it's dangerous to waste all that damage. All these dashes are relatively small in distance, and it's almost necessary that Riven use a couple of them purely to gapclose.