Riven Nerfs Missing Key Issues

kmb180·Oct 1, 2015·1 votes·1,047 views

The new edge mechanic, though really interesting, is missing some of the key issues with Riven overall. Her ult is supposed to be the strongest part of her kit, an execute that allows her to be bursty and build mostly damage items. However, edge makes her ult more for extended skirmishing or using animation cancelling. While this is taking Riven in a direction that could be interesting, I believe that the change should be to her passive rather than her ult.

For instance, the three maximum stacks could be reinstituted and the damage could scale with the amount of stacks Riven has built up. If she has three stacks, the damage is reduced to one third of a maximum number and all stacks would be used, and at one stack it would do a base number with decent AD scaling which could be fiddled with in order to address the issues with her current kit. This would allow skilled Riven players to be strong without her ultimate, rewarding smart play and good mechanics; at the same time, it would discourage button spamming and make mastering Riven more rewarding than the edge mechanic.

Of course, this solution is theoretical but it does show my point. Riven's kit is too strong right now because she is strong with and without ult regardless of the mechanical skill of the player behind the wheel. As of the changes on PBE during the time of writing, the edge mechanic is clunky and making her identity confused and not great overall.

14 Comments

Baseball3bOct 1, 20152 votes

So essentially you're saying that, an AA with 3 stacks of her passive does less damage than an AA with 1 stack?

I actually really like that idea. If they were going to change Riven, I'd want them to do this. (even though, frankly, she's pretty balanced right now despite all the QQ)

My main complaint towards the changes is that it rewards extended skirmishes and fights when that's something the current Riven and her kit in general isn't good at so the changes would force her into a more bruiser type role and we already have way too many of those.

BavacavalataOct 1, 20151 votes

So basically you're saying more stacks you have more power your basics have? That's what her passive already does, just not to that extent. I think that basic attacking champions, not after using an ability, gains stacks and building the certain number of stacks the next attack consumes one mark, and the passive would actual BENEFIT riven...

kmb180Oct 1, 20151 votes

No, actually I'm trying to say that if she doesnt consume the stack immediately before she uses it, it would do less damage depending on how many stacks she has built up. She would still do extra damage, but only if she makes sure to use the stack immediately.

BavacavalataOct 1, 20151 votes

Riven's ultimate is the only thing that consumes the edge unless you let it burn out. So i'm a bit confused.

kmb180Oct 1, 20151 votes

Essentially, I'm saying that changing her ult to being able to do full damage to all champions hit rather than an execute doing little damage to healthy champions is not healthy; especially in teamfights. Basically I think that nerfing her passive to do less damage while mismanaging stacks is a way to reach the same goal as the single stack of runic blade. However, they only added the edge mechanic to the ult so I was just thinking of ways that you could get rid of the mechanic without leaving her exactly the same.

fukimissHarambeOct 2, 20151 votes

{quoted}

No, actually I'm trying to say that if she doesnt consume the stack immediately before she uses it, it would do less damage depending on how many stacks she has built up. She would still do extra damage, but only if she makes sure to use the stack immediately.

While that is true I think the 10% damage buff at max stacks outweighs the loss of one of two passive procs, you will most likely be auto attacking between every Q and will always auto attack at the end of a rotation so at most you lose 2 passive procs. meaning at most 100% of your bonus ad

fukimissHarambeOct 1, 20151 votes

The thing frustrating about riven is her early game (pre-6) zoning and kill potential, this rework lowers her early game damage but overall, as a riven player, I feel it buffs her ult. Maybe you have to build a tank item to sustain for your 10 stacks but if you are canceling auto attacks with your Q it won't take long to get your ult to 10 stacks and once you do, you can do full damage to potentially their entire team. Also there is still incentive to save your ult to execute because it drains your edge bar meaning, your auto attacks and other abilities won't get the 10% bonus damage

BavacavalataOct 1, 20151 votes

So tank meta Riven... I've been looking for a way to make this a thing....

Sightless66Oct 1, 20151 votes

So, just to be clear, your idea is that if Riven autoattacked someone when she had one stack of her passive, it would do more damage than if someone (for example, if I did 200 damage on an autoattack with one stack of the passive, I would only do maybe 150 damage on that autoattack if I consumed two stacks at once)? Would you say that is an accurate description?

I don't think your proposal would really give any new opportunities for Riven. It really doesn't look different from Riot's idea. I mean, the way I'm seeing it, it promotes the same gameplay as the one stack limit. Hear me out on this. With Riot's new idea, people can get one stack of their passive, and then using abilities means that any extra stacks get wasted. Your idea is really very similar, except that the extra stacks would actually make her passive damage weaker. How exactly is that allowing skilled Riven players to be strong without the ultimate? It's just punishing you anytime you get more than one stack, which is exactly what Riot's idea does. What's the change?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic or anything here. I really don't see anything but a numerical difference between your idea and Riot's. The goal of both your change and Riot's chagne seems to be "don't use more than one ability without autoattacking or you lose potential damage". What makes your idea encourage different play than Riot's idea? If I'm missing something (and I might be), please let me know.

kmb180Oct 1, 20151 votes

That's exactly what my idea was. I actually DO agree with the general idea of the edge mechanic of Riven's passive, but Riven needs the option of using her abilities as gap-closers. With the current PBE changes Riven gains no extra damage aside from one auto-attack. It's more the idea of always doing extra damage rather than only having one opportunity. In addition, it's changing the mechanics from doing more damage with her ult after consecutive auto's to allowing her ultimate to still be an execute. This is far more healthy in teamfights, as doing full damage that used to be an execute buffs her in a way that she doesn't need nor deserve. So pretty much I'm just brainstorming a way that will let her have more freedom with her abilities than forcing her to animation cancel/auto attack between every single spell cast and keeping her ult as an execute.

Sightless66Oct 1, 20151 votes

I actually DO agree with the general idea of the edge mechanic of Riven's passive, but Riven needs the option of using her abilities as gap-closers.

But your idea seems to lower that option compared to Riot's. I mean, if I'm consuming two stacks to do less total damage with my autoattack than I would have done if I only consumed one stack, then that's actually punishing me more than if I just got one stack and then didn't up any more following that. If I want to use an ability as a gapcloser, then I'd rather only have one stack, instead of having the second and third stack actually reduce my damage even further. You seem to have the second and third stacks as being entirely punishing for Riven. If she gets them, it's entirely, 100% bad for her compared to only having one stack. How does that give her the option of using an ability as a gapcloser?

So pretty much I'm just brainstorming a way that will let her have more freedom with her abilities than forcing her to animation cancel/auto attack between every single spell

How does it do that? Seriously, I don't get it. If I understand your ability right, I'd rather have one stack and never go above it then get your second and third stacks, because those second and third stacks reduce the damage that I'll get on the autoattack compared to only having one stack. How does that allow me to use abilities as gapclosers? That's just worse for Riven than Riot's idea. It seems actively punishing. What option could this possibly open up for her? How does just losing damage for casting multiple spells allow for more freedom with abilities? Either I'm misunderstanding this, or you've made a pretty significant error.

This is far more healthy in teamfights, as doing full damage that used to be an execute buffs her in a way that she doesn't need nor deserve.

I don't really agree with this. Building up edge for a damaging ult in a teamfight requires a pretty significant amount of time, and It's very likely that by the point you've done this, you're at the point where you've lowered an enemy's health enough. What it actually does is limits her ability to jump on people, burst them immediately with abilities and then finish them off easily with a huge execution. It also limits her ability to use the ultimate as a pick-off on a low-health enemy out of her range after she's been zoned from a fight. So, I'm not really classifying this as unhealthy, or even as a particularly significant buff. I'm not worried about this part of the change, and I don't see the execute as worth preserving just for the sake of the execute.

kmb180Oct 1, 20151 votes

Alright so I think I get the misunderstanding here, though I'm sorry for not making myself unclear. Having multiple stacks would still add bonus damage to your next auto, but less than the maximum bonus that would be given for having only a single stack. As for the long amount of time that it takes to get edge, it seems that either you'll be doing animation cancelling or never getting the full bonus. Animation cancelling wasn't intended, and it seems unrealistic that you'll ever get enough edge to do full damage thanks to Riven typically building for burst rather than tankiness. But yeah I can't stress enough that this is just an example for a possible alternative. It could use a lot more fleshing out, obviously, but I think it keeps Riven mechanically similar to how she exists now and doesn't force new mechanics like Edge.