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@Riot, Riven.

ShinTwist·10/1/2015, 11:59:21 PM·14 votes·2,387 views

The Riven changes seem to have the goal of making her high end more accessible, so that more players have access to her maximum power, but also reducing that power.

https://twitter.com/ricklessabandon/status/649377861099474945

In essence, they are intentionally making Riven easier to play, which is, as you might imagine, sitting there, sipping your orange juice and wearing your "Riven Mains are the scum of the Earth" shirt, bad. Very, very bad.

The change will reduce Riven's complexity, making her more linear in her trades and how she fights, making animation cancelling detrimental to her damage, and thus punishing her player for playing well, and due to this, will force one of two things to happen:

  1. Riven is bad, and Riven stays bad. This is a bad outcome.
  2. Riven is good despite the loss of complexity, resulting in a much more powerful champion in the hands of the inexperienced with no net gain for the very experienced players. Also not good.

The key big why here is the change to her passive. By allowing it to only stack once, you pigeonhole Riven into auto attacking much more frequently, delaying her burst substantially or losing a lot of damage, meaning that she will become very straight forward, particularly in lane. New Riven is predictable, and compared to old Riven, boring and with a lower skill floor and ceiling. Which you might imagine, as you sit there, drinking your wine and wearing your "I farm upvotes" shirt, is bad.

This is bad for everyone. It is bad for her players who are losing a great deal of what made the champion a joy to play; her complexity; and the people playing against her who will now have nearly as much to fear from a mediocre Riven as an actual good one. The difference in current Riven is huge, in the new one, it won't be.

Additionally this will hurt her already weak team figth capability, since like Fury you need it to be effective, and Riven has no way to build edge before a fight, and will die in a fight before she can generate her edge. This is another issue entirely to the entire problem of the redesign, however.

EDIT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1UfGvq9A-8&channel=albertsunzheng

Box Box seems to feel the changes make her strong, but not more fun to play, and more annoying for enemies.

24 Comments

TheI3igDaddy10/2/2015, 2:41:16 AM5 votes

Will Riven ever be truly balanced?

How many licks does it take to get the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Where IS Waldo?

Maybe these questions weren't meant to be answered.

Bastard Chief10/2/2015, 12:33:10 AM4 votes

It's sad what these sheep will do to champions. I'm not really a Riven main, but I been playing her lots on my other account and got her to level 5. I can say for a fact, she isn't as OP as people think, and can say for a fact she gets wrecked by lots of other top laners like Volibear (who seems to go under the radar as I've recently purchased him after being destroyed by a volibear and been kicking ass with him). Not just Voli but juggernauts, and good Gnar's. Just overall, lots of champions in top lane, some of which need to be looked at more so than Riven honestly.

Personally, I wouldn't change any champion on the game around besides one or two that need to just be updated like Yorick, and Galio. Other than that, Riot should stop nerfing and making changes cause it tends to do more harm than good sadly.

If Riven was so broken, most people would be going positive and not negative with her but it seems most people end up feeding with Riven and how is it possible that a broken champion supposedly does so poorly? Also Riven is hardly picked in LCS let alone over all the others like Gnar that seems to be picked by every team, why not Riven if she's so good and so broken?

As I always say, it's a player issue and not a champion issue. It comes down to bad players playing bad and not playing smart. That's the real truth as almost everyone that complains has low OP.GG KDA stats. Meaning they suck against most champions. (Right now my KDA sucks as I dropped like 10 games but was going 17+ kills a game, then 15+ now to 10+ because Riot seems to let you win a couple games, then they throw you on bad teams where you have losing streaks).

Anyhow, there is much more champions that could use one of those "nerfs" but again I really wouldn't nerf any champion honestly, and just let them be.

Just wait until that ADC update where ADC's become gods.

Owell, I'm enjoying Volibear tho, fun to wreck noobs with him.

Budupops10/2/2015, 2:35:28 AM3 votes

salty riven main detected

360D3GR3SS10/2/2015, 12:37:26 AM3 votes

TBH animation canceling shouldn't even be allowed on her. Either remove her intial ulti cast time or remove her ulti execute cast time and make animation canceling impossible on her. (besides auto attacks obviously)

Ackelope10/2/2015, 1:52:07 AM3 votes

Actually, if anything it's making her more difficult to play at a competent level. She was much more forgiving before, because if you couldn't animation cancel terribly well, you could still use multiple passive stacks to sneak in extra dmg, now that her passive only has a maximum of 1 stack, if you don't animation cancel you won't be able to make up for your inability to animation cancel properly, this reducing her overall dmg. Also remember that her new resource, edge, is generated by hitting enemies with your passive dmg, so if you don't animation cancel properly and fit in auto attacks between each spell you'll do a lot less dmg then you used to, because they also nerfed the AD ratio on her passive in response to the addition of edge. So, no, it actually doesn't make her easier to play, and if anything, master Riven players will be even more distinguished from newer players.

Seekêr10/2/2015, 2:29:40 AM2 votes

How is making her passive no longer stack making her easier to play? She HAS to use a fast combo now to burst, otherwise you are losing half of your damage or you are just slow with her combo. The fast riven combo is a lot harder than many people think xD

Mr Broken Wings10/2/2015, 2:28:25 AM2 votes

You are right, if she is weak she will be either: 1 .easy and useless. ( what will result in buffs and then we have scenario 2) 2. If she ends up being buffed with her new ressource because the stacking removal made her unplayable in higher levels of play, she will be easy and be strong. I dont know why the riven hate circlejerk is happy about that change, it just makes a champion less fun to play against when the champ is strong AND they made the champion easier to play, they should beg riot to remove that change from the pbe instead of that. I am pretty neutral to the change, will anyway still play her and if it ends up buffing her ill welcome that as well.

KnighRrider10/2/2015, 4:05:15 AM2 votes

I feel like people are going to go into lane against Riven now thinking they're gonna come out on top(because of course the only reason they lost before was shes broken op no counter ...not skill or anything), and they're gonna lose lane, and just scream at Riot that the whole update is a failure and demand she be removed from the game ...or at least the bronze roster.

Sulghunter10/2/2015, 5:46:19 PM1 votes

Honestly, this change just makes it as if she has a sheen in her pocket. It also does not effect me much, because I already weave in AAs in between abilities in my Riven combos. The change is just going to make me have to combo like Diana with Lichbane, but not to have to worry about a cd on the AA proc.

Saianna10/2/2015, 2:53:00 AM1 votes

By allowing it to only stack once, you pigeonhole Riven into auto attacking much more frequently,

Her passive was always about AAing.

And she should AA more frequently than kill you with sudden keyboard faceroll.

Imo Riot should have removed AA cancelling and work to make Riven balanced without it. I do know lots of other champions have AA cancelling, but they do not have 20% AD steroid bound by just using ability.

Baron of Bread10/2/2015, 4:42:58 AM1 votes

They are not reducing your decision making, they are just changing the parameters that you make decisions within. Hitting between abilities will be more important than it used to be. It also makes it so Riven loses more damage for using multiple abilities to get to someone so there is more of a trade off for her there.

You don't make less decisions, you just make them differently.

Epilogue of Life10/2/2015, 5:20:42 AM1 votes

[deleted]

ShinTwist10/2/2015, 5:44:18 AM1 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1UfGvq9A-8&channel=albertsunzheng

Box Box's opinion on the rework.

A Miss Fortune10/2/2015, 10:31:41 AM1 votes

Riven has weak teamfighting? I would think otherwise with an AoE knockup, stun, and high damage. Even in the LCS people just use her in teamfighting for good initiating which is so much better than other champions like Tryndamere could do. She shouldn't have that great of teamfighting with her insane dueling.

Photos of Ghosts10/2/2015, 12:47:32 PM1 votes

They're actually forcing her into playing as she's supposed, putting an autoattack in between each spell.