Riven has a 52.5% win rate. She has a 13% play rate. This makes Riven the 14th most popular champion in LoL.
Riven is not hard to play, she's just OP as fuck.
Worse yet, assuming Riven IS hard to play: That means she still maintains the 14th most popular champion and 52.5% win rate despite people playing her very badly.
NemeBro32 votesYou forgot to mention that Riven players average over 150 games with her, the third highest of top lane.
Dies to Wolves21 votesit's not that it's hard to play her, but she has a very high skill ceiling (and playing her at her highest potential is mechanically pretty hard, as far as this game goes)
Pick tryndamere for example; the difference between a tryndamere main and someone who randomly picked tryndamere is mainly going to be match-up knowledge tbh. Riven has much more into her; someone who just picked up riven will not only fail in the match-up / knowledge / etc department, but mechanically they really don't come close.
that said, she's very forgiving to play with and even when played at mediocre levels she can still be really strong
easy to do well if her, hard to really master her, and the difference between a mediocre riven and an amazing riven is absurd
meanwhile someone like Malphite, there's a lot less of a stark difference between the casuals and mains.
ArkenStorm2 voteswith tryndamere, if you are a main vs someone who just picke dhim up, you know his ins and outs, what he can do in trades, when and how he can trade and survive, etc. etc. I beat Jax, Cho'gath, vlad, and nasus, all people who are technically supposed to counter him, because I know how to play around trynd's early.
Dies to Wolves4 voteswith tryndamere, if you are a main vs someone who just picke dhim up, you know his ins and outs, what he can do in trades, when and how he can trade and survive, etc. etc. I beat Jax, Cho'gath, vlad, and nasus, all people who are technically supposed to counter him, because I know how to play around trynd's early.
that's exactly what I said, match-up knowledge. You know how to play the lane. That's not an inherent skill of tryndamere as animation cancelling is for riven, for example. The kind of knowledge you're refering is needed to succeed with any champion.
ElJanitorFrank1 votesYes, but auto attack canceling for crits and auto+E escape are skills.
Tryndamere has a high skill ceiling, people just pretend his low skill floor defines him as a champion.
Dies to Wolves3 votesYes, but auto attack canceling for crits and auto+E escape are skills.
Tryndamere has a high skill ceiling, people just pretend his low skill floor defines him as a champion.
auto attack canceling is something that EVERY champion does
riven, along with that, has to do really quick consecutive animation cancels for her skills while also weaving auto attacks and cancelling those too in between, not to mention other animation cancelling via chaining skills (like E+W or E+R or Q second R).
Auto-attacking and then using a skill to cancel that animation (auto+E in the case of trynda for example) is really nothing spetacularly hard or unique of trynda. Riven does that in an EXTREMELY higher level than most (if not all) other champions. Tryndamere's skill floor is a lot lower than riven's.
And I'm not saying this to defend riven, I don't even play her. It's just a fact.
JAGMAG2 votespfthhhhhhhhhh i beat teemo in lane as trynd
ArkenStorm2 votesyeah me too, it's honestly not that hard, you just do so much damage with crits and you can out-sustain his poke early. you get early kills, rush cutlass and you win lane
MohawkBird14 votes[deleted]
boxhead5244 votesAs a Riven player (not so much a main) her HP per level sucks and it shows against poke lanes. However, I agree she has some stupid mechanics about her.
My suggested changes:
E: Either lower or remove the AD ratio completely. A full damage Riven with well timed Es can out tank most champions.
R: Up the base damage and ratio, but remove the missing health scaling. (Stealing Dragon or Baron is stupid easy when you do 1200+ damage at range and have a vision ward). This would shift it a bit from
Also lengthen the cooldown. It's only 80~ seconds at level 1 and so it's usually up by the time the enemy laner gets back without using TP, I'd say 120 to 140 seconds
Saianna14 votesPlaying Riven is easy. Mastering bugged attack cancel is harder, but makes you insta-melt faces.
But this will never change. Riven is too much of a part of LC$ big dreams
bad manner kid13 votesIf you get knocked up by Riven's Q one time, you have lost lane.
In 3 years of playing this game, I have never won lane by out dueling a Riven. Meaning, I try to go toe to toe with a high armor champion and lose despite her being in my minions or whatever. She just always wins with her freelo CC on short cds.
Narasimha11 votesHave you tried Trundle or Darius? Because in all honesty, if you lose that match up, its you, not her
Anidan9 votesGaren, too, until the rework.
Spicy Rice1 votesI picked a darius into riven once. All that did was get my lane camped by enemy vi and ignored by my jungler untill riven could towerdive me and only take 1 tower shot while 100-0'ing me
Narasimha4 votesThen that's not a Riven issue, thats simply your jungler vs theirs.
MalzaharAnyLane1 votesI maxed W with Fiora, optionally took Exhaust/Ignite and forced her to try to use her passive and take twice the damage her auto would have done back.
However, with Fiora reworked my only reliable counter to Riven top lane is Malzahar and he doesn't belong top lane...
Count Zubat5 votesI maxed W with Fiora, optionally took Exhaust/Ignite and forced her to try to use her passive and take twice the damage her auto would have done back.
However, with Fiora reworked my only reliable counter to Riven top lane is Malzahar and he doesn't belong top lane...
There's still Cho'Gath.
Nilok1 votesNot saying she isn't annoying as hell, but I have a good track record as Pantheon against Rivens. His block is a great way to even the damage in a duel (block, stun, block), and the constant spear poke can often wear her down while her shield is on cooldown early game forcing her to either back, get starved of exp, or force a fight, which can get her killed at that point unless she has a gank from the jungler (ward well).
NemeBro5 votesNot saying she isn't annoying as hell, but I have a good track record as Pantheon against Rivens. His block is a great way to even the damage in a duel (block, stun, block), and the constant spear poke can often wear her down while her shield is on cooldown early game forcing her to either back, get starved of exp, or force a fight, which can get her killed at that point unless she has a gank from the jungler (ward well).
I'd also comment that Pantheons tend to take ignite due to the global presence of his ult, whereas Rivens far and away prefer teleport. This gives Pantheon a huge advantage in early duels and all ins.
AkabaneKun10 votesPick garen, oh wait.
Orangesilk4 votesJust build armor, oh wait.
53436278DEL19 votesagreed everytime i pick aatrox someone autolocks riven..if iget the lead in lane and get my tank items she will still burst me down by building lw and smashing the q then talk about "outplays"
CreationFlaw3 votes[{quoted}](name=Fear Become Fury,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=hF8iOXq3,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-08-05T22:26:54.548+0000)
agreed everytime i pick aatrox someone autolocks riven..if iget the lead in lane and get my tank items she will still burst me down by building lw and smashing the q then talk about "outplays"
Tbh, Riven is squishy, I start w level 1 instead of e and just smack her with blood price every time she goes to farm.
hashinshin18 votesRiven has the same HP and armor as Jax. Squishy?
bad manner kid14 votesRiven has the same HP and armor as Jax. Squishy?
I'll leave this here... 650+ HP shields on a 3.5s cooldown not to even begin to mention her damage made the ADCs look like Bard combos.
53436278DEL110 voteslol.. if you start blood price you wont be able to farm safely against rivens early game and your blood well will fill slowly a more experienced riven will harass you everytime you go to cs and she wins str8 out 1 vs 1 riven is toxic. she even beats irelia ..dumb shield op
CreationFlaw11 votesRiven has the same HP and armor as Jax. Squishy?
Yeah, Jax starts at 27 armor and 593 hp. Riven starts at 24.4 and 558 hp. "Jax dodges all incoming enemy basic attacks and takes 25% less damage from area of effect abilities for 2 seconds." + Bonus Armor: 30 / 50 / 70 (+ 50% bonus AD) armor
Bonus Magic Resistance: 30 / 50 / 70 (+ 20% AP) magic resistance
from his ultimate.
It's kind of like saying Sion is squishy. Well yeah, cause he gets health off every minion kill.
Anidan8 votesIf you want to be honest: No champion in this entire game is hard to play, nor have they ever been.
The only time a champion is hard to play is when they're underpowered, and that's because they have to fight an uphill battle. League of Legends has very, very simple champions, especially compared to other MOBAs, HOTS aside (but that was made to be easier, so that's not a big thing).
kJs4 votesI don't like Dota 2's paper scissors rock counter strategy. One match you have zero good counters the next match everything you do in a fight is 100% countered. It's just stupid imho.
Anidan1 votesI didn't mention DotA2 specifically, nor did I raise the point of counters. DotA2 however, has undeniably harder heroes to play than any League champion is capable of being.
Invoker with Aghanim's has one of the highest burdens of knowledge in teamfights of any moba character, period. Meepo has constant micromanagement and if any of his clones die, Meepo as a whole dies, and so on. No champion in League has that kind of difficulty.
Zenthon Prime6 votesActually, Dota only has four heroes undeniably above the hardest LoL champs in terms of difficulty IMO: Meepo, Earth Spirit, Invoker and maybe Visage (though that's possibly just me being a garbage Visage). There are several I'd say are on par with League's highest tier (Azir, Ori, Syndra, etc.), things like Lone Druid, Io, Rubick and Oracle.
However, Dota reaches much lower lows than League's roster, or pretty much any other MOBA roster. You think Garen is easy? How about frickin' Viper, who has ONE ACTIVE SKILL. And it's a point-and-click DoT no less. Dota can sorta get away with this because the base game is somewhat harder, but still.
Jofeyy6 votesI always thought it was "easy to play but hard to master". Which i believe still holds true. And i dont even play riven.
Big Bang Bob6 votesBig question: Have you actually played 
?
I haven't myself but I know that if all champs were as simple as they seemed, there would be very little "hard" champs, so the best way to tell would be to actually play her. These statistics don't say much since there could just as easily be a large amount of experienced Rivens to cover up people trying her.
ElJanitorFrank5 votesMost people who play Riven play a LOT of Riven.
And 52.5% is just on the high end of AVERAGE, not overly strong.
UltraSceptile4 votesWell...
In low elo people don't exactly know how to play against her a lot of times, so people who combo at the pace of a snail with a brick on its back can still win.
In high elo people player her really well, im guessing mostly by one trick ponies.
I wouldn't say she's OP as fuck. But then again I've never played against a riven who has mastered her mechanics.
Arcus Diabolus4 votesAs a Riven main and a avid fighting game player, let me just point out there is no champ in this game that requires skill to play, including Riven.
Slamurai Jack4 votesRiven is actually pretty hard to play against people who don't play scared of her. Riven wins her lane through intimidation, and letting her control the pace of the lane is almost a guaranteed loss if the Riven is good. However, most top laners can definitely tango with her early and you can very easily deny her if you manage to win some early trades thanks to her garbage health regen. You just can't be a coward.
Thryale4 votesthen why is it I lose most of my games when I try to play her?
Dealth4 votesDon't you know having no mana, no skill shots, only scaling off one stat and "click to do damage" takes incredible amounts of skill?
CreationFlaw3 votesSee, I want to complain saying she requires more management compared to darius or Garen, but that's only if you want to maximize her damage output. I also find it hard to argue with a master tier player that also has hard proof ,_,
Prozzak3 votesOr Riven has a high play rate because champs like her are fun to play. Crazy mobile champs that is.
junglerboy162 votesAccording to Champion.gg, people with fewer than 15 games on her do have a negative winrate (they lose more than they win) but after 15 games, her win rate increases dramatically, and only 17% of all players who use her have less than 15 games on her. people with over 125 games (i.e. Riven mains) have a consistent +56% win rate.
NemeBro2 votesAccording to Champion.gg, people with fewer than 15 games on her do have a negative winrate (they lose more than they win) but after 15 games, her win rate increases dramatically, and only 17% of all players who use her have less than 15 games on her. people with over 125 games (i.e. Riven mains) have a consistent +56% win rate.
Tryndamere, Wukong, Heimerdinger, Singed, and pre-rework Fiora players have higher win rates after 125+ games with their respective champions than Riven players do with the same amount of games, just as an example. A win rate of nearly 56% after playing the champion for 125+ games is veryu good, but not exceptional.
junglerboy162 votesYup, the only thing is there are a lot more people with 125 Riven games out there than there are for the champs you've mentioned. I was actually surprised that she only had 56% win rate after 125 games on average, but having her in so many matches with a moderately high win rate is more impactful to game health than a Wukong having 58% win rate at that level, because she is not only a pervasive champion, but also extremely un-fun to play against. I get that I'm more likely to lose to a Wukong main than a Riven main, but at least I can have fun before losing to Wukong...
Theorchero2 votesIt's less about her being hard to play and more about being ping reliant.
If you have 100+ ping, good fucking luck playing to half of her maximum potential, you just can't do it.
Salidfingers2 votesI love that riven is popular, I play someone like Olaf and dominate top lane.
Rain NT2 voteshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYq756APu0o
Voyboy vs arguably one of the best Riven. And Riven gets destroyed.