No, you pick her because you like to abuse a hypermobile manaless burst dps tank assassin with aoe stun/knockup and ranged aoe execute to collect free elo.
Swollwonder46 votesAm I the only one who thinks Rivens hard to play well? I never play Riven in ranked and I only play her in normals when I'm feeling all "Why must we all fight" "so much death" moods.
I legitimately find her hard to play
ShinTwist25 voteshttp://champion.gg/champion/Riven Because she is, lol. Check her winrate by games played and the distribution of her players. More than half are mains. It takes 75-ish games with her to hit her median winrate.
Hating on Riven is more of a meme than anything, it's just what the boards do, it has nothing to do with the actual champion.
KatCraft12 votesI agree I actually think Riven is well designed ducks for cover Sure she is very strong compared to other melee bruisers but that's currently a role that's underpowered in this meta. People don't realise that to actually be a melee bruiser the kit needs to be very strong and a little bs or else you'll never compete against tanks, cc, kiting, etc.
ShinTwist11 votesI agree I actually think Riven is well designed
This is objectively true. Her kit is one of the most interactive in the game, contains no anti-patterns of which I'm aware, can be countered and contained even by most of the champions she does well against with smart play and building, is dynamic and allows for skill based out plays in place of being a ball of stats, has clear strengths and weaknesses, and high risks involved for using her strengths. This is ideal champion design.
From a neutrally minded standpoint, she is actually very well designed. You just won't find that here on the boards very often, where it's filled with "I couldn't 1v1 it, nerf it"
Abyssphere5 votesThis is objectively true. Her kit is one of the most interactive in the game, contains no anti-patterns of which I'm aware, can be countered and contained even by most of the champions she does well against with smart play and building, is dynamic and allows for skill based out plays in place of being a ball of stats, has clear strengths and weaknesses, and high risks involved for using her strengths. This is ideal champion design.
From a neutrally minded standpoint, she is actually very well designed. You just won't find that here on the boards very often, where it's filled with "I couldn't 1v1 it, nerf it"
Just wondering, what is the definition of "anti-pattern"? Been seeing that term around lately but I'd never heard of it until recently so I'm not sure what it means.
Ulquiorra99522 votesYes, she is well designed. In theory. In practice, you need to rely on broken mechanic that wasn't even intended to be there in the first place to play her to her full potential. Riven has 2 balance states she can be in:
1.) Good when you know how to cancel her animations, and terrible when you don't. 2.) Good when you don't know how to cancel, and absolutely broken when you do.
Sorry, but when someone with 4 dashes can kill you in 2 seconds, of which she can keep you under hard CC for 1.5, that's bullshit. Especially when with such a fast burst, dashes and AD scaling shield even tower won't save you after level 6 if she's ahead. In her current state if she's good, one mistake against her is all that she needs and from there you are in a world of frustration.
And one of the most frustrating things about her if she's ahead you can't get away because of her retarded mobility (and god forbid you try to CS as a melee champ in that situation, she's in your face and you are stunned and dead before you even know it), and you can't catch her if she decides to run, again because of retarded mobility - but this is more of a problem in League of Mobility than in Riven herself.
Tyaldan5 votesThis right here sums up how i feel. I thought riven was fairly balanced, if a pain, until i finally went against one who could animation cancel. Its as fun as going against a diamond smurf when you are just starting the game (which i think happened, dude took jax and went 30 - 0 when i was level 12). A few weeks after this, i saw someone complaining about animation canceling, with a gif, where they were under tower and a riven went in and 100 - 0 a yasuo. Under tower, only took one shot before they were out of range again, which they ate with their shield, so they took 0 damage. Riven main stepped in and said the yasuo was out of position. Under tower. If thats out of position to someone who can animation cancel they should remove it.
ShinTwist6 votesThat Webm was posted by the alt account of a false flagger known as Riven Lovejoy, and it depicted a Riven with either 2 or 3 kills up on Yasuo, and a significant lead in farm, killing a Yasuo with his passive down and 80% hp, not full.
It was made so that the items were not visible in the webm with intent to mislead people.
Riven vs Yasuo is an extremely snowbally lane, and that webm is from after the snowball actually began, can you name a melee champion who couldn't have towerdove Yasuo with such an immense lead? That had nothing to do with animation cancelling, the only cancel he even used was Q3+R2, and everything to do with the 1k+ gold lead on a weak early game champion.
Ariel the Cruel3 votesThat had nothing to do with animation cancelling,
Without the cancel, she probably would have ate another turret shot. Wouldn't have changed the outcome, but that is something.
But yes, I remember that post. I was surprised how many people actually looked at the match-up, and didn't perpetuate the circle-jerk [that time].
Ahmi2 votesYasuo was prolly like 0/12 at that time lol
Ultîma4 votes{quoted} Hating on Riven is more of a meme than anything, it's just what the boards do, it has nothing to do with the actual champion.
Idk... Riven's ability to animation cancel and 100-0 anyone who ever gets within her melee range is pretty frustrating to play against, and is pretty much a text-book broken game mechanic.
Edit: Why the downvotes? What aspect of being 100-0 against any champion not frustrating? And how is animation cancelling a legitimate part of a champion's kit?
Dank Hangler5 votes"text-book broken" all you have to do is pick a counter to riven like cho gath or renekton or maoakai but everyone seems to want to play squishy, low mobility champions into her like teemo and gangplank, then wounder why they get dumped on and come cry on the boards.
Ultîma3 votesPicks and counterpicks have nothing to do with the fact that Riven has access to an in-game bug that gives her a ton of power. That's the most literal definition of broken that can be.
People used to say similar things about Fizz - "just pick Ryze" - was the go-to response to any criticism of his character. Let's not fall into that trap regarding Riven or any other character.
ShinTwist6 votesAnimation cancelling isn't a bug, she was designed with it. Stop parroting lies.
"Greetings Summoners!
With Riven on the horizon, I wanted to take a few minutes and give you all a sneak peek into some of her gameplay and mechanics.
Riven is a flow-based fighter who performs aggressive combo attacks to decimate her opponents. This often involves her stepping forward into her sword swings to chase down cowardly enemies who might try to escape or utilize their ranged attacks to avoid direct combat. This highly mobile fighting style makes her a really aggressive, momentum-based character.
Her signature ability is Broken Wings, a 3-part combo slash that causes her to step forward and slash nearby enemies. On her 3rd hit, Broken Wings unleashes a nova, knocking nearby enemies back. While performing the three-hit Broken Wings combo is powerful in its own right, more veteran Riven players will find great opportunities to mix in her Ki Burst to deliver a short stun (for her to follow up with more devastation) or move into an even better position with Valor.
Her ultimate, Blade of the Exile, allows her to reform her broken sword, restoring her former power and allowing her to activate Wind Slash, a powerful shockwave that slices the air itself to cut down enemies that are out of reach.
We're excited about Riven because she draws some heavy inspiration from fighting games, utilizing combos that can be interspersed with other abilities to change timing and effect as needed. This flow and feel is something we feel will appeal highly to aggressive players who want to make split-second decisions on when to deal damage and when to sacrifice damage in favor of additional utility effects."
They were aware of animation cancelling basically the instant someone used Alistar's WQ combo, not to mention his interaction with flash, long before they designed Riven.
People also massively overstate the power of animation cancelling.
Ultîma5 votesThis paragraph does not mention animation cancelling. In fact, none of Riven's description ever does. What you've highlighted only summarizes her gameplay pattern, which due to her Q is very prone to combo with the rest of her kit.
6 months ago, when patch 5.1 came in it gave Riven access to one of the most broken mechanics in the game. The following video illustrates how it works. What this allows Riven to do, is attack much much faster than intended, and propelling her burst through the roof if she gets the drop on someone with her Q.
Just another quick one for everyone: Meddler stated that the Riven changes were an unintended side effect of the CC overlapping system released in that patch.
Please tell me again how she was designed with that mechanic in mind, because she_ wasn't_.
ShinTwist4 votesThis paragraph does not mention animation cancelling. In fact, none of Riven's description ever does. What you've highlighted only summarizes her gameplay pattern, which due to her Q is very prone to combo with the rest of her kit.
6 months ago, when patch 5.1 came in it gave Riven access to one of the most broken mechanics in the game. The following video illustrates how it works. What this allows Riven to do, is attack much much faster than intended, and propelling her burst through the roof if she gets the drop on someone with her Q.
Just another quick one for everyone: Meddler stated that the Riven changes were an unintended side effect of the CC overlapping system released in that patch.
Please tell me again how she was designed with that mechanic in mind, because she_ wasn't_.
Using the laugh emote doesn't actually help her animation cancel in any useful way, it just plays the laugh animation over what she's doing, lol. So, uh, nice?
Context. That post is about auto cancelling, which she was not intended to have. So, no, you are still spreading misinformation, you're just now also intentionally misrepresenting evidence to support your own lies.
meatjunjun3 votesThat 5.1 patch was a bug that wasn't intended which allowed EVERYONE to aa cancel with zero effort. This bug was fixed fairly quickly.
So Riven came out many years ago and you're going to cite a problem from early this year to prove she wasn't meant to have aa canceling?
Sorry, dude. That doesn't add up
meatjunjun7 votes"100-0 anyone" is such a huge exaggeration. There's so many champs that beat her in lane and just force her to farm or roam. If she does roam, and your team pays attention to missing pings, she'll just waste time and fall behind.
However, if she does get fed, then she is pretty fkn powerful.
AMYS GRAVE1 votesIt takes 75-ish games with her to hit her median winrate.
lol what? it only takes ~15 games to reach 50%....
ShinTwist5 votesCloser to 30, actually, that section is 15-50, it takes about 75 to hit her median, however.
The Bíg Ticket4 votesShe is hard to play to her full potential...you need to have quite a few games on her to do well but once you learn her the champ is simply overpowered. She has way too much in her kit.
Emperor Time6 votesRiven is actually very hard to play even though people tend to think not. Executing her fast AA animation cancel Q combo is really really hard and takes months of practice to master. The boards are just ruled by low elo scrubs who think everything is bad/ needs a nerf.
MohawkBird31 votesAhhh Riven's animation cancelling. . . the most toxic bullshit exploit in the game. Riven mains, tell me more about how much skill it takes to exploit the in game bug that is animation cancelling.
Aatrox Herself6 votesIf I'm gonna exploit a bug it would be the Shaco devourer one, that one is just fun. INFINITE WOLVES BABY!
ShinTwist8 votesNot an exploit, not toxic. Stop using buzzwords.
"Greetings Summoners!
With Riven on the horizon, I wanted to take a few minutes and give you all a sneak peek into some of her gameplay and mechanics.
Riven is a flow-based fighter who performs aggressive combo attacks to decimate her opponents. This often involves her stepping forward into her sword swings to chase down cowardly enemies who might try to escape or utilize their ranged attacks to avoid direct combat. This highly mobile fighting style makes her a really aggressive, momentum-based character.
Her signature ability is Broken Wings, a 3-part combo slash that causes her to step forward and slash nearby enemies. On her 3rd hit, Broken Wings unleashes a nova, knocking nearby enemies back. While performing the three-hit Broken Wings combo is powerful in its own right, more veteran Riven players will find great opportunities to mix in her Ki Burst to deliver a short stun (for her to follow up with more devastation) or move into an even better position with Valor.
Her ultimate, Blade of the Exile, allows her to reform her broken sword, restoring her former power and allowing her to activate Wind Slash, a powerful shockwave that slices the air itself to cut down enemies that are out of reach.
We're excited about Riven because she draws some heavy inspiration from fighting games, utilizing combos that can be interspersed with other abilities to change timing and effect as needed. This flow and feel is something we feel will appeal highly to aggressive players who want to make split-second decisions on when to deal damage and when to sacrifice damage in favor of additional utility effects."
3TWarrior4 votesall this is really saying is that any champion that is melee range can't hope to match her damage output and crowd control
even mordekaiser is mostly a skill matchup against riven and a battle of time, then riven will likely scale harder into teamfights
the only melee I can think of with her level of "combo damage" is lee sin and he doesn't have the crowd control she does
Transgressor6 votesall this is really saying is that any champion that is melee range can't hope to match her damage output and crowd control
LMAO, 
Cry me a river.
even mordekaiser is mostly a skill matchup against riven and a battle of time, then riven will likely scale harder into teamfights
Mordekaiser a skilled matchup? LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL, whaaaaaaat?
isn't a skill matchup in any role imaginable.
the only melee I can think of with her level of "combo damage" is lee sin and he doesn't have the crowd control she does
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you're serious, you're actualy serious, ahahahahaha. Here are some examples including some that don't even need crowd control to outdamage Riven.
Ged good.
AbsoluteSadman1 votesEkko? Wukong? Nasus in lane? They cant touch riven.
Im with you on morde
Rengar? Maybe, Kha? Almost. Wukong? Not even close, Diana? Not even close? Xin Zhao? Hes a sustained fighter he doesnt even fit, same with ww.
Transgressor5 votesEkko's burst is out of this world, Nasus is Nasus, no matter what Riven does, she's going to lose the game. Diana has burst, some inate tankyness and her itemization can naturaly stick it up Riven's. Xin Zhao is a broken mess, always was, always will. His CC can cancel all of Riven's animations, he has actual sustain, meager cooldowns, AS steroids, free health passive, and makes great use of on-hit effects, Riven, not so much. Wukong is a pain in the ass, Kha and Rengar have massive burst, free sustain and ridiculous single target damage. Rengar's Q can criticaly strike, Kha can spam Q like there's no tomorrow, they both have better health regen and free sustain spells, they both can jump at her from great distances and damage her while her cycle's on cooldown. Warwick, the GOD of sustain duels(along with Trundle) can outdamage outdps and outsustain RIven after he gets 2 items, while Riven has to actualy buy items if she's going to have any sustain.
meatjunjun3 votesNasus destroys Riven post first recall.
The wukong matchup is slightly in Wukong's favor until mid game. But since this lane is really snowbally, Riven is usually somewhat behind unless Wu makes a mistake.
Makes me think you don't know what you're talking about
Transgressor17 votes
can cancel animations.
I don't see you crying about them.
Toxic, Exploit, in-game-bug, Bullshit.
You do love using buzzwords ridiculously out of context, don't you.
Oh, on a sidenote, RIOT's official statement regarding animation-canceling is that they've accepted it as a feature of the game, and that promotes mechanical mastery.
Stay salty.
AbsoluteSadman1 votesAnyone with an auto attack reset technically can animation cancel.
None of those charecters are turning 4 seconds worth of burst into 2 either.
ShinTwist8 votesNeither is Riven, it takes longer than 2 seconds to complete a perfectly executed quick Q cancel, lol.
Silents42914 votesHoly shit just shut up about Riven
Blade of Justic13 votesFunny enough, I used to complain about her all the time and got downvoted for it.
Now, for some reason, everyone is on the Riven nerf train.
bad manner kid11 votes"Oops I missed half my skills good thing one auto attack and R-execute kills my enemy" - Riven
Rebonack11 votesIf Riven's Innate didn't stack three times it would take substantially more skill to get high damage out of her.
Seriously, though.
She's pretty much the only champion who has an OnSkill ability that doesn't get wasted if you spam skills without booping someone between them. Imagine if Lux or Leona's Innate stacked on a target up to three times.
Angelofchaos16x9 votesUntil the day you run into someone who know how to play against you, or until a jungler decides to camp you and set you behind.
O Fallen Scholar7 votesNo, you pick her because you like to abuse a hypermobile manaless burst dps tank assassin with aoe stun/knockup and ranged aoe execute to collect free elo.
No. I like Riven because she is fun to play. If that's your opinion, so be it.
Rivvy7 votes"I made this thread because i'm good at this game, because of my vast amount of game knowledge on balance and character kits, and I want upvotes because my opinion is obviously so important and useful to the world."
TeemoXNidalee3 votes"I made this thread because i'm good at this game, because of my vast amount of game knowledge on balance and character kits, and I want upvotes because my opinion is obviously so important and useful to the world."
exactly
Pæan6 votesplay 
start cloth 5 and have some nice runes and masteries for tankiness. Q her on cd whenever she doesnt have shield and tries to cs. taunt her in you minion wave and rinse repeat. The buffs to shen's passive are awesome and really give him a lot more damage.
Also, after your first back you can get a 
or 
and she basically cant kill you. Even less kill pressure than a full tank 
after getting a 
tooomine5 votesso, you're saying that riven mains don't have to be mechanically excellent to curbstomp other laners? lololol
Aboylova925 votesMy friends and I both ban Riven every game. No matter the meta, she's always strong, thus gets banned. The other day after banning her, we get some Riven main starts going crazy in the chat about why we banned her. After saying I hate the champ as she's all types of OP, he calls us bad and we don't know what we're talking about. Proceeds to do very poorly in game, and complain all game about how we banned her, as if he's surprised ANYONE would ban HIS champion.
This only seems to happen with a very small handful of champions, with Riven being one of the worst. Their players act like they're a god at this game, even when they're doing poorly.
Lowvyr5 votesFor fucks sake I play Riven because I like her I don't even think she's OP, I just play her for who she is. I enjoy playing her. You don't like her, so be it, but don't come crashing on the Riven mains because of it. I don't know who you main, but chances are no one beats on you because of who you main.
Just let this shit die. Forget about her. If you don't like her, ban her.
gubigubi4 votesAnd you cry about her because you can't play the game correctly. I guess everyone has their flaws.
CasterGilgamesh3 votesriven honestly is hard to play lol and ever since her shield had its duration nerfed she got even harder to play since it barely last for one second
Hôkagé3 votesI feel like Irelia is much more "op" than riven
GankLord2 votesI'd rather fight a riven then a Irelia anyday.
TeemoXNidalee2 votesIt doesn't matter if she is hard or not, she is broken and should be nerfed.