Riven Balance

galdamesh·Apr 22, 2015·42 votes·3,830 views

Can we remove riven's animation cancelling so her numbers can be put in a good place?

As is, either the riven can animation cancel or they lose %50 of there potential.

I understand the animation cancelling is a "skill", however by allowing it to happen your basically removing riven's viability to play without it.

her Q numbers could come back up a bit, if there wasn't a small number of people who can hit all of her abilities in under 2 seconds.

so now even though with her current numbers playing her without the animation cancelling is pretty hard in most match ups, it can still be just an opressive force to go against if the person can manage it.

recently you removed a "bug" that allowed sion to better control his ult with the "H" key, your basically leaving the same thing in the game on riven.

61 Comments

ScreamPasteApr 23, 201511 votes

They were going to do this, and the community exploded in rage. I Really don't want them to do this, as a Riven player, for a number of reasons.

Part of the fun in playing Riven is mastering her mechanics, she's a very high skill cap champion. This is a huge draw, and one of her defining characteristics. Riven is hard to play well. Pulling off a perfectly cancelled combo in the middle of a hectic team fight is extremely hard, but when you do it, you feel like a complete badass.
Reducing that skill cap and making it so that less experienced players can play her to a higher potential will make her too strong at lower levels. Could you imagine if suddenly the comboes challenger level Riven players can pull off started showing up in Bronze, where the majority of players reside? The river of tears would ensure she was nerfed out of viability.
It would remove the enjoyment I get from playing Riven. It's really that simple.

Currently, against a competent player, one mistake can set you extremely far behind on Riven, and the animation cancels are a part of what's required to play her well, but are easy to mess up and overstay or cost yourself damage. It wouldn't be half as much fun to just mash Q and watch Riven do it all for me.

So, no, sorry OP, but I hate the idea of making Riven easier.

The Bíg TicketApr 23, 20159 votes

Riven high skill cap lmao.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 23, 20154 votes

Difference between playing well and playing it.

The Bíg TicketApr 23, 20153 votes

Goes for 90 percent of the champs.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 23, 20153 votes

Goes for 100% probably. There is always some difference between the minimum level of what you can do and the maximum. What I was trying to say that you apparently didn't understand is that your assertion of riven isn't a high skill cap champ is short sighted and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept. The difference in skill between a riven who uses the kit to the maximum and one who can do the bare minimum will be greater than the difference between say an Annie who uses the kit to the maximum versus one that uses it to the minimum. Annie relies more on decision making and timing than on the skill mechanics of the kit. There is only so much that can go wrong with her combo and adding auto attacks between spells doesn't change that much in terms of damage. However, even if both Riven players pick the right decision at the right time, her passive requires autos in between to make full use of damage, plus she can avoid damage or reposition her opponent w/ her 3rd hop and change the damage equation that way too. So the player who isn't as good at making the clicks and doesn't auto in between spells or walk in between casts will do much worse compared to the high skill player than the same scenario if they are both on Annie. This is what is meant by high skill cap, it is not the ability to play them or how strong they are when you play them bad, it is the ability it takes to play them and get every possible benefit they can provide. For riven that difference is higher than most champs, and I was trying to point that out in a concise manner without insulting you, but I suppose I should spell it out in an explicit manner since you need that to understand.

In before kitten rage about how I'm wrong with out supporting evidence or a logical argument that is as sound as mine. "Naw bro, I'm good at riven in bronze elo and she is stupid easy." "Naw man, riven pub stomps me all the time, and those players mess stuff up a bunch but she's so strong and takes so little skill I lose anyway." lol good luck w/ the response and I hope it is at least eloquent if it is going to be as uninformed as your last one.

The Bíg TicketApr 23, 20152 votes

Lol why are you mad? Your post is really good and you don't have to worry about insulting me. The last paragraph is kinda lame though, I will try my best to match your level of eloquence, however english is not my native language so I hope you can forgive me 1 or 2 mistakes. Btw I am Plat, not bronze :)

As for the actual argument, yes I do get how Riven's kit works and that making proper use of autoattacks will increase her damage output by alot, I have played vs good Rivens and bad Rivens and there are few champs who are more reliant on the person playing him/her. However this does not give her a high skill cap, as I said in my other post to which you also replied I believe (atleast your name sounds familiar) I would rate her skill cap as medium. She is a very forgiving champion, who has to manage one resource bar which is hp, she has very easy ways of getting cs, even under your turret you shouldn't fail any lasthits, which puts her on the same level as Zed. Her laning is very easy once you found out how her combo works, her kit allows her player to make tons of mistakes without being punished for it wheras she has all the tools to punish you for every small mistake you made and lets be honest, you don't even have to do your combos properly to outdamage 80 percent of the common toplaners in trades, you farm Brutalizer, go back to lane and all in. 300 gold. You are trying to differentiate between champs like Annie who requires decision making and Riven who requires being able to click the right buttons at the right moment, yes I will admit that you probably need faster fingers than the average person to pull off a flawless Riven combo (which is rarely needed though to outdamage your opponent) but in exchange for that you get a kit that allows you to constantly overextend, to only have to worry about one resource, to farm as good and easily as Zed, to 1v1 close to any champ in the game, where is the downside in her kit? She is NOT hard to play well, you just gotta know the combos, and this goes for a lot of champs including Zed or Yasuo. Then you also have champs like Kog Maw or Jinx who are mechanically easy to play but require alot of skill to position properly and avoid dying in teamfights, and you probably cannot deny that there is a huge skill gap between Kog Maws who can position and Kog Maws who can't.

Tl;dr: Riven is mechanically hard to play but thats not the only thing that determines the skill cap of a champ.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 23, 20152 votes

That is a rather impressive level of skill with english given that it isn't your native language. It is mine and I still can't spell even after a few years of therapy for dyslexia. :D

I probably was more cranky than I should have been (my apologies) since it was morning when I wrote that and I'm not a morning person. I actually really like that explanation. I'm not entirely in agreement with it but it is well thought out and a very sound argument and so I can respect it much more than the overly simplified version you gave earlier. I think you're right that riven is a really strong champ. She's like lee sin, in that her kit has so much potential to play any problem out that if you have the mechanics to use the kit she's hard to balance.

Personally mechanics are probably my weakest point and so I'm biased in that I tend to conceptualize skill cap in terms of difficulty of champion use. Positioning for ADC is a great example in that it is definitely the defining factor between a really good ADC and a mechanically good ADC. If I think about it as skill at the game or skill at the role I can definitely agree with your argument when I hear the whole thing. I still feel that when it comes to champion skill cap it should be defined in terms of difficulty of achieving maximum skill with that champion. As such I would probably consider champs like Lee Sin, Riven, and Zed higher skill cap than you would, but you would probably consider my favorite champs (nunu and heimerdinger) higher skill cap then I would consider them because they require more game skill to be effective (you have to identify the strongest players on your team to help as a support style player while managing objective control and tracking enemy jungle, or you have to make decisions about which ult is most useful in a particular team fight and how and where to set up turrets to control the area you want to and push an advantage while staying safe).

While I think your elo probably doesn't change the quality of your response, I'm sorry I made the dig at bronzies in general. I had to climb out of bronze in S3 when I started ranked (god I was bad) and this season when I started and was terrible after the break I took. There are a bunch of people in bronze and silver who are likely strong players but have such terrible attitudes they can't overcome that handicap and so often when someone is negative in comments and doesn't explain themselves I assume they share that mentality. It's refreshing to find someone who takes the time to explain something instead of just getting pissed off (especially when I was a bit more rude than I should have been :D).

The Bíg TicketApr 24, 20151 votes

Alright man, no worries. I am used to rather heated discussions so as long as someone makes up a reasonable point I don't mind a bit of "aggressive" language :) Btw thanks for the compliment, I always try my best. I think we just have different views on skill as you pointed out which is fine, I personally view this game still as "strategy game" and think it requires more than pressing the right buttons in the right order as fast as possible to play your champ at maximum efficiency. But I see your point so fair enough.

djjomonApr 23, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Danielas Kitten,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=inFvgAFL,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2015-04-23T02:26:17.717+0000)

Riven high skill cap lmao.

Low-ish skill floor, high skill cap. Learn the difference

The Bíg TicketApr 23, 20153 votes

And you are? Silver 5....and try to talk about skill with me.

Low skill floor, mid skill cap. Overloaded kit doesn't mean high skill cap.

djjomonApr 23, 20153 votes

Ah, the common misconception of "you're lower Elo so you're wrong."

The Bíg TicketApr 23, 20151 votes

Yes if you are talking about skill you are. Sorry.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 23, 20151 votes

Well there is kinda a difference between skill at a game, and skill at theory crafting. I can tell you a lot about how to play adc, and I'm ranked silver now after climbing from bronze 3 this last month, but even when I was gold s3 and spent time playing the game and practicing, I promise you may ADC was worse than most bronze 1 ADC mains. I could tell you a lot about ADC that a bronze 1 main couldn't because I understood he role from gold and high silver level games, but I don't play it well and wouldn't work on the mechanics needed to do so. Some players are crap players, but they like theory crafting even if they don't pay attention in game or have mechanics. If you give someone who is interested in understanding and has the skill they can theory craft the optimum play and may be able to talk about "skill" in a way that someone who actually possess more skill at the activity can't. Hope that helps you understand what he was trying to say.

The Bíg TicketApr 23, 20151 votes

I get that you can have great knowledge about this game and still be Bronze, your elo doesn't show how well you know this game. That is not relevant in this point.

GloriousKaiserApr 23, 201514 votes

They were going to do this, and the community exploded in rage. I Really don't want them to do this, as a Riven player, for a number of reasons.

Regardless, when has this ever stopped Riot? Do you honestly think Riot actually backs down due to community rage? They aren't stupid, PBE is PBE, not Inevitable Changes Environment. Reddit, and the Boards, probably don't even make up for 1% of the entire community. And even if that was a statistic I pulled out of my ass, It should be accepted that these small conglomerates do not represent LoL as a whole. We should stop acting as such.

Part of the fun in playing Riven is mastering her mechanics, she's a very high skill cap champion. This is a huge draw, and one of her defining characteristics. Riven is hard to play well. Pulling off a perfectly cancelled combo in the middle of a hectic team fight is extremely hard, but when you do it, you feel like a complete badass.

There's a difference between mastering her mechanics and abusing loopholes. Sion Ult turning, was that intended? Neither was Rivens attack animation cancelling. Riven is easy to play, I can play her easily. Riven is squishy. And the difficulties that come with being melee and squishy are not exempt from her. Know the difference. You know who's harder to play? Tryndamere. But he's even easier to pick up. Getting in melee range and not dying, is your real challenge.

All the more reason she needs fixes.

Reducing that skill cap and making it so that less experienced players can play her to a higher potential will make her too strong at lower levels. Could you imagine if suddenly the comboes challenger level Riven players can pull off started showing up in Bronze, where the majority of players reside? The river of tears would ensure she was nerfed out of viability.

Darius Akali Jax Fiora Not a new concept, having noob stomping champions. Besides lower level players still forget to weave autos, E > Q or something to that effect. Riven still requires the knowledge of the player to succeed. Like I say, no exemption, all champions fall under this.

It would remove the enjoyment I get from playing Riven. It's really that simple.

That's sad to hear. And very biased. Is this a reason for you or for the BALANCE???

Currently, against a competent player, one mistake can set you extremely far behind on Riven, and the animation cancels are a part of what's required to play her well, but are easy to mess up and overstay or cost yourself damage. It wouldn't be half as much fun to just mash Q and watch Riven do it all for me.

Sings true for all champions. Top lane is a snowballs fest. Riven is no different. If Riven is REQUIRED to use those cancels to do well, that's a problem. Pro play should be having the reflexes to pick a card on the first rotation. Good play should be using Yasuo's dashes to fight people through minion waves. Good play is when you use a champions skills to make plays. If one day, Garen had a bug that would let his Q remove the animation resulting in instant silences as soon as he was in range, would people be okay with that? Or if Singed could flip people even if they fla- oh wait he already does that.

So, no, sorry OP, but I hate the idea of making Riven easier.

And I don't like the Idea of a champion being balanced based on an exploitable bug in her kit. It's a bug, because it doesn't state anywhere in the tooltip, nor does it say anywhere in champion interraction data that the cancelling was intended. (correct if wrong). It's an unintended side effect, no other way to say it.

Baron of BreadApr 23, 20157 votes

Unintended or not, it has been there for ages and probably wouldn't be that hard to get rid of. If Riot had ever really decided to remove it they would have done so. Since they haven't it is an effect they seem to want to stay in the game, and effectively that makes it intended.

Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.

lB2kGRlc8yApr 23, 20154 votes

Its like how the balance champions around their bugs, like how Darius's hook marks targets, then grabs them regardless of how impossible the action was to complete. Its a way of the balance team toning them to be acceptable without reworking the champion. I'd honestly like to see if removing animation cancels on riven would gut her anywhere near as bad as champs like Veigar and Zilean have been.

T RexHasLongLegsApr 23, 20154 votes

Wait when was animation canceling stated to be a bug. Most adcs do it and it is a way bigger thing in dota my friend says. Isn't it part of every champ? Riven just has a kit that uses it better and a terrible aa animation if you don't.

GlaedonxApr 23, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasLongLegs,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=inFvgAFL,comment-id=000400010002,timestamp=2015-04-23T06:33:50.746+0000)

Wait when was animation canceling stated to be a bug. Most adcs do it and it is a way bigger thing in dota my friend says. Isn't it part of every champ? Riven just has a kit that uses it better and a terrible aa animation if you don't.

Exactly..

Dirty RoleplayerApr 23, 20154 votes

{quoted}

They were going to do this, and the community exploded in rage. I Really don't want them to do this, as a Riven player, for a number of reasons.

Part of the fun in playing Riven is mastering her mechanics, she's a very high skill cap champion. This is a huge draw, and one of her defining characteristics. Riven is hard to play well. Pulling off a perfectly cancelled combo in the middle of a hectic team fight is extremely hard, but when you do it, you feel like a complete badass.

Reducing that skill cap and making it so that less experienced players can play her to a higher potential will make her too strong at lower levels. Could you imagine if suddenly the comboes challenger level Riven players can pull off started showing up in Bronze, where the majority of players reside? The river of tears would ensure she was nerfed out of viability.

It would remove the enjoyment I get from playing Riven. It's really that simple.

Currently, against a competent player, one mistake can set you extremely far behind on Riven, and the animation cancels are a part of what's required to play her well, but are easy to mess up and overstay or cost yourself damage. It wouldn't be half as much fun to just mash Q and watch Riven do it all for me.

So, no, sorry OP, but I hate the idea of making Riven easier.

This.

ShaftyMegeeApr 23, 20152 votes

I like your ideas even though I hate riven

ladentionApr 23, 20152 votes

as a riven player

DOWNVOTED

foristApr 23, 20159 votes

Riven's ability ratios are fine. The reason it's harder for people who can't animation cancel to win trades is because her hp regen and sustain are much lower than most bruisers. But the trade-off is that she has much more damage, burst, and mobility than other melee fighters. She doesn't need any buffs/nerfs, because animation canceling is hardly a hard concept to learn, and doesn't only apply to riven.

Wînter FoxApr 23, 20156 votes

I agree. Riven is one of my favorite champions, but I don't have the mechanical skill to Q cancel - AA cancel repeatedly. Everything bruiser-ish about her (shield, stun) is continuously nerfed/kept stunted because of her gimp potential that very few players can pull off. I feel like Riot is punishing 99% of Riven players because Boxbox might annihilate all of high elo if they touch her. It's like she's two different champions. They need to somehow diminish or just flat out get rid of the animation cancelling potential so we can actually address her properly.

BluePolarizerApr 23, 20152 votes

then don't play ADCs since they need animation cancelling too. And stay away from Renekton.

101100111000Apr 23, 20157 votes

ADCs don't require such an obviously high degree of skill to animation canceling because they don't need to weave the cancels through an entire ability rotation. Whoever created this bullshit facade that Riven animation canceling = rADC animation canceling is feeding bullshit from their ass.

Slamurai JackApr 23, 20155 votes

So many people honestly don't know how to read. Riven, as she is now, is more or less balanced. But she is balanced around her animation canceling mechanic that allows her to do things she shouldn't be able to do. And its a dumb mechanic that there is no way to learn other than from another Riven player; it's pretty clear that Riot never intended for her to be able to weave q's and autos together that quickly, even if they now balance her on the assumption that people will. And that's my point, they have to make her numbers undertuned because of a mechanical abuse that Good Riven players can do that makes her DPS far higher than Riot originally intended. And it's not even a mechanic that has any sort of decision making to it. There is literally no reason to not animation cancel for the higher dps if you can pull it off, no matter the situation. It's honestly just an extra layer of difficulty that serves no purpose and adds no meaningful interaction between Riven or her opponent, since you can't counterplay high apm.

I'm not calling for Riven to be nerfed. If they take out the ability to animation cancel, I would be more than happy to see buffs on her to compensate. I personally like Riven as a champion, I think her kit is interesting and has a good place in the game. I just don't want her to have to be balanced around an abuse case that Riot won't remove for some reason.

On another note, the idea that one mistake can set Riven extremely far behind garners absolutely no sympathy from me, as a Yasuo main. I have exactly all the same weaknesses that Riven does, except I can't escape pretty much any gank with 4 dashes and an on demand stun. And you know what? Thats totally fine, because Yasuo and Riven both have kits with such absurd outplay potential and are so oppressive when ahead that people deserve to bully you if you fuck up. Thats the price you pay for playing a champion like that.

COWmanLordApr 23, 20155 votes

Am I the only who find Riven to be an easy win for my lane? I guess I just have been lucky to only fight terrible rivens or I just play the right champs.

aperson1Apr 23, 20155 votes

I don't think the ability to push buttons really quickly is a skill Riot should keep in the game. They keep saying they're against this kind of mechanical over-complexity, but their actions pretty clearly reflect that that's not true.

I can appreciate when Ezreal snipes me with his skillshots, or when Yasuo dashes past my AoE to kill me. That takes skill and prediction, and I feel like there's things I could have done to stop it.

When Riven insta-kills me with 3 abilities in less than 0.75 seconds and hops away with a 300 point shield I'm not thinking "man her animation canceling was really on point."

Slamurai JackApr 23, 20154 votes

{quoted}

I don't think the ability to push buttons really quickly is a skill Riot should keep in the game. They keep saying they're against this kind of mechanical over-complexity, but their actions pretty clearly reflect that that's not true.

I can appreciate when Ezreal snipes me with his skillshots, or when Yasuo dashes past my AoE to kill me. That takes skill and prediction, and I feel like there's things I could have done to stop it.

When Riven insta-kills me with 3 abilities in less than 0.75 seconds and hops away with a 300 point shield I'm not thinking "man her animation canceling was really on point."

There really isn't counterplay to "Riven pressed all of her buttons really fast and I died." There is literally nothing I can do, as Riven's opponent, to really affect if she does her animation cancels correctly; and yet whether or not she does it correctly is the difference betweeen me being 100-0ed with no chance for retalition and having a chance to actually fight back.

If Riven winning or losing a fight comes down to raw APM instead of decisionmaking, that's a problem. There's nothing you, as her opponent, can do to make her APM go down, and if that's what fights hinge on, you're just fucked. It's not about you at all, anymore. Your champ can't double your DPS by clicking faster and Riven can. The thing is, Riven right now is balanced around her being able (but not guaranteed) to win normal matchups with normal APM. A mediocre Riven player can beat a mediocre <other champ> player with good lane mechanics and game sense. But when she's suddenly doing all her damage twice as fast as intended, she's broken as shit. It's not about lane mechanics or game sense, anymore (hers OR yours); it's about "I'm Riven and I do balanced damage at unbalanced speed, so fuck you because I can push buttons and click fast". The other player's skill stops mattering, and that's bullshit.

ScreamPasteApr 23, 20151 votes

I don't think Riven could even 100-0 Sona at level 1, don't spread mis-information, it just comes off as alarmist and detracts from any valid point you may have.

Riven is not 100-0ing people in lane, animation cancelling does not increase her damage, it decreases the time it takes her to apply it. Riven does not burst people over one second, without animation cancelling it's about 4-5, with proper cancelling it can be about 3 seconds. There is plenty of counterplay and retaliation involved, unless you're a squishy with no armour and she's fed, in which case things go the same way they would with literally any other casting based champion in the game.

Riven's damage is fine where it is, if they removed animation cancelling they'd also have to shorten the animations themselves or increase the speed of her dashes (currently hard locked at 450, meaning late game many champions simply walk faster than she can hop), turning her into a horrific pub stomping monstrosity. This would ineveitably result in Riot nerfing her out of viability at high levels. It's a bad change that does nothing except ruin Riven for the people who enjoy her.

Slamurai JackApr 23, 20154 votes

{quoted}

I don't think Riven could even 100-0 Sona at level 1, don't spread mis-information, it just comes off as alarmist and detracts from any valid point you may have.

Riven is not 100-0ing people in lane, animation cancelling does not increase her damage, it decreases the time it takes her to apply it. Riven does not burst people over one second, without animation cancelling it's about 4-5, with proper cancelling it can be about 3 seconds.

Increasing her dps by speeding up her combo with animation canceling does increase her damage. Why? Because without canceling, you can do her 3 q's and 3 autos in 4-5 seconds. But with canceling, you can do those same 3 q's and 3 autos in 3 seconds, and then continue to auto me probably twice more before 5 seconds have passed. You've gotten 2 autos worth of extra damage in the same time period just by animation canceling, and that is most certainly enough to force me to flash or die at lvl 1 unless I'm a tank. At the very least, it's gotten me low enough to where I can't contest minions anymore, and then I'm fucked for when the inevitable lvl 2 flash W Q auto ignite kills me.

ScreamPasteApr 24, 20151 votes

If Riven enters an auto attack war at level 1, and you're not a turret-less heimerdinger, standing in the river, with no friends nearby, she deserves what happens to her. It's all well and good to theory craft, but at the end of the day, she has to leave after she deals her damage or she's going to die to your creep wave and your retaliation. As a newer player long ago, before the Riven nerf, I actually had this happen to me against an equally new Nasus who came to lane with boots3pots.

Animation cancelling is necessary to shorten the trade and ensure she takes less minion aggro and retaliation, but it does not increase her damage. Yes, technically, if you want to play the semantics game, the same damage over less time is higher DPS, but she's still gated and limited to a set amount of damage she can deal. Particularly early. She does not have consistent DPS like an ADC, she has what is essentially "burst over time". I'm not sure how this is even a relevant discussion at this point.

I mean, I guess you're on board the #gut_Riven hype train, so, I mean. That's lame. But really, what justification could you possibly have for making Riven easier to play? We both know where that ends. She gets too strong at low levels, gets nerfed, becomes trash, and worst, loses mechanical complexity and becomes comparitively boring. Nothing about this is good, so why do you want it?

Slamurai JackApr 24, 20152 votes

{quoted}

If Riven enters an auto attack war at level 1, and you're not a turret-less heimerdinger, standing in the river, with no friends nearby, she deserves what happens to her. It's all well and good to theory craft, but at the end of the day, she has to leave after she deals her damage or she's going to die to your creep wave and your retaliation. As a newer player long ago, before the Riven nerf, I actually had this happen to me against an equally new Nasus who came to lane with boots3pots.

Animation cancelling is necessary to shorten the trade and ensure she takes less minion aggro and retaliation, but it does not increase her damage. Yes, technically, if you want to play the semantics game, the same damage over less time is higher DPS, but she's still gated and limited to a set amount of damage she can deal. Particularly early. She does not have consistent DPS like an ADC, she has what is essentially "burst over time". I'm not sure how this is even a relevant discussion at this point.

I mean, I guess you're on board the #gut_Riven hype train, so, I mean. That's lame. But really, what justification could you possibly have for making Riven easier to play? We both know where that ends. She gets too strong at low levels, gets nerfed, becomes trash, and worst, loses mechanical complexity and becomes comparitively boring. Nothing about this is good, so why do you want it?

I like Riven. I think she's fun and has a good place in the game. I even enjoy playing her from time to time. What I do not enjoy is having her power gated by a fighting game-esque mechanic that makes her burst and dps far higher than it is supposed to be, which forces Riot to keep her numbers undertuned. Hell, I'm a fucking Yasuo main, and their playstyles and skillsets are similar, with the exception that Yasuo's power level isn't tied to a stupid animation canceling mechanic, not to mention an overly complicated one.

From my understanding, in order to properly cancel Rivens Q, you need to Q the enemy, right click on the ground to give a move command, and then right click the enemy. My question is, why does that second step even exist? If Riven is supposed to be able to animation cancel like that, why have an extra step that makes it harder to perform? None of the champions I play have a similar mechanic that I'm aware of. You can cancel part of Yasuo's auto animation with his E, and that's all you have to do. No need to click on the ground first or any other strange mechanic that doesn't make sense in a moba. If Riven is intended to be able to chain Q's and autos together that quickly, why not have it as a simple Q, right click, Q, right click, Q, right click? And don't say, "Because it's not fair to all the Riven players that learned how to do it the hard way." That wasn't a valid argument against jungle timers and it isn't a valid argument now. Hell, I wasn't there when it happened, but I'm sure all the people who never accidentally bought or sold an item were mad when Riot introduced the undo button too.

Like I said in the first paragraph and in previous posts, I actually like Riven. I like her kit, I like her playstyle, and I like how she fits into the game. But, I want Riot to do either 1 of 2 things; Make Riven's animation canceling easier or remove it entirely so they can actually balance her properly. Then we can see who the best Riven players are by their decision making and decisiveness rather than by who fucks up their animation canceling the least. If Riot were to decide to remove her animation canceling mechanic, I would be all for buffing her to compensate, perhaps by quite a bit. I just want a mechanic as inane and un-intuitive as Rivens Q-Auto animation canceling out of the game.

Dunkrius2gApr 23, 20151 votes

She might. She has the potential damage to deal 453 Physical damage if she has 88Ad and hits all aa along with her Q. I don't know how much HP Sons starts off. You can use this info to find out.

ScreamPasteApr 24, 20151 votes

With no runes or masteries Sona has 482 hp and 20.5 armour at level 1, giving her 578 effective hp vs physical damage. If Sona, for some reason, walked up to Riven so that Riven could land her first two Q's and autoattacks, meaning a full, QAAQAAQAA combo, Riven could still not kill her.

Riven seems to be bottom lane in this scenario though, so maybe Riven's support will pick up the kill and get that early sight stone. ADC Riven, new meta.

Dunkrius2gApr 24, 20151 votes

Nice. How do you figure out effective health?

ScreamPasteApr 24, 20151 votes

1 armour = 1% more EHP. :p

Dunkrius2gApr 24, 20152 votes

Ty. I guess you always learn something new everyday. ;)

DarthSpectrumApr 23, 20154 votes

Riven's animation canceling isn't that difficult to learn. The only unique interaction in her kit is canceling the Q animation.

To cancel her Q, all you have to do is give a movement command while the Q animation is playing and AA something. To do so, just Q, randomly click a location, then shift-right click.

Like most other abilities, Riven's Q, W, and E can all act as an AA cancel. The fast combo is simply stringing her Q cancel and AA cancel together. Furthermore, it is her AA animation that takes up the most time. In a lot of instances on streams, pro Riven players don't even bother canceling the Q if a fight is getting chaotic.

In my experience, the most important skill for a Riven player is how to manage her E. It is much more important for Riven to absorb 1 to 2 attacks with her shield than to sneak in an extra AA in a trade.

Slamurai JackApr 23, 20156 votes

{quoted}

Riven's animation canceling isn't that difficult to learn. The only unique interaction in her kit is canceling the Q animation.

To cancel her Q, all you have to do is give a movement command while the Q animation is playing and AA something. To do so, just Q, randomly click a location, then shift-right click.

Like most other abilities, Riven's Q, W, and E can all act as an AA cancel. The fast combo is simply stringing her Q cancel and AA cancel together. Furthermore, it is her AA animation that takes up the most time. In a lot of instances on streams, pro Riven players don't even bother canceling the Q if a fight is getting chaotic.

In my experience, the most important skill for a Riven player is how to manage her E. It is much more important for Riven to absorb 1 to 2 attacks with her shield than to sneak in an extra AA in a trade.

It's not about whether it's easy or hard, and it is still quite difficult to do consistently and quickly while under pressure. It's about the fact that because that mechanic exists when it honestly shouldn't, and Riven has to be balanced on the assumption that people are going to abuse this mechanic. Hell, would the last few Riven nerfs have been necessary if she couldn't 100-0 nearly every top laner at lvl 1 assuming she did her animation cancelling properly?

The point, is that Riot has to keep her numbers intentionally low because all her animation canceling allows her to do things she honestly shouldn't be able to do. And frankly, it takes control away from her opposition. Either she can animation cancel well under pressure and I lose, or she can't and I win. That's pretty much 100% in the Riven players hands. It's a mechanic where the only "counterplay" is to hope the enemy Rivens APM sucks. And that leaves Riven is this bizarre balance limbo where she's overpowered in the hands of people can have mastered that 1 mechanic and underpowered for everyone else.

The Bíg TicketApr 23, 20154 votes

The champ is dumb in general...you either see them stomping their lane no matter what champ they are playing against or they feed like hell and either go afk or are useless the whole game.

Dunkrius2gApr 24, 20152 votes

Then suddenly she gets a quadra with her ult... Kappa

TransgressorApr 23, 20154 votes

Riven is predictable, has no sustain without items(after the nerfs), is fearly squishy(after the nerfs) if she cant pull her E off properly and even if she can if she doesn't have enough AD it's really not that big of a deal. Her abilities are predictable in every aspect including animation canceling. Every single champion will become a bother one way or another once fed; Mundo for example can't really do shit damage but he can run around pissing people off with his 5k HP and ludicrous regeneration making it impossible for you to assasinate the adc. She gets easily countered and outsustained, and because of her kit's predictability she can be countered even more with player skill. If you remove one aspect of her, you HAVE to compensate in some other form. You want her to have a stronger stun? I don't think so. You want her to have a stronger shield that covers a bigger distance(longer dash) even without extra AD? You want her to be an actual impact early game even without items? Because the only thing she can do in early teamfights without items is disrupt with her Q+W and that is if she doesn't get kited, denied, CC'd away. Take away a crucial part of her, you'll have to deal with something I'm willing to bet you won't like. Riven is fine as is, people should start improving their skills, champion pools, adaptability and understanding of the game.

Rinky DinkyApr 23, 20153 votes

http://champion.gg/champion/Riven

I don't think Riven is really suffering atm lol

qetzelApr 23, 20151 votes

But look at that Player Experience Distribution chart. Despite her high pick rate, most of the people playing her could be considered "mains". More than half have more than 50 games played. That is incredibly high.

D1rtFarmerApr 23, 20153 votes

usually is with OP champions.

qetzelApr 23, 20152 votes

Perhaps you think they are OP because a higher proportion of people have more experience on them. That would naturally mean the people who play them have better mechanics on that champion.

AbyssphereApr 24, 20152 votes

{quoted}

usually is with OP champions.

Not really. Perceived "freelo" champs have people temporarily jumping on board the train and then jumping off. If you want champions who are highly mained then largely you go down to the underplayed/obscure champions like Anivia (who also has a very high proportion of players with over 50 games on her), because people just don't pick up champs like that casually.

Riven is legitimately one of the game's most mained champions and it's not because "OP". People just like her for some reason.

D1rtFarmerApr 25, 20151 votes

overplayed... overpowered... seem to come hand in hand...in my experience that is. the pattern.