Irelia vs Riven Mechanical Difficulty?

T RexHasTinyArms·Jun 27, 2015·1 votes·1,365 views

I mained mid/top to gold, but have a super limited champion pool and am trying to expand it now so it's not an issue as I climb. I play mostly mechanically easy champs that win through rotations, team fight positioning/utility, and generally needing to out think rather than out play your opponent. (Strongest on heimer top/mid, and nunu jungle)

I'm pretty sure Maokai will end up in rotation, but high elo player appear to favor Riven, Rumble, Hecarim, Irelia, and sometimes Gnar. In terms of mechanics who would y'all say is harder, Irelia or Riven? I'm leaning toward picking up Irelia bc I worry I can't AA cancel well enough to pick up Riven well, and I generally struggle on assassins (really wanted to pick up Fizz but I suck at him) so I think Irelia is more bruiser and kinda tanky than Riven so maybe more forgiving?

22 Comments

ShinTwistJun 27, 20152 votes

Riven is a lot more difficult and has more mechanical depth. She's also not as strong as Irelia, even when mastered. If you play Riven you usually do so because she's fun as fuck, so, do you want fun? If you want fun, get Riven. If you want wins, get Irelia.

T RexHasTinyArmsJun 27, 20151 votes

Lol my issue is I don't find Riven's play style supper fun. It's bursty/flashy plays w/ her mobility. I like control. When I played magic in middle school I always ran blue/black discard/counter/whatever else control stuff. I LOVE Nunu play style of "wtf stay out of my jungle and quit taking all the barons/dragons. FUCK YOU NUNU!" and I found I love Heimerdinger play style of just control and poke then dive w/ turrets and they either give up tower or have to die defending it. So if Irelia is stronger (I guess maybe she's not at top tier or something bc there are sooo many more challenger players w/ more Riven games then Irelia games) then I'm definitely more likely to invest the time to learn Irelia properly.

Irelia BotJun 27, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasTinyArms,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=jo8JaoVt,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2015-06-27T19:19:10.637+0000)

Lol my issue is I don't find Riven's play style supper fun. It's bursty/flashy plays w/ her mobility. I like control. When I played magic in middle school I always ran blue/black discard/counter/whatever else control stuff. I LOVE Nunu play style of "wtf stay out of my jungle and quit taking all the barons/dragons. FUCK YOU NUNU!" and I found I love Heimerdinger play style of just control and poke then dive w/ turrets and they either give up tower or have to die defending it. So if Irelia is stronger (I guess maybe she's not at top tier or something bc there are sooo many more challenger players w/ more Riven games then Irelia games) then I'm definitely more likely to invest the time to learn Irelia properly.

You could try solo lane nunu. You will have a ton of control in lane but not scale the best.

T RexHasTinyArmsJun 27, 20151 votes

Yeah, I haven't this season just bc he's kinda more of a counter pick for top lane, but it's definitely something I should keep in mind as a pocket pick. I also like him w/ teams that have more than one AS reliant champ, like the ADC and Yi/Jax/Irelia/Teemo/Mid or Top second ADC. I could definitely break out Nunu top for teams w/ Yi jungle though and I hadn't even thought of that really :P Thanks.

ShinTwistJun 27, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasTinyArms,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=jo8JaoVt,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2015-06-27T19:19:10.637+0000)

Lol my issue is I don't find Riven's play style supper fun. It's bursty/flashy plays w/ her mobility. I like control. When I played magic in middle school I always ran blue/black discard/counter/whatever else control stuff. I LOVE Nunu play style of "wtf stay out of my jungle and quit taking all the barons/dragons. FUCK YOU NUNU!" and I found I love Heimerdinger play style of just control and poke then dive w/ turrets and they either give up tower or have to die defending it. So if Irelia is stronger (I guess maybe she's not at top tier or something bc there are sooo many more challenger players w/ more Riven games then Irelia games) then I'm definitely more likely to invest the time to learn Irelia properly.

Firstly: Play AP Shaco.

Secondly:

http://champion.gg/champion/Irelia http://champion.gg/champion/Riven

Irelia's winrate is better at all levels of experience than Riven's, Riven's overall winrate is better because of her skewed player distribution. More than half of the people playing Riven could be called mains, about 60% in fact, the highest of any champion.

ShuffledPancakeJun 27, 20151 votes

irelia is harder if you are getting poked, riven is harder if your against like a super slower or a hec maybe.

MLDzXnRRRJun 27, 20151 votes

Irelia is assasin... Her playpattern is of assasin who chunks you with burst of spells. She is not the type of champion who goes in and fights to the death. She is not really tanky like Mao or Sion etc, she doesn't have any tanking bonuses, she has CC reduction passive meant to help her DPS without getting peeled from the carries. Hecarim brings more to his team than Ire or Riven, pick him.

DedriusJun 27, 20152 votes

Irelia is an anti-carry bruiser, not an assassin who is great at dueling and dishing out sustained damage. She is meant to be built tanky after Tri force, she is not meant to be like a talon or zed who try to blow someone up and jump out, she is meant to jump on a carry and use her dps to force them out of the fight or peel tanks off of carries.

MLDzXnRRRJun 27, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Irelia is an anti-carry bruiser, not an assassin who is great at dueling and dishing out sustained damage. She is meant to be built tanky after Tri force, she is not meant to be like a talon or zed who try to blow someone up and jump out, she is meant to jump on a carry and use her dps to force them out of the fight or peel tanks off of carries.

You can watch Irelia's spotlight, she was clearly meant to be DPS like Yi and company, not TRif + tank. She can't outdps other melee carries like Jax, Yi and so on in 1v1, but she can beat them chunking with spells and healing with her passive = this is typical assasin pattern.

DedriusJun 27, 20151 votes

If you look at any high elo Irelia player they will build irelia as a bruiser with Tri force and full tank, with possibly 1 other damage item thrown in depending on the game, she may build more damage if she is very fed.

On champion.GG her highest win rate build is tri force, one other damage item (Botrk in this case) and then full tank. After 400 irelia games last season this is what I also found to be the build that yielded the best results on her.

T RexHasTinyArmsJun 27, 20151 votes

Chunking w/ spells and healing sounds more like poke mage style than assassin honestly. When I think assassin I think "wait for the opportunity to 100-0 a squishy out of position" but when I think poke/control mage it's more "whittle them lower while staying safe/sustaining and when they get low enough go for burst combo/dive." At least that's the way I play Heimer and I definitely wouldn't call him an assassin.

MLDzXnRRRJun 27, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasTinyArms,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=jo8JaoVt,comment-id=0001000000000001,timestamp=2015-06-27T19:14:11.135+0000)

Chunking w/ spells and healing sounds more like poke mage style than assassin honestly. When I think assassin I think "wait for the opportunity to 100-0 a squishy out of position" but when I think poke/control mage it's more "whittle them lower while staying safe/sustaining and when they get low enough go for burst combo/dive." At least that's the way I play Heimer and I definitely wouldn't call him an assassin.

No Assasin can 100 to 0 you untill midgame, when they get dmg items, but you don't get any tankiness. Zed, LB, Talon etc all rely on poke before they can try to kill with ignite. If ignite wasn't in the game most of the assasin would have like no kill potential aside from ganks. Irelia build full AD or Ap can burst 1 person similar to any assasin

T RexHasTinyArmsJun 27, 20151 votes

Yeah I was definitely thinking mid game (at leas lvl 6 plus) and I just hadn't ever seen someone burst w/ Irelia like that. Cool to know it's doable, I'd just never seen her pop someone the way LB, Fizz, Zed, Talon, Etc can.

Irelia BotJun 27, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Irelia is assasin... Her playpattern is of assasin who chunks you with burst of spells. She is not the type of champion who goes in and fights to the death. She is not really tanky like Mao or Sion etc, she doesn't have any tanking bonuses, she has CC reduction passive meant to help her DPS without getting peeled from the carries. Hecarim brings more to his team than Ire or Riven, pick him.

Tl;DR you will have to try both and see which clicks with you better, that being said. Both have assassin as their secondary trait and it fits both as well.

Here are some comparisons between them.

Irelia has solid sustain built in her kit, Riven does not and instead has to rely on good use of her shield.

Riven has good wave clear that is not at the cost of using her ult or and has no mana. Irelia tends to have mana issues if using Q to kill everything for faster clearing or has to burn her ult leaving her in a less threatening state.

Irelia's mobility is locked to only enemy units while Riven has mobility that she can use in which every way she wants.

Riven tends to snowball harder but Irelia has a generally easier time getting the snowball rolling consistently but it tends to not be as devastating of a snowball since some things in her kit like her true damage are limited to a max of 75 damage on hit. Bopt tend to fall off late game to some degree though which is to be expected.

Both have the means to get to the back line and stick well to a target in a team fight. Both are solid duelists and both have some form of CC although Rivens is more reliable while Irelia's can be more devastating.

Both at this point in time are mostly physical damage unless Irelia builds Wit's end which is hit and miss for being worth getting. Think of this as making Irelia a little more diverse in what she is able to build force the enemy to not jsut build armor and still be effective.

All this being said Riven has more Easter eggs in her kit that makes becoming a true master of her more challenging. Be it wall hoping (this has always been something that could be done even in season 2 just was really hard to do back then) or AA animation canceling or the fact that you can flash during her third Q to mess with someone's head, there are a some things that the average player won't have a good grasp of dealing with if you really master Riven. But I mean really mastering Riven.

Irelia on the other hand does require some planing to give yourself the best chance of winning in lane. If you are able to damage minions to be low enough to Q to them and kill them as a way to get next to the enemy champ then you can use the Q refresh to get more damage on the enemy champ or chase them better.

I will also say that Irelia tends to be more even in lane matchups all around in that basically everyone can be dealt with. Riven has some which are basically always going to set her back which in turn means that her snowball is less likely to take off and Rivne when behind tends to have a harder time coming back.

T RexHasTinyArmsJun 27, 20151 votes

This is an awesome response. Thank you so much for taking the time to do it. Sounds like Irelia is a slightly lower skill cap, but a little safe and more consistent. That is probably more up my ally since I tend to struggle with high risk high reward because I get greedy.

Given your name you may just know Irelia really well, but if you're a top main what would you suggest considering for champion pool? I played almost all Heimer climbing to gold bc I could top or mid and so it was easy to end up with a lane I could play the same champ on each game. However, I've been duoing w/ a mid main who is around my level (he's mechanically better than me and wins lane harder, but I'd argue I probably make better calls on rotations, objectives, team play stuff, so we work well playing together) and he was talking about maybe starting a ranked 5s together so I figured I'd work on focusing top lane.

I really like Heimer top bc he's such a bully and pushes so fast. Darius is pretty fun bc he is another bully and a good pull can win team fights mid/late by just deleting their carry and having enough tank stats that if the enemy focuses you they usually have to spend more abilities than they want to before team fighting, so if you can kill the carry you pull the team fight is easy for your allies even if you die. I'm also loving Maokai bc his initiation is powerful, he brings a lot of utility, and his skills are super easy to use (plus there is a surprising amount of outplay potential w/ his w and the moment of dropping aggro and not being targeted). I tend to like tanky utility/initiation (although Heimer doesn't fit that he does bring good initation w/ ult E and could counter engage w/ ult Q, plus great objective and zone control for siege and drag/baron) like Nunu jg and Annie support (she's just easy for low elo to realize when they should go in and who to focus bc of the huge flaming bear indicator). I was thinking Irelia would give me a decent option for damage/carry top if the team has initiation and tank from jg and support, but would you suggest anything else for me to pick up? So far my mechanics/laning is probably mid gold level at best and I've been getting by w/ better team work than enemies and making sound calls for my team (they usually trust me after the first one that they didn't think I was right on and it works super easy), so high skill champs aren't generally my most successful.

Thanks in advance for any advice, sry for the wall of text. :D

Irelia BotJun 27, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=T RexHasTinyArms,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=jo8JaoVt,comment-id=000100010000,timestamp=2015-06-27T19:34:24.543+0000)

This is an awesome response. Thank you so much for taking the time to do it. Sounds like Irelia is a slightly lower skill cap, but a little safe and more consistent. That is probably more up my ally since I tend to struggle with high risk high reward because I get greedy.

Given your name you may just know Irelia really well, but if you're a top main what would you suggest considering for champion pool? I played almost all Heimer climbing to gold bc I could top or mid and so it was easy to end up with a lane I could play the same champ on each game. However, I've been duoing w/ a mid main who is around my level (he's mechanically better than me and wins lane harder, but I'd argue I probably make better calls on rotations, objectives, team play stuff, so we work well playing together) and he was talking about maybe starting a ranked 5s together so I figured I'd work on focusing top lane.

I really like Heimer top bc he's such a bully and pushes so fast. Darius is pretty fun bc he is another bully and a good pull can win team fights mid/late by just deleting their carry and having enough tank stats that if the enemy focuses you they usually have to spend more abilities than they want to before team fighting, so if you can kill the carry you pull the team fight is easy for your allies even if you die. I'm also loving Maokai bc his initiation is powerful, he brings a lot of utility, and his skills are super easy to use (plus there is a surprising amount of outplay potential w/ his w and the moment of dropping aggro and not being targeted). I tend to like tanky utility/initiation (although Heimer doesn't fit that he does bring good initation w/ ult E and could counter engage w/ ult Q, plus great objective and zone control for siege and drag/baron) like Nunu jg and Annie support (she's just easy for low elo to realize when they should go in and who to focus bc of the huge flaming bear indicator). I was thinking Irelia would give me a decent option for damage/carry top if the team has initiation and tank from jg and support, but would you suggest anything else for me to pick up? So far my mechanics/laning is probably mid gold level at best and I've been getting by w/ better team work than enemies and making sound calls for my team (they usually trust me after the first one that they didn't think I was right on and it works super easy), so high skill champs aren't generally my most successful.

Thanks in advance for any advice, sry for the wall of text. :D

If you are looking for another carry top that has control of the lane the only other ones to consider are Hec and Panth but both tend to have some mana issues.

Karma can work but she kinda turns into a bit of another support late game kinda like solo lane lulu but it is something to consider since she does have a decent ability to control the lane and some kind of escape.

Most of these are something you will have to feel out yourself cause knowing damage output and when is a good time to go in is not something that is instant knowledge from the first time you play.

DedriusJun 27, 20151 votes

Irelia is mechanically easier than riven mainly because you can use 1 combo in a majority of cases. Q a low life creep near the enemy>E the enemy for a stun>turn on W and AA>R if you have it and weave it in to get Sheen procs>Q a creep to disengage or Q the enemy to chase or deal a last bit of damage.

Riven's kit can be used in a lot of different situations compared to Irelias. That being said Riven, when mastered, can be a major threat at all elos and it is almost impossible to beat an expert riven.

Project RivenJun 27, 20151 votes

They are both pretty easy to pick up if you don't plan on animation cancelling, which most people don't.

Animation cancelling might sound like the way to go to deal more damage but it is also easier to screw up your Q AA combo, which can put you far behind in a 1v1 trade or harass. You can mess up by accidentally right clicking a minion or something.

Without doing the cancelling, you're getting guaranteed Q AA hits.

But overall, Irelia is the better choice because she outscales insanely late game.

SS EnforcerJun 27, 20151 votes

Step 1. Ignore the two mentioned champions

Step 2. Master Darius

Step 3. ???

Step 4. Acquire LP

T RexHasTinyArmsJun 27, 20151 votes

Lol yeah actually I'd been playing some Darius and really enjoying him. I suppose that's a really good point since I'm only gold level so I can pretty much play whatever I want and win games as long as I get good enough w/ it :P

SS EnforcerJun 27, 20151 votes

Based on my experience, Darius is a beast in silver/gold. It's the durn easiest thing to just snowball and carry your team. Especially because Darius is much easier to play than Riven, and much more fun than Irelia.