The design direction of the experimental Riven Changes
This essay is listed in my "Master List of Essay Threads" under the title "On The design direction of the experimental Riven Changes"
Let's examine what the changes are, and what they reveal about the direction they are intended to push Riven in.
First, the new resource currently named 'Edge'. Edge is similar to fury or rage in that it starts at 0, increased through aggressive play, provides benefits depending on how much you have, decays over time if you stop generating any for a while, and can be consumed to power up an ability. Riven gains 20 edge whenever she procs her passive on an enemy champion up to a maximum of 100, and edge decays by 10 per second after riven has not proc'd her passive for 10 seconds. She gains 1% damage for each 10 edge for a maximum damage bonus of 10% with a full edge bar. Casting windslash will consume all of rivens edge and will proportionally scale up windslash damage in the same manner as it used to be scaled up based on % missing hp.
On a separate note, Riven can no longer hold multiple stacks of her passive.
What does this mean for riven? What has she lost from this?
The first major effect is that riven has lost the ability to enter into a teamfight and perform a variant of the third q hydra stun windslash combo to instantly deal as much damage to a squishy out of position target as before. This is because windslash now scales with edge and such an engagement would permit time for at most 2 passive procs before the windslash if the goal was to finish the combo while the enemy is cc'd or before riven can be peeled. This would provide 40 edge from an assumed 0 to start as riven cannot prepare edge in the same way other champions can prepare fury due to edge only being generated by procing rivens passive on enemy champions.
Additionally, rivens ability to quickly double cast ult to snipe a low hp enemy under tower or similar has been greatly reduced as without edge her windslash will always do the minimum damage - that is to say the damage that windslash wold do to a max hp enemy on live.
Finally, because riven can no longer gain multiple stacks of her passive riven loses the ability to stick around after her spell rotation is down and get any significant extra damage off on an enemy who is fleeing for their live by using up leftover passive stacks. This significantly weakens rivens ability to finish off enemies at very low levels (1-3). This does not otherwise impact riven's damage as there are no common combos that use multiple auto attacks in a row while there are still spells ready to be used, meaning that every auto weaved into a combo will still be empowered by rivens passive. A full basic combo that weaves an auto in after every spell will generate exactly enough edge to fill the bar from 0 to max.
What does riven gain from this?
Her resource bar is no longer empty so that's neat.
While her windslash has become a little more difficult to use at full power, it's damage will be more consistent across targets as damage dealt will be based on how much edge riven has prepared which is something riven has much more control over than the %hp of various enemies who might be in range of her windslash. It will damage them all equally rather than only really hurting low hp targets and tickling high hp ones.
It rewards riven with more damage than before for making multiple consecutive trades in lane to build up the edge meter. In mid to late game teamfights that last longer than a handful of seconds, she will do much more damage than before due to the additional 10% from edge.
In an extended skirmish or in laning phase, riven will have built up her edge meter to max and could thusly cast windslash more freely at any time during the battle without losing damage the way she would have before by casting it when the target was not low hp. This is important because it allows riven to have an easier time against champions who could easily dodge, block, or otherwise mitigate windslash due to knowing to expect it when they get low (fizz, elise, vlad, yi, garen, fiora, braum, yasuo all come to mind immediately).
It allows riven to build slightly tankier while still dealing the same damage due to receiving 10% bonus damage from max edge meter.
With edge meter built up, the persistent bonus damage will make it easier to cs (especially under tower) since it will stick around as long as you have edge meter unlike passive charges which each only help get 1 cs before being consumed.
What do these changes show about what riot wants out of riven?
They decided to trim some of the power she didn't need (some super early game kill potential, some 'sniping' kill potential, some 'show up to the fight late and clean up just by double casting ult' potential). In exchange they gave her a resource to manage that will allow her to deal more damage overall and specifically more consistent windslash damage as long as she actually participates in a fight in a meaningful way.
The edge meter will give riven players more satisfying windows of power and provide clarity to enemy players on when riven is strong similarly to how renekton and tryndamere's resources function.
This is a powershift for riven, taking some of her early game kill potential and mid game 'ks'ing power' and trading it for increased overall damage and more control over the power and timing of when to use windslash in a duel or team fight. It also adds a bit of clarity with the resource bar which can give riven and enemy players better insight into her windows of power.
