Boards›Gameplay

So it's pretty much unanimously agreed that..

Apocalypsic··3 votes·534 views

Champions win rates increase with play rate and experience.

Example- Yorick

How come for a champion that is supposed to be a monster in the hands of masters, Riven, she has an insanely low win rate for players with large amounts of games played?

I love her immensely, she's so fun to play. But lately again she feels like people just do her job better.

She's insanely squishy even with her shield and mobility, and quite honestly her damage is nothing special at all anymore. Tanks can burst carries in this day in age, full armor malphite for instance can 100-0 a carry while simultaneously being an indomitable monster.

Kled is tanky for free, Fiora has true damage, Olaf goes into a CC immune berserker rage, Yasuo can instantly gap close and apply massive armor shred. I could go on but my point is most fighters have better tools of the trade now. But you look at Riven and see horrible base damages, trades her own damage to use it as mobility, insanely low health and health regen for a melee, and really honestly telegraphed gameplay. Yes other champs have weaknesses too but more and more people seem to be agreeing that Riven isn't strong anymore. People think she's a joke and honestly it's pretty shitty.

Yeah she can 1v1 well, but it's nigh impossible nowadays to apply the impact and pressure a champion of her caliber and learning curve should be able to in teamfights with the insane amounts of CC and damage being tossed around. Even with QSS you're likely to die before you can reach a back line, even when flanking.

She's in an ok state right now, much better than the roadside ditch riot left her in pre season and most of season six, but she also feels lackluster at the same time. She kind of feels like the spark that made her Riven is gone. And I really don't think this buff is gonna make her strong, not to the level she should be.

TLDR: I think Riven isn't rewarding to learn anymore compared to a large number or other picks and really could use some loving other than just an ult buff. Fun, but not reliable or rewarding.

There is nothing that can justify such a large experienced player base having such a low win rate at 125+ games, hovering around 50% is pathetic for that kind of experience.

16 Comments

SwiftKitten883 votes

the problem with riven is her animation canceling

they can't really balance her without making her be either OP or weak in one of the elos because of it

Apocalypsic1 votes

{quoted}

the problem with riven is her animation canceling

they can't really balance her without making her be either OP or weak in one of the elos because of it

Not to sound biased but I'm inclined to disagree with you on that, her animation canceling is REQUIRED to keep up with the damage potential of other champs nowadays.

To put it bluntly, a good Riven has to try roughly at least a couple of times harder than a Darius of the same skill level to perform in the game. Just as an example. Stepping even remotely out of line with Riven results in death and she honestly doesn't get properly rewarded anymore for the dedication and effort it takes to master and play her.

Animation canceling doesn't make her broken. It's the only reason she isn't completely unviable, and it's still not enough.

Lost R1 votes

Yeah, that's pretty much the crux of her menace. I don't like it, myself, that she gets so many attack animation cancels with just one spell. It's alright if it's one cancel like Wukong or Darius (there are more, but they are the top examples), but Riven can animation cancel on EVERY skill, and it boosts her damage due to her passive, AND she is resourceless.

A champion's menace shouldn't exist so heavily on attack animation cancels. It's kind of an exploit already with the aforementioned Darius and Wukong and the rest of the unspoken roster that takes advantage of this (or maybe that's the point), but it's not egregious; it feels like you are being rewarded by squeezing a little extra power out of that champion's kit by timing your hits. With Riven, though, that's half of the damage she's going to deal, and it's not at least done in a tasteful way. She feels very sloppy doing it, not unlike old Ryze with his spell cycles.

I would probably nominate Riven to get a kit rework so she feels like a more robust fighter and less like a Buster Sword-wielding bunny on roller skates.

Apocalypsic1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lost R,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oT9HHAo5,comment-id=00000001,timestamp=2016-08-22T00:31:22.590+0000)

Yeah, that's pretty much the crux of her menace. I don't like it, myself, that she gets so many attack animation cancels with just one spell. It's alright if it's one cancel like Wukong or Darius (there are more, but they are the top examples), but Riven can animation cancel on EVERY skill, and it boosts her damage due to her passive, AND she is resourceless.

A champion's menace shouldn't exist so heavily on attack animation cancels. It's kind of an exploit already with the aforementioned Darius and Wukong and the rest of the unspoken roster that takes advantage of this (or maybe that's the point), but it's not egregious; it feels like you are being rewarded by squeezing a little extra power out of that champion's kit by timing your hits. With Riven, though, that's half of the damage she's going to deal, and it's not at least done in a tasteful way. She feels very sloppy doing it, not unlike old Ryze with his spell cycles.

I would probably nominate Riven to get a kit rework so she feels like a more robust fighter and less like a Buster Sword-wielding bunny on roller skates.

I kind of disagree once again. Animation canceling isn't extra power, it's what she has to do to even compete with other champions.

Lost R1 votes

You missed the part where I agreed with you.

A champion's menace shouldn't exist so heavily on attack animation cancels.

With Riven, though, that's half of the damage she's going to deal, and it's not at least done in a tasteful way. She feels very sloppy doing it, not unlike old Ryze with his spell cycles.

So basically the performance gap between people can do it and people who cannot is less of a gap and more of a canyon. Or abyss. That's not good design.

Apocalypsic1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lost R,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oT9HHAo5,comment-id=0000000100000000,timestamp=2016-08-22T00:36:32.559+0000)

You missed the part where I agreed with you.

My apologies. Not to be sound rude but I don't really find people agreeing on anything positive for Riven ever on the boards.

So yeah, I do apologize for the combative nature of my response.

OneMustFall1 votes

You're missing the point. She is balanced around the fact she can animation cancel. If she wasn't then she would be broken in lower elos. She already is tough to deal with for players Gold and below.

Apocalypsic1 votes

{quoted}

You're missing the point. She is balanced around the fact she can animation cancel. If she wasn't then she would be broken in lower elos. She already is tough to deal with for players Gold and below.

She fails to perform her role effectively compared to the active roster of like champions, at all Elo's.

Anyone on any champ can pub stomp low Elo games, but that's not my point.

On equal footing against players of SIMILAR skill level she simply is just not rewarding enough to justify her difficulty and the effort it takes to play her effectively.

Everyone keeps citing animation canceling without understanding that it's a literal requirement to keeping up with the rest of the pack, it's not extra power. It's basically her entire power budget.

Ralanr1 votes

I think the main issue is that because she doesn't have the high damage output that she used to have, people don't gravitate towards her as more because there are other champions that do her job better.

Honestly my main concern is that Riven is too mechanics intensive to allow herself to be strong without becoming obnoxious. She's not just hard to play well for her player, but she's incredibly difficult to counter against, even against Riven players that don't know her very well.

If they were going to meaningfully buff her back to being good in top, they'd have to take out some power elsewhere to compensate. What everyone that doesn't play her wants gone is her animation canceling, which allows her to do stupid amounts of damage when her damage output is great.

Honestly Riven's complexity is the reason why she can't be allowed to be too powerful. If she is, even poor Riven players stomp and it's agonizing. Her current state is probably why we've seen less toxic Riven's, which I see as a blessing.

God Raijin1 votes

The thing that players dont think about when they comprehend "games played of a champion vs winrate," is that often, the players you are playing against have just as many games on their champion as you do. Not always, but if you are playing ranked, you can guess they have quite a few on the champ they are playing. basically cancelling out the "i've played so many games on her advantage"

Apocalypsic1 votes

[{quoted}](name=God Raijin,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oT9HHAo5,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-08-22T00:25:01.595+0000)

The thing that players dont think about when they think about games played of a champion vs winrate, is that often the players you are playing against have just as many games on their champion as you do. Not always, but if you are playing ranked, you can guess they have quite a few on the champ they are playing. basically cancelling out the "i've played so many games on her advantage"

To be fair I could just reverse your statement and apply the same logic to reasoning why other match ups should not have such any easy time against her.

She fails even at the highest level to perform her role to the degree she should be able to.

You need only look at the small pool of high Elo dedicated players left that actually still care to play her to see that, she's pitifully unrewarded and outclassed by other fighter/melee carries, for the effort it takes to play her.

God Raijin1 votes

Well sure, I'm not saying she's in a great spot right now, she is getting a buff and all that; but to be fair, she's basically been an OP pick, or at least very strong depending on who's playing her almost since RELEASE. It seems fine for her to be underpowered, or at least not as rewarding for a season or so. I feel like virtually every champion falls out from the top from time to time and I feel like it is as good a time as any for it to be hers. There are so many other champions who hardly ever see the spotlight or even get to a healthy state and if they do, they get struck down as fast as they came up, like when challenging smite warwick got up to a 60% winrate overnight and then he was basically not played again after that.

Arakadia1 votes

full armor malphite for instance can 100-0 a carry while simultaneously being an indomitable monster.

Unless malph is fed I can't see this happening.

Apocalypsic1 votes

{quoted}

Unless malph is fed I can't see this happening.

I dunno, I've seen a full malph combo completely destroy an ADC, coming from an even malphite.

Ralanr1 votes

To be fair, it isn't hard to kill an ADC that isn't being peeled properly. Unless you are a support.

Weiner the Pooh1 votes

Riven does not have a low win rate with a lot of games played. her win rate at 125+ games is 54%. No that's not extremely high for that much experience, but neither is it low, in fact its decently high, just not extremely high. With an average win rate of 50.7%(kinda high for a supposedly high skill champ) that goes up to 54% at 125+ there is no way or how that is so low. I don't know where you're seeing it as that low, but 50% is for all players, not just those with a lot of experience. Compare it to Fiora. Another supposedly high skill champ, with an average win rate of 48.8 and a whopping 50.5% win rate at 125+. Riven's average win rate is higher than another high skill champs most skilled win rate. There is no reason to complain about Riven's win rates, she has it far better than other champs with much better statistics in all scenarios. Higher win rate(average) higher win rate(experienced) and a higher pick rate than most other high skill champs.

Its other champs too, Zed: Average win rate is 47% with the most experienced being 53(pretty close to Riven) and I'm pretty sure no one is calling him weak.

Lee Sin: Average win rate is 47% with the most experienced being 49%. Again, people want this champ nerfed.

Vayne: Average win rate is 47.07% capping at 49.6 at 125+ games.

Food for thought.

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