Boards›Gameplay

Animation Canceling is a power gate, not an advantage

Arya Riven··4 votes·533 views

Now for some truth. Aside from the fact that many champions can cancel part of, or entire animations, and perform some abilities in combination with others. And aside from the fact that anybody can cancel the end of basic attack animations by moving or using an ability. The fact is, it is a gate, not an advantage.

Riven does absolutely shitty when you first pick her up. As you can see a 41% win rate 1-5 games(except right after a patch or hotfix when numbers are thrown into flux).

Meanwhile when mastered she gets up to 57-62% win rates. The thing is. Most dedicated mains get 57-62% win rates on their main champion. However, because Riven has more dedicated mains than anyother champion, due to being fun, strong, fast pace, pretty to look at and having a nice lore, it inflates her win rates.

This is because animation canceling is a power gate. Without it Riven is kind of bad. Like the champion has few tools to effectively be used in high tier play and is squishy as heck, without being able to perform combos and speed up her burst to - hardly more than a fed Divers speed.

If this was taken away. Rather than being nerfed, Riven would require massive buffs to let her mains perform as well as any other dedicated mains. Essentially you closed the gate to her power and now others must be opened.

This means getting back her base stats, some scalings, some tankiness, some real HP sustain in lane. Perhape even a duration buff to her tiny .75 second stun. Meaning, to keep Riven viable for the mains and pro players. She would receive buffs across the board that would make her a nightmare in Bronze-Plat where she averages negative win rates right now.

To be honest. She might become impossible to balance for all tiers of play.

Meanwhile, if she received only a small nerf currently to say her passive, which would bring her in line with good Riven players who know how to cancel and weave AAs. Without hurting her low tier much. She would be in a healthy spot for the most part.

"Be careful what you wish for, in case in might come true."

12 Comments

Aptest5 votes

Ok. This is all correct. However let me be the devil's advocate for a moment. please note that this is just me playing devil's advocate:

Animation canceling is something you must be able to do on riven, in order to succeed with her. However the skill is completely between the player and the computer. It is not something that the other player can interact with in any meaningful way.

Animation canceling on riven is like learning how to do a special move or super combo in street fighter. Utterly essential for making the character "work", but ultimately not something that the other player interacts with. I.E. it adds to the difficulty of the champion because the stats of the champion depend on it (in riven's case, the speed of the animations), but it does not contribute to the "gameplay" of the character.

Ultimately in this game (unlike in street fighter) this kind of skill does not really add moves to the character. It just gives stats. So maybe giving the stats in another way is not really that bad of an idea?

Arya Riven1 votes

I will repeat what I said to others.

Riven was rebalanced around Animation cancelling. Her base stats, scalings, lane sustain and base damages all took hits over the years. It is no longer a power boost but just essential to use her full power. Which other champions do without the effort.

She is slightly overtuned right now. But animation canceling isn't why. It is a raw numbers issue.

Aptest4 votes

Yes, I understand. I am not saying riven is over tuned (i don't know). Actually I would like to see more riven in my games (i do not think she is intrinsically unhealthy as a champion). And if riven players like her as she is maybe riot can make another character and call her S(t)iven that is like riven with no AA canceling.

My point is this though: As a power gate, what kind of allure does animation canceling bring? It makes you think you have mad skills, but actually the skill you are using for this specific gate is of the lowest class. A WW on top lane (ok old WW) has to spend 10 times more skill to successfully fight a riven than the riven spends on AA canceling. If all that skill you are spending goes into something else (like, a special attack or a super combo? riven is kinda a street fighter character), isn't it going to be more fun?

Arya Riven1 votes

Animation canceling allows Riven to perform combos and advanced maneuvers. As one example. Go into a custom game and use Riven's third Q. Now use E+Third Q. Feel the difference. Same for W vs E+W. These are some of the easiest to pull off ones. But they combine and mix the skills. Technically any champion can override one animation with another command. It just works best on Riven because of her kit design. I think it is a wonderful facet of the characters design.

I prefer her balanced around it existing. Which honestly makes her more fair. Pre-Canceling Riven was tuned so high for top tier play viability that she gained the hatred she has till this day. Players discovered canceling and Riot tuned her numbers around it. Making them able to balance her for low tiers and high. As it gives her more power in high tier play. Less in low tier play. Keeping her 'obnoxious' kit from needing buffs to stay viable in Diamond+.

People get so concerned with "original design intent" that they forget League itself has been dozens of different games in different patches. None like it's original release intent.

Aptest4 votes

"original design intent"

I think that the moment a champion goes live, "original design intent" is a moot point. I only concern myself with "emergent design".

I like riven as a character. I think she brings joy to her players and she is not obnoxious and she doesn't do the "im just gonna right click you late game and i have more stats than you do" and throughout the entire game no matter how fed she is I feel I can definitely outplay her and come up on top.

also a lot of people really like her. And honestly I find that the "riven hatred" is outright unjustified i have a lot more issues with Pantheon and Jax players.

Arya Riven1 votes

Love how people are up voting you and downvoting me when we are having a civil discussion mostly in agreement. Goes to show the immense bias the boards have, having Riven in your name is basically social suicide while having Morde in your name is automatically upvotes.

Whining aside. I hate pantheon. Because he hard counters... laning period. But I don't hate players of any single champion or class.

Riven hatred was spurred when she was drastically overtuned in S2. Many FotM players sucked at her and grew the Toxic Riven Main meme. She was nerfed hard, then again as Animation canceling was coming into light.

Aptest3 votes

lol. no worries i can be downvoted as well: you should see what happens when i talk about Rengar.

Riven hatred (by top lane players) probably comes from the same place as Yasuo hatred and Lulu hatred. A lot of tools to basically dictate the terms of every trade. Which makes playing simpler characters sometimes a chore.

Arya Riven1 votes

I have no problems with any champions. Some have poor designs, but those are mostly linear stat sticks like Morde and Garen who need some work. Like the new Warwick, he is awesome, they need that kind of work.

Cocho1 votes

{quoted}

Ultimately in this game (unlike in street fighter) this kind of skill does not really add moves to the character. It just gives stats. So maybe giving the stats in another way is not really that bad of an idea?

This argument reminds me of 'tech' in a smash bros melee.

Many characters have character specific techniques that works because of how the game's mechanics work. Some people see them as bugs, others just see them as techniques to use and master.

These techniques help separate good players from great players. There's a bigger gap because of this.

Alot of these techniques are much harder than animation cancelling with riven. Some of them don't occur 100% of the time, because of differences in gamecube controllers, even if inputted correctly.

In a game of league though, with that involved, its hard to balance a champ around the good players, rather than the less skilled ones.

These issues become worse when that champ isn't quite viable on the competitive scene.

I main Katarina ,

Imo, old kat was easier to balance. There's less for a less skilled player to worry about and micromanage.

Many of these techniques have already been removed for new kat. Some of them actual bugs, others working because of how her spells work.

I would say,

I'd like for riot to leave these with riven, and 'balance' her around that. But that's pretty hard to do, I don't know what they can do. It's hard to use her at her full potential, and most people wont get anywhere close to it.

In smash there's tier lists, and people don't really care. That's how fighters are. People will accept that their character is worse from an objective standpoint, and still continue to play that character.

In league, theres this false fantasy that every character is equal to each other. We just look at winrates, and judge it by that.

Sahn Uzal4 votes

I'd say it's not ''A power gate OR an advantage'', I'd say it gates her power, but potentially increases it. It's both.

Regardless, I do not think getting rid of it is the way to go.

LordGeovanni3 votes

Riven was Designed to work with out animation canceling animation canceling is a large boost to her power that other champions cant deal with in most situations because they dont get to increase their dps like that

Arya Riven1 votes

Riven was rebalanced around Animation cancelling. Her base stats, scalings, lane sustain and base damages all took hits over the years. It is no longer a power boost but just essential to use her full power. Which other champions do without the effort.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Arya Riven

League of Legends, then vs now
Gameplay177 comments
363
votes
How game Devs seem to balance
Gameplay233 comments
191
votes
Why Riot cannot balance healing/regen/sustain/lifesteal/spellvamp/omni-vamp
Gameplay177 comments
172
votes
Upvote farming 101
Memes & Games68 comments
123
votes
Tanks are the healthiest class in LoL
Gameplay238 comments
102
votes
Why Garen is just "Worse Darius", power budgeting and fallibility
Gameplay149 comments
85
votes