Riven

Mike Teavee·Feb 17, 2015·22 votes·1,765 views

When will Riven actually see a substantial nerf? She has insane early game, insane mid game post-level 6, and insane teamfight. She really is hard to counter, especially with her mobility making CC hard to land. Not to mention if she is successfully cc'd, she can combo away with a shield that scales entirely off AD and shields for a crazy large amount. Plus having CC, an ult steroid that is up every 30-40 seconds, and high AoE damage output makes it difficult to CC someone that is knocking you up, stunning you, and one-shot bursting you. Riot is all about counterplay being entered into the game - so let's see the counterplay here.

29 Comments

67chromeFeb 17, 201511 votes

When will Riven actually see a substantial nerf? She has insane early game, insane mid game post-level 6, and insane teamfight.

Her mid game is pretty meh, her bases tapper off and her big-ticket items are not in her inventory by that point. You can 1v1 her with most fighters at that point and do ok, or simply dominate her with some others. The only aspect of mid-game that really benefits Riven is that, as a duelist, it's nice that towers having fallen allow decent map-movement and team-fight formations aren't that common, so it's the best time to force 1v1s outside of just trying to take on your lane opponent.

Also - her team fight is terrible.

Riven's only defensive mechanic to justify being a glass-cannon is her Valor shield, which just about any CC will prevent her from using. Compare that to Fiora/Yi/Fizz being untargetable, Kayle being invulnerable (and ranged, and having the capcity to turn anyone on her team invulnerable), Jax being immune to auto-attacks, or Poppy being invulnerable and immune to CC: all these champions, as fighters, also have lackluster team-fight pressnece, but they have more reliable survial mechanics than Riven.

Riven's mobility also sacrifices a significant amount of damage should she actually need to cover, say, 550 range - as she can easily burn through 2 Broken Wings casts without even hitting anything on that journey - not to mention everyone can see she's coming and do something to stop her. Most fighter/assassins with some level of mobility operate more on the 1-dash that sends them 650 range at their target in an instant, basically guaranteeing they'll land all of their kit's damage in an instant with minimal warning.

If Riven doesn't garner a significant lead - she can easily become dead-weight in a team fight. She's a melee-range glass-cannon.

She has insane early game, insane mid game post-level 6, and insane teamfight.

I'm not seeing this post as a solid break-down of a champion being insane.

It's much more a "QQ I was beat by Riven and am now salty about it" kind of deal.

YOU BEEN WARNEDFeb 17, 20155 votes

Nonesense, all the boxbox fanboys have at least 5% CDR in runes and get a brutalizer ASAP. You're underrating this item, it does miracles item 3134 .

Don't go telling me she has less MR because of this and that's a weakness, there is no real magic damage duelist pre-lvl9. It's extremely difficult to land skillshots on Riven because of her instant dashes. It's also impossible to land targeted abilities on her like Ryze Q because of travel time, she shields it right away.

Riven doesn't allow you to stand in your minion wave because she stuns it with 2 AoE abilities. Riven doesn't allow you to chase her because slows are meaningless to dashes, and ranged hard CCs are skillshots and she will dash from that. ( ie Chogath Q )

She can push lane with no punishment due to mobility or even pull off 1v2s, her laning phase is beyond ridiculous. I'd fight Renekton & Darius anyday.

Her teamfight is strong because she bullies so hard early on, just a item 3143 is usually enough as mage skillshots are irrelevant. Even if some guaranteed magic damage is going to hit riven this exists item 3155 .

Even if we say Riven somehow messed up early on, it's impossible to miss farm when using this item 3074 so falling off in terms of farm is hard. Also, mobility and CC don't fall off. Because of her mobility she can split push and escape most situations using this item 3142 .

See where this is going? Because of her kit design, there is very little risk for the Riven player because he will always demand someone to come to lane due to his waveclear with item 3074 and extreme difficulty of capture due to item 3142 .

Playing against Riven to me is not fun. I wish she had a niche like countering ranged champions e.g Gnar Kalista Teemo Jayce ( a noble cause I may add ) but no, she bullies the other melee champions e.g Aatrox Sion Trundle Tryndamere Jax DrMundo Rengar Nasus so darn hard with little to no punishment :/

19348180DEL1Feb 18, 20151 votes

[deleted]

YOU BEEN WARNEDFeb 18, 20151 votes

Yes, you can use it to your advantage if she messes up (like every champion, punish them when they mess up even Zed ). What do you do if the Riven is competent?

SchteltzerFeb 18, 20152 votes

-Riven main

OlafRagnarsonAug 7, 20154 votes

STFU. She is broken and you know it.

mvargusFeb 17, 20156 votes

Riven is right at a 50.10% win rate. Unless something shifts in the Meta she'll never see a nerf. She's in a comfortable spot.

If YOU have trouble beating her, that's you, not her being OP.

She can be counterplayed quite easily as her only CC is a 0.75 second stun with almost no range and the knock up after the 3rd broken wings Q which is again melee range. Any champion with a real CC ability can stop her combos just by timing them. Garen is great at this.

DlGNITYFeb 17, 20155 votes

Garen

The TrentFeb 18, 20153 votes

{quoted}

No one is going to play Garen out of bronze im sry

Ser GarlandFeb 18, 20151 votes

Garen's pretty damn strong since his recent buffs.

Pucking PurrfectFeb 17, 20155 votes

Riven and Kalista both need hardcore nerf imo.

19348180DEL1Feb 18, 20151 votes

item 3110 , I imagine, is pretty devastating to Kalista

YOU BEEN WARNEDFeb 17, 20155 votes

b, I hate Riven too.

Manage to beat her in lane with something? Too bad! There she roams for random kills and screws you up anyway.

TehNACHOFeb 17, 20154 votes

Or you could just build armor early on.

That was mostly a joke btw, most people that complain about laning against any kind of lane bully tend to be the same players who rush a damage item first and are extremely squishy early game - something all lane bullies are literally designed to abuse. It disappoints me to a large degree.

TeemoJenkinsFeb 17, 20154 votes

Garen - he can out bully her completely. Renekton also... solution to a big lane bully - find a bigger bully.

Darth Pixy MisaFeb 17, 20154 votes

Please build one or 2 of these early item 3082 item 3191 item 3047 item 1031

19348180DEL1Feb 18, 20151 votes

Yeah, this is the right idea. Randuin's Omen item 3143 is great against Riven. She is an all in champion, and its' active, along with the passive, is enough to make her assault feel shallow.

Snake TownApr 14, 20154 votes

Good old riven mains nothing better

{quoted}

Riven's only defensive mechanic to justify being a glass-cannon is her Valor shield, which just about any CC will prevent her from using. Compare that to Fiora/Yi/Fizz being untargetable, Kayle being invulnerable (and ranged, and having the capcity to turn anyone on her team invulnerable), Jax being immune to auto-attacks, or Poppy being invulnerable and immune to CC: all these champions, as fighters, also have lackluster team-fight pressnece, but they have more reliable survial mechanics than Riven.

Ok, lets be realistic here. Her, Q, W, and E all serve defensive purposes if need be and to ignore that is silly. She can stun, has good mobility, and can wall jump. Fiora and Yi also have no escapes, no cc, no sheilds, and no wall jumps. Fizz is the only comparable one there with his mobility, but he also has no ranged aoe nuke (if you call his R aoe it's because you're bad) and no aoe cc. Kayle's invulnerability is her ULT, so off the bat not comparable, and again we see larger risk due to no mobility, and little cc with a single target slow. Also you seem to have neglected the fact that that ult is a single target, if she ults someone its fairly easy to just attack someone else. "Jax being immune to autoattacks" ...Immune? Really? Looking at your quote on poppy you again seem to be just completely ignoring the actual limitations of these abilities just to get a point across, because your quote simply isn't true (but just in-case you forgot what her ult does I've included it below :) ).

Most fighter/assassins with some level of mobility operate more on the 1-dash that sends them 650 range at their target in an instant, basically guaranteeing they'll land all of their kit's damage in an instant with minimal warning.

Most fighter/assassins also don't have manaless abilities, short CD's, a shield, a dash (+3 extra dashes), a wall jump, and aoe stun, lifesteal (from her build), and an aoe nuke combined with combat steroids. So there's a larger degree of risk of dashing in.

It's much more a "QQ I was beat by Riven and am now salty about it" kind of deal.

But nice final touch on the argument.

Maximum ZileanFeb 18, 20153 votes

What kind of time portal did I step into this time? Is it season 3 all over again?

No, but really Riven's laning phase isn't actually all that good anymore, she gets destroyed by early game champions like Darius Garen Renekton

Her late game is good, but getting there against someone competent in lane is another thing.

Next time you see a Riven pick, and they get instantly counter picked by lets say Darius , i'm sure you will change your mind.

GottaGoToSpaceFeb 18, 20153 votes

Riven is incredibly squishy, melee, absolutely no sustain and pitiful health regeneration, has to use either her primary damage source or defense ability to gapclose, has an extremely long combo unless the Riven cancels animations perfectly, has no means to farm safely, and poor sustained damage. While she can punish mistakes hard and snowball better than practically any other champion, her weak teamfighting and dependence on items for significant damage all make her relatively balanced.

GunpointFeb 18, 20152 votes

Renekton and Alistar deal with her well, that aside what makes her so annoying is her ability to get multikills with an extremely small amount of health left. Yeah some other champions can do that too but Riven does it ALL the time and can essentially 3v1 any squishies. She's just overwhelming.

19348180DEL1Feb 18, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mike Teavee,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=scYUKyoM,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-02-17T22:10:54.719+0000)

When will Riven actually see a substantial nerf? She has insane early game, insane mid game post-level 6, and insane teamfight. She really is hard to counter, especially with her mobility making CC hard to land. Not to mention if she is successfully cc'd, she can combo away with a shield that scales entirely off AD and shields for a crazy large amount. Plus having CC, an ult steroid that is up every 30-40 seconds, and high AoE damage output makes it difficult to CC someone that is knocking you up, stunning you, and one-shot bursting you. Riot is all about counterplay being entered into the game - so let's see the counterplay here.

That shield did receive an already substantial nerf. It is only useful now when approaching, not departing. If you take note of how long it lasts, and cast your big damage half way through...

Riven is an All-In champion. So if you are playing passively and just trying to farm, you're giving her too much leeway. Try to kite and harass her, but don't let her use her passive ability on you whenever possible.

What you might want to do is look at the Riven guides that have video guides as well, and consider what makes her kit strong. It's not always about what is in your inventory so much as what you know about the champion.

metaworldpeace10Feb 17, 20151 votes

Any champion with hard cc can really hurt her. Renekton is a prime example, he can out trade her from the beginning of the game. Garen is a good choice, but falls off late, lissandra also gives her fits with her cc/mobility.

Vicarious117Feb 17, 20151 votes

Riven will most likely never be nerfed, however a mechanical buff is on the PBE's so maybe once that goes live and even more people find out how stupidly easy she is to play especially with the automatic animation canceling they have planned they'll nerf something else of hers.

Hopefully at least.

But yeah anyone who actually says she's hard to play isn't worth listening to on this matter, honestly it's like someone telling you how hard Garen is to play, just about as ridiculous honestly.

WheatloafFeb 18, 20151 votes

I'd just like to see her become a little less reliant on snowballing. Rivens that get ahead tend to faceroll, while those who fall behind tend to be just a little bit sad. It's fine if she still remains somewhat of a feast-or-famine champion, that identity just feels a little extreme to me at the moment.

Final Raid BossFeb 18, 20151 votes

"build armor" - every riven player builds armor pen, gg.

pls nerf rito

vIbvdOwbkoFeb 18, 20151 votes

yeah riven's pretty oppressive in solo queue in the right hands. i can see where ur comin from.

she's one of those champions that thrives on the weaknesses of solo queue players.

even tho u might have heard these a lot, these are some general tips against riven:

pick a laner that doesn't suck so you don't get her immensely fed.
a good jungler can destroy a riven.
this is probably the most important tip. "cc her."

I remember hearing a dumb counterargument to this statement a couple times that goes along the lines of "cc affects everyone equally" and it is pretty much one of the dumber things i heard here.

A CC'd riven can't cast her shield or any of her spells and is very squishy because she usually has all damage besides maybe one randuins or ga.

A CC'd Irelia will get out of CC in like 0.5 seconds and will proceed to deal insane damage to your carry despite having 3000 hp and 250 armor and 125 mr.

The last tip is to have peel or reliable hard CC. This is somewhat similar to the above tip. Riven has no real long range gap closer to get to backline in teamfights. You might argue that Riven can just use her Q and E to get there. By the time she does that she has no abilities to stick to a target or deal damage other than autoattacks and maybe windslash. Rivens don't usually engage teamfights, in fear of getting locked up and instakilled. They usually wait for the typical solo queue ADC to misposition and then jump in to deal quite a bit of damage. High peel or CC Champions like Janna or J4 can just press their buttons mindlessly to keep their ADC very safe from Riven.

Ser GarlandFeb 18, 20151 votes

I can set a Riven 0/6 in lane. It does nothing to stop her. How can she be a feast or famine champion when all she needs to do is get that 40 CDR to destroy anyone she wants and move half the map in 10 seconds?

StephenizgodFeb 18, 20151 votes

Garen Mordekaiser Fiora Darius Renekton Karma

In order from greatest to least how easy i bully Riven with them. Now Riven can outplay any of these champions but one way or another these champions have an edge on her in my opinion. Specially Garen Morde and Darius.