Some Clarity on Riven

Some meme's never die. The Riven is unstoppable and unfair meme is one of them. Let's go over Riven a little. Before we start, I personally do believe playing her to perfection is rewarded a bit too much, see my thread about nerfing her scalings and E cooldown while buffing her base stats a little. So keep that in mind before posting "But top tier Riven's are so common!" I know that. And agree with you. I am not arguing her top tier power only her kit design. That aside, let's begin.

#"Nothing Counters Riven!" Riven is successfully countered by about a third of meta top laners, another third are a skill matchup, the last third she usually beats. Unlike some other current hypercarries if you shut her down she stays down till 6 items, due to her kits heavy reliance on AD scalings. Actually even in top tier play she is countered by a number of picks, to name a couple; Fiora, Camille, Jayce, Kennen, Kled, Kayle and Quinn destroy Riven in laning. Last season in a meta where Trynd was a tad more viable he also countered her hard. Jax can counter her but is more of a skill matchup. And of course Renekton and Pantheon. These are a few, there are others, but these are the main ones.

#"She has 4 dashes on NO cooldown!" Her mobility spam is still only around as much mobility as: 2 seconds no CDR Q 6s, E 10s no CDR R 2s no CDR 6s no CDR, with refunding effect E 0.1s, 6s per target E 8s no CDR, resets picking up dagger E 10s No CDR, 1.5s reduction per Q landed Q 8s No CDR, 60% reduction when hitting any enemy E 14s no CDR, reduced by 2-4 seconds when landing autos Q 7s no CDR, W 14s no CDR W 10s no CDR, R 30s no CDR E Dash 10s with return dash no CDR, Q human form small knockback E spin 9s no CDR, reduced by crits and of course Q 13s no CDR, E 6s no CDR Almost all of these getting max CDR, several of these just as feast/famine and just as hypercarry when ahead. I even excluded dashes like Akali and Diana as they are exclusively offensive.

The only argument is that "Riven's Q is 3 dashes!" correction, it is 2 dashes and a leap. Still longer CD than many of these, and shorter range than most of these, only the last Q can leap walls. She has 2 mobility spells, one is just 3 parts. Just as Thresh's Q is still one ability, it just has two uses. Same with Lee Sin's Q, LeBlanc's W, Ahri's ultimate, Jax's Dodge, New Warwick's W, Fizz's E, Xerath's ultimate, Jhin's Ultimate, among other abilities that have more than one activated use per cooldown. I sure don't see people going "Jhin gets four ultimates!" No it is one spell that fires four bullets.

But keep in mind. Riven always has been and always will be one of the most mobile champions in combat. It is part of her identity, somebody has to be the most mobile, and that somebody is her. (Waits for Yasuo main to debate me) She has a lot of in combat mobility. That is how she works.

#"Riven has a bloated kit" At this point her kit is actually looking about middle ground. This isn't 2011 people, half the champions in the game are as bloated, or more bloated than Riven. Is this a good direction for the game? Eh, Camille was a terrible release, but I would rather have more Thresh, Bard, Kled and Jhin type kits, than Garen type kits. I've never been into stat checking however, so I am a bit bias.

#"Favoritism with bugs!" Ah animation canceling, that thing Graves does, in fact that thing almost any champion in the game does. Simply using flash, a mobility spell, certain abilities or certain items to cast long ass animations. For example, Renekton cancels his stun animation with Tiamat. The only animation cancels removed to my knowledge were Zed(which was breaking competitive play), Gragas(same as Zed), Blitz Flash Q and believe it or not Riven. Riven had her Q3+W cancel remove as well as the bug/trick where she could redirect the AoE knockup of her Q3 with a ward to stop incoming dashes behind her. There may be some I don't know about, I think maybe something to do with Sej and Hecarim. Riot doesn't specifically remove animation canceling, because almost anybody can do it. It is fairly standard in games from FPS, to fighter games, RTS games and so forth. An example of a non-Riven cancel is Graves E+Q which cancels the Q's long animation.

Oh! And her CC bug was fixed within two patches of being brought up despite Riot saying it was a complex bug to fix. Guess who can still cancel CC? Renekton. There is even a gif of Adrian Riven doing it on Renekton, fixed yet? Nope. Also there are reports of it working with Poppy's dash and some others.

By the by, if Riot removed animation canceling from Riven, you know what they would do? Speed up her W, R and AA animations... As that is what animation cancels are used to cancel. Then they would likely have to buff her in some way to keep her competitive. Also they would have to remove things like AA+W+AA+Move+AA on Ashe. Or just AA+move+AA+move from every champion in the game. To be fully 'fair'.

Animation canceling on Riven is easy to demonstrate. Go in a custom. Press W or R on her and try to move. You will notice the animation is long and you get 'stuck' in place a long time. Now instead go E+R or E+W, you will notice the animation is gone and boom! you can move. Of course, you have to blow your disengage E for it.

#"Riven pubstomps when ahead" Riven is a Skirmisher, and she functions like one. Skirmishers are the replacement for the old classification of Melee ADC. It is a new name that better fits the class of melee hypercarries. Skirmishers, like Assassins, Mages and Marksmen, are a form of carry. Their job is to be heavy damage dealers for their team. Included in this class are... These champions are meant to carry games when ahead. Now, because like mages and assassins they are solo laners, they also have to have some level of early game power, as they don't have a support to carry them through farming phase.

Like Mages and Marksmen, Skirmishers have some amount of crowd control, high damage, good scalings and the potential to wipe floor in a team fight. HOWEVER! Skirmishers do NOT have the safety net of range. So while Mages and Marksmen can poke in lane, farm more safely and stay behind tanks in team fights. Skirmishers must take risks for everything they do. Therefore, they tend to A: Be more mobile so they can get into range AND escape. B: Have some form of defensive steroid.

Look at the other champions in the Skirmisher class and cry because all Skirmishers are bullshit and realize Riven is no different from the rest. She has different strengths and weaknesses, but overall the same gameplay goals and ability functionalities.

#Conclusion Now don't get me wrong, with Lethality being buffed, she will likely need damage and cooldown nerfs. But that has nothing to do with the perpetual witch hunt for a champion who has been in a solid spot for a long time now. Ever since her initial nerfs in S2 and again in S3, Riven has never been the monster she was in those first days.

And again, I think perhaps she could use some tuning to make her skillcapped rewards not so high and her skill floor punishment not so harsh. But destroying the champion's kit and identity are completely unnecessary for this. And honestly it seems to mostly come from angry players between Bronze and Platinum who don't understand the champion. As most Diamond+ players I see never complain about her, and one or two actually defend her.

Anyway, happy memeing. Your friendly neighborhood rovinmain.

ANY QUESTIONS! I am more than happy to discuss Riven, I'd be happy to talk about her balance, how to fight her, what she does, nerfs/buff, tuning, or answer/counter any further complaints you may have about her.