##Preface

The League community as a whole doesn't like Riven. People bring up ways to tone down her power. One of the suggestions brought up the most is to limit her by making her an energy champion. Unfortunately, the people who do this often misunderstand what the point of energy is, and how to apply it correctly.

I have absolutely no interests in keeping Riven a strong champion. I haven't played a single ranked game with her, nor do I plan to. If you want to nerf her into the ground, go ahead, just double or triple all of her cooldowns. If you have a serious interest in making Riven a better champion, then let's do it properly.

##What is Energy and why is it used?

Energy is a secondary champion resource capped at 200 energy. It regenerates at 10 energy per second, which can only be changed with runes that aren't normally used or blue buff. The point of giving a champion energy is to give them a burst of abilities, but then forcing them into a "cool off" period. Akali and Zed use energy to limit their ability to burst someone down. Zed and Kennen use energy to have a surge of poke before needing to cool off. Lee and Shen use energy to limit their utility to short bursts.

Notice a recurring theme. Energy is applied when you want to give a champion to ability to have a burst of impact, before making them back off for a while. I know this seems obvious and repetitive, but when I see people talk about giving Riven energy for some reason it seems almost everyone forgets that this is why champions are given energy as a resource.

##How not to apply Energy to Riven

This is what I usually see when people want to give Riven energy.

P: No change Q: 50 energy per cast W: 50 energy E: 50 energy R: 25 energy

There are people who suggest lower numbers on some abilities, higher on others, but I think this is a pretty good baseline. Would this kit make Riven a tactical fighter who needs to be smart with her abilities? The short answer is no. The long answer is that a champion will always be played in the way that makes them strongest, not necessarily the way you were designing for.

Just like Blitz became a support because he was stronger in bot lane than top lane, I can guarantee you that a brand new player who sees this kit will think "my job is to go in and burst everyone down." That's what energy is made for, burst, not tactical timing. Yes, Riven will have to pick which abilities she wants a bit more carefully, but the point is she's going to go from a fighter to an assassin.

Either she succeeds in killing everyone as an AoE assassin, or she fails horribly and becomes a bad champion. If she's a bad assassin, than it's likely she'll just see buffs to her burst until she does work as an AoE assassin. AoE assassins, especially those that have a difficult time escaping after failing (she's not going to have enough energy after a failed rotation) tend to become "feast or famine." If your goal was to make Riven more bursty, give enemies less time to react, reliant on a feast or famine playstyle and make her more frustrating for everyone, then congratulations, you've succeeded.

"But Quinntuple, why do we need to buff her burst if she's a bad assassin? We can just leave her in the trash where she belongs!" As I've said in the beginning of this post, if you want to nerf Riven into the ground, just skip all this nonsense and double her CDs. If you've gotten to this point, I assume you have at least some interest in keeping Riven a viable champ.

So is Energy a lost cause for Riven? Does the principles of Energy completely conflict with what Riven needs to be a better champ? Well, yes, but that doesn't mean we should throw away Energy just yet. Energy has generally been for champs who want burst over tactical fighting, but there's a way to break that mold.

##How Energy can work for Riven

The secret is Energy refunds. This isn't really the way Energy was intended to be used, but it might just work for someone like Riven. Let's prototype some energy costs again, but this time, we'll add some energy refunds.

P: Restores 25 energy Q: 70/65/60/55/50 energy per cast, restores 25 energy if it hits an enemy champion. W: 70/65/60/55/50 energy per cast, restores 25 energy per enemy champion hit. E: 70/65/60/55/50 energy per cast, restores 25 energy if the shield is destroyed before it decays. R: No energy cost to activate, Wind Slash costs 50 energy and restores 0/25/50 energy for each enemy champion killed.

Don't worry about the numbers too much, those are easy to change, look at the overall idea.

With this kit, Riven is encouraged to fight in a smart way rather than mash all her keys at once. The passive is now crucial to letting her keep fighting, especially in early laning. She's also no longer as bursty because she's forced to weave in autoattacks in order to keep going. Her basic abilities all have conditions to restoring energy, meaning that she can't just run in and spam until someone dies. Q is draining if used for mobility, W rewards Riven for getting into the middle of the fight. E is much more useful as an aggressive tool as opposed to a defensive of mobility tool.

The ult follows a pattern of ultimates that don't have an energy cost associated to them. There's still an energy cost on Wind Slash so that Riven still has to plan carefully if she wants the execute. Adding the energy restore per champion killed also incentivizes her to hold onto the ability rather than running in like an assassin. Again, this limits her frustrating burst while rewarding her for playing smart.

If you're going to make Riven use Energy, it's imperative that you have energy restores in the kit that reward her for tactical play. By forcing the player to space out their abilities, Energy is limiting without being crippling. Players who try to "faceroll" will do poorly in this version of the kit, which is exactly what we want.

Conclusion/Tldr

Riven isn't a champ that you can just slap on an Energy bar and call it a day. Energy will just encourage the qualities about Riven that everyone hates. She will be more bursty, less tactical and either assassinates your entire team or becomes dead weight to her own team. If you want to nerf Riven or simply make her a well-designed champion, Energy is not the way to go.

That said, if you really want to work that Energy bar in there, give her high energy costs with the ability to restore her energy throughout the fight for good play. Focus on incentives to time abilities as opposed to spamming them, and give her stronger tools when she's fighting than when she's running away.