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So About That Riven "Edge" Passive...

junglerboy16··1 votes·674 views

I stand on the middle ground; I'm not a Riven main, but I'm also not a Riven hater. She needs work for various reasons that a most players are familiar with. She's burstier than some assassins while having the durability of a medium weight fighter. She's snowbally as heck and usually either stomps matches off of early kills or turns into a melee minion and AFKs at 0-5-0. She's mechanically intense (not necessarily bad on its own) but to the point where she becomes unapproachable by a casual player. At the same time, she has a lot of really distinct play patterns. Her passive's natural rhythm of AA>Spell>AA>Spell is very visceral and just... flows. Her high mobility and multitude of dashes are highlights of her kit.

I've been thinking about how to address some of her issues for a while now. At the very end of September, a few experimental changes for Riven went to the PBE before being scrapped. The new "Edge" mechanic seemed pretty interesting and I think that's a pretty smart way to go, BUT it would need some tweaks.

Here's my idea combining aspects of my own concept and the "Edge" concept:

  • Passive, Redemption: "In Noxus, any citizen may rise to power regardless of race, gender, or social standing - strength is all that matters." However, Riven does not believe that the strong should exterminate the weak based on her experience in Ionia.

    • Runic Blade: After casting an ability, Riven's sword becomes empowered, dealing 10-35% of her total AD as bonus damage on her next attack (scales with level). If she damages an enemy champion with her passive, she gains 10 "Edge" (max 100). Every 5 points of "Edge" increases her basic abilities' base values by 1% (max 20% increase) and increases her Base AD by the same percentage. If she has not dealt or received damage in the last 5 seconds, her "Edge" depletes at a rate of 10 "Edge" per second.

  • Noxian Ideals: Whenever Riven kills or assists in killing an enemy champion she affects her "Edge". If she kills an enemy of a higher level, she increases her minimum "Edge" by 10 x level difference (for example, level 11 Riven killing a level 13 enemy gains 20 base "Edge"). If she is only one to no levels high than the enemy, she gains no edge. If she is more than 1 level higher than the enemy, she loses 10 base "Edge" (cannot reduce her base "Edge" below 0). This effect does not influence her current "Edge" value, only how much of her "Edge" can decay when out of combat.

—

  • Q, Broken Wings:

  • Damage changed to 15/40/65/90/115 from 10/30/50/70/90.

  • AD Ratio changed to (+30/35/40/45/50% AD) from (+40/45/50/55/60% AD)

  • Quality of life change: Broken Wings Always casts either in the direction of the enemy nearest the cursor or towards the cursor, not the direction Riven is facing (this is similar in effect to the usability change to Nidalee's pounce)

—

  • W, Ki Burst:

  • Damage changed to 20/65/110/155/200 from 50/80/110/140/170

  • AD Ratio changed to (+75% TOTAL AD) from (+100% BONUS AD)

—

  • E, Valor:
  • AD Ratio changed to (+85/95/105/115/125% BONUS AD)

—

  • R, Blade of the Exile:

  • While active, Runic Blade grants 20 "Edge" per proc instead of 10

  • R, Windslash:

  • Damage now scales based on her "Edge" instead of % missing health, increasing the damage dealt by 2% per point of "Edge", max 200% Bonus damage (same max damage as live). Activating Windslash consumes all of her current "Edge", excluding the base amount from Noxian Ideals.

Overall, these changes are targeted at making Riven a bit less reliant on building raw AD, while making her less snowbally (higher base damage, lower scalings) and also designed to balance herself out (Noxian Ideals is a potent tool for making comebacks, but also helps rubber band her power if she starts getting a little out of control). Her ratios across the board are lower except her ultimate (unchanged) and her E (which is slightly increased at later ranks so that she isn't totally discouraged from high AD builds). Her W now has a total AD ratio, meaning it scales less effectively into the later parts of the game but is slightly stronger as a one-point spell. Hopefully these changes wouldn't make a Riven main hate how she feels, but would also reduce the hate she gets from other players.

3 Comments

The Sword Saint4 votes

I'm going to make this short and simple because if I don't restrain myself I could go on for hours. Instead, I'm just going to point out things that I find issue with concerning your concept:

  • the way broken wings functions right now allows for consistent, precisely controlled movements that your system does not, which are very important for riven's dueling and laning potential.
  • punishing players for getting kills is not an enjoyable player experience, and creates an 'anti pattern' where players are incentivized to NOT make plays that would otherwise normally be what their character wants and is designed to do. A player should never hesitate to finish the enemy carry if they have the chance in a teamfight because they're concerned about their personal 'edge' power going down from the enemy carry being slightly behind.
  • though I personally enjoy a slightly heavier riven than most due to the current toplane meta, at her core Riven is THE original 'light fighter' champion. a poster child upon which all later champions of the class compare themselves. It is intrinsic to her identity that her primary build path be almost entirely glass, relying on her positioning and shield timings to keep herself alive. Building multiple tank items due to higher base and lack of scaling moves her from being a 'light fighter' into just a 'fighter', and would take away one of the more unique experiences league has to offer.
  • as far as experience fighting riven goes.... trust me, you do not want to be dealing with a riven who has lots of hp and resists to back up her spammable shield and mobility on top of doing damage. You just don't. At least with current riven, you can outplay her and wack her hard when her shield i down to stick damage to her really hard or even punch through the shield with strong attacks because the shield has no resists to back it up and is therefor made of paper. Tanky riven doesn't have that window of weakness when her shield is down, she just has a window of extra power when the shield is up because even without it she can shrug off your damage in ways that squishy riven can't. That normally satisfying moment of catching a riven suddenly becomes even more frustrating if she is too tanky to ever punish before she has mobility again - think leesin lategame when he transitions into a tank and even catching him stops getting you anywhere with killing him anymore... now make leesins shield scale with ad and imagine dealing with that as well.
  • making her ult deal its damage based on edge and not on target missing hp means that she can nuke a whole team with it and they'll all take max damage, which is far far more damage than windslash was intended.

The edge changes were shelved for a reason. Top riven players like boxbox tested it out and found that it made riven more boring to play as and against, while also making her far more frustrating to fight and overall way more powerful.

MohawkBird3 votes

That was short and simple? I'd hate to see what your actual response would have been.

The Sword Saint1 votes

{quoted}

That was short and simple? I'd hate to see what your actual response would have been.

I think this gives you some idea:

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/GD/dIOKMXh6-master-list-of-my-essay-threads

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