Builds glass cannon. Gets rewarded with huge ad shield to be tanky. Mashes Q the second it's off cd. Gets rewarded with extreme mobility. Somehow fucks up with her Q. Gets rewarded with an AoE stun. Messes up on combo. Gets rewarded with a ranged execute.
Oh, wait..i'm sorry she does have a risk. She doesn't have amazing hp p/5 anymore..my bad forgot how drastic that nerf was
DarthSpectrum28 votesIt is actually quite easy to punish Riven; she is extremely susceptible to poke damage. Play someone such as Jayce or Darius and Riven will be dead in no time.
The main strength of Riven is that she has possibly the best all-in potential in game. Contrast to Talon's fastest AD Ratio per Second combo, Riven has one of the highest Ratio per combo. Rather than surviving the burst, one needs to stop Riven before she finishes her attack - otherwise she will just overpower her opponent.
Essentially, this makes it a bad idea for prolonged trade against Riven. Her weakness is that she can't quickly regenerate health. Picking someone such as Volibear or Garen who can gain his/her HP back quickly will put Riven at a severe disadvantage. Additionally, champions with high Life steal can out duel Riven if they can survive her initial combo. (ie. Olaf, Udyr)
Nonetheless, due to her overwhelming strength, some match-ups against Riven are the most one-sided in League. Yasuo and Aatrox pretty much stand no chance against Riven. Riven's combo is simply stronger than Yasuo's at all stages in melee range. While Aatrox can't seriously fight Riven because he needs to turn off Blood Thirst for Blood Price when he trades.
The risk of playing Riven is simply of being countered, or going against someone who will not mindlessly engage you during the laning phase.
EvilRabbitt14 votesShaco murders Riven.
Oh you got me? NOT REALLY!!!! Oh hey there why not step over to- GOTCHA BOX TIME! HEY THAT CS ISN'T FOR YOU! Have a knife. HAH! That was just a diversion.
TDubH13 votesBoxBox Vs. Pinkward, funniest Riven V Shaco match i ever watched.
warpenguin5553 votesBoxBox Vs. Pinkward, funniest Riven V Shaco match i ever watched.
i saw that ya.
Trash MammaI6 votesIf only she didn't soak up 90% of the damage you dish out to her with a retarded shield..Especially since it's instant. At least someone like Orianna has counterplay to her shield. If she uses her Q anywhere she has to wait for the ball to reach her to get the shield. Riven gets hers instantly along with a dash
Narasimha13 votesHer shield has a 10 second cd at rank 1 and she rarely levels it first. If you can't damage her within a 10 second opening, its not her, its you. And the thing about Riven, is that with her pitiful Hp/5, any damage you do to her will stick around.
Junkο2 votesUntil she buys a Vampiric Scepter and heal all the damage back with 4 AoE skills.
Narasimha11 votesUnless they magically altered lifesteal to work with skills, your comment makes no sense. Thats SPELL VAMP, and I'd die laughing if Riven bought a Revolver.
Aych Pii2 votesHe still has a point considering the existence of Ravenous Hydra.
Narasimha5 votesShe still has to buy it, and even Tiamat isn't that cheap. Also, she tends to lose damage if she goes for an early Tiamat, because she loses the armor pen and CDR from Brutalizer. Plus, you can't exactly count items towards a person's stats in that manner, because otherwise you might as well say "Hey guys, Sona isn't actually that squishy! Considering the existence of Randuin's, Warmogs, Frozen Heart, and Spirit Visage."
Aych Pii4 votesNot that you don't have a point, but Sona has better things to do with her money. She's squishy because her most efficient build path doesn't allow for much Tankiness. I feel like it's not incorrect to say "Sona does a lot of damage" because when she has Lichbane and Rabadon's, she does.
Still, though, you're right that I shouldn't criticize her for doing the same thing with Ravenous Hydra everyone else does. I'm not all that unhappy with where Riven is balance wise anyways, so I'll just keep my mouth shut.
Proelium1 votesHer shield has a 10 second cd at rank 1 and she rarely levels it first. If you can't damage her within a 10 second opening, its not her, its you. And the thing about Riven, is that with her pitiful Hp/5, any damage you do to her will stick around.
as though 10 seconds is a long cd on level 1 lol
Narasimha2 votesEven 1 second can make the difference between life and death. What then, of 10 times that?
Chespin20133 votesrenekton also works well against riven just gotta learn to go in to do ur combo and get ur fury up for to go in
DarthSpectrum2 votesThis is definitely true. However, Renekton is a bit riskier than the other counters because he doesn't scale that well. If Riven does by chance get a kill on him, he will have a tough time catch up to her.
BakedLotion1 votesIt is actually quite easy to punish Riven; she is extremely susceptible to poke damage. Play someone such as Jayce or Darius and Riven will be dead in no time.
The main strength of Riven is that she has possibly the best all-in potential in game. Contrast to Talon's fastest AD Ratio per Second combo, Riven has one of the highest Ratio per combo. Rather than surviving the burst, one needs to stop Riven before she finishes her attack - otherwise she will just overpower her opponent.
Essentially, this makes it a bad idea for prolonged trade against Riven. Her weakness is that she can't quickly regenerate health. Picking someone such as Volibear or Garen who can gain his/her HP back quickly will put Riven at a severe disadvantage. Additionally, champions with high Life steal can out duel Riven if they can survive her initial combo. (ie. Olaf, Udyr)
Nonetheless, due to her overwhelming strength, some match-ups against Riven are the most one-sided in League. Yasuo and Aatrox pretty much stand no chance against Riven. Riven's combo is simply stronger than Yasuo's at all stages in melee range. While Aatrox can't seriously fight Riven because he needs to turn off Blood Thirst for Blood Price when he trades.
The risk of playing Riven is simply of being countered, or going against someone who will not mindlessly engage you during the laning phase.
oh, you threw a shock blast at me? hah. shields away to dodge oh fuck i messed up and ran into it? naw no prob it has a shield so i took no dmg
What kind of design is this. oh im gonna dodge with a dash, oh wait i messed up but theres a shield
DarthSpectrum3 votesFor the record, if you are playing Jayce against Riven you should focus on AAing her down. Valor can't dodge AAs, and Jayce has one of the best AA enhancer in game.
If Riven dodges your Q with one of her gap closers, she is no longer a threat. Jayce's E in hammer mode can peel her off of him. With less than 2 gap closers, Riven won't be able to fight.
Trylobyte9 votesRiven has a lot of weaknesses, some already well-detailed here. She's pretty much a top-lane assassin, which means her all-in potential is spectacular and if she jumps you at mid to low health she will probably kill you. But she has all the same weaknesses assassins do, and her being melee and not having great wave-clear accentuates this. Here's another weakness of hers that wasn't mentioned.
She has to snowball. A Riven that's not ahead is significantly behind. Since she has minimal utility and only brings damage, she needs to be outscaling not only her lane opponent but also most of the enemy team in order to have any big impact outside of lane. Tanky people who don't need a whole lot of farm (Maokai for instance) are her natural bane since they can pin her down in lane, not die to her combo, sustain through her burst, and keep her going even with them. They will scale up mid to late game, she won't. A Riven that isn't significantly fed is a Riven that's probably trying to jump into teamfights only to get killed by accident by the enemy mid-laner.
ABlueQuaker9 votesAs a big support player, whenever I see a 
on the Enemy Team I pick 
and provided my AD Carry doesn't get his or herself in a bad position, the Riven will barely touch our back line.
Riven is extremely vulnerable to CC and she can can quite easily find herself bogged down in a team fight. It's why I get moist whenever I see a Riven that doesn't get something like 
or 
she just dies.
Wakamune2 votes[{quoted}](name=Red Arrow,realm=OCE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=yPufyYaU,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-04-25T04:18:56.609+0000)
As a big support player, whenever I see a
Riven is extremely vulnerable to CC and she can can quite easily find herself bogged down in a team fight. It's why I get moist whenever I see a Riven that doesn't get something like
I pick Soraka (Support) into Enemy Riven if the botlane match up is fine too as I don't have Thresh. She can't do anything if she lands in my silence and if she did get to the stage where she can execute she has to factor the heal.
yukonl8 votesCommunity:
A5W9VPIhgQ2 votesi feel like these people complaining about riven never fought her before the nerf. and you could win before the nerf. so if they cant beat her now...
Silents4297 votesI won't lie, I hate Riven, Lot to hate about the kit and when she does well it is pretty much impossible to stop her.
But I have destroyed Rivens in lane as a first time Nasus, Every time as Volibear (The rage is glorious) Easily stomping her as Garen, and Gangplank.
Oh and of course Trundle.
I think she really needs to lose that ability to steal a kill with her ult and suddenly get back into the game as a fed monster despite being shut down in lane.
Aych Pii3 votes{quoted} I think she really needs to lose that ability to steal a kill with her ult and suddenly get back into the game as a fed monster despite being shut down in lane.
Katarina does that better, still.
Silents4291 votesWhats with the rising hate for Kat, she is only a problem if you can't CC her.
Hercules Morse1 votesBecause it creates powerful and fight-deciding decisions in the heat of the moment. As you say, you can just CC her (or Yi, or other low-range hyper carries), and while the typical forumer does not like that answer, it is true and its rare to have a team that has no hard CC at all. The problem is its a reasonably difficult skill to be able to focus on the current state of the fight while being mindful of possible future states, and make decisions based on both the current state and what you think are the likely outcomes. You want proof, play ARAM. Champs like Kat force this kind of decision making, its not easy (and nor should it be), but when the wrong decision often leads to a Kat pentakill, its easy to see why its frustrating.
Silents4291 votesNo it doesn't? All it takes it the slightest critical thinking. Whoever had the CC to stop her just has to wait until she does something, it doesn't become a big issue unless your team makes it one. Their isn't that much skill and any time I have seen Kat in aram she got bullied any time she attempted to come near our side.
The difference between Kat and Yi is once Kat ults she essentially becomes useless, while Yi just keeps slashing you with a sword after the CC wears off.
Kat might be annoying in lane for someone who can't do anything to stop her ult, but the hate she is getting might just be people trying to find something to hate.
Hercules Morse1 votesIt seems so simple to say 'just wait and save your CC for Kat'. It really does.
In a shifting team-fight, in the heat of the moment, its just isn't that simple for lower level or inexperienced players (and I'm hardly excluding myself from them, I just recognize whats going on). It may be that the enemy ADC is in range, perhaps you could lock them down? Or, you're forced to use CC on a tank or other initiator to save one of your own carries. It could be that you started the fight without Kat around, and blew everything on the enemies who were there before her.
It could well be that these decisions are correct - if you can get the enemies other threats before Kat enters, you can easily focus her if she still does. If you peel effectively, she may not get a chance to enter untouched. If you can win a fight before she even gets there, she needs to be hella fed to go 1 v <however many you have left> and if she is, thats another story.
But if you are wrong, you lose hard. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just that I see where the frustration comes from.
Silents4291 votesLow level players can't handle a lot of things, we shouldn't base information off of them.
Kats damage requires her to put herself in the middle of your team, squishy and vulnerable to do it. It doesn't take much thought process to save that extra ability for her, and if your team can't much up anything to interrupt her that is your fault and she simply came in at the right time.
Kapppaccino3 votesWhats with the rising hate for Kat, she is only a problem if you can't CC her.
Could be said about riven too.
Voluug136 votes''..risk/punishment..''
''...Like everyone else.''
^That guy needs it too.
What Riven needs:
-2° and 3° Q jumps can only be used of they hit a unit. -Deletion of every (or most) animation cancelling. -Shield on dash only activates if Riven dashes (by touching or general direction idk) towards an enemy. -Shield scales with less AD but gets an HP ratio. (This makes tanky bruiser Riven more viable while reducing glass cannon assassin Riven's ridiculous survivability).
After that, increase base stats (muh hp/5 QQ) and maybe some ratios.
WhiteFireOCN6 votesNot quite..
Voluug136 votes''He is an assassin! Outpush him and dont let him roam!'' -> Zed clears faster that a considerable amount of midlane champions!''.
''Deny him farm'' -> lol yeah
''Gank him while his shadow is on CD!'' -> From Zed's 1000+ range with shadow harrass, follow-up from ganks its impossible.
''CC when he ult!!!1!'' -> Has free out-of-jail card with limitless range that no reasonable amount of CC that a champion has can CC-chain him, unless its a direct counterpick (if rito doesnt end up nerfing them). Thus Zed simply press R to blink back to the middle of the lane.
And no, 
isnt a reasonable or viable answer. Several champions get screwed by it, but Zed, unlike Talon, has high sustained damage too. Its like saying ''the counterplay is 
!''.
MAZZ1M06 votesAnother Riven op thread. Learn to counter her people. She only wipes face when 2 conditions are met.
1: She knows she can all-in you. If she doesn't and does, it's entirely luck and they'll usually die. She bursts. She has to be able to burst most toplane matchups. If she can't burst you down to a point where her passive AA kills you, you can and should be killing her. 2: Her shield is up for the all-in. Once a Riven has decided she's ready to wreck you, the shield has to be up against most toplane opponents as many champions actually outdamage her early on. It just doesn't seem that way because her shield takes away most of the damage you'd normally kill her with.
So... learning curve 101: If she can all-in you, play safe. Do not run out to grab that minion. Do not get in E+Q+W range. Staying in range of half her combo is usually fairly safe if you're a fighter or tank. If she's dumb enough to try and burst you using half her combo just to get to you, you should win if you actually know what you're doing. (Sidenote: Olaf massacres Riven because of this.)
Engage after she blows her E when you know you can win. If you can tank enough to kill her before she kills you, do it. She will fall behind for little while. Then just ward so she doesn't pick up kills mid.
And this is a big one, I see this a lot. For the love of all things good, do not chase her if she's almost dead! Getting that far probably did a number on you which means as soon her cooldowns reset while you're chasing her, she'll dash back to you and castrate you before you realize what happened. Let her back. More cs gold and xp for you. It's okay to get ahead that way. You'll kill her eventually.
Finally, pay attention to her items at all times. If she gets Tiamat or Brutalizer she gets a massive powerspike. Be aware of her damage output and how you'll hold up at all times. Going in to fight and "test it out" will just get you killed. Know ahead of time, don't engage, and laugh at the Riven prolly crying and raging over allchat cuz u won't engage. Farm up. It is OK not to get kills. Riven just baits noobs so hard. Learn people. She's not invincible. Kayle, Jax, and Yasuo last season, they were f%^ing GODS. I know what op looks like now. Don't complain about a champ that can easily be outdone by just playing smart. She gets rolling when you guys don't understand her burst and she kills you for gold. Learn, don't complain. That's the mentality that will get you better at this game.
Now if your top laner feeds and she rolls into other lanes, that's a bit different. You'll mostly have to rely on vision control and grouping to catch her, but people should be warding anyway so that's not a special expectation for Riven. that fact that no one does ward isn't something I can help you with. I usually just pester teammates to upgrade their trinkets and light up the map. Had a nice game last night where it worked. Map was lit up like Madison Square Garden. They couldn't take a dump without us knowing about it.
Upgrade trinkets people! 3 rechargeable wards up at time for 250G.
Trash MammaI7 votesit's more-so Riven is overloaded as shit thread or a Riven has very few risk but a lot of reward in her kit.
Ex.
If a Lee sin Q's the enemy Carry and goes in he puts himself in the middle of the enemy team he can only kick one person back and has to aim properly to get a knockup on someone else.
If a Riven Q's into the enemy team she gets an AoE knockup on them all as well as an AoE stun and can just E away if threatened in the slightest.
I recall release Yasuo being whined about for the exact things Riven has and he got nerfed. He had far too much in his kit with some crazy numbers that made him insanely annoying and difficult to play against. Riven is the exact same way.
People defending Riven are probably Garen mains. In which a Garen CAN shut a riven down in lane if she presses R and kills a carry she's suddenly a hyper carry. She needs a weak point in the game other than just level 1 which isn't even all that bad compared to most.
Her kit is retardedly overloaded and anybody denying that is probably abusing her
MAZZ1M04 votesWere you around last season to see what Yasuo did to people? They weren't even in the same league. Yasuo was one of the most overpowered mofos in the history of LoL on his release. He deserves every nerf he's gotten.
Lee Sin is also the safest pick in the game... of course his damage won't compare. He's not supposed to.
About the E dashing away after Q'ing in, umm, not hard to work around. It's a poke and won't kill you. Q dashes can be avoided by playing safe. It's when they E in that you should be worried. Riven is in no way op. These threads just annoy me because she can be shut down early. Players don't adjust their playstyle. That's the only reason she rickrolls people so frequently. There's nothing wrong with her counterplay. Every player conceivably has everything they need attached to their hands (I'm referring to your fingers.) It's almost always dumb decision-making.
Also Garen... no. He's a plus-sized smurf. I don't use him. Too boring imo.
Does Riven capitalize on dumb-decision making more than most champs? Yea, she snowballs from it. There's no reason to constantly die against her though. I can speak from experience I've only lost lane to a Riven 3-5 times that I can recall. I follow my own advice and win. Aside from those times, if a Riven wrecks me it's because she got fed somewhere else and we have no vision -or she's just snowballed so much, we can't kill her with her teammates around. The same could be said of any champ though. Try killing a LeBlanc 3 levels ahead of all of you with 3 tanks covering her retreat from deletions. There's far worse than any Riven out there because Riven counterplay is easy to take advantage of, LeBlanc, Zed, Fizz, (insert assassin here) are usually much harder because of their escapes. Let a Riven get into a teamfight without E up. If you can't kill her then, you're doing something wrong. She's squishy and your team should delete her.
Ariel the Cruel2 votesYasuo is what Fiora should have been.
Also, interestingly, solo lane Braum counters the hell out of Riven.
Yes. That guy.
IcyPepper1 votesI've seen videos of it.
Too bad I can't top for shit, otherwise I'd try it out.
Dirty Roleplayer5 votesIn higher elos please tell me how easy it is to Q jump with Riven into enemy team and hit all of them? It's like playing with bots. You make this sound like it's easy and doable 100%.
It's not.
Her kit is not overloaded. It's just how she plays and how Riot designed her. I'm not defending Riven but she is hell of a fun champion to play when you know what you're doing.
Kapppaccino1 votesit's more-so Riven is overloaded as shit thread or a Riven has very few risk but a lot of reward in her kit.
Ex.
If a Lee sin Q's the enemy Carry and goes in he puts himself in the middle of the enemy team he can only kick one person back and has to aim properly to get a knockup on someone else.
If a Riven Q's into the enemy team she gets an AoE knockup on them all as well as an AoE stun and can just E away if threatened in the slightest.
I recall release Yasuo being whined about for the exact things Riven has and he got nerfed. He had far too much in his kit with some crazy numbers that made him insanely annoying and difficult to play against. Riven is the exact same way.
People defending Riven are probably Garen mains. In which a Garen CAN shut a riven down in lane if she presses R and kills a carry she's suddenly a hyper carry. She needs a weak point in the game other than just level 1 which isn't even all that bad compared to most.
Her kit is retardedly overloaded and anybody denying that is probably abusing her
Lee can easily w away if he goes in .-. " he can get cc and bursted"... So can riven... Her w has a cast time , lee's does not... Every riven QQ thread I see is never well thought out ( Op)
Dunkrius2g1 voteshttp://forums.eune.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=796386&page=1
Read it, then come back to me.
MAZZ1M03 votesIs another Riven op discussion supposed to prove something to me? It seems kinda redundant. It's like putting the word you're trying to define in the definition. I think the Riven op threads are bull$%^%. Showing me another thread on the topic isn't going to change anything. Aside from that, none of the posts describe how they lost. What were they doing against her? You'll never convince me she's op. I've beaten her too many times even with off-meta picks for any of the complaint threads to be valid in my book. I don't even use her competitively! For those who think I'm "trying to protect my freelo." F$%^ solo queue. Has nothing to do with that.
Dunkrius2g1 votesAt least you came back to me xD
Dunkrius2g1 votesLOL :) <3. In the end we don't hate each other
Akali is SO HOT6 votesIn other news, Op is still feeding Rivens in every one of his games.
Dies to Wolves3 votesmeh. She snowballs extremely hard, and IMHO that's the only real "problem" with her. If she's behind, that shield won't make her tanky at all, and it really won't be hard to kill her before she kills anyone else.
It's not so much "she gets rewarded by going full damage with being tanky with the shield!!!1!", it's more of a she needs a way to not blow up instantly when trying to kill someone, since - bar the ranged EXECUTE, for which her target must be "low" to really hurt anyways - she's a squishy melee buying full damage. Zed has his shadows, Talon can try to disengage with mobility, Ahri has her Charm + being ranged, LeBlanc has her W return + being ranged (+ chains against melees..), xerath has range and a stun, fiora has temporary invulnerability (and a parry but eh, depending on who she's facing that can be useless).... riven has mobility to get to her target / try to get away (though have in mind that if she uses her mobility to get to you, she either loses part of her damage or she "wastes" her shield) and a shield to try and survive.
Problem arises when, IF she gets ahead, you CAN'T kill her, you CAN'T get near her or you die, you hardly can chase / escape from her, but eh, snowballing isn't unique to her. If you get snowballed on by an AD lane xin zhao, you'll get just as wrekt but with less counterplay since he just point-and-clicks you to death
Iittala3 votesPlay 
dont let her all in you level 1.. GG your fed and wreck her anytime she is in your range. She goes in, punish the hell out of her.
Poke kills her hard and fast
Dirty Roleplayer3 votesBuilds glass cannon. Gets rewarded with huge ad shield to be tanky. Mashes Q the second it's off cd. Gets rewarded with extreme mobility. Somehow fucks up with her Q. Gets rewarded with an AoE stun. Messes up on combo. Gets rewarded with a ranged execute.
Oh, wait..i'm sorry she does have a risk. She doesn't have amazing hp p/5 anymore..my bad forgot how drastic that nerf was
You are over exaggerating.
Chain CC will ruin her combo and Riven is generally bad at large scale team fights. Couple of CC (with exhaust) is enough to disable her entirely. She is forced to back off or die.
I had one game where I got destroyed by CC from the enemy team. I was pretty far ahead in terms of farm and kills. But Leona and Nautilus just controlled me in team fights. It was pretty hard to execute a proper combo and kill their squishies. Instead I got melted and we lost.
Against Riven in lane you want to build protections. It really depends what champion you're playing. Go for damage if you know what you're dealing with. But Riven can die pretty easily early game if you know what she is doing and if her cooldowns are off.
I would say Riven is balanced because she can be shut down quite easily in team fights.
There are lots of risks actually: bad combo = dead or forced to back, non-existent sustain early game, long cooldowns early game, Riven gets stomped by chain CC.
If you're team lacks any hard CC, Riven has easier time. That's for sure. Depends how good the player is. It also depends on the lane opponent. If Riven's lane opponent has no clue what he is dealing with, Riven wins.
HolowHall of Hal3 votes1- Wait for Riven to get her q on cd 2-Gank 3- ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 4- Rip
