How do you beat Riven?

Armagus·Aug 5, 2015·1 votes·949 views

We've all met her top at some point and although we tried out best, we fell short.

Riven is absolutely dominate in the silver and bronze range, easily wrecking top lane and carrying her team to victory. At higher levels though, you hardly see any Riven play and I don't think I've ever seen her in an LCS split. Which makes me think that Riven actually isn't as good as us lower level players think she is. So, from anyone with experience, how do you handle Riven in lane? Who do you play, what masteries do you use and how do you like to build?

I know she's not invincible, but a knock up and stun later, she certainly feels like it.

8 Comments

GummyBearWookieeAug 5, 20152 votes

Riven crumbles under hard CC that keeps her combos from working. So you can counter her with a hard CC champ with various stuns or knockups...I imagine Cho would be decent with his knockup and silence...Kennen for instance....or go with a more common counter to her like Jax that she can't win a trade against because of his stun, counters/dodges.

ArmagusAug 5, 20151 votes

Jax would still take damage from her skills. But I can def try that out, I've been seeing him work for a lot of others lately too. I think I should also invest some time into Kennen, he seems to be one of the better toplane picks as well.

EricwhoAug 5, 20152 votes

Actually riven was used early on during season 2 if i remember correctly and she dominated mid lane and is still sometimes used in Korea so she is as good as you think and a good counter to riven is Quinn Jayce and Mord.

ArmagusAug 5, 20151 votes

How do Quinn and Jayce win against her? I can see Morde if you build tanky but the first two are squishy and not evasive enough. Sure, Jayce can knock back in hammer, but isn't that really it? How do they survive and, if they can, win the lane?

The Sword SaintAug 5, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Essence of Flow,realm=NA,application-id=WEuoGbmp,discussion-id=XO2ErRcR,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-08-05T22:09:40.396+0000)

How do Quinn and Jayce win against her? I can see Morde if you build tanky but the first two are squishy and not evasive enough. Sure, Jayce can knock back in hammer, but isn't that really it? How do they survive and, if they can, win the lane?

You have to have a basic understanding of matchups and have the mechanics to execute your plan at least as consistently as Riven can execute hers. You're not fighting 'Riven', you're fighting the player who is using Riven. If you are aware of her engagement range, you can dance in and out of it and try to bait her into trying to go in on you, then back off the instant she starts burning q's. Then, start smacking her with ranged abilities and auto attacks as she is forced to retreat since without any gapclosers she's a sitting duck for harass.

Her abilities have a long cooldown before she buys 40% cdr, and you have both the knowledge of when she is vulnerable and the balls to commit to engaging on her RIGHT THEN.

People get wailed on by a riven or any other champ and get scared to engage and back off, then 10 seconds later when they finally get the guts to go in the discover that - oh look riven's cooldowns are back up!

Fundamentally, you have to know how to 'trade'. It's not the same thing as 'going all in' or 'hitting all your buttons on them'. It's a strategy of laning that is matchup dependent and unfortunately at low skill levels 'trading correctly' isn't really understood which means that the only thing that tends to matter is 'all in potential' - which Riven has a lot more of than many other champions.

colesyAug 5, 20152 votes

jayce can harass and just knock her away when she engages, quinn can leap away and has a blind which basically blanks her q combo.

ThunderxLordAug 5, 20152 votes

early her cooldowns are high 13 on Q 10 on W and 10 on E if you see her use it on minons go in careful when she has CDR tho and never try fighting her when she has abilities and Ult up her mid and late game if she is not snowballing not that strong if you dont die early all toplaners out scale her and her base dmg is bad so if she is be hide she is useless EDIT: its pretty hard to do but you can shut her down really bad if you know what your doing and Darius Renk and ranged champ can beat her easy if they try there best to not get hit by her stun and 3rd Q

ArmagusAug 5, 20151 votes

It's legit hard not dying to her though. In lane she's a fantastic bully and her excessive mobility makes it hard to harass her without her closing in. Best luck I have had against her is playing Garen, Q'ing when she comes in and spinning until she leaves. But this doesn't work well enough to stop her from farming and it doesn't help in team fights when she's wrecking everyone else.