[Champion] Riven

Pros:
Insane AD scaling. Like, seriously insane.
Ult has a stupid short CD and lets you fight harder than most people.
Manaless
Highly mobile
Shield that scales with AD
Respectable AoE damage, including an Execute

Cons:
Somewhat susceptible to hard CC, since your survival relies on your shield
No ranged abilities
All physical damage, so Armor is quite strong against you
Some very difficult lane matchups

Here’s where your AD scaling starts to spiral into insanity, right off the bat. Using abilities does damage, then gives you more damage. And you’re manaless. So your autos are getting AD, and then more AD. People really underestimate the power of your auto attacks with this.

Basically you want to not “waste” procs of this, so you stagger your abilities and weave in auto attacks for maximum damage.

This damage cannot Crit, but it DOES proc Lifesteal, which makes it a very lucrative stat.

Kind of your multitool. It works as a mobility tool, allowing you to close gaps or run away, even when slowed. It gives you 3 stacks of your passive, allowing for huge damage spikes. The knockback disruption can set up a kill, stop a retreating enemy, interrupt a channel, or even give you a chance to back out.

A couple technical details: this will activate in the direction that you are running when you hit Q, unless your mouse is hovering over an enemy unit. The cooldown starts after you use the first activation, so you don’t need to use the next two if you don’t want to. The dash speed is roughly 475 MS, so if your MS is higher than that (buffs and Mobo boots, I guess), running is faster.

In lane, it’s more or less a one point wonder, but in the jungle, the base damage increase from leveling up lets you really tear through the small minions.

AoE stun and damage burst. Pretty straightforward, right? Again, there’s a lot you can do with this. The stun is short, but long enough to guarantee you a couple autos. It can interrupt channels like Nunu’s ult of Fiddle drain. With some AD, it clears minion waves really fast when coupled with QQQ.

Max first in lane when you can go more damaging. In the jungle, max it second if you can survive well.

I love this ability. LOVE. Sometimes, I’ll max it first even if I don’t need the shield. It’s a dash, a shield that has good base and then scales with AD, and gives you a passive charge. It’s the core idea of Riven, a reactive ability that’s flexible in its use.

Max first if you need to absorb more damage early on, otherwise second in lane. In jungle, max second if you need the defense for ganks or surviving clearing.

A completely absurd ult and I wonder why it hasn’t been nerfed yet. “Hey, here’s a manaless champ with absurd AD scaling on everything, including her defensive, spammable shield, what should we give her?” “How about a +20% total AD steroid?” “Great, that’s not broken at all! Slap an AoE execute on that bitch and call it a day!”

Yeah, this is good. And the CD is short enough where you can basically hit it more or less every time it’s up for trading, teamfights, or even just harassing someone out of lane. The duration is pretty long, too, so you can hold on to that active until the enemy team is low for maximum results. Once you get a BT and a couple DBlades, you can 100-0 anyone with low armor during the duration with no problem.

Q first level. You can trade pretty hard with it if you start DBlade or Longsword, or you can use it to escape from level 2 ganks. Then, whether you max W or E really depends on whether you want more damage or survival in the early levels. Leveling either is a healthy boost to base numbers and CD, so take which one you need. If you’re shielding off harass a lot, max E. If you’re going in for damage and killing a lot, max W. Just switch it up by matchup.

While you’re already very mobile, Flash is what it is. Ghost would be more useful if you didn’t already have great sticking power with all your dashes and stuff, so I pass on it.

Teleport is your go-to second Summoner I think. Lets you get back and forth from lane, lets you gank other lanes (and you have good ganking prowess), and you don’t really need any help killing most enemies.

Exhaust or Ignite I guess could be situational. Maybe you need extra killing power, or maybe you really would rather have the ability to lock down someone with Exhaust. Or you need to shut down healing effects and want some True Damage. Both are good if you know why you’re bringing them and remember to use them.

I guess a case could be made to bring Barrier if you’re in a hard lane via counterpick. It can make you really beefy when coupling it with E, but I’d rather not be in that situation in the first place if I can help it.

Smite if you’re Jungling.

[Boots][Potions]
Decent start, less so than last season with base MS going up around the board. However, if it’s a very hard lane, you might consider this for the potions and mobility.

[Doran’s Blade]
Great start. The extra health and AD helps you win early trades, and the little bit of regen isn’t bad either.

[Hunter’s Machete][Potions]
If you’re jungling. There’s really no other option.

[Long Sword][Potions]
DBlade gives you a health buffer, but if you’re going to be doing more poke trading or think you’ll take harass, the Potions give you a lot more effective health. Plus, Sword builds into Bruta and Vamp, which you’ll likely buy pretty early.

[Ninja Tabi] or [Mercury Treads]/[Ionian Boots of Lucidity]
I build Tabi most games now. It’s way easier for you to get MR than it is to get Armor since GA got nerfed, so masteries/runes/Tabi is kind of what you got.

You can go Merc’s if you’re in an AP lane and Hex isn’t enough. If you don’t need any defenses and you just want to be a bastard, you can get CDR boots, which should max out your CDR with BC and Masteries.

Boots of Swiftness aren’t terrible now, but you don’t really care about slows anyway. I guess you could consider Mobility if you’re jungling for extra ganks, but you’re fast enough without em anyway.

Boot Enchants
Riven can use all of the enchants, so buy depending on your playstyle and situation.

[Alacrity] Flat MS is good, and remains good all the time.
[Furor] Sticking power on your autos. You don’t really need sticking power, and you can’t really use it with any of your abilities. Pass.
[Captain] Not really. You shouldn’t be the first in, leave that to a tank or something. And even if you are, you’re not going to be too far ahead of everyone else, you’re not the type that can run in and be alone in 5 people while your team comes up after you.
[Distortion] Lower CD on Flash and Teleport. Consider if you’re using both on CD, but I generally don’t.
[Homeguard] Pretty good. If you find yourself backing a lot, gets you to lane faster. If your team is pushed back, makes defending easier. And Tele/Homeguard ganks are cool. A good choice.

As in starting, and for obvious reasons. A couple can make you pretty dominant in lane.

This literally has everything you want: AD, CDR, and ArPen. It used to be kind of a trap in S2, since Ghostblade wasn’t that good, but now with BC being a very strong upgrade, getting one early not only wins you lane, but also later on as well.

AD and Lifesteal for sustain and damage. Bloodthirster will likely be your first big item, so getting a Vamp Scepter early (if you’re not getting fed enough for a straight BFS) is good, and lets you lane and trade well.

If you’re jungling. I like Wriggle’s a lot more than Spirit of the Elder Lizard, personally, but you can go Spirit Stone if you want..

Ok yes, health isn’t that great for you. However, free wards are. And they are free, as long as you place all 3 wards and sell it back, you actually make a profit as opposed to buying 3 wards.

That said, you’re holding on to that 490 gold until you sell it back, so it’s not always a great idea. If you can grab a DBlade/upgrade 2 Longswords and grab a Ward over getting Sightstone, that’s probably better for winning lane.

However, if you have the money and are waiting for a BFS or BC combine/upgrade, then grab Sightstone, farm safe with total ward coverage, and then sell it back later.

100 AD and lifesteal. While BC is nutty on her, it’s half the AD and the flat health is not as good as 50 more on your shield and Lifesteal. This should be your core most games.

Amazing item. You can get the shred stacked really quick with an E-auto-W-auto combo or Q-auto-Q-auto. Either way, you should have their armor gone for more than half of your full combo and your execute.

If there’s a lot of magic damage, especially in lane. An early Hex (along with Merc’s) can really help win against Rumble or Elise. Plus, always good to piss off Karthus or something.

If they’re stacking ~170+ armor and BC isn’t enough. Of course, you could just stack another BC, which might actually be better until they make the passive unique.

Haven’t really played around with this a bunch yet. It’s interesting, because it’s a lot of stuff you want. A ranged slow, AD, Lifesteal. That said, it’s a lot of the same stats as BT but less. I guess consider it if you’re really having a hard time sticking to things, or if the enemy is stacking a lot of health over Armor so you don’t need LW. But even then I think BT’s extra damage would be better. I’ll build it in some more games and see what’s up.

I haven’t built this a lot, but I think it could be cool. You do a lot of AoE with your kit as it is, so doing more on your autos is pretty cool. And since it goes off AD, it does well with your Ult. Not to mention 75 AD and 10% Lifesteal are nothing to scoff at. If you want another flat AD item, you could do a lot worse.

Your other MR item. Maw gives more AD once you’ve been brought down past a certain point, but this gives more flat AD and MR, and the active is great against heavy CC teams. The sprint is nothing to sneeze at either, so get this against CC and Kiting teams I’d say.

Not the end-all-be-all defensive item it once was, but a revive and some defenses are never bad. If you needed early Armor and went Chain, this is pretty good to build it into.

I generally don’t like either of these. If you need to be really tanky, they’re good, but Riven shouldn’t be building pure tank items imo. If you HAVE to build a straight defensive Armor item, Glacial is better if you have a lot of AD to take advantage of the CDR (lower CD on shield and more armor), Omen is a better flat defensive item.

If you’re jungling, these are both great. Elder Lizard is good AD, True Damages on your stuff, and Health Regen. Wriggle’s is a ward, the proc, Lifesteal, and decent AD. I like Wriggle’s more, but I haven’t played with Elder Lizard a lot either.

Very situational. If you need a lot of early defense and MR, and no one else on your team is buying one. Jungle Riven might buy this a lot, since the jungler usually goes Aegis, but I’d still hold off on it.