Hello, and welcome to a guide on how to play Riven. First off, I'd like to give a little explanation about why I decided to write this guide.

Riven has been my favorite character since she was released. She has all the characteristics that I like. I just LOVE that big *** sword, especially when you pop her ultimate, so unique and versatile. All of her skills are amazing for that matter. Her Broken Wings is one of the funniest skills in the game to use, in my opinion. Even her very appearance is astounding to me. From her beautiful silver hair to her sweet looking armor! Let's not forget about her newly released Bunny Girl skin!

Some very important things to keep in mind about this build when reading or commenting on it:

1.) First off, I would like to point out that I did NOT collect all of this information alone. I did indeed pick and steal(:D) from other guides and Riven players I've seen through out her release. That being said I do NOT take full credit for the information provided.

2.) Additionally, I would like to point out that this Guide well not compose of just one item sequence. There are many different methods of items I take in the from early, mid, and end game. This depends on many different variables, things such as who you're opponent is in lane, as well as who the opponents team consists of or even who's on your team. The build I listed above is just a balanced core build for those impatient ones out there.

Now without farther ado, let the Guide begin!

Pros Extreme Damage High Mobility( Broken Wings and Valor allow you to get away from just about anything ) Can literately run in and mess up a whole team with Broken Wings and Ki Burst( especially with your ultimate on ) Strong throughout Early, Mid, and Late game( not as good late, in my opinion ) Difficult to gank Can play either Top, Mid, or Jungler

SPACE

Cons Can be kited Not as strong late game( due to everyone getting through their builds ) Not to tanky Without Armor Penetration items you wouldn't get through players stacking armor

Classic - 5v5

In the laning stage, your usually gonna stay in a particular lane. These lanes consist of Top lane(Top), Middle lane(Mid), Bottom lane(Bot), and sometimes even have a jungler.

If your playing as Riven you'll most likely being going top alone, while the other person jungles, so you can get gold and levels potentially increasing your survivability and damage-output or whatever role you are trying to play. In this case, you'll be playing as a melee fighter, with some tanking potential. Most of the time I don't play Riven unless I can get top lane alone, but their have been positions where I've went mid or even bottom with someone else. Riven is pretty item dependent, so getting that Bloodthirstier as fast as possible well be your main goal.

Runic Blade

Riven's abilities charge her blade, causing her to do 5 / 7 / 9 / 11 / 13 / 15 (+0.5 per bonus attack damage) bonus damage on her next autoattack. Riven can store up to 3 charges, but only expends one at a time.

Now that is one awesome passive. This is the key to Riven's damage. Every single time you use a skill this baby activates. Basically, you wanna land a autoattack every time you use a skill. Even the full Broken Wings combo can be broken down with this.

The basic strategy with Runic Blade, is you wanna simply auto-attack after every skill.
Broken Wings: Simply: (Q)>Auto-attack> (Q)>Auto-attack> (Q)>Auto-attack for max damage-out put.
Ki Burst: (W)>Auto-attack, pretty simply, but can be deadly combined with Broken Wings.
Valor: This one is not so important. Most of the time you'll just E>Auto-attack natural though your full skill combo.

Broken Wings

Riven steps forward and lashes out in a series of powerful sword slashes. This ability can be activated up to 3 times in a short period.

1st Use/2nd Use: Deals 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+0.7 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to a small area in front of her.

3rd Use: Jumps into the air and slams downward, causing a larger impact nova that deals 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+0.7 per bonus attack damage) physical damage and knocks nearby enemies back.

Riven's bread and butter skill. This move is used for all kinds of things, which is probably why it's my favorite skill. I use this skill to initiate, chase, juke, or even to retreat. I've also noticed its pretty hard to hit Riven in the mist of this deadly combo. This skill is also fantastic for farming up a storm!

Broken Wings is very important to a Riven's success. It allows the summoner to escape, initiate, chase and screw up team fights. It also gives you amazing farm capabilities.

If you time your moves right you can get a pretty long stun/knock-up on an entire team. Just use a full Broken Wings combo and quickly follow up with a Ki Burst to stun for almost an entire second.

Ki Burst

Riven stuns nearby enemies for 0.75 seconds and hits them for 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+1.0 per bonus attack damage) physical damage.

Oh, Ki Burst, how I love you oh so much. You have such good damage and such a good stun radius( not to mention your low cool-down! :D) Ki Burst might just be the best skill in terms of damage and usefulness on Riven. It may stun for less then a second, but trust me, that's already to much.

The great thing about Ki Burst is when you have your ultimate activated, stun range is increased to fit a bunched up team in it.

Valor

Riven dashes forward and gains a shield that protects her from up to 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+1.0 per bonus attack damage) for 2.5 seconds.

Probably Riven's most used skill. Giving her the ONLY shield in the game, that depends on your attack damage. When you start getting into the 300's on your AD you'll have a nice shield to block most off the incoming damage. I can't even begin to describe how many times I've been saved by this skill. And it's low cool-down is just an add-on, you'll be able to use this in a fight about 1-3 times depending on how big the fight is of course.

I usually never have this baby on cool-down. The amount of damage it can block in a matter of seconds is just astounding! Again, you can use this skill in so may ways! Chasing, initiating, escaping, you name it!

Blade of the Exile

Riven's sword reforms, giving her a bonus 20% Attack Damage, extended range on her damaging abilities and basic attacks for 15 seconds.

While Blade of the Exile is active, Riven can reactivate the ability to activate Wind Slash, emitting a large cone shockwave that deals 80 / 120 / 160 (+0.6 per attack damage) - 240 / 360 / 480 (+1.8 per attack damage) physical damage to all units hit based on their missing life.

OH MAMA, now this is one ultimate I wouldn't want to go up against. Not only does it multiply you AD and usefulness of Riven's skills, but it also comes with a nice finisher, which can easily score you a quadra or maybe even a penta! You could say its a mid to long ranged Garen ultimate!

This ultimate also has a feature where it revamps every skill you have.
Broken Wings: Range and damage gets buffed.
Ki Burst: Range on your stun and damage gets buffed.
Valor: Due to the AD multiplier, your shield gets a huge jump start!

Wind Slash

Minimum Damage: 80 / 120 / 160 (+0.6 per bonus attack damage)

Maximum Damage (25% health or lower): 240 / 360 / 480 (+1.8 per bonus attack damage)

Riven can activate the ability to emit a shockwave in a long cone in front of her that deals physical damage to all units hit based on their missing health.

Simply by pressing R again, you gain access to a long range skill that deals damage depending on how much HP they have missing. Save this trump card for last, as it basically kills anyone at 1/3 of their max health!

• No cost
• Range:
• Missile speed: 2200
• Bonus autoattack range: 75
• Bonus Ki Burst range: 20 (estimate)
• Broken Wings new AoE: 325 (estimate)

Burst Damage
Survivability( mostly used for a jungle Riven )

Used mostly for that early game dominance.

Helps your survivability in top lane.

Per level to help late game.

greater quintessence of desolation Helps when players stack armor.

I wouldn't really recommend any other runes for Riven she needs that early game dominance to help her get ahead of other champions, thus is why going top is important.




I actually love these on Riven, mostly due to the fact that her skills have some high cool-downs compared to others. I even find my team wanting to grab blue buff every once and awhile.


If you have any other runes you like, please comment and allow me to test 'em out! Feedback is always appreciated!

Like I stated in my laning section of the Guide. There are different stages( early, mid, and late ) in a match come into play that affect many different variables in a game, as well as weather or not your gonna win or lose. I well be going over all of the items that correspond to those stages.

Starting Items

Most of the time I start with this item due to it being very cost efficient with AD, life steal, and HP. All these stat bonuses are great on Riven . I usually go back and get a second one( after some ) to farther increase my lane dominance.

x4

Very important to get these when the enemy team has a dangerous jungler, the last thing you wanna do is feed. These are also useful for when you going up against those fast champions, such as Kennen, Ryze( pain in the *** stun ), Rumble, and Olaf. The Health Potions x4 are just for increasing your lane endurance.

x 5

Another great item to bring with you top. The safest of the three due to the likely hood of you meeting a AD bruiser top.

Early Game Items

Fantastic item for enduring those heavy bruisers your most likely gonna meet at top lane. Don't be afraid to buy these if you don't have enough gold for Mercury's Treads. You're most likely not gonna be meeting that much CC early game anyway.



Your going to probably be getting focused a lot late game, so these are the boots you NEED late game. Not so much early or even mid game due to the lack of team fights.



If your really that addicted to cool-down reduction, then by all means grab one of these on you second or third trip back. This combined with some Greater Glyph of Focus's gives you the ability to harass with you skills every five seconds. That well show those damn Gangplanks and there "I ATE SOME ORANGES AND IT WAS K!" mambo-jumbo.

Your gonna want to build this into a Youmuu's Ghostblade after awhile, which is a nice item for Riven.

Mid Game Items

Lanes are MIA, champions are ganking, and team fights are starting! It's time for some more advanced items to help you stack up against those mid AP casters and AD carrys.



Sooner or later your gonna have enough to buy a B.F. SwordB.F. Sword, in which case you well be starting to rack in the numbers. Never buy the life stealing item first. Once you get this baby, you wanna turn all you're attention to farming it up to 40 stacks which well make your damage skyrocket! The amount of damage you can dish out with this is unreal. One Broken Wings > Ki Burst combo well take out a whole minion wave.



Probably your best tanking item. Giving you an extra life after you run out of HP AND some massive armor and magic resist bonuses. Without this item, you well be destroyed in seconds in team fights.




An item that gives me more damage, cool-down reduction AND armor pen!? Sign me up! Don't forget the active skill it provides, giving you more attack speed, which works wonders with
Blade of the Exile !

Late Game Items

Grab another one of these and you'll be slicing tanks in half. And you don't wanna know what happens to squishes. The extra life steal is amazing for Riven as well.



A must need item for a heavy AP team. The shield works wonders for Riven, allowing her to stand up to even more hits. It also adds on to her offensive power( as if it wasn't good enough ) with a plus 55 attack damage. I don't really care for the plus 1 attack damage for every 2.25% health missing passive, but I guess it goes well with the Guardian Angel item.



I usually grab this instead of another Bloodthirster. Get it if enough of the enemy team has built at least one armor item.



Sure you do a lot of damage, but are you tanky enough to hold your own in a team fight? With under 2000 HP your probably not, at least not during late game. This item gives you a nice armor boost not to mention the awesome price it goes for. I usually get this item if my team needs a little bit more armor or I myself am falling behind in gold and items.



I get this if I find myself chasing after people a lot. The slow is incredible, slowing the target every auto-attack! This item can also act as a replacement partner for Atma's Impaler, giving you 700 HP.



An item that won't work to well without its sister; Atma's Impaler. Amazing against those heavy DPS champions. This can be replaced with a Frozen Mallet, as stated above



Perfect when you have a Warmog's Armor. Giving you access to even more damage and tanking capabilities. The combination of Atma's Impaler and Warmog's Armor is the best counter for those heavy burst champions.

A few things you wanna look for when you get into a game or maybe as early as the loading screen. Do they have a Jungler? Who do you think your gonna have to face top? Even things like who's on the opponents team is going Middle or Bottom, all of these variables determine what items you should grab before the one minute mark. Either grab Boots of Speed if they have a dangerous Jungler, such as Skarner or Shaco. A Doran's Blade if you know you can afford to get aggressive or just a Cloth Armor if your opponent breaks through your shield a lot( I find Olaf doing this a lot ).

Riven can secure top very nicely. Her utility of skills is perfect for harassing and securing kills. Your role right now is to farm. You should also harass every time your skill combos up. Valor > Broken Wings > Ki Burst should be your main combo when try to whittle down your opponent.

The next section depends on how your surviving in lane. Are you getting kills and farm or are you just simply being forced back to the turret? You definitely wanna pick up some Doran's Blades if you find yourself losing in 1v1. I'd say 3 should be your max, anymore and you won't have your Bloodthirster in time for Mid game. If you find yourself doing extremely well in lane and your racking up kills/farm, then go ahead and grab an early B.F. Sword.

Also, if your facing a team that centers around AD, I recommend picking up some Ninja Tabi for some great early game defense! If they have a lot of AP, go ahead and grab a Mercury Treads.

Another thing to keep in mind when soloing top. NEVER PUSH TO FAR! Always try and go for those last hits. If you end up pushing to there turret, you won't have any room to last hit due to the enemy top laner pushing against you and its not like you can do much about it when they're at their turret.


Let's not forget the Jungler on the other side of the team. If you're at an enemy teams turret, you basically holding up a sign saying "Come kick my ***, please!"

I well probably update as time goes on just wanna release it to get it out there.

(Released)/2012-04-17
(Update) /2012-04-18
(Update) /2012-04-20