Riven Build Guide by blastantir

Pros / Cons

In my opinion her best advantage is her high mobility, it can allows you to attack your enemy and run away quite fast early and makes the enemy's jungler role quite hard cause you are hard to gank.

Runes

Greater Mark of Attack Damage: give you early damage.

greater quintessence of desolation greater quintessence of desolation: in my opinion a must have. you will ignore a lot of armor early game combined with Weapon Expertise .

Greater Seal of Armor: early armor.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: some MR mid and late game.. i think this rune is very nice.


greater seal of defense greater seal of defense: mid/late game armor.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: some MR early.. i think these runes are very nice.

Masteries

I play Riven as an anti-carry malee champion, focusing on damage. Thanks to her nature Riven can be builded with a lot of damaging item having a nice survivability anyway.

Because of this i think 21/9/0 is the best build for Riven, because you need to pump up your burst ability to make your aggressive playstyle works well. The 9 points in Defence will help you to survive a lot longer in your lane and to save yourself from granks.

Best things are: Sorcery : riven loves cdr
Weapon Expertise : a nice damage burst thanks to arp
execurioner : works well with riven's ulti.

If you are skilled in Last Hitting minions you can move a point from Butcher to Destruction

If you preffer a more passive playstyle and a more def build (like 2nd and 3rd here) you can consider a 9/21/0 build with Weapon Expertise .

Spells

Flash is a great spell cause can help you to survive to a good gank ( junping behind a wall or simply away from them ) or reaching an enemy that used Flash before of you.

Ignite is usefull for attack an enemy cause it will low his healregen ability/life steal, while doing a nice true damage. In my opinion it can help you a lot


Teleport is great for solo top in my opinion. It allow you to go back ( or die ) and return to your tower in a very short time and give you map control for the rest of the game.

Exhaust is your main alternative to Ignite. It is very good because it will reduce the damage output of your enemy, his resistence and his mobility. Ignite and Exhaust are both a good choice.

Skills

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

This passive will grant you a lot of damage, more that you can expect. You should always put an AutoAttack ( AT from now ) between two skills to do as much damage as possible, or you can simply store 3 stacks with Broken Wings and than put an AT between other skills.


(Active): Riven steps forward and lashes out in a series of powerful sword slashes that will damage all enemies nearby. This ability can be activated a second time within 4 seconds, and a third time within 4 seconds of that. On the third activation she will also knock nearby enemies back and have a larger radius of damage. All three strikes will deal the same amount of damage.

At the beginning this skill has the main purpose of being a gap closer and a Runic Blade charger. You will max it last cause its CD will no change with addictional points and, i think, Valor and Ki Burst can help you more than it in laning phase.


(Active): Riven deals physical damage and stuns nearby enemies for 0.75 seconds.

This skill should be maxed first in my opinion because this stun, combined with your Runic Blade AT could do a lot of burst damage. Maxing it first you will grant a lot of damage and a lower CD. This skill can also save you from a lot of situation.



(Active): Riven dashes towards the cursor and gains a shield for up to 2.5 seconds.

This spell adds some more mobility to Riven and, mostly, an AD scaling shield! This is fantastic for you, so you should max it second for a lower CD and a more powerfull shield.


(Active): Riven's sword reforms, gaining 20% bonus attack damage, extended range on her damaging abilities and autoattacks for 15 seconds. She is also granted the ability to use Wind Slash once for the duration.

wind slash 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.

This Ulti grants you a lot of bonus damage, pumping up all of your skills and makes you hit very hard, incresing your range too. Isn't it enought? so, while your ulti is up you can use wind slash, a 2.0 Demacian Justice that does a lot of AOE damage scaling with your AD and with the enemies' missing health... great!

Skills Usage

As said before in early game you should play quite aggressive to allow Riven to make her best. So your early combination should be:

Broken Wings -> AT -> AT -> Ki Burst -> AT -> AT -> Valor ( for run away )

or if you are scared by the damage of your enemy:

Valor -> AT -> Ki Burst -> AT -> Broken Wings ( for run away )

try to use as much Runic Blade stacks as you can, but pay attenction to not take too much damage while you are doing it.

After you have reach lev.6 you should active Blade of the Exile before of attacking your enemy and you should save your wind slash only for finish your enemy when he is lower than 25% of his max life.



If you are going to be ganked you can quite easily run away from your enemies in this manner:

Valor-> Ki Burst-> Broken Wings

- use Valor for its shield, so you can reduce incoming damage.
- use Ki Burst for stunning one or both your enemies.
- use Broken Wings for run away from them while they are stunned.

Avoid skill shots: use Valor to excape from skill shots and for reduce incoming damage from skill that cannot be avoided ;)

Items

If you fell pretty sure you can select this aggressive build. In this way you will have a lot of burst and thanks to riven's mobility and shield you can save yourself without early def items.

In this case your build path should be something like:

- start with Boots of Speed and Health Potion x 3 for mobility and life.
- if you want play safe take 1 or 2 Doran's Blade.
- now take The Brutalizer for arp, cdr and a nice bonus damage. Now you can harass your enemy quite hard.
- Now, if you are ok take a B. F. Sword and than Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads, boots and sword if you need more mobility and defence.
- Now your main damage item, The Bloodthirster. It gives you a lot of damage ( and remember a bonus for Valor shield) and life steal.
- Probably now you need some defence, so take a Guardian Angel, tons of armor and mr and a great revive passive.
- Now Maw of Malmortius for a great damage bonus and because you need to face theire AP carry and kill him asap.
- at least The Black Cleaver and Warmog's Armor if you are doing well or Warmog's Armor and The Black Cleaver if you need more def



In my opinion these are the most important items that you need to have in your build as a Riven. The two different builds are:
1) if you are facing an AD champion as solo top enemy
2) if you are facing an AP champion as solo top enemy

These two core items builds will grant you the damage that you need for power up your skills and damage early game, giving you the survivability that you need too.


Wriggle's Lantern is an amazing solo top item cause it provides you armor, lifesteal and, first of all, a free ward that can help you very much against theire jungler.

Hexdrinker is the alternative to the lantern; taking this item if you are facing an AP enemy will make him crazy thanks to his shield and MR.

One of these items has the scope of adding some AP for your AT and Skills and giving you the right resistance to the enemy that you are facing.

For your aggressive play style and because all of your skills, included Valor, scale with your AD you will need a top tier AD item as soon as possible. These two items will grant al the AD that you need until midgame.


As said before you are not so much tanky at the beginning and you really need some added survivability. Taking this item early can solve this Riven's problem.


is a great armor item, it grants you health, armor, a little of CDR and a great active effect. Take it if you need more armor facing your enemy team.

can replace Warmog's Armor if you don't like it or if you want more CC.. it could be a great choice if you are facing an high mobile enemy in your lane, so take an early Phage could be a nice idea.

is a good item at all.. you shuold take it if enemy team is stacking armor.


surelly this build, as usual, is not static and depends on how is the match going.

Wards

If you have a Wriggle's Lantern all will be ok thanks to it and to your mobility you will be very hard to gank.

If you did non take it you must remember to take Sight Ward because top is usually the most gankable lane in the match ;) Do not feed theire jungler please.
If your enemy has warded the river you can conseder to buy a Vision Ward, but this is not so necessary.

Updates

10/12/2012: Build updated to season 3 (guide is coming)

08/09/2012: Mastery tree updated with Indomitable and Tough Skin

11/08/2012: MoM replace FoN in standard AD build

27/7/2012: new Aggressive Build added

27/7/2012: take Flash over Teleport

6/5/2012 : facing a skilled Darius
I'm having some problems facing skilled Dariuses because this new champion ( i call it "the new tryndamere" cause is a no-skill champion designed for kids in my opinion ) does an insane amout of damage and can break your combo grabbin you while you are QQQ or E away from him. In this case my advice is to stack 2or3 Doran's Blade, cause you need some more health and AD for damage and Valor, in this sequence: Boots of Speed Doran's Blade Ninja Tabi Doran's Blade ( Doran's Blade ). Try to be helped quite often by your jungler cause he has no escape abilities and, usually, a Darius will push your lane.
If you are in problems you can play quite passivelly stacking Doran's Blade and maxing Valor first, but in this case you will really need the help of your jungler to win your lane.