Hello everyone! My name is Fearholder and I play on the EUW server. This is my first guide ever, so feel free to comment and tell me what you think. I will try to keep you happy.

Now, to business.

I have made this Riven guide because I just love to play her. She's a very fun champ to play. I would tell you why, but I think you can only understand me once you've played her a couple of times. Perhaps you'll come to love her just as much as me one day, who knows! :D

One last thing before we start. I am not saying that this is the only way to build Riven. I am also not saying that this is the best way to play Riven. I'm just trying to share a build that I came up with myself, after playing Riven following the top rated guide on MobaFire for a long time. I have been experimenting with builds that work and builds that don't, and this is what I created. Once again, this is NOT the only way/best way to play Riven. But please read this guide and try it a couple of times before you cast your judgement over this guide. Enjoy!

Pros:

• High damage

• Pretty tanky

• Very high mobility

• Low-CD Execution ult

• AOE stun that deals damage

• No mana/energy/fury or whatsoever

Cons:

• Not as tanky as other (off)tanks (with this build at least)

• Weak to hard CC and armor

• Proper skill timing is essential

Marks:

• 9x Greater Mark of Attack Damage. Why? All Riven's abilities scale with attack damage. She deals attack damage. So we take AD runes, simple. You could also go for the armor penetration marks but I feel like the penetration from Black Cleaver should be enough.

Seals:

• 9x Greater Seal of Armor. Most of the time you will be facing an AD champion against you. These runes will help you lane against those champs, and are also good when the teamfights start.

Glyphs:

• 8x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist. You could go for flat MR runes when laning against an AP champion. Yet these scaling runes are later in teamfights better and they take over the flat ones pretty early.

• 1x Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction. This single rune will get you your desired 40% cooldown reduction. Together with your 4/4 Sorcery mastery this will give you the missing 5%.

Quintessences:

• 3x Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed. You want to be fast. You want to be able to run in and out of teamfights as you please. You want to be able to chase or escape from your enemies. One could say 'But Riven has so much mobility already! I don't need these.', but I think these runes only compliment her already very mobile skillset. This is part of this build and fits with this build's intended playstyle. Yet if you really don't want to use thee movement speed quints, you can also use flat AD quints, for an even better early game.

I recommend taking 21/9/0 for masteries. This build only works when you have an already quite tanky team anyways, so you want to be a high damage dealing offtank. Let me explain my decisions.

Offense

• 4/4 Sorcery. Riven is an AD caster. Together with your Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction this will get you the 40% CDR which we love so much. I mean, come on. Who wouldn't want to be able to cast Valor every 3.6 seconds?

• 4/4 Deadliness . Gives us AD per level. All our abilities scale from AD so this is good.

• 1/1 Weapon Expertise . 8% extra Armor penetration. Synchronizes well with your Black Cleaver. You need to shred your opponent's armor to be able to do damage. If they have too much armor you won't be of any use.

• 3/3 Havoc . Increases damage dealt by 2.00%. It is not that much, but maybe that lucky Jax on your enemy team won't get away with just 10hp left.

• 2/2 Brute Force . 3 flat AD. Why not?

• 2/2 Butcher . Helps with lasthitting minions in lane.

• 3/3 Sunder . 5 Flat armor penetration. Armor is our worst enemy, this lets us ignore 5 points of it.

• 1/1 Destruction . Increases damage to turrets by 5% which speeds the pushing up a little. This is useful for when your jungler has ganked your lane and you killed your enemy (or you did it all alone), so you'll be dealing more damage to his turret and maybe you'll be able to even completely destroy it before your enemy returns to lane. This puts you and your team ahead of the rest, as you will all receive 150g, and 150g x5 = 750g. Definitely a good mastery. You can also get Summoner's Wrath instead, it's just a preference, really.

• Executioner . Increases damage dealt by 5% to targets below 50% health. A very good mastery to have already, and even better for Riven as it works well with your Blade of the Exile.

Defense

• 4/4 Durability . Increases your hp per level, which makes you more tanky.

• 2/3 Hardiness . Increases your armor by 3.5, which makes you more tanky.

• 2/3 Resistance . Increases your magic resist by 3.5, which makes you more tanky.

• 1/2 Relentless . We don't want to be slowed!

Let me summarize this: we are taking as much damage in the offense tree, while still trying to be tanky by picking some armor, resistance, health and slow reduction in the defense tree.

First, let's talk about the building order.

We should start with Boots and 3x Health Potion. This gives us some early mobility and 3 pots for lane sustain.

• Next, we build a Phage for some damage, health and a chance to slow our enemies.
  

After the Phage we build our Ionian Boots of Lucidity to increase our mobility even more and lower our cooldowns. Riven is (Yes I'm saying it again) an AD caster, so the lower the cooldowns, the better. We don't need the Tenacity from the Mercury's Treads, as we are building Zephyr later on.

• After the boots we build a Vampiric Scepter for lane sustain. It also builds into Ravenous Hydra which we are gonna buy in the lategame.
  

After Vampiric Scepter we start building Zephyr for the tenacity it gives us. By now the enemy jungler must have visited your lane a couple of times, and your enemies try to cc you to get a kill on you. Won't happen when you have tenacity. It also gives us extra movement speed which adds to our already high mobility, and some nice AD, attack speed, and CDR <3.

• Next, we build our Phage into a Frozen Mallet for even more health, and a 100% chance on the autoattack slow.
  

Now your enemies must have bought armor, so you buy Black Cleaver. Simply because it is just too good. It shreds armor, gives CDR, AD and HP. As I said: It's just too good.

• Now we enchant our boots with Enchantment: Alacrity to maximize our mobility. You can even get this earlier if you want as it is fairly cheap.
  

Now we build our Vampiric Scepter into a Ravenous Hydra. A great item on Riven. Gives us 75 AD, which is nice. The item doesn't increase the life steal amount but instead gives you some hp regeneration which is also good for sustain. And the main reason we're getting it is because of the amazing passive/active. The passive makes our basic attacks splash, dealing 60-20% aoe damage, and the active is an aoe dmg ability that deals 100-60% of your AD to enemies around you. This can be used in between your basic abilities. The aoe damage is really good in teamfights. I put this item on my number 1 button where I can reach it well.

• And last but not least we build a Guardian Angel for some nice resists and a free rebirth every 5 minutes.
  

Your build should look like this now:

What you will have accomplished with this build:

• Aoe damage
• 35% CDR without losing your tenacity
• A slow on autoattack hit
• Some extra movement speed
• Some extra attack speed
• Insane armor penetration
• Some health, armor, magic resist, life steal and hp regen
• A rebirth every 5 minutes

I think I have put very much utility in the item build, which may take away some of Riven's possible damage output, but I think all of it combined makes her a better champion.

Items I left out

1. Bloodthirster. A very good item for Riven. I just couldn't find a place for it in this build. If you really want to build this without removing the whole purpose of this guide, you could replace the Ravenous Hydra with Bloodthirster, but lose the aoe damage.
2. Mercury's Treads. As I already explained above, we will not need the tenacity as we are getting it from our Zephyr.
3. Maw of Malmortius. I just couldnt find a good way to fit it into this build without removing the stats I want.
4. Warmog's Armor. This is not a tank Riven guide.
5. Atma's Impaler. We do not have enough HP for this item to be viable. Also, we do not want crit as Riven is an AD caster.
6. Randuin's Omen. Ask your jungler/support to get this item.
7. Runic Bulwark. Ask your jungler/support to get this item too.

If you think I forgot to mention an item, please let me know in the comments.

I'll go over Riven's abilities and tell you what they are and how they are used.

Passive:

Riven's passive ability is Runic Blade. Each time you activate an ability you get one stack of Runic Blade, stacking up to 3 times. Every time you hit an autoattack, a stack of Runic Blade is consumed to deal extra physical damage. This passive ability is very strong, you should always try to hit these basic attacks in between your skill combo's, or you will end up wasting some of your precious stacks.

Q:

Riven's Q is Broken Wings. You can activate this ability 3 times within a short time period. The first and second activation make you lunge forward to deal damage, the third activation makes you jump into the air and smash downward, having a slightly increased impact nova and knocking your enemies back. Remember that every activation of Broken Wings grants you a stack of your Runic Blade, so if you have no trouble chasing an enemy down, try to keep auto attacking once between every activation, to increase damage output and avoid wasting Runic Blade stacks.

This skill is not only used for damage. You can use it to chase down an enemy or get away from enemies chasing you. You can knock enemies away from allies or knock your opponent into your team or a turret. Or if you have just gone back to base, you can simply use this skill to get back to your turret faster. You can get through Anivia's Crystallize and Jarvan IV's Cataclysm with this, and the activation of Broken Wings ignores unit collision. A very good ability which adds alot of mobility.

At rank 5, this ability deals the most damage. However, the cooldown of this skill does not decrease as you upgrade it. So if you upgrade this first, you will be unable to perform your other abilities more often. CDR is very much needed on Riven and also this ability's damage is not a part of the harassing combo. We level this skill last.

W:

Riven's W is Ki Burst. This ability deals damage and stuns all enemies around Riven. This skill is maxed first because of the damage it deals, and the cooldown decreases as you upgrade it. This item may not deal the most damage but the stuns are really useful for interrupting spells (like Katarina's Death Lotus) or simply chasing down fleeing enemies. This will also be your main damage in your harassing combo, which I will explain later on.

E:

Riven's E is Valor. This skill is maxed second for the amazing uses it has, and the cooldown reduces as you upgrade it. Valor makes Riven dash towards your cursor, shielding herself for an amount of damage. This skill is amazing for absorbing lane harass and surviving ganks, and later on it will also keep you very much alive in teamfights. This skill can get you into position for all your other skills, get you out of Crystallize and Cataclysm, and also ignores unit collision. And the best thing: it scales with AD. So basically, you get tankier by building damage items. Amazing. Maxing it second (or sometimes even first) gives you a lower cooldown, which means: more shields, more mobility. This ability makes me happy :)

ULTIMATE (R):

Riven's ultimate is Blade of the Exile. Activating this ability will give Riven 20% extra attack damage which boosts all of her abilities, extra basic attack range which increases her Broken Wings and Ki Burst range slightly too, and the ability to use Wind Slash once.

Wind Slash is a coned, ranged execution ability that will deal more damage based on the target's missing health (kinda like Garen's Demacian Justice). Please keep in mind that this skill is very damaging when your target is low hp, but when full hp this skill will do almost no damage. Also keep in mind that you should not abuse this skill to get kills your carries could have gotten (they should add this to all Darius guides). If you're not quite sure if they will be able to make the kill, do not hesitate. But if your AD carry is only 2 autoattacks away from killing an enemy, don't Wind Slash, just let them have the kill.

For summoner spells, I take Flash and Ignite.


Flash helps you chase enemies, escape, gives you the option to position yourself in order to be able to hit your other spells, and so much more. You can even Flash through alot of walls (not all).

• Did your ult leave your enemy at only 70 hp, and is he/she out of range for your abilities? Ignite

• Is Dr. Mundo using his ult or did Volibear's passive proc? Ignite

• Is that Soraka about to heal the enemy carry? Ignite

Ignite Is just the best second summoner spell to take, to damage and finish off wounded targets, or reduce healing.

Other viable picks:

• Exhaust. Slows enemy and reduces attack speed and damage dealt. I prefer Ignite over Exhaust because we have the slow from Frozen Mallet already.
• Teleport. Enables you to teleport to any friendly champion, minion or ward on the map. This is for if you need to buy items and get back to top lane fast, or your team needs help at Baron, Dragon or in a teamfight.
• Cleanse. For when the enemy team has too much CC to be able to survive, or to get rid of that nasty Children of the Grave Ignite combo when you're about to die.

Do you have any suggestions? Did I miss anything you really think I should add to the guide? Leave a comment and I'll see what I can do for you.

• Explain item choices better for the items individually, before rushing to the building order
• Create Earlygame/Midgame/Lategame section
• Try to make alternatives less hard to spot
• Maybe add a jungling-section (I'm not a good jungler)

17/12/12:

• Uploaded incomplete guide
• Upgraded the 'Items' section on the same evening and also made some adjustments to the lay-out

18/12/12:

• Upgraded the 'Skill Sequence' section
• Added 'Summoner Spells' section
• Some minor details, build is as good as finished.

19/12/12:

• Added 'To Do List' section