Riven Build Guide by Poooookey

Updates

- Base movement speed reduced to 320 from 325

- Base health regen reduced to 10.4 per 5 seconds from 12 per 5 seconds

- Health regen per level reduced to 0.9 per 5 seconds from 1 per 5 seconds

- Broken Wings base damage increased to 30/55/80/105/130 from 30/50/70/90/110

- Ki Burst base damage reduced to 50/80/110/140/170 from 50/90/130/170/210

4/13/2012

- added Maw of Malmortius, removed Hexdrinker from gearbuild
- edited sections "Pros and Cons", "Skill Sequence and when to use them infight.", "Coreitems and alternatives, team depending items", "Lanemates - OUTSTANDING/GOOD/OK", "Runes"

Introduction

Welcome to my Riven Guide! This is my first guide, so please tell me in the comments below what I could do better.
In this guide, I will explain how to use a laning Riven. I have seen other guides and tried them and most of them are also good, but with this guide you will be in every phase of the game ahead of others, because in my opinion, Riven shouldn't be played as a tanky dps (like Trundle or Lee Sin) Champion, because her spells scale better than the ones of most other champions, that with tanky dps a lot of her potential just would get lost, especially with her ultimate, which is devastating with this build.

Pros and Cons

PRO:
- good damage output
- high lane durability
- stun, knock-up and shield implied in her spells
- very high mobility
- amazing easterbunny skin

CON:
- complete different play mechanism
- less sustainability than tanky dps Riven
- annoying Q sounds. Seriously if i hear HA HA HAAAAH one more time im gonna kill myself.

Runes

With these runes, you will have a huge advantage, especially in early game, where armor ( Greater Seal of Armor) gives you the possibility of playing more aggressive without taking too much damage while poking the enemy. Later, in mid-game, when the AP Carry gets dangerous, the Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist will give you the "insurance" of having a bigger chance of surviving the spell combos of the AP champions in the enemy team. I don't have to talk about armor penetration ( Greater Mark of Desolation + Greater Quintessence of Desolation). It's one of the most helpful stats in every phase of the game, especially in late game - believe me armor penetration wins fights.

But you could also use flat health Quintessences ( Greater Quintessence of Health), and instead of magic resist, cooldown reduction glyphs ( Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction), to use your spells more frequently, which is also really important with Riven, because her spells make her to one of the most mobile champions.

Masteries

These masteries give Riven the ability, to use her spells more frequently and do more overall damage, but also give her more durability in early to mid game with hp regeneration, armor and magic resist. These masteries also give you the ability to deal heavy early game damage.

A bit more defensive masteries are also possible, but i prefer these, because Riven shouldn't be used as any kind of tank.

Skill Sequence and when to use them infight.

This skill sequence gives you the most possible damage output by maxing out Broken Wings first, as your main damage source, that also has a little CC. Then you either can max out Ki Burst or Valor, but as i said, Riven should be played very offensively due to the fact that she doesn't need mana or any other resource. Of course put a point in your Blade of the Exile every time you can.

Her spells require a lot of practice, because the playstyle of Riven is very unique. But as soon as you can control your spells nothing will stop you.

Riven has one of the most powerful passives if used right, because it can only stack up to 3 times. So what you do is, try not to gain more than 2 stacks, because otherwise you would waste alot of damage output. Your normal skill order in a fight would be:

Valor to close the distance, Basic Attack, Ki Burst to keep him from running away, Basic Attack, 1 usage (up to 2 uses depending if enemy is running or not) of Broken Wings, Basic Attack, Valor to absorb some damage/to close the gap if enemy is running, Basic Attack, 3rd use of Broken Wings for disabeling enemy, Basic Attack, Ki Burst.

With this skill order you should be able to kill your enemy fast or chase him, because you don't use your spells all at once. Always try to save Valor for gap-closings if the fight looks good for you, because then you don't need the shield for the fight.

Summoner Spells

This is just the perfect melee champion summoner spell. It slows and reduces item damage and together with Summoner's Wrath it also reduces armor. Just too important to leave it for something else.

Even with nerf still better than Ghost for Riven, because you gain even more mobility together with your abilities Broken Wings and Valor.

But i will also explain, why i dont take other summoner spells than the two above.


Ignite should be taken by your carry. Riven can take it, too, but I personally think that Exhaust works better with her.


Useful, but your target shouldn't be focused on making it alive out of the fight with no health just to use cleanse. And normally Valor does the job pretty well, because u still can get away exhausted, and the shield is big enough to block the damage of Ignite.


Riven already is a excellent minion farmer. With her Broken Wings and Ki Burst you can clear out whole minion waves nearly immidiately. So that would be just a waste.


In my opinion this isn't helping at all and I think you never should take this SS.


You already are an excellent chaser with Valor and Broken Wings, so you won' need this. Flash way more useful here.


Riven doesn't even use mana. If you take this, please uninstall the game.


Riven this should be taken by your supporter.


Even though Heal can save you first blood, help you get out of fights alive and help keeping teammates from death. It's quite often used in High ELO games, but I wouldn't recommend taking it with Riven, because you should focus on maximize your damage. And it really scales poorly into late game.


This is a viable SS for champions like Master Yi, who can split-push very well, but Riven shouldn't be split-pushing, because her skill set is amazing to mess up the enemy team's positioning in a team fight and not that good for a fast split-push.


Your target should be not to die!


This is a jungler spell. You can jungle with Riven, but I personally don't like jungling with Riven. There are better champions for that, like Shyvana, Skarner or Shaco.


Don't take this one under no circumstances, because you just don't take any real profit out of this SS.

Coreitems and alternatives, team depending Items

This item build is focused on high damage output, but there are some alternatives in the detail, depending on what enemies you are playing.

COREITEMS

If you play against a heavy AD team, take Ninja Tabi instead of Mercury's Treads for the dodge and armor. Then you also would take Youmuu's Ghostblade instead of Wit's End, because Youmuu's Ghostblade has better stats if the enemies don't really have a heavy AP champion. Some players say, that The Bloodthirster should be bought right before you get Infinity Edge, but I tried both and I think it's better to get Infinity Edge first.

And then of course there's the normal procedure. If the team is heavy AP focused, get more MR, otherwise more armor. But always try to get these coreitems, because they ensure your mid game dominance. Then, in late game, you can have to decide what you want to build. This depends heavily on the enemy team and of course on how your team plays together. What I want to say is, that you can play way more offensive with a team, that understands each others actions. Otherwise you HAVE to build up your defense earlier than normal, because you will get crushed if you don't do that. And again, don't just follow one way of building up your items and always watch for what your enemy is building and try to counter their targets.

Unique Skills

Riven is a pretty unique champion, with a whole different set of spells. The spells follow a pretty rare concept, because you just point in a direction with your cursor, and the spell will go in that direction. So there are no skillshots, no placable AoE effects ( Ki Burst is bound to Riven) and only one coneshot.
Which brings us to one of the most unique ultimates in League of Legends. Blade of the Exile. A passive part and an active part? Yes, thats right. The ultimate has a quite low cooldown and is just so devastating in the right hands. Not only gives you this ultimate more AD, which is just the right thing for Riven, it gives you the ability to activate the ultimate again to get Wind Slash, which is a coneshot, that deals good damage. You want to save this for when your enemy is retreating or is with low health somewhere at the tower. Because the range of this ability is really good you can easily finish enemies also through walls. NEVER use it right at the beginning, because even though Riven is an incredible chaser, you can use this ability to pick up the kill quite easily. Nearly no champion has such a good ultimate, which is not only good for her, because Riven can use this ability in a team fight if everyone is at about half health to deal massive damage in the whole enemy team.
But like i said, normally I use it to chase down/kill enemies that try to escape.

Farming

Till level 3, you should play more defensively and only last hit minions, but then, once you hit level 3 and got your Valor, you can start harassing your enemy and that way, deny him XP if done right. Because of nearly all of her spells deal AoE damage, it's quite easy to clear out whole minion waves pretty quickly.

Try to let the enemy push till he is at your tower. Then you dash towards him with Valor, Ki Burst him and start the spell combo. That way you can dominate your lane, which lets you farm way more easily. Don't forget to place a ward in the bush in the river! You don't even have to buy a ward you can use the one from Wriggle's Lantern. If you don't do so well, play really defensive and only go out to farm a bit if you are sure that you can escape, what you can do quite often thanks to you high mobility thanks to your spells.

All in all Riven is an excellent minion farmer and with just a bit knowledge about her spells and her play style, you can dominate your lane easily.

Lanemates - Outstanding/Good/OK

This can change the whole game - your lanemate. What you want to get as a dps champion, is a support champion or a tank with a taunt. I splitted the possibilities into 3 groups:
Outstanding, Good, OK. So if you can't play on a sololane, ask in the champion selection for one of the champions in the group OUTSTANDING. You DO NOT want to be on a lane with a melee or ranged AD carry, because it will turn out that both of you just won't be prepared enough for the mid/lategame.

OUTSTANDING



GOOD



OK



Don't missunderstand me. All of the champions above work quite good with Riven, there just are some champions who just work insanely well with her. All the other champions, not mentioned here, don't work that good normally. Of course you can play with any champion on one lane if you have to, as long as you understand each others actions it won't be a big problem.

Riven Champion Spotlight

Summary

If you use this guide right, you won't have any problems with carrying any game. Riven just needs a bit of practice, because she is much more different than other champions in terms of playstyle and how her spells work etc.

I am looking forward to hear what I can do better in this guide, just tell me in the comments below, because I want to make this a really good guide. I hope this guide is good, even though this is my first guide! And don't forget to vote ;)!

Thanks for reading this guide,
Poooookey