Welcome to my guide to Riven, The Exile!

In this build I provide you with my item build, play-style and lots of other Riven-related information. This is only my second guide so bare with me if it's a bit rough or not descriptive enough, as it is a work in progress.

What I love most about Riven, and what makes her most appealing to many veteran players out there is her great flexibility and her ability to become your own. As Riot described her, she is for the people who enjoy somewhat combo-esque play; cancels, combos and what have you. She is very different from all of the Leagues previous champions as she excels at quickly closing gaps between you and your enemy, dealing a lot of damage in a short amount of time and leaving, just as quickly as you got in there.

Now, for her runes, I focused on having a lot of presence in lane early game, while giving her a slight push toward late game damage. The Greater Mark of Strength Reds are meant to give her a bit more damage in her early levels, making it a bit easier to get you that first blood you hope for. As for the Greater Seal of Resilience yellows, they let her take much more harass in lane at her early levels. It also makes diving right into your two lane opponents a bit more realistic. Now, the Greater Glyph of Vigor blues are meant to help her more in late game, as they won't really help her early game (because they are per level runes). The Greater Quintessence of Desolation will help you a lot towards your late-game damage. Early game, it will help you get your kills on the tanks who have yet to build very tanky. This build focuses on armor penetration, so late game if you want to take on a tank, you will be relying much more on your item build than your rune help.

For her masteries I just focused on getting that bit of armor penetration and the exhaust buff, and the rest on her defense tree, because the way I play Riven, you must be going all-out at key moments, diving in to multiple enemies is pretty common, so you need to be able to take a few hits and make it out alive.

I always take Flash and Exhaust without question. Yes, Riven excels at escaping with her low cd skills that cover distance, but you can't escape everything.

Flash is also great on her because sometimes if I'm being ballsy enough to go for first blood, I'm willing to burn it to ensure that last auto-attack hits to get the kill.

Exhaust is just as imperative. On Riven, you can use the exhaust to ensure an enemy doesn't escape you while you chase them, harassing them with your deadly combos. You can also use it to save an ally that is in the middle of a team fight, taking hits from an enemy champion so you can ensure they deal less damage and you can grab them. You can also use it for when you feel ballsy enough to take on two people at once; you use it either on the one that will deal more damage to you (if they decide to fight) or you can use it on the one you know you want to kill (if they decide to run) so they get less armor and you can keep up with them.