Riven Builds

I personally max W first followed by Q. Maxing W first gives you good damage early game and then maxing Q allows you to farm creep wave cake like. Have been thinking about maxing Q last though. Only because the cd on E gets lower with rank and is useful for diving in and out of team fights (you don't move much but it could cause that melee carry or ranged in back to stop focusing you).

Personally I would go with maxing E first, then W, then Q.

If my ratios are correct, I believe W has the highest ratio, and E has the next highest ratio, then Q after that. In that case E for the better solo/higher hp jungle, then W for midgame, then Q for Triforce Procs.

Both E and w has 100% ratio hawk.

After doing some bot games I have to agree, tri force isn't a terrible item. The proc gave me 200 extra damage. I wouldn't buy sheen first but tri force might definitely be good on her.

Sorry this is so long... TL;DR at the end.

I don't really post here much since I always seem to have ideas contrary to the hive mind, but I will share anyway because I love the champion.

Before I go into my build, I've found some characters make great lane partners (people with hard CC/burst) and others completely ruin her day (Teemo of all people). Sometimes it pays to be passive if you don't have a good partner, or are against a particularly hard lane match. If you don't start generating cash flow early, falling behind is more detrimental to Riven than it is to most other people... unless you're a jungler being counter jungled or something.

Basic stuff to most people, but I find with Riven it's kinda exponential. Some champs can have a bad early game, decent mid game and make up for it if the game goes late. Riven I find snowballs one way or another, although if a game goes long (you should be farming your *** off) then you'll able to get her to the point where she's "good enough" at least.

I don't really consider "good enough" until she has 4 items in particular.

Brutalizer, Giant's Belt, Ionian Boots and Phage.

I also try to buy them in that order, starting with boots and 3 pots.

Reasons being:

She is squishy. No amount of Doran's items are going to change that (exception imo is Shield for solo top). It's a band-aid solution to problems that will never go away. Even then, buying it and selling it later is nice... but that's still about two wards and two pots gone to waste.

With that said, being squishy means you have to get hit as little as possible: Boots 1 + 3 pots. Mobile. Agile. Hostile if you can manage it (what the pots are for).

As the levels go, you might get a kill or an assist or something... excellent. You want to keep that momentum going. If they get health or armor you don't want that to hamper you. Further, you want to get your cooldowns lowered (essential imo): Brutalizer. Conversely, if you are having a **** early game and are forced to tower hug, don't be disappointed. Riven's farming capabilities only get better as the levels go up.

You should be approaching early mid game by now, if not mid game already. The closer you are to mid game itself, the more you need health for fights. Otherwise, smart people will focus you first and make sure you die because you have ZERO escapes outside of Flash.

"ZERO escapes? zomg, lol, you noob."

I'm not talking about using E and Q to get away from people who are already falling behind.

I'm talking about being in the middle of a fight, skills flying, and you seriously needing to gtfo before you die. Yes, you E and Q to get away from the fight just the same. However, with multiple people using skills to lock you down and kill you (hai Exhaust), you don't really have say... Valkyrie or Trynd/Garen spin or hell... even Shen can dash farther than you... Nidalee can also do it more often.

All of that is to say, you NEED HP. You do not want to be in a fight for dragon or something with boots and a Brutalizer. You will die. Giant's Belt.

Finally, stop being a slack *** and running so slowly. Up until now you should be in lane farming as much as you can, killing if possible, no real reason to leave = no real reason to rush boots. Now's a good time though, you've got damage, you've got cdr, you've got health, the only 3 stats that really matter to her. You need to be mobile, agile and hostile again: Ionian Boots.

Why not Merc Treads? You're still gonna die, 's my thinking. Cutting that 1.5s stun down to about 1.1ish is great theoretically... but that .4s is going to save you how many times? Wouldn't it be nice if you had E off cooldown to actually get away?

There ya go, Ionian Boots. Greaves are not worth getting. Attack Speed as a stat isn't really useful because you aren't Tryn, Yi, Ashe or Cait. You actually have to weave your abilities and even then, as everyone has already pointed out, you are attacking once per ability to make the best use out of your passive. Realistically, every fight doesn't allow you to weave so perfectly... I find myself weaving 3rd Q and W more than I find myself weaving auto attacks with Q, to be entirely honest.

If they want to run away from me in a straight line all slow like, sure, I'll Q-aa all day long. But I'm sure they want to live, meaning I don't have much time to do my damage and get out before I get hurt.

As for what you do after those 3 items... it's really up to you. If you hoard Red Buff, skip Phage. If you let your ranged AD have Red, get Phage. Hell, get Mallet. It solves the hp problem and the no CC problem in one convenient item slot. You aren't spending money on wasted stats either.

Ghostblade is also not a necessity. I'd rather keep Brutalizer and build Mallet, Warmog's, Infinity and a defensive item than finish Ghostblade before doing the same thing. I don't really rely on its active to keep me in range of my target, no one should. It's a luxury is all. Exceptions being people like... Yi or Rumble... the former you shouldn't be going toe to toe with and the latter will out run you if they really want to.

Triforce is... well, I'll let people keep on building it, I'm not going to say it's terrible but I definitely don't think it's great. I've not once built it on Riven. I have 0 intention of building it on Riven. It's a great item, but when it comes to her weaknesses, I'd rather the aforementioned items.

I've personally not tried Atma's yet. Only because getting it first doesn't do much for you as you build into it, and getting it after you've already got said HP means you've been hitting like a wet noodle the entire time... a wet noodle who can only dash/stun once every 6 or 7 seconds because you've probably skipped on CDR... lame. Either situation isn't optimal at all.

Also, imo, Lifesteal is useful... but not useful enough. Besides, when would you fit that in early/mid game? Lifesteal doesn't make your cooldowns shorter (essential for a sustain dps champ), doesn't increase your health (being in the line of fire to regenerate health you may be losing at the same time with no real attack speed to back it up is just... bleh), doesn't give you any damage, and doesn't give you any CC. So... yeah. Stuff like Wriggles is nice if your early game is slow, but I'd still take a Brutalizer and pots.


TL;DR

Boots +3 pots
Brutalizer
Giant's Belt
Ionian Boots
Phage

From there viable options include:

Mallet, Ghostblade, Warmogs, FoN, Thornmail (if you aren't being focused by 2+ AD champs regularly, this is a complete waste), IE/BT/BC.

Masteries = 21/6/3 (21/0/9 makes you even more squishy... for what... 5% exp and 1g per 10?)

Runes = ArP red, Armor yellow, MR/lvl blue, ArP quints. 31 ArP at level 1 with masteries. Tell your lane partner to stun/root someone so you can eat them as early as level 2. Level 4 = perfect time for capitalizing on any harassment you've dealt so far because...

Skill Order: R>W>E>Q. At level 4 you've got 2 points in your shout, it does more damage than your Q, and at that level with no bonus AD your shield's main purpose is to get in or get out because it's garbage at actually shielding you from much of anything.

I think the problem with the poster above me is the lack of AP. Being non squishy doesn't help if you do **** for damage. Not to mention it is really expensive.

Usually my build goes:
shiled
ionian boots
brut
phage
some AD item like BC or BT
then mallet
if the game lasts long enough I will build an atamas/ghostblade.

If they have a lot of AP carries I will build a qss sometime after phage or brut.

Now I am thinking of building a tri force out of phage might be better.

I didn't mean build them all.

Sorry, I was trying to keep my TL;DR short.

Our builds seem to be similar with your damage where my HP goes, and vice versa.

Both sound good depending on the flow of the game... perhaps I just had tough games when first learning her. Unless it's a great early game where I can pick up a BFS early, I feel so vulnerable with so few hp bars, heh.

Riven Is using auto attacks between her skills. THath's why sheen or trinity force can be really good item on her. With her passive it works even better. Plus Trinity force can slow and give you movement speed. Seriously it's quite good.

K I found it!
boots+3 pots
brutalizer
ionian boots
frozen mallet
atmas
warmogs

then situational, strong AP team FoN, weak AP team IE