Welcome to my Riven guide!
Riven is a champion that I believe to be best played as a tanky dps. She has a good early game with decent harass from her skills and a strong shield, a good mid game with her excellent team play capabilities, and late game functionality as a survivable damage dealer or initiator.

I should note that "tanky dps" doesn't mean "offtank". It means a dps dinner with a side of tanky. I tend to play her as a skirmisher in lane and a bruiser lategame. She darts in and out of the fight, disrupting enemy champs and taking focus off the carry. She can't do this if she gets bursted in one rotation. She has to live through damage while also doing enough damage herself to help land a kill on the biggest threat.

My playstyle allows her to usually live for about 4-6 seconds under heavy fire and do decent damage for the carry to run cleanup. Riven does need another tanky champ to help her hold focus, and she has a good chance of dying if she is under heavy CC focus. However, that's CC not directed at your carry. By "carry" I mean "ranged AD carry" or "AP carry". Riven can carry games, but she isn't what most consider a "carry" in strict game terms.

This Riven build requires you to be fairly aggressive. However, "aggressive" does not mean "stupidly charge opponent". It means making fights happen. Smart, calculated fights. Under this playstyle, you have a decent chance of dying under focus fire, but if you are smart about it, your one death will mean four of theirs.

+High mobility
+Shield that increases in strength with AD
+Damaging AOE stun
+Manaless champ
+Insane early damage

---

¨

-Needs proper timing on her skills to be effective
-Cooldown dependent
-A bad start is hard to recover from
-Shut down hard by CC and armo

Greater Mark of Attack Damage Greater Mark of Attack Damage - These will give you a good early game boost, and with the ArPen masteries and strong scaling on Riven's skills, these are the strongest choice.

Greater Seal of Armor Greater Seal of Armor - Standard runes. These will help keep you alive early before your Valor shell really kicks in. Armor seals give you the early game defense until you've leveled up Valor enough. Scaling armor seals or HP seals can both serve as suitable replacements, if you prefer.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - Scaling MR. Equal benefit at around level 6, I believe. These make an excellent substitute for your CDR glyphs. These are generally better than flat MR, unless you are laning against a magic dealer top. Even then, these are probably still better than flat. Your call.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage - Once again, Riven's scaling makes these the best choice. The same rules of the marks apply to the quints.

Greater Mark of Attack Damage Greater Mark of Attack Damage - These will give you a good early game boost, and with the ArPen masteries and strong scaling on Riven's skills, these are the strongest choice.

Greater Seal of Armor Greater Seal of Armor - Standard runes. These will help keep you alive early before your Valor shell really kicks in. Armor seals give you the early game defense until you've leveled up Valor enough. Scaling armor seals or HP seals can both serve as suitable replacements, if you prefer.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - Scaling MR. Equal benefit at around level 6, I believe. These make an excellent substitute for your CDR glyphs. These are generally better than flat MR, unless you are laning against a magic dealer top. Even then, these are probably still better than flat. Your call.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage - Once again, Riven's scaling makes these the best choice. The same rules of the marks apply to the quints.

Boots Boots of Speed and 3 Health Potion Health Potion Helps you to start, you are fast and can refresh 450 HP.



Bloodthirster The Bloodthirster Its the first Item u should buy, cause it does lots of dmg, and additionally you have the life steal.



Ninja Tabi Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads Mercury's Treads depends on your opponents. Take the one you need more Armor/Magic Resistence.



Frozen Mallet Frozen Mallet gives you life and damage and this slow.



Black Cleaver The Black Cleaver - This item exists for AD casters. Allows for an insanely strong early game item, The Brutalizer The Brutalizer, to be built into an extremely strong burst item. Riven utilizes all of the stats extremely well and there are no negatives to buying this item.



Randuin's Omen Randuin's Omen - Armor, health, a MS AS debuff, and a great slowing active. This item is the perfect anti-AD carry item. The active let's you stall their team and the passive also helps zerg the enemy AD carry with ease. Also is a great item when escaping, as the slows will stop the enemies from chasing while you run away. This item greatly helps your engage-disengagement ability.



Guardian Angel Guardian Angel gives you great amount of Armor and Magic Resist and this great passive of a second life! Really useful in endgame, if teamfight and u get focused...

I hope you all enjoyed reading my guide. I've been putting a lot of work into it, and I hope that it was informative. Maybe it was even a little bit fun.

Fine, I'll settle for you not being glad that it's over, at least.

Thank you all for reading!