Riven Build Guide by hotdog93

Basically, Riven's job in the current meta is to be a high survivability frontline that can dish out damage and protect her teammates, while being very capable of either engaging a team fight or cleaning it up. I won't be going over her abilities, you can read about those on the wiki page https://leagueoflegends.fandom.com/wiki/Riven. She is mostly about scaling with her build in her current state, though she is still a threat early game. I recommend looking up a youtube guide if you want to learn her mechanics, this guide mainly covers other things.

In lane, Riven can at least do something in every matchup, even if some are a lot more difficult. She has many things to take advantage of, including a flexible rune page and build path. Her waveclear is notable as well, with 4 AOE abilities and a shield to safely hold waves. While Riven is a mechanically difficult champion to master, it's not the most important part for laning phase, because while pressing buttons may look impressive in lane, wave management and smart play is much more skill intensive. Speaking of Riven's mechanics, none are too hard to do once they click, and many of them are the same thing with just a few different intricacies. Once you have mastered her mechanics, she is a very deadly force in team fights, as her AOE dps capabilities are extremely good. Remember that montage plays aren't always what you should go for, but a good rule of thumb for big engages is that if you are going in with 3rd Q, 3 people is enough, and hitting one carry (or more) is ideal. In situations like this, items like Steraks Gage and Guardian Angel are valuable because you can make these engages and not die instantly afterward. When outside of teamfights, Riven is also great at split pushing because she can escape pretty easily with her high mobility. Her fast q combo can also be used to take down turrets very quickly, and if only one opponent is sent to deal with you, dive pressure is high with Riven as her burst is high and she can escape with her shield relatively easily. Death's Dance is also super overpowered and Riven abuses the item super hard so I would recommend you to build it every game.

Riven has zero sustain in her kit, though her health regen did get buffed a while back, so, thanks Riot. Aside from that, poor usage of her abilities leaves her very vulnerable early in laning phase. Her shield is on a 12 second cooldown level 1, and her q is on a 13 second cooldown. Something to note with her W as well, is that the stun only lasts 0.75 seconds, and 0.25 seconds of that is cast animations, which of course can be canceled, but otherwise, it doesn't buy very much time in an escape scenario, and if the opponent has tenacity, it barely does anything. Something else to note, is that Riven has been around since season 2. Everyone knows what she does, everyone has seen the montages, so there's really not a whole lot you can do to surprise your opponents anymore. People know when you're stacking q's that you want to engage, people know that without your ult you don't do too much, and zhonya's is very popular in the current meta, and will be built against you constantly. Most adc's also like to buy phantom dancer, so their healthbar is quite a bit bigger than you think a lot of the time, and with stat check champions like Mordekaiser and Darius in the current meta, one mistake can cost the laning phase for you against a skilled player. I know I just rambled on about a lot of different points, but there really is a lot more counterplay to Riven than most would like to admit, at least in my opinion. She's still really powerful overall currently, but you know, ninja tabi hard counters new conqueror, and she's pretty weak to ganks.

I'm a Riven main who hit diamond in season 9 just to prove it to myself, and I'm looking to go a lot farther in season 10. My op.gg is https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=hotdog93 and my smurf is https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=jamonahlisa

I'll update with a twitch link if I end up getting around to streaming, and I'm doing some coaching here and there at the moment. I'm 15 though so education and stuff is kind of the priority right now but, my discord is chief.#3352 if you have any questions about Riven or if you'd like to talk to me about coaching.