Riven is an extremely mobile, unique, diverse, and extremely powerful champion if put into the right hands.

Although she has no initial gap closer, she is extremely fun to play. She's got four potential skills, Broken Wings and Valor, that let her catch up or run away, these aren't considered gap closing because they aren't instant at all. I've ran away many times just utilizing my skills correctly, one of her move closer skills has a shield built in, and the best part is that it scales on AD. Another one also scales on AD but it's a one point wonder, it let's you utilize three small AoE skills dealing damage, and knocking back on the third hit.

What makes her unique and diverse is how much strength she can get over a short time period. Her ultimate, Blade of the Exile, gives her an additional 20% AD from your Bonus AD, the cooldown is super short, so that would be a reason to get a The Brutalizer and maybe a Golem Buff. What also makes her unique is that her passive, Runic Blade, allows you to deal additional auto attacks with each skill use, to maximize damage, you should attack in between attacks, and what this build does is make room for that. What also makes her unique and diverse is her forms of CC, as explained above, Broken Wings with the knockback, and a stun that comes from Ki Burst.

To sum it up, Riven's fun, strong, and extremely mobile as stated in the above. Utilizing your skills will not only grant you kills but also let you escape tough situations as well.

Note : Something I'd like to say is that the builds listed above are the basic guidelines of the build, like something I'd casually go through in a normal lane of just farming, depending on how fed you get, how much you yourself feed, or how much of a threat the enemy team is to you, you have to build accordingly.

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Recent Changes

4/2/2012 : I have updated the rune pages to a little more reasonable ones, like, you don't ever need a full armor pen page, for you'll build Brutalizer and will end up being better off with a Flat AD Page.
12/18/2011 : I have updated the masteries, I haven't visited for a while and I didn't realize what I did wrong with them until I looked at them. Just getting used to the masteries now as well. Sorry about that!
11/1/2011 : This is under my own recommendation, I have added a situational build to the "Building an Exile" section for those of us who struggle in lane, mainly inspired by watching Westrice's Stream. I have also added that build as a 4th build in this guide. UPDATE : I removed the build with the Wriggle's Lantern, because basically, I added the Wriggle's Lantern onto the first build, and followed everything else through.
10/31/2011 : Happy Halloween! What better way to finally have uploaded an example game, my limit is 15 minutes, so I tried to speed up the game, and slow down the parts where the major events took place. Two videos, enjoy them!
10/21/2011 : 10 Days after being released and this is now the top Riven Guide, thank you to everyone, 77% for the amount of votes. I have added an example of someone who had gotten a PENTA using my guide, I am happy that I have gotten so many positive responses.
10/19/2011 : Photos stopped showing, minor update in which links I used, Photobucket fails, went back to tinypic. Nothing changed, thanks everyone~
10/17/2011 : Under request of Bryun, I have added additional Build Descriptions in the "Building an Exile" section, simply for the things that I don't mention and why I get them in the alternative builds. I have also added an example game of ameOkami's.
10/11/2011 : Under request of Majora, QSS has been added to "Shattering Late Game" item explanations. Thanks!
10/9/2011 : Guide Released!

How does one play an exile? There are many things that come within a champion, things that'll help make a champion strong and worth while, and some things that will be problematic with Riven as the game progresses. Taking advantage of your Pros will help you get around your Cons. In order to succeed as the Exile herself, you must play like a fighter, think like a bruiser, and have the will of the Exile.

Pros :

• Great Mobility
• Great Damage Output
• Great Farmer
• Easily Granted Kills With Ultimate
• Two Disables, Stun and Knock-Up
• Attack Steroids

Cons :

• Squishy If Built Wrong
• Easily Taken Out Of Fights
• Stun is .5 Seconds
• Each Gap Closer Moves Little Distance

Although these aren't all the Pros and Cons of playing Riven, I think I hit most of them. What you have to keep in mind for the most part is the mobility, being able to chase, taking advantage of your two crowd control effect, and how well you can get kills if you keep up ganks. Your ultimate will let you snowball effect if you can get them low enough. With this build, I can kind of ignore the Cons for the most part, but you have to be aware of your position in the team fight. Being misplaced will be the answer to your downfall.

There are a few options that could work with Riven's Rune Pages, so keep that in mind if you have many rune pages, then you can choose your options better, or if you just like one page over another, that's completely fine as well. You have to keep in mind which lane, who you're up against if you can see, and if somethings are necessary or not. Here are a few Rune Pages that can be run with her, a few inspirations, and a few standard ones.

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Greater Mark of Desolation

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Greater Mark of Desolation : Armor Penetration Marks for the great early game advantage that ArPen grants against most champions that tend to build armor or just those champions with the default Armor. Letting you go right through the damage reduction.

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Greater Seal of Armor : Armor Seals to help against those AD Champions at top, the extra armor helps early on and pairs real nice if they are extremely AD heavy. Pairing well with an early game Cloth Armor to make them face desk at the amount of Armor you have.

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Greater Seal of Evasion : A great alternative to the Armor Seals. If you have the money and the enemy is mainly an auto attack champion, this will help you either get away with the movement speed mastery, or help you kill them if you utilize your skills correctly. Specifically go for Dodge if the enemy team consists of many auto attackers.

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Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist : I always run this for the late game MR. Although early game it isn't much of a need, late game, it helps contribute to the MR that you don't build until it is late. I'd recommend these always because your main opponents are for the most part going to be AD. Grabbing MR for late game will help with late game AP Casters that always exist in games.

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Greater Glyph of Magic Resist : If you can see your opponent is going to run AP top or simply have an enemy team that mainly consists of APs, then consider going for the flat MR. I'd only recommend this if you have the rune pages open and can fit it into your pages. The flat MR will pretty much keep you safe from instant bursts and will help you live longer for the most part.

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Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage : AD Quints for the nice increase in early game damage. All your damage is from Bonus AD so what this does is give you a little boost, just a little, in all of your skills. It isn't much but I can say, these granted me kills when Armor Penetration couldn't.

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Greater Quintessence of Desolation

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Greater Quintessence of Desolation : If you must have it, the extra ArPen does help. I don't usually run this cause I like the additional boost in all the AD champions I play, which is fine, these will still help your early game phase and somewhat mid game. See above for a bit more of a description.

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Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed : Movement Speed Quintessences to help you weave through your enemies with most of your skills. It'll grant you that additional movement speed to dodge skill shots and incoming nukes, I can say it's boosted my game, but I wouldn't run it unless I really needed to.

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So these descriptions and setups should give you the basic guidelines on which one you should choose and why. Keep in mind, if you have limited Rune Pages, then go with mine or the standard ArPen pages, or if you have a lot more choices, you can run dodge runes on a lot of champions, and keep your options open with the other two pages.

There are a few ways you can arrange your Mastery Trees. One that I like to use a bit balanced in both parts of the section, gives me additional damage so that I get the free Long Sword game start, one tree will is an all offense with some defense - specifically dodge, which is really nice if you have those dodge runes because it pairs very well, and the final way is going with defense and some utility.

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Offense :

• Deadliness , Sunder , and Brute Force are all mastery points that contribute to your output damage. Choosing these mastery points will help contribute to your game in general. Armor Penetration, Attack Damage, and Critical Strike that barely contributes but still does in a way.
• Cripple is the mastery for the Summoner Spell Exhaust. Getting the Mastery will not only let you chase them down and auto attack with your passive, Runic Blade, but it will also reduce the Armor and MR by 10, making early game champions, real vulnerable.
• Offensive Mastery is something I like to get out of personal choice. What this let's me do is farm a bit better and although you might not think it's much, it still contributes.
• Sorcery for the 3% cooldown reduction, it isn't much, but it can contribute to why you have Valor or Broken Wings up earlier than usual.. Don't expect much.

Utility :

• Good Hands mastery to reduce the death timer and help contribute to getting the Flash Mastery point.
• Perseverence mastery because of the health regen mainly, it's mainly for the point places that you don't wanna get in the mana regeneration below.
• Awareness for the additional experience that you always want to have, helps you get skills earlier on in comparison to one that doesn't have it.
• Greed for the additional gold that you want to make, it's not much, but it will contribute over time by a bit.
• Utility Mastery for the additional 30% buff timer increase, I love love love getting this cause well, it's pretty self explanatory, the buff timer's last 30% longer, who doesn't love that.
• Blink of an Eye for the final point, reducing the cooldown by 15 seconds.

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Offense :

• Deadliness , Sunder , Brute Force , Alacrity and Lethality are all mastery points that contribute to your output damage. Similar to the ones above except with the additional 10% Critical Strike damage from Lethality .
• Cripple is the mastery for the Summoner Spell Exhaust. See description above for why you should get it, and cause it pairs real nicely with Runic Blade's additional damage boost.
• Sorcery, 3% CDR, and can be the reason why a skill is up over another, resulting in you escaping, yeah a lot of it is the same on to the differences.
• Havoc is the only reason why you build this way, the 4% additional damage can contribute to why you get a free Long Sword late game, it isn't much but it's still a boost.

Defense :

• Resistance and Hardiness help contribute a bit to your early game Armor and Magic Resistance. Although the MR isn't much, the Armor helps a bit with your runes, and against those very heavy AD Champions solo top.
• Evasion and Nimbleness both dealing with dodge. If you have the dodge runes, then might I also consider Ninja Tabi? It'll make your escaping a whole hell of a lot more fun cause you can ghost very easily through enemies with Nimbleness . I'd recommend this against AD Auto Attackers as well.

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Defense :

• Resistance and Hardiness help contribute a bit to your early game Armor and Magic Resistance. Grabbing all the points in Resistance this time for additional defense.
• Evasion and Nimbleness mainly for the AD Auto attackers but this isn't the real reason why you should build this tree, you don't have to build Ninja Tabi, but it does help with this.
• Defensive Mastery and Harden Skin mastery points both reduce damage being taken, from minions, and just regular physical damage from champions.
• Veteran's Scars is what helps you so much early on, cause you are real squishy, and with these points, and can help in a do or die situation. It pairs so well in this tree because you are a bit tankier, and you can take in a bit more damage because you've got higher MR and Armor. I love these points and I don't see why you shouldn't either.
• Tenacity for the remaining point, it'll help with your overall squish, and you won't take into mind the 4% damage reduction can save your life. It isn't noticeable but if you getaway with 10 health - 15 health, it was because of this mastery.

Utility :

• Good Hands mastery to reduce the death timer and help contribute to getting the Flash Mastery point.
• Perseverence mastery because of the health regen mainly, it's mainly for the point places that you don't wanna get in the mana regeneration below.
• Awareness for the additional experience that you always want to have, helps you get skills earlier on in comparison to one that doesn't have it.
• Utility Mastery for the additional 30% buff timer increase, I love love love getting this cause well, it's pretty self explanatory, the buff timer's last 30% longer, who doesn't love that.

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Read all the descriptions and decide for yourself which one you want. There is a tree for if you don't mind the mana regen, then it helps with your summoner spells, your neutral buffs, and some additional gold. There is a tree where if you want to go on the offensive, you can. Finally, there is a tree where if you want to be able to take in a bit more damage, you can as well.

Here are a few Summoner Spells that can be selected for whatever reason being. I, by default always run Flash and Exhaust. There a handful of Summoner Spells that can be paired with Riven depending on your lane, your match up, and whether or not you need one thing over another. If a Spell is not listed here, I really don't recommend you pick it up.

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Flash : A very popular choice indeed, what this does is increase your gap closing potential to whole different level. Cause now you aren't so reliant on getting close to enemies to get away from current ones but now you can use this to get clsoer or farther away. Good for escape and good for extremely long distanced gap closing.

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Exhaust : If you replace the mastery point for Ignite and put it in the Exhaust one, the have a reduced Armor and MR debuff, which will help you kill them. Again, this has to be a very specific pick. This lets you chase and auto attack with your passive bonuses from your skills, Runic Blade will give you an additional AD boost depending on your level and what items you have.

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Ignite : My description before this didn't really explain how powerful this is on Riven. I mean I find myself easily exchanging shots and getting away with Broken Wings and Valor, meaning because I can trade shots, I can perfectly time a Blade of the Exile, Flash, Ki Burst, and Ignite for the kill. Eventually using the Wind Slash portion of the Blade of the Exile for the last hit of course. Ignite will grant you many early game kills and I recommend it.

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Ghost : For the weaving through your enemies reason, you can go through minions now, so pairing this with your Broken Wings can really contribute to how you chase an enemy or run away an enemy. This is also very situational, you realize you can't go through walls, if you don't need to go over walls then, pick this. Lower CD but no blinking ability.

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Teleport : Solo top purposes only, if you think you're gonna need to go back and forth after farming, then this is the solution to that. This also helps when no one else has a Teleport. This can help with saving turrets or getting turrets so keep that in mind.

Here is the Ability Sequence for Riven. What this sequence specifically does is grab points in your utility but it also gives you a great burst. I'll be describing why should go this way. I want to mention here that there is really one good way to skill Riven, I can say that honestly, comparing other ways, this is what will help you get kills and help you live.


I start off by getting a point in Broken Wings for the extra mobility and the knock back. The second point I put into Ki Burst for the stun and to help farm at a bigger distance than your auto attack range. Putting a point into Valor @ 3 to help harass or get away.

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[Passive] : Your passive is one of the skills that can be really effective for on-hit Riven. Specifically pairing it with a Frozen Mallet or Madred's Bloodrazor will help increase output damage after each skill use. You can charge it up to three times and it grants more damage for every .5 Bonus AD. Try to utilize it as best as possible.

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[Q] : Your Q isn't really a one point wonder, but I'll tell you why you max this last. If you max this first, not only will your stun have a longer cooldown, but your shield will also. Both your utility and damage will be at a longer cooldown for a skill that potentially only Gap Closes. It's not really something that bursts but it gives a knock back that'll let your auto attack deal the rest of the damage.

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[W] : I'd really recommend maxing your stun first because not only does the cooldown decrease, but it's a great bursting skill that'll let you Auto attack once or twice after using it. After that stun, normally it's easy to get a kill from there. The more AD you get, the more damage this will deal. The stun will help your team out a lot better than Broken Wings will, only reason to max this first.

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[E] : Valor is a really unique skill as far as the scaling goes. It's not unique as far as the shield that can gap close but, it's one of the few or only, shields that scales with AD for an AD champion. So the more damage you have, the more shield you can have. I like this a lot, and if you max this next, soak in more damage, and lower cooldown.

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[R] : This is what makes your auto attacks hurt like mad. Not only does it give you a great damage boost, but it has something like Garen's Demacian Judgement where you only use the Wind Slash to last hit champions. It does AoE Damage as well and shouldn't be used before a team fight starts.. It's a great skill and you can snowball really well with it if you use it correctly.

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Your harass combo should be going like this. Valor, Ki Burst, and Broken Wings, it gives you a good distance between the enemy and you can stun them for a bit of burst. Auto attack after Ki Burst and try to knock up Broken Wings, pushing them back, and auto attacking that way. When your going for the kill, try to keep them below half, proc your Blade of the Exile, and combo again. By then, they should be low enough so, finish them off with the second half of your ultimate.

Here are the item choice that you can with, I'm going to be going in-depth about the first three because to me they are similar and they are the ones that I mainly use whenever I play the Exile. Depending on your matchups, whether or not you need the health, whether or not you are fed, or whether you need the damage, these builds should help you adjust to those situations. Follow the builds, these are just descriptions of the items in those builds. There is a situational build at the bottom of this section and the runes and masteries used for it are in the 4th build listed.

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Disegno's Riven

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Disegno's Riven II

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Tank/On-Hit Riven

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Aggresive Riven

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Tri-Force Riven

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• Boots : I almost ALWAYS run this and three Health Potions. Reason being is because it gives me an increase in sustain cause I can heal 600 over time and it gives me some mobility with my already given, great mobility from Broken Wings and Valor. This'll let you farm more often and will help a bit against ganks.
• Cloth Armor : Only exception with this is if you are versing a very AD Heavy champion, a few examples are Garen, Renekton, or Talon, this is just from personal experience, these guys are all AD based, grabbing a Cloth Armor, with the Hardiness mastery points, and to finish it off, your Greater Seal of Armor will make them do very little damage to you.
• Doran's Blade : I'd only expect you to run Doran's Blade if you are running a Duo-Bottom. What this'll help you with is the HP Boost, the Damage Boost, and the bit of Lifesteal. I'd only recommend it at bottom-lane because without any sustain in the other lanes, well you can't really farm. Being at bottom, you're splitting farms so when a fight comes, you can have the damage, and health for it.

• The Brutalizer : This is a great item on Riven, not only does it give further Armor Penetration but it gives you a good 15% cooldown reduction. It'll help beat down your enemies and fight against Low Armor Champions, and there are many of them earlier on.
• Giant's Belt : As said before, she is real squishy, and what this let's you do is basically, get a boost in health. Being able to take in a lot more damage will let you live a lot longer, trust me it's a good investment, because I can farm a lot longer. Wriggle's Lantern and Giant's Belt will let you have a **** load of sustain.
• Wriggle's Lantern : The best Solo Top item. Not only does it provide you map awareness, but it grants you a lot of sustain. It also lets you farm extremely well depending on a lucky proc but it normally hits every once in a while, it grants some armor and some damage as well. Works really well early - mid game, after late game comes, you can drop it cause it's a great item earlier on.

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Below I will be explaining the concepts of playing the game as Riven, as in the early game, mid game, late game, farming, ganking, and laning. Knowing each concept listed will help better your gameplay and overall part in a team. Being able to make full potential of where you are on the map, where the enemy is on the map, and how much damage you can deal will help you realize your true potential.

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Early Game: Real simple in this section. Farm is priority, harass when you can without exchanging damage if possible, and take advantage of ganks or try to keep your awareness up for incoming ganks. I don't think there is much to say, you don't want to be feed, but you want to keep your farms up til' you've got your main core items. Post Level 6 you can get kills real easily. If you've got a jungler, set up a gank, and last hit with your Blade of the Exile. Snowball your way to your Core and you'll be set for late game.

Mid Game : Mid Game aim for your Core, join teamfights, and consistently farm. You want to keep up the farms and you want to keep up the damage and kills. Falling off Mid Game will ruin the rest of your game. You want to keep farming if you aren't fighting. You want to maintain Dragons and Pink Ward Baron. If they're are three away from Baron, then this would be a good way to get global gold and a huge advantage over the enemy team. Try not to get nuked down and at the same time try to stay in the middle of the fight and keep bursting with your stun whenever you can, disabling them, and nuking them.

Late Game : Late Game is where you excel, with the correct items, correct utilization of your skills, then you can literally, get a **** load of kills. Like, if you have a Madred's Bloodrazor and a Frozen Mallet, your DPS will skyrocket, and you can take on any take or any enemy champion for that matter. By now, farming shouldn't matter as much, you should have most of your damage, the only thing to build towards is your defensive things now. You can initiate if you catch someone, and it's pretty self explanatory. Still control Baron and Dragon.

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Farming : This should be one of the easiest things you do. You can use your skills to proc Runic Blade and get the extra damage to last hit that way, you can also full out Broken Wings, or you can Ki Burst a huge minion wave and kill it that way. Farming is pretty easy on Riven. If you go the Wriggle's Lantern, farming should be even easier, the Madred's Razor proc every few times will let you one hit minions. You want to prioritize farming as always, your build is expensive, and could be why you have all your items before the enemy does.

Ganking : If you're mid team member needs a gank, try to harass the top lane to recall, but don't take in a lot of damage when exchanging. With ganks try to approach the enemy with Broken Wings and use Ki Burst if reached, if not then Valor and then stun. While you are approaching, I'd like to mention, try to use your ultimate if you can find yourself grabbing the kill in mid. When being ganked, it should be pretty simple, Broken Wings, Valor, or Flash to get away, either smashing yoru face on the keyboard or just one step at a time.

Laning : Mostly just grabbing last hits and dealing as much damage to turret as you can. You want to grab around 1300-1400 gold if you can before your first recall, because you are in lane, you want to be a big threat to the opposing lane so that if their is a ganker, the kill can be secured. Last hitting is easier explained in farming and pushing turrets, space out your abilities for the Runic Blade damage steroid, it well help your overall damage. Push the turret when you can, dive when you know you can secure the kill with Blade of the Exile's Wind Slash, otherwise Laning is a pretty standard and basic concept to grasp.

Here is where I'll be putting all the additional information in this guide.

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Videos

If you've got good games downloaded on LOLReplay, send me the LOLReplay, and I'll make it into a video for this guide!
This is a quick game that would have been perfect for this guide, considering my videos are limited to 15 minutes, and it had many aspects of it that made it easy for me to record. Enjoy~

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Example Games

If you've got a few example games, post them below, or message me! Could really use examples.
Thank you to CFing for the example! Congratulations on the PENTA!
This was my own example~
Thank you to ameOkami for the example!