Riven
Build Guide by SrMolinv
[14.1] ⚔️ HOW to CARRY with RIVEN TOP in SEASON 14 ⚔️ (Work in Progress)
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Recommended Items
Runes: Main runes
1
2
3
4
5
Precision
Sorcery
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
1
2
Flash + ignite
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order
Runic Blade (PASSIVE)
Riven Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Threats
Synergies
Extreme
Major
Even
Minor
Tiny
Show All
None
Low
Ok
Strong
Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Renekton
Even if Renekton starts W we win level 1. From there we start losing when he gains fury. Short trades and try to bait him with cooldowns. Its really common to dive Riven with jungler, be careful of dives. This is my go-to ban.
Zac
Synergies
Ideal
Strong
Ok
Low
None
Zac
Champion Build Guide
Hello, im Molina , a Riven Onetrick that plays on EUW server. Currently Master Tier. I played Riven since season 5 and I reached Master Tier for the first time in Season 8 (Playing lethality Riven). I quit the game after that but now im back and I will be streaming and uploading content in my socials:
(Click on any banners to go to my social)
Feel free to ask any question. If you dont have a Mobafire account I have a section on my Discord dedicated to answer ALL of your Riven questions.
If you are interested in learning Riven this is your guide. I tried almost everything with Riven during a lot of time and I want to show you what i learned in this guide. Its a time saving one if you go through it.
Season 14 arrived recently and with it a lot of item changes.
Some items and specific orders or combinations needs to be tested, I will share my best findings here.
One of the most common mistakes in early season is to tunnelvision on "broken builds" and ignoring items that could be better.
Please don't fall for that and actively think if you need armor, magic resist or more damage.
Your options right now are:
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You mainly want to go bruiser build when:
- Your enemy laner is a hard early game bully (Renekton, Pantheon, Garen) because you need the early HP to deal with their burst.
- You feel like you need to frontlane for your team or it's hard to survive if you dont go bruiser.
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Currently lethality is really good when there are no tanks on enemy team.
Specially when you pick Sudden Impact it feels way better, but you shouldn't do this every game.
You should only go for this build if you are experimented or smurfing. Having no sustain and only damage can feel really hard for a first time.
This build allows you to deal insane damage, but you will be really squishy. Play it at your own risk, and have fun.
Riven, the Exile Riven is a champion that has been in the game for many years and since she has been in the game she almost never had any time where she is unplayable. She can adapt to different Metas and succeed in them. She has a really complete kit that even up to this date has inspired other champions to be like her (Aatrox, Sylas, K'Sante...) With Riven you can win almost every lane and if you dont win you can go even in most and still be super useful in the fights. Mana problems are not a thing on this champion(she doesnt have mana), her build is based on cooldown reduction and it makes her really funny to play when you reach that point. You can spam your abilities and once you control her kit you have a HIGH potential to carry games in any elo.(SoloQ) She can build a lot of different items, have different roles in a teamfight. Its a champion that can do so many things to win games. Thats why OTP's never get bored of her. |
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1. The cooldown of the 3 casts starts with the first Q. Its important to always keep that in mind to surprise people |
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2. Each Q can be used to give a faster auto attack than usual. |
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3. The third Q can be used to jump walls, and even more important to cut distance on corners. Jumping corners can take Riven to the next level of cheesy plays/great escapes. |
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4. You can use 3rd Q to drop minion aggro. |
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You can use it to drop minion agro. |
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E Allows you to cancel animations and Doublecast |
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You can use E combined with Q3 to secure Walljumps. |
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Useful to trade close to enemys tower. |
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You extend the W area by doing this correctly. |
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To cancel the ult animation (not be locked in the animation) |
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R increases the range of the auto attacks, Q, W, and E shield is bigger. |
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You can do R flash to reposition your R or to surprise enemies. |
MAIN RUNES (IGNITE) |
Against most bruisers or easy matchups always take this page
MAIN RUNES (TELEPORT) |
Against tanks or matchups you cant kill this rune page is the best
SORCERY
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All Items, ordered from A-Z.
You can press Ctrl + F and type the name of an item to quickly find it.
You can press Ctrl + F and type the name of an item to quickly find it.
Anathema's Chains The item itself its good, some Riven players buy it but I havent tried enough to tell. Will update if I find any good scenario to pick this over other items. |
Axiom Arc Getting ability haste in Season 14 is harder than previous seasons, the stats of this item are really good for Riven but the passive is not. Feel free to test it but there are better options |
B. F. Sword Most efficient AD-Gold Item, only useful if you want to build Guardian Angel |
Black Cleaver Your best chance to deal with armor, the components are bad for Riven but the item remains a good choice. I think it's way better than Serylda unless you build lethality, keep this in mind. You can rush this item against double tank topside on enemy team if your jungler is an AD champion too. |
Caulfield's Warhammer Offers what Riven needs the most. Always good to stack Ability Haste. |
Chain Vest This item is only good if you need armor and you are building Guardian Angel / Death's Dance or you are close to buy it. Otherwise dont. |
Chempunk Chainsword This item is EXTREMELY BAD. The reason why is because you already get what you need by buying Executioner's Calling . Finishing the full item offers you nothing extra. Sit on the 800g component and finish the item in last place if you really need it. |
Cull Some people dislike this item on Riven. I only recommend this item into lanes you cant kill, lanes that allow you to scale for free or if by any strange situation your lane is completely dominated before 5 minutes. |
Dead Man's Plate I dont recommend this on Riven. Bad item |
Death's Dance This item used to be God-Tier. Now its nerfed and its only good against team comps with no DPS / Onhit damage. Mainly against team with only burst. |
Doran's Blade This item helps a lot during laning, maybe not as your starter item but buying it before your first item can be good sometimes. You want to buy this when you need some extra HP. Really good early game item. |
Doran's Shield If you are facing an annoying ranged champion in the toplane, this item as starter is your best friend. Against annoying melee lanes I think Longsword + 3 Pots start is better nowdays. |
Eclipse Extremely cheap and useful for Riven, perfect stats for her. A lot of AD, ability haste and a passive that makes up for the lack of sustain. Useful in most games. |
Edge of Night This item is really situational. If you are starting with League or you are in low elo dont bother with this item. I buy this item 1/200 games so dont worry. |
Elixir of Iron This elixir grants you tenacity and HP. Depending on the team it can be good or even better. |
Elixir of Wrath Best elixir on Riven when you dont need more tenacity. |
Essence Reaver Dont do this bro, its bad for you |
Evenshroud Don't think its good, dont buy it. |
Executioner's Calling Against Soraka / Heavy healers (Sylas / Senna) this item is good. Sit on this component, only upgrade as your last item. |
Force of Nature I dont think this item is good unless you are facing a full AP team. |
Frozen Heart Could be good 1/100 games, don't worry about it. |
Gargoyle Stoneplate Some Riven players like this item to secure surviving a fight. I think you should only consider this item if you go Bruiser build because this item scales with HP. |
Guardian Angel Best Offensive-Defensive Riven option by far. This item is your best friend as it secures you performing on teamfights. Only time when this item is bad is against Caitlyn . |
Hexdrinker This item helps a lot, its main Rivens item against AP threats. I recommend building it after your 3rd item. But sometimes it might be better to get it sooner, every game is different. |
Hubris Good lethality item, only build it when going for full lethality. This item requires snowball to be good |
Hullbreaker I dont think this item is good |
Ionian Boots of Lucidity Best boots for Riven without any doubt. Cheap, they allow you to have flash and ignote more often and give you Ability Haste. I recommend buying this after your first item. |
Jak'Sho, The Protean Bad item for Riven, you dont want full defensive items on Riven mostly. Offensive - Defensive item types work better on her. |
Last Whisper When buying Serylda always focus on purchasing this first. |
Liandry's Anguish If you get unlucky team, sell all items at the end and buy this. |
Lord Dominik's Regards I dont think this item is good unless you are addicted to the Dopamine of critting. Serylda is superior on Riven |
Maw of Malmortius This item is without doubt your Go-To against AP threats. If an enemy AP carry is feed, Maw is usually worth. If enemy team has multiple AP champions, this item has a lot of value too. |
Mercury's Treads The enemy team has a lot of annoying CC you cant dodge? Buy this |
Pickaxe Really gold efficient item for Riven. Buying this feels really good, specially if you can get it in your first/second/third recall. |
Plated Steelcaps Against a lot of auto attack based champions. This item is really broken. Something I recommend if the enemy team allows you, rush this against Tryndamere |
Opportunity Gives a lot of lethality but 0 Haste, only good on lethality builds when you already have enough ability haste. |
Profane Hydra Good on lethality builds, scales worse than Ravenous Hydra with AD. (Hover your mouse over the icons and you can see numbers). Good option when you go for lethality oriented builds. |
Quicksilver Sash Mordekaiser / Malhazar counter. |
Radiant Virtue Need some testing, but this item is broken. Maybe for a tank Riven build. I dont recommend it for now. |
Randuin's Omen Not a fan of this on Riven, if you build it at least make sure you have enough damage already. |
Ravenous Hydra Doesn't feel as good as old season. I believe it could have a place in the build however I think there are better items right now. Will update depending on how the meta evolves. |
Rectrix Don't think its good unless you have enough ability haste. |
Refillable Potion Helps a lot with laning, never start this but buying this on your early recalls can help you. |
Serpent's Fang Against a lot of shield this item helps a lot. I recommend this as your 4th or 5th item. Getting it early usually messes with your Ability haste. |
Serrated Dirk Buying this gives you A LOT of damage. You can rush this if you are smurfing or if enemy team is full squishy and you can go lethality build. |
Serylda's Grudge Cleaver is superior to this item in my opinion unless you stack lethality. However on lethality builds this item shines more than ever. I'm glad items become more specific. |
Spear of Shojin Probably the best item on Riven this season combined with Eclipse I would build it every game. You can stack this item on minions, so make sure you stack it before all-ins. Keep this in mind, 12% damage can do a lot depending on the game stage. |
Spirit Visage Only worth when you have healers in your team and you need magic resist. But even then I think Maw is better. I dont recommend this unless Soraka is by your side and enemy team is full AP-ish |
Sterak's Gage With the amount of HP Bruiser Riven has this season, I think this item could be very good as a 4th item when you need tenacity and survive true damage. For now let's say its very situational until further testing |
Sundered Sky I truly believe Riven is the best user for this item. Don't sleep on it. Build it everytime you can have a good teamfight. OP Item in my opinion (will get nerfed for sure) |
The Brutalizer This item used to be way better. Main component of Riven core items, right now it's worse and Serrated Dirk offers a faster powerspike. Stills decent but not as good as it used to be. |
Titanic Hydra Could be good but you are playing Riven, why do you want this? |
Trinity Force Bad item on Riven. |
Umbral Glaive The item itself is good, but doesnt fit Riven needs. Dont build this. |
Vampiric Scepter On other champions this works better, on Riven its bad. Buying AD is better than this, almost no sustain from this item. |
Warden's Mail This item is OP, but not for Riven. Dont do it, it will delay your main build too much. |
Voltaic Cyclosword Probably one of the best lethality items for Riven. Only buy it when you are going full lethality with Sudden Impact |
Youmuu's Ghostblade This item used to be very good on Riven. Right now it has 0 haste which makes it a rare choice. Only pick it when you have enough haste and you need the active. |
Zhonya's Hourglass This could be useful in a 50 minute game, you might agree or not. Only for experienced Riven players and I dont recommend this unless you have a BIG PLAN |
This are most jumps Riven can do in the game (including really hard ones). Will update it as I post videos on my socials |
Doing a matchup guide is probably one of the most complicated things for Riven.
Riven laning is the most important part and so are matchups.
Most of the matchups in this website will help you to start approaching them.
Some of them are outdated, but its really useful.
https://riven.saltyy.at
Credit: Rueven for the matchups & Salty Riven for the website mirror.
Its really important to not panic your shield in the early game. The difference from a good Riven to a bad one can be told by how she manages her shield to block damage.
Another really important tip is to learn how to manage cooldowns. You need to be constantly aware of when your cooldowns are up and what can yo do in the mean time. Its probably the hardest thing to master for Riven laning but you can get so many solo kills by doing it, its worth the effort it takes.
Its really important that in lanes you cant kill or snowball you make sure to collect all the resources you can. By this i mean farming and stealing jungle or collecting jungle camps that arent in the pathing your jungler is doing. Even if you dont win lane by killing someone 2 times if you build a CS advantage and keep it across the game it will help a lot as Riven.
Be really patient with abilities as Riven. For Riven to work she needs to be an aggresive laner but at the same time you need to respect enemy jungler. Always keep track of the jungler as it will tell you how to play your lane.
Early game (Laning phase):
Our objective is to never lose lane, Riven can perform into most lanes. If you cant abuse your matchup make sure to abuse her waveclear to create rooms so you can impact the map by slowpushing waves/doing a quick proxy to generate a roaming window. Once you make habit having 8/9/10 cs per minute as Riven isnt something that crazy.
Minute 0 - 1:30 | Invade timer
In this stage of the game is really important to not get cheesed by an early invade or a specific strategy. Knowing if something is going to happen can be easy sometimesm, champions like: Thresh, Blitzcrank, Morgana often invade. There are strats with Sion or Kayn top with Smite or Janna with Smite
During this timer you should also look to know where the enemy jungler is starting. It will dictate how you have to play the lane, every lane needs to be played differently depending on the teams.
Minute 1:30 - 5:00 | Set up the game plan
You might be wondering why the minute 5 is important and not 5:50 or minute 6 (When you unlock your ultimate). The answer is that at minute 5 in Toplane/Midlane tower plating falls, taking plates after minute 5 will be a lot easier. Before minute 5 is more important playing for tempo than playing for a tower plate. (By playing for tempo i mean playing for a good recall rather than greeding for hitting the tower)
In this frame of time our objective will depend of the matchups, but building a CS advantage is always the safest as Riven. Shes really strong at level 6, its really hard to survive a all-in from Riven when she has Ironspike Whip , her ultimate Blade of the Exile and Ignite
Minute 5:00 - 14:00 | Laning phase
Depending on the matchup this could be one of the best moments for Riven, if in this game stage you already managed to build an advantage its really good, otherwise if you stay even thats not bad at all as Riven builds CDR and she can get more than 45% of her cooldowns reduced. Laning is the most important stage of the game as Riven, you cant fall behind!
As soon as we hit level 6 we can consistently think of how to all-in/outplay our enemy laner or putting him in a bad position depending on our junglers pathing.
Riven is strong at this stage of the game becouse of her level 6 but becouse of the easy time she has with Ironspike Whip to waveclear, a single cooldowns rotation is more than enough to make a wave dissapear.
With this being said, our objective will be to collect as much gold as possible and negate as much as we are allowed. Might sound like a general tip so let me give you some examples:
- If you cant kill the enemy laner, Riven can take advantage of the lane by doing a quick proxy to the incoming wave, taking a quick plate and backing (She is one of the champions that have the fastest lane returns by jumping terrain)
- Farming camps like Gromp, Krugs o Scuttle can end up meaning a great advantage into the enemy laner. Try to always look for windows or generate them yourself to collect more resorces. Farming Scuttle gives us gold, vision and a small mobility boost when in the area. You are not a jungler but your champion has a good time taking it, so when you can go for the crab.
Midgame (Laning phase is almost over):
Will depend mostly on our team, but as Riven is a hyper mobility champion she excels at quickly pushing a sidelane and hunting around for a catch or flanking a fight.(Red trinket will help a lot).
If our team is losing and you need to group with them to stop the enemies, consider the situation and go for it. But keep in mind you need to collect resources. Decision making is really important at this game stage.
Lategame:
Since every game and team comp is different is hard to explain what you should be doing here. All i can say is that your main objective should be to hunt people with your team, pushing sidelanes, giving/clearing vision or protecting your team mates. (Yes Riven is really good at protecting people with her stuns, damage and shield)
Riven is one of the most versatile champions in teamfights, you can:
- Flank and force the enemy carrys to run/be in a bad position.
- Kill the enemy carry.
- Peel for your carrys with your CC and damage.
- Chase enemies and chain CC them until your team can catch.
- Gain time by running/jumping walls until your team can help you.
How can you know what you should be doing? Depends on your team, for example:
You are going against a team with a lot of disengage, you already tried to go for the enemy ADC and they managed to stop you, next fight you notice you have a Vayne in your team, so you try to peel for her in fights so she can kill the tanks.
Its all about adapting and learning.
Another example:
Enemy team has a Vel'Koz, Caitlyn and Senna, you have a Yasuo. You pinged him and you know hes ready to use his ultimate, so when you see the enemies are grouped you can setup a engage (E R flash 3Q) with the Yasuo and vanish the enemy carrys with him.
Most common play as Riven in teamfights is to flank so you can clean up fights.
By this I mean being patient and waiting for enemies to burn CC or things that can annoy Riven in fights and forcing a flash or killing someone on the spot. Best scenario would be if they are low and you can score a kill before they react.
RED SIDE WARDS
BLUE SIDE WARDS
BEST RIVEN SKINS (MY OPINION)
I have some Riven custom skins that I do on my own. If you want them make sure you join my discord server. I do giveaways from time to time.
Discord!
Renekton (My permaban) Early game lane bully, you can deal with him if you are experienced. Its hard. If its combined with Elise / Nidalee / Rek'Sai I truly recommend you to dodge that game. Its not going to be fun. |
Kennen Annoying champion to face, has an easy time getting away from you. You can scale and be useful but laning against Kennen is boring. |
Malphite Malphite currently is too broken. I understand if you ban him, the champion doesnt need a brain work. |
Jayce Jayce can be really hard depending on the player, if you are fine with the rest you can ban him. But I would not ban Jayce personally. |
Frequently Asked Questions:
Riven mid?
Its viable, has a lot of good matchups. If you want a section dedicated to Riven in the midlane let me know in the commnets. That it is viable doesnt mean its good and you can go Riven mid all games, she has a lot of bad matchups too!
Crit Riven?
Its fun for a normal/Ranked Flex game when ahead. But if you truly want to get Riven MAX potential... Just dont go crit.
Note: If you have any question you can ask me on my stream or in any related video on Tiktok/Youtube.
And thats it for now, this was my guide and i truly hope it helped you. If theres any question you have dont be shy to comment.
See you in the comments/my socials!
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