Riven/Strategy

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Skill usage

• Autoattacking in between each Broken Wings will allow the most amount of sustained damage as you consume Runic Blade stacks to deal extra damage.
  • Since the skill produces three charges, which is exactly her maximum, you may wish to complete it to initiate a fight with her knockup, following up with auto-attacks and her other skills.
  • It is a good idea to learn how to auto-attack cancel with Riven. This can be done by using any of her abilities immediately as the damage is applied during an auto-attack. Because Riven's auto-attack animation is longer than the time it takes for the damage to actually register, doing this can cut off more than a second from a Q>AA>Q>AA>Q>AA combo. You must apply a new attack command in between each "Q" to obtain the maximum possible speed.
• Blade of the Exile lasts for 15 seconds so use it at the start of the fight instead of the end of the fight.
• Using Broken Wings in conjunction with Valor will give you small boosts of mobility as they move you forwards a bit. This is a very efficient way to move around the map, as your moves cost nothing. Broken Wings, however, allows you to click on the mini-map and use it to continue moving, while Valor will cancel your move actions.
  • Beware using skills right before a skirmish, as your abilities will be on cooldown and thus be unavailable for the fight.
• Broken Wings can also allow you to chase an enemy so that you can knock them up.
• Remember that Broken Wings and Valor give you some mobility boosts for fleeing, but only the third strike of  Broken Wings can pass map terrain. You can, however, dash with all of them through terrain generated by abilities like Anivia's Crystallize, Jarvan IV's Cataclysm, or Trundle's Pillar of Ice.
  • Make sure you test what map terrain is jumpable over. An example being: The walls separating the river and the jungle in Summoner's Rift.
• Be aware that Wind Slash has a cast time and a travel time as well, so you shouldn't waste it on enemies who are just about to leave its range. Try using smart cast to save precious seconds in aiming the ability.
• Wind Slash deals maximum damage to multiple opponents at or below 25% maximum health, therefore use Wind Slash to finish off enemies who are fleeing or deciding to stay despite low health.
• Riven is an all-around strong champion in top solo lane due to her ability to avoid ganks with her mobility, her no-mana costs, and her instant cast shield. Play aggressively and use Valor to shield your way through harass.
• Broken Wings resets her auto-attacks on each cast and it is usefull to cut off the animation. (Tested under attack speed Slows)
• Broken Wings' dash speed is roughly equivalent to 475 movement speed. At 550 movement speed, however, simply moving is faster than using Broken Wings as a method of faster travel.
• Ki Burst can be used to cancel the animation of her auto-attacks and the crescent activation of Ravenous Hydra. However, it's own animation cannot be cancelled.
• Riven may cancel the animation of  Wind Slash with  Broken Wings' third cast. Use this to speed up your combo. 

Build usage

• Riven's entire kit benefits from bonus attack damage. Building heavy attack damage items will not only help maximize her damage, but also increase her survivability through Valor.
  • As such, you will probably at least want to get The Bloodthirster or Ravenous Hydra, which deals more damage overall (active included).
• Riven benefits heavily from cooldown reduction which will allow her to use all her moves more frequently. However, at later levels, Riven is likely to have at least one of her abilities available for use even without cooldown reduction due to prefering to take her time to autoattack between casts and the cooldown of Broken Wings starting even if you delay the later two casts of it, which make the stat less needed then.
  • With this being said items such as The Brutalizer and Ionian Boots of Lucidity are good items for her.
• Having a way to slow the enemy or speed yourself up is mandatory on Riven.
  • However, Riven is very good at dealing damage while chasing as Broken Wings moves Riven forward both doing damage and giving her an opportunity to get in basic attacks without losing too much distance. The dash distance is unaffected by Riven's movement speed, so building movement speed items are not as important on Riven as on most other melee champions.
  • A Frozen Mallet is good for this, since you will be using auto attacks in between abilities to maximize your passive (none of your abilities will otherwise proc the slow). It also gives you health which is a must since Riven is squishy when stunned, sealed, blinded, or otherwise prevented from auto attacking or using her Valor or Broken Wings to escape and/or shield.
  • Randuin's Omen works very well on Riven as while she may have four ways to dash, they are all short-ranged and Broken Wings loses damage if used fairly far-away from the enemy, and she is still a melee champion that can be damaged by ranged champions without reprisal until she gets close enough. Valor can move Riven close enough to a target to slow them with Randuin's Omen and then walk close enough to have casting Broken Wings move her into melee-range while damaging the target.
• Guardian Angel is an excellent one-stop defensive item, and its passive as well both armor and magic resistance can tide Riven for a good while before she may require other defensive items.
  • Guardian Angel works well with The Bloodthirster, as the former provides a main source of durability and the latter gives a main source of damage.
• Maw of Malmortius is sensible for Riven if she is fearing magic damage - the attack damage is obviously useful on her while the shield and passive works well with Valor and the life steal from The Bloodthirster in helping you survive a bit longer in a close-fight.
• Riven does only physical damage, so a Last Whisper is a good item to counter the armor that should be built against you.
  • The Black Cleaver is also a great item on Riven, as Riven can easily stack its passive with her combos, not to mention the extra 200 health and the 10% CDR the item gives are very useful.
• Riven is a fairly squishy champion. Grabbing Doran's Shield, or Cloth Armor/ Boots of Speed and a few Health Potions into a match will help your survivability early on. Later these can be built into your boots of choice, or Madred's Razors/ Wriggle's Lantern.
• Riven's damage output is severely hampered by crowd control since it will disrupt your flurry. Consider taking Mercury's Treads over Ionian Boots of Lucidity and getting Mercurial Scimitar against crowd control heavy teams.
• Youmuu's Ghostblade should be used after the 2nd hit of Broken Wings or during the last frame of animation of the 3rd strike to avoid losing precious seconds.
• Stacking Doran's Blade early game helps due to it's sustainability and AD.
• Riven is great for Twisted Treeline. Her strong early game, and mobility with her abilities help her to dominate top lane, as well as give her great ganking ability. She also performs very well in the jungle. After netting a couple of kills early, you should be able to snowball pretty hard.

Jungling

• Starting items: Cloth Armor, Health Potion x5 OR Hunter's Machete ,  Health Potion x5
• Skill progression: Broken Wings → Ki Burst → Valor → Broken Wings
• Jungling order: Blue Golem (Smite) → Wolves → Wraiths → Small Golems → Red Lizard (Smite) → Gank
• Note: Riven gains her level at Blue Golem while it grants her CD reduction on her abilities which are relatively long.

Recommended builds

Countering

• Riven has a strong early game. Be careful when laning against her. If necessary, call your jungler to gank.
• Riven excels at trading with her shield, crowd control, and fairly high damage output, dishing out her damage and getting away before you even put yours out.
• Building armor will mitigate most of  Riven's damage since she deals only physical damage.
• Riven relies on her abilities and quick combos more than her basic attacks. As such, anything that can disrupt her combo (such as a silence or stun) can drastically reduce her damage output.
  • Champions with multiple interuptions, such as  Alistar, can work well as effective counters for her in a 1v1 lane.
• Wait for  Riven to use  Wind Slash or until after  Blade of the Exile has worn off before striking her. Riven has no innate sustain and the shield is her only source of damage mitigation.
• Do not underestimate  Riven's defensive stats, even if she is building straight damage.  Valor scales off her bonus attack damage and has a considerably low cooldown late game.
• Don't forget about her mobility and overextend when chasing Riven. Her Broken Wings allows her to dash up to 3 times, and her Valor allows her to dash and grants her a shield. This can create a very long gap between you and Riven.
• Save your high-damaging channeled spell (e.g. Nunu's Absolute Zero). Riven's third Broken Wings and Ki Burst can stop channeled spells.
• When you are low on health, do not face Riven as her Wind Slash deals more damage the lower your health is. If you're still squishy and you know she has aqcuired her ultimate, do not linger around with below 25% health even to turret hug, as she can, and will, flank around to kill you with Wind Slash.

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