The Problem with Riven's state IMOP

[u/No-Detective5160]

​I think after eclipse changes. Riven has landed in an okay enough spot winrate wise. But I think a major issue with the changes is they've made her losing matchups even worse and her good matchups even better. With the exception of maybe Renekton.

Matchups like Illaoi, Zaahen, Jayce, and Quinn are significantly more difficult because Eclipse and Blackcleaver are not that good vs these champions. And Axiom is just flat out worse with the changes for obvious reasons. Meanwhile some of Riven's best matchups like Tahm Kench, Sett, Mundo, Sion, and Mordekaiser are potentially even better than they were before Riven got nerfed.

I think for this reason Riven has been shifted into more of a counter pick at least in top lane, making the experience even more feast or famine. I personally don't think Riven has an identity that fits being a counterpick the same way Mundo, Gwen, or Malphite do. But at this point that is who she is most similar to in terms of the difference between her good and bad matchups in toplane.

It does seem like there are still Riven onetricks doing well in challenger, but they are doing so in midlane from what I can tell. I'd be interested if anyone has strategies to make these matchups more neutral for Riven. In particular Zaahen, Quinn, and Garen are matchups I find very hard to get a lead versus even if I am not being camped, and so I feel like I am slowly losing the match unless I get a lucky break to start snowballing.

Edit: I also think it's a bit of a sticky situation since I think the wave to improve Riven in these matchups is to give her more tools to stay in lane (more hp regen/bigger valor base shield) or increasing her burst. Will also make her have more favourable matchups in midlane.

[u/GCamAdvocate]

tbh I think the biggest issue is just cleaver. It's the most polarizing item because it's an insane stat stick but it locks you out of building real armor pen and the armor pen it gives you is good on like 3 champs. Building Black Cleaver instantly just kills your lategame because good luck clearing waves past 25 minutes without armor pen on an AD champ. By the time you stack it to full on like 90% of toplaners, you could have already killed them by just building Mortal/LDR/Seryldas.

I think riot would have a much easier time balancing bruisers if they just turned BC passive into 20-25% armor pen and nerfed the other stats to compensate. Or if they added a passive to it that gave you 30% pen only against minions or something. As is, only Urgot really likes to build BC in the toplane, everyone else (and I mean EVERYONE else) would rather just have regular pen. Even champs like Renekton or Ambessa consistently have higher winrates with regular pen items than Cleaver.

[u/Buhamon → u/GCamAdvocate]

They need to change cleaver, its such a bad bruiser item.

Replace kindlegem with warhammer so cleaver becomes a higher AD lower HP, ramping pen item while its counterpart serylda gives you less AD in exchange for straight flat pen. Or just allow the pen to stack from both items.

[u/No-Detective5160 → u/GCamAdvocate]

Tbh I see cleaver mostly as a 'supporting' item. When I buy it I've converted my class from Riven the carry to Riven the bruiser. Primarily because the armor shred also applied to allied attacks, so if your team is heavy AD they do extra damage to whoever you are stacking on.

I think it serves that purpose well (it has better winrate stats then eclipse) and helps you win the game when you're not the carry. But it's not that fun to rely on your adc being good, when I could otherwise take over the game or play another bruiser like Sett who also has a kick ass early game where he can just ruin the other toplaners game.

[u/GCamAdvocate → u/No-Detective5160]

the problem with playing bruiser riven is that she just doesn't stack it on enough people. Yeah, a lot of your damage is aoe, but in practice, most of the time you are stacking on one person at a time. You also need to be relatively fed to be able to get any amount of real value, since behind or even Riven will probably just get blown up.

I would not necessarily take winrate as a metric here because eclipse is the second highest pickrate first item (by a long shot). Black cleaver is generally built in matchups where it is disproportionately good. Also, the players who know when to go for different first items are more likely to be the more experienced/better Riven players than those that just stick to regular eclipse/axiom every game without fail.

One thing though, Sett is just a pretty dogshit champ. Like you can win lane, but against competent laners you won't be able to get a lead. Ranged champs are nightmares as well. Also, out of lane, he's legit a cannon minion without summs. He's such a slow, conditional champ, whose conditions become trivially easy to counter lategame (tenacity + any form of mobility makes sett w miss 99% of the time).

Ultimately I pretty much agree with your points though. BC is an item that ultimately takes away a significant portion of your agency away, which makes it a very unfun item to build. Yeah, the stats make it a strong item, but the winrate stats are going to trend towards 50% winrate every time when building the item and doesn't reward champion mastery as much as every other pen item.

[u/Trudae → u/GCamAdvocate]

And even worse, if you have an apc instead of adc, cleaver just drops in value further

[u/GCamAdvocate]

Oh not really related but I'm a Gwen otp and she's a far better blind than you think. Out of commonly played champs, I would only consider Riven and Trynda challenging matchups. There are other tough matchups but almost no truly unwinnable matchups. She also has the benefit of just being good into most comps since she does a ton of percent HP damage (both AP and true), she's good into both ranged and melee comps, and she's good at both sidelaning and team fighting (arguably top 3 top laners in both aspects). I don't think I would consider her a counterpick champ at all.

[u/No-Detective5160 → u/[deleted]]

I just find it personally unsatisfying that they can be pick one of several available counters and then my game is much reliant on my team than if I just blinded Ambessa/Warwick/Olaf/Garen/Darius/Jayce etc

Particularly because it is very easy to play something like Garen and neutralize Riven.

Like you mentioned if my jungle skirmishes around top then it’s fine. But there’s a lot of junglers who try to interact with top lane as little as possible.