User blog:Care Level/Rivenous Hydra: Your Silver-Pubstomp Resource

= About Me = Hi, my name is Care Level, and I'm a 1200-ELO Silver player that mains Riven. Here's my LoLking, for those of you interested; if you're too lazy to click the link, it'll probably tell you that my Riven, lately, is sitting on a clean 2/1/1.5 KDA and about a 75% win rate, though it does fluctuate a bit.

I emphasize "lately" because I used to be the worst Riven. The. Worst. I used to play Riven a lot just because I wanted so badly to be good at her, but it never seemed to work out. I played some other champs, got a bit better at the game, and then I went back to Riven, and she just kind of... clicked for me. I fell in love with her, and never turned back! Since then, I've picked up a couple of things that have made an enormous difference in my Riven games, and so I'm writing this guide to share them with you.

= Pregame = Success on The Rift starts before you even summon Riven onto it; if you're even going to consider her, you'll need the appropriate runes and masteries, you'll need to pick her in the right team comps, and you'll need to pick her against the right team comps. I'll go over all of those in as much depth as I can, so strap in!

Runes:
You've got a few decisions to make, the first of which is "AD or AX?" (I use "X" to refer to "penetration"; armor pen is "AX" and magic pen is "MX"), and your laning phase will largely depend on it. AD reds and quints will make you stronger early, while AX reds and quints will make you stronger as your opponent stacks armor, and which to run basically boils down to "how early do I expect to have armor stacked against me?": against an opponent that will stack armor immediately, take AX; otherwise, straight AD will give you more power for long enough to matter. I'll talk more about AD versus AX picks later, though.

The second set of runes on the page are seals, and they're going to be Armor 100% of the time. "But Care Level, what if I'm against an AP champ?!" is the most common response, and to that end: against a ranged AP champ, (1) you're going to get autoattacked, at the very least, every single time you disengage, (2) minions still deal physical damage. People underestimate how much damage actually comes from minions, so I'll tell you: a lot. In early all-ins, it's not uncommon for minions damage to make up 20% or more of the total damage dealt. Moving on, (3), turrets deal physical damage, and any mitigation to turret shots, at any point in the game, is welcome, and finally (4), MR seals suck, anyway. Running Armor seals helps with all of that, and so you're going to use them in every matchup.

Finally, you're going to pick blues, and there are 3 real choices: flat MR, scaling MR, or flat CDR. Against an AP top lane, scaling MR is not an option, and so you can take flat MR or CDR based on personal preference; outside of that rule, scaling MR or flat CDR is entirely up to you. CDR helps you dish out and mitigate more damage, stays relevant through the entire game, and makes you more mobile, and so I run CDR almost exclusively. It's up to you, though: how confident are you?

Masteries:
For the vast majority of your games, you are going to spec 21/9/0, picking up Improved Ignite, CDR over AS (you have 5 AA resets), 2 points in Butcher (because you need the points to hit 21 and there aren't better options), and Havoc over the crit masteries. In the defensive tree, grab HP per level, Armor and MR (either 3 to 1 based on your matchup, or 2 in each), and flat HP.

Alternatively, if you're playing against a non-killable lane (more on that, later), you can elect to drop the flat HP and some resistances in order to put 3 points in Utility for the Wanderer mastery; against non-killable lanes, your job becomes to roam, and this will help you in that endeavor.

9/21/0 might be viable in the event that you pick into a team comp that will force you out of a melee carry role, but I'm yet to try that mastery setup on Riven.

Your Team and Your Opponents:
Synergising with your team is a delicate and complex art, but we can water it down into something a bit shorter than the novel I could write on the matter. It comes to this: will being a tank win your team the game? Riven is not a tank; she is an AD Caster carry/assassin; at her tankiest, she struggles to be called a "bruiser". If your team consists of several hard carries, already, they will be less served by the addition of another carry than by a frontline that can initiate well and keep hate off of the already-present carries. That being said, if your jungler already fills this role (e.g. Nautilus, Vi, Hecarim), Riven brings enough survivability and CC to the table to justify a third carry or bruiser.

In addition to your own team, it's also important to respect your opponents. Riven is an amazing duelist, but doesn't always shine in team fights; if your opponents have a comp that will cause them to want to force team fights (e.g. heavy CC, nukes, and hard carries), Riven may not be able to contribute as much to her own team as a champ with stronger CC. However, you will have the ability to split push with the best of them; yet another factor to consider!

What might be most important to you, starting off, though, is whether or not you can deal with your lane opponent as Riven. Riven's harder matchups include Garen, Xin, Darius, Pantheon, Renekton, Ryze, and Jax; if you're not very confident, I would not recommend picking Riven into those lanes, though they are all winnable if played properly!

= On the Rift: = Okay, so you've decided to pick Riven. You've got the proper runes and masteries lain out, the team comp benefits from her presence, and you're not terrified of your lane opponent. It's a beautiful day to lay down some Broken Wings! So you lock in, load up, and... then what? The next few sections should answer those questions!

Starting Items:
There are two options: "I want it" and "I don't want it", based on who you're up against and how confident you are in the matchup. Whether you want it or you don't want it does not depend on the enemy champion; it depends on you. However, your item choices for each situation will vary depending on who you're playing against.

I Want It!
If you're feeling good and you're out for blood, you can start Red Pot, Doran's Blade, or Boots4 (that's Boots of Speed and 4 Health Potions); Red pot or Doran's is a matter of personal preference, but will impact your playstyle: That said, though, boots4 is largely not a matter of preference: against the vast majority of ranged opponents, you will need boots to reliably trade, and, by virtue of you being Riven, you already heavily outdamage them. You don't need the extra damage in these matchups as much as you need the abilities to (1) get to them to trade and (2) sustain through their unavoidable harass. The Boots4 start accomplishes both of these.
 * If you start red pot and your opponent doesn't, you're going to actively seek out the all-in, and the earlier, the better!
 * If those are reversed, you're going to actively avoid the all-in unless you have already won some trades.
 * If mirror items, proceed as usual.

I Don't Want It!
If you landed in a matchup that you're not feeling good about, you can consider Cloth5 or Doran's Shield as an alternative to the offensive starts. Most people, here, say, "What? Doran's Shield?  Isn't that for tanks?", but the fact of the matter is that it numerically provides better damage reduction and sustain than Cloth5 through the early levels. Furthermore, investing in early Cloth is, unless it's sold later, locking your build path into that of a bruiser: the only things you want that come from Cloth are Tabi and Warden's Mail, which generally don't have a place in a Carry Riven's inventory.

To Invade or Not to Invade?
Riven, herself, has a strong level 1 for early team fights; Broken Wings is one of the single best abilities in the game. That said, it still depends on what the rest of your team and your opponents bring to the table at level 1. If you do decide to invade, consider starting Boots4.

Leashing
When leashing for your jungler, ask how much experience you can share: you can take both small lizards and still allow your jungler to leave the camp with level 2 or, if your jungler is generous, they might let you share exp from red or blue; either of these is an enormous benefit, because you have enormous kill potential if you level earlier than your lane opponent. Because of this, if your jungler will not let you share experience, it is imperative that you get to lane without missing any experience.

And Onward to Glory!
So you've loaded in, picked items, leashed or invaded, and now it's time to lane it up. This is where the rubber meets the road, the moment that all the preparation comes down to. So let's talk about your matchups and how to win them.

= Matchups = In this section, I'll break down, piece by piece, what strategies have best served me in lane. Pick your opponent and read on!

Aatrox
Aatrox is, like you, a melee carry. However, Aatrox's paradigm puts him more in line with the traditional ADC, and he doesn't scale out of control until much later in the game than you do; your early game is amazing. However, because he is a melee carry, he's also a squishy little bitch: if you can get to him, you can burst him hard and he can't go even in this trade until you sustain it for way too long.
 * AD is the way to go, here: if Aatrox builds armor early, his damage will fall off fast and he still won't be able to trade with you.
 * You should take an offensive start in this lane 100% of the time; it's an easy one.

Akali
Akali is a squishy melee-mage, which means that she has to come into melee range to CS or be zoned completely. If she decides that coming near you is a good idea at any point in time, you outdamage her unless she's very ahead, especially pre-6; you should remind her of this fact at every opportunity. If she tries to escape in her Shroud, disregard it: all of your abilities can still damage her while she's in stealth, and you should remind her of this, also. This lane is a nightmare for Akali.
 * AD and AX are both viable; AP champs can easily start Cloth5 due to Armguard.
 * You could take MR... or you could take CDR and kick her punk ninja ass all over that pink cloud even harder.
 * You should take an offensive start in this lane 100% of the time.

Cho'Gath

 * TBA

Darius
Darius is one of your harder lanes, but this match becomes significantly easier once you stop being afraid of it. Yes, he does monstrous damage, but so do you: show him why you are the vision of a pure Noxus. Take Q at level 1 and look to draw out your trades until you've burned 3 Qs and 3 passive charges; you will take a lot of damage in return but so will he; if you don't actively trade with him, he will spin on you when you go to CS and you will take free damage and your wave will get pushed to turret. Don't take free harass; have a lane presence and show it off early.

You can take your shield or your stun at level 2; I recommend the shield, though, since it will allow you to get to him much easier. This is important: by gapclosing on him, you can avoid a lot of damage from his spin if he tries to use it as you engage. If he saves it until you disengage, your shield will eat an auto and some bleed when you engage, so it's still being used to full effect.

You should be able to win trades with Darius pre-6, but be very careful: your damage is not higher than his by much (or at all; your shield is probably the only thing that allows you to win trades), and you will lose trades if you take too much minion damage. Post-6, be very mindful of the amount of bleed stacks on you. If you do want to all-in him, do so only when you have no bleed stacks on you unless you are 100% sure you can finish him immediately; you will get dunked, otherwise. If you engage with no bleed stacks, you should be able to get your execute off before his, provided that you've gone relatively even before this point.

Whoever gets the first kill in this lane will snowball: Darius will build armor, and you won't win trades once he's got a Chain Vest until you've got a Brutalizer; your item costs 600g more.


 * Darius likes to get tanky fast, but you may need flat AD to establish your early presence in lane.
 * If you can't beat him in lane, roam. You're much stronger in this role than he is.
 * If you go for a defensive start, don't bother with cloth; his scary damage is his bleed and his ult, neither of which are helped by cloth. Most of his physical damage is from AAs, and, you guessed it, Doran's Shield helps more with that.

Diana

 * TBA

Dr. Mundo

 * TBA

Elise

 * TBA

Fiora

 * TBA

Gangplank

 * TBA

Garen

 * TBA

Irelia

 * TBA

Jarvan IV

 * TBA

Jax

 * TBA

Jayce

 * TBA

Kayle

 * TBA

Kennen

 * TBA

Kha'Zix

 * TBA

Lee Sin

 * TBA

Lulu

 * TBA

Malphite

 * TBA

Master Yi

 * TBA

Nasus

 * TBA

Nidalee

 * TBA

Nunu

 * TBA

Olaf

 * TBA
 * Olaf is the matchup I dread most and, if I'm honest, I have no idea how to beat him in lane. Stay tuned; I'll share when I figure it out.

Pantheon

 * TBA

Poppy

 * TBA

Quinn

 * TBA

Renekton

 * TBA

Rengar

 * TBA

Riven

 * TBA

Rumble

 * TBA

Ryze

 * TBA

Shen

 * TBA

Shyvana

 * TBA

Singed

 * TBA

Sion

 * TBA

Swain

 * TBA

Talon

 * TBA

Teemo

 * TBA

Thresh

 * TBA

Trundle

 * TBA

Tryndamere

 * TBA

Udyr

 * TBA

Urgot

 * TBA

Vi

 * TBA

Vladimir

 * TBA

Volibear

 * TBA

Warwick

 * TBA

Wukong

 * TBA

Xin Zhao

 * TBA

Yorick

 * TBA

Zac

 * TBA

Zed

 * TBA

Ahri

 * TBA

Akali

 * See Top Lane

Anivia

 * TBA

Annie

 * TBA

Brand

 * TBA

Cassiopeia

 * TBA

Corki

 * TBA

Diana

 * See Top Lane

Elise

 * See Top Lane

Evelynn

 * TBA

Ezreal

 * TBA

Fiddlesticks

 * TBA

Fizz

 * TBA

Galio

 * TBA

Gragas

 * TBA

Heimerdinger

 * TBA

Karma

 * TBA

Karthus

 * TBA

Kassadin

 * TBA

Katarina

 * TBA

Kayle

 * See Top Lane

Kennen

 * See Top Lane

Kha'Zix

 * See Top Lane

LeBlanc

 * TBA

Lissandra

 * TBA

Lee Sin

 * See Top Lane

Lulu

 * See Top Lane

Lux

 * TBA

Malzahar

 * TBA

Mordekaiser

 * TBA

Morgana

 * TBA

Nidalee

 * TBA

Orianna

 * TBA

Pantheon

 * See Top Lane

Riven

 * See Top Lane

Ryze

 * See Top Lane

Swain

 * See Top Lane

Syndra

 * TBA

Talon

 * See Top Lane

Teemo

 * See Top Lane

Tristana

 * TBA

Twisted Fate

 * TBA

Varus

 * TBA

Veigar

 * TBA

Viktor

 * TBA

Vladimir

 * See Top Lane

Xerath

 * TBA

Zed

 * See Top Lane

Ziggs

 * TBA

Zilean

 * TBA

Zyra

 * TBA

= Ramble (I'll clean this up later) = Your Q does so much damage. It's fucking retarded. 90 + 210% bonus AD (which is a fuckton because you're going to start dBlade like a boss) at level 1? Who thought that was okay? Because your Q is goddamn broken, you're going to do it whenever you want (read: as much as possible) and you're going to come out ahead in every trade where you land Qs. Seriously. It does all the damage. Just be confident in it. Trust me. It hurts so much. I used to play Riven a lot more conservatively, but just going recklessly balls-to-the-wall aggressive wins games: I shit you not, in my last match, I 1v2d a Singed and Trundle and came out with 1-for-0 in my favor. Match before that, I got 4-man ganked and got a double kill against an 8/1 Ezreal (and someone else) while I was 0/0 (he goddamn melted). Seriously. You kill everything. YOU are the scariest motherfucker on the map. Have faith in that. Your passive also does insane damage; use it. It's 20-50% extra AD on hit, and since you're going to be building nothing but AD items for a good while, you're going to wreck face. Oh, what's that, they moved away from you a bit while you were AAing? If only you had four gapclosers! Okay, listen up because this one will change your Riven life: your main gapclose is not Q, nor is it E. It's both. At the same time. Your Q can immediately follow your E, so you can gapclose a lot harder and a lot faster than you might've thought (it was way better than I thought, at least). Look at this shit: [1]; this Riven is a beast. That could be you. You could be catching Scarra off guard. Don't E. Don't Q. Do both. If you want to be a monster, the very best like no one ever was, get down a perfectly-executed E -> Q -> W combo. If you do it right, it will seriously look like one move. The E -> Q part is easy; it's almost effortless to combo out of Valor, since it has no aftercast delay. However, in the same way that autoattacks have some unnecessary baggage on their attack animations (which is the foundation of orb walking), Riven's Broken Wings and Ki Burst have some extra animation, too, and you can skip it by issuing more orders before the animations finish. However, whereas Broken Wings cancels the previous animation to do its thing, Ki Burst doesn't, so it is absolutely fucking imperative that you cancel it manually. Click on something ffs. This is extremely important for laning against ranged tops like Vlad or pussy Zed, but 100% necessary for playing Riven mid. She's a very viable mid and I play her there about as often as I play her top; I even prefer it because it's so much easier to roam from mid once you've (1) shoved your opponent under tower because they're afraid of you or (2) won your lane (which you will). The new-ish Specter's Cowl is an enormous boon for melee mids; pick one up early and, between health regen and your shield, you'll be able to completely shrug off most harass. Because mids tend to be squishier, naturally, you won't miss The Brutalizer as much as you would buying early resistances in top lane; you can likely 100-0 them at level 6 with nothing but Ignite and a Doran's Blade (that is, if you don't 100-0 them before 6). For mid matchups, I often run armor pen runes because, thanks to Seeker's Armguard, mids are not at all unlikely to start early armor. Do what you want, though. Build damage. During laning phase, build damage. Build damage build damage build damage. Don't spend 400g on lifesteal; you could have MORE DAMAGE. Hell, you don't even need boots for a good while. If your final build is Boots LW (you need this) BC (and this) BT (THIS IS OPTIONAL) Hydra (this is NOT optional) Defense (and by "defense" I mean "Zephyr" or "Maw" or "Merc Scimitar"; tenacity and MR are defensive stats!), there are 6 longswords (7 with Maw), 2 pickaxes (or 3 if you actually went for Zephyr/Maw like a boss), and a BF Sword (2 with MS) in that shit. You can ALWAYS get more AD when you back. Do it. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure Hydra gives you more burst than a fully-stacked BT (I feel like it does when I play, anyway). Let's do the math, then: you lose... 77.5 damage on Broken Wings and Ki Burst combined (assuming your BT was fully stacked), and another 37.5 on each of 5 autoattacks, assuming you can land them all (unrealistic, let's be honest); that's 265 extra damage, total. If you have more than 265 AD (you goddamn should; that's nothing but BC, LW, and Hydra at level 18), Cleave gives you (1) more total damage (it's 100% of your AD), (2) more of your damage in a much smaller timeframe, (3) more damage even if you miss an AA in your combo, and (4) you never have to B and just not buy anything because you can't afford a BF. You also get passive health regen, (even more) awesome waveclear, and you get to look like a fucking badass weaving item actives into your combo. Also your team will never have to hear you say "be there in a minute; farming my BT". Buy a fucking Hydra. If you get ganked, you can seriously kill at least one of them. Try it. If you're even a little bit ahead, you're so much stronger than your laning opponent. 2v1 double kill outplayed. Riven is not a strong teamfighter if she is there when the fight starts. You can't jump over a wall of tanks like Kha'Zix, you can't kill them unless you've snowballed out of control (which is very possible) and you're not tanky enough to just run through them. Go push an objective; no one can deal with you 1v1. If they send 1 person back, kill them. If they send 2, kill one/all of them or leave; your team has a numbers advantage now and, let's face it, they won't catch you because you have 4 dashes, a shield, an AoE stun, and can jump over walls. If they don't send anyone back, either take the objective (you're good at towers because you have 900 AD or something stupid, right?) or hit the teamfight from a direction they don't want you to be in and blow up all of their squishies. You can probably kill at least one person in a single burst. It's not okay. Alternatively, if you have Flash up, just flash into the middle of their shit and go ham. Like anyone else with weak initiate, it can be compensated for by especially strong initiate on someone else. If you have a Hecarim or Sej or something, that's all the initiation your team needs. Roam. If you do not roam, you are wasting your time. Riven naturally pushes her lane and, because you're going to be a beast, your opponent will likely be afraid of you (or they'll not learn proper respect and will feed you, instead). They're quite likely to hug tower, and waiting around outside of their tower range isn't really productive, is it? Go clear their jungle, maybe pick up a kill on their jungler. Go clear your jungle if your jungler's on the other side of the map (don't be a dick). Gank another lane. Hold a lane for a bit while a mate bluepills or picks up a blue buff. If your lane opponent wants to waste all your kill power in a boring farm lane, go win other places, instead. Just be sure to get home before tower starts stealing your CS; you need that shit. You can First Blood with a 100-0 at level 1 if your lane opponent doesn't feel like Flashing. Let's do some math: Ignite (70) = 70 true damage; you gain +5 bonus AD from the mastery. 3 Q hits: (30 + 0.7*[32+5])*3 = 167.7 physical damage; you gain 3 charges of Runic Blade. 3 empowered AAs ([86+5]*1.2)*3 = 327.6 physical damage. Total raw damage: 495.3 physical damage + 70 true damage = 555.3 damage. You deal 2% more damage on that, an an additional 5% more when they're below 50%; we'll be conservative and suggest that that averages to a total of 5% additional damage from 100-0; this adjusts your physical damage to about 520. Worst-case realistic scenario, your opponent has 55 Armor at level 1 (cloth-armor Darius with a full defense tree); after armor pen and all that, you're looking at 346 physical damage and 70 true damage for a full burst of about 415. That kills most things at level 1 outright. One more autoattack ought to finish it; better still if you AA them before you start your combo. Also, I'm assuming that cloth is the best thing against this damage; Doran's Shield might be better. Obviously, this assumes you land all of your damage; it ain't easy, and the early Ignite either (1) gives away your all-in intent or (b) baits them by making them think you're terrible ("ignite is for securing kills, noob!" "Oh, but I DID secure a kill!").