Talk:Riven/@comment-9775822-20170504063432/@comment-32820852-20170810111033

Yes and no. GA is a bad second item on Riven and pretty much every champion. The stats you get from it aren't remarkable in any way, and you can't make good use of the passive that early into the game. Third item and later however, it's a great item. Also, BF Sword early isn't the best option in most cases, it delays core and doesn't give you any utility. I'm just going to layout the most popular and successful Riven builds right now. (The builds I'll be talking assume you have 10% flat CDR in your runes, adjust build accordingly if you don't.)

Death's Dance/Black Cleaver/GA: This is what you should be going most games. It gives you a nice mix of damage, survivability, and sustain. A lot of the time you will want to rush Death's Dance instead of Cleaver but you can go either. BC is best when you just want a lot of cooldown reduction fast, and it's 500 gold cheaper than DD. Most games I end up going something like Caufield's Warhammer > Kindlegem > Death's Dance > Cleaver > Tabis > GA. You can go Mercurial Schimitar, Ravenous Hydra, Lord Dominik's Regards, or Randuin's Omen after this core.

Duskblade of Draktharr >  Youmuu's Ghostblade : Lethality core. It's suboptimal most games because typically you're against a bruiser/tank top lane, and a tank jungler. But if the enemy top is reasonably squishy and the jungler is Elise/Kha/Nidalee or something of the like, feel free to go this build path. Just note that while you're going to disintegrate squishies, the first two items give no defensive stats or survivabilty. You can round out the first two core items with early Boots of Lucidity to complete your CDR core, or you can stay on tier 1 boots and wait till Ghostblade is finished to cap CDR with another Warhammer. You can go GA right after this, but typically I'd just get a more expensive AD item and bring the pain, Death's Dance third is great with this build. QSS isn't amazing on the DD/BC/GA build, you play more of a frontline role with that build, so eating CC is fine; with this build, it can be necessary as you need to shorten combat as much as possible.

There's some other niche builds but these are the most optimal for most situations. Please note that you're taking Fervor 99% of your games, with the exception of Gangplank matchup in which you take Thunderlord's Decree, and Tryndamere in which you take Stormraider's Surge.