Talk:Riven/@comment-9775822-20160827190536/@comment-4834593-20160903123405

You do realize using icons instead of names makes it a lot harder to read your text?

Anyways, onto the builds. As years of experimenting has taught me, there is nothing that beats maxing out cooldown reduction as early as possible. Often, I have maximum cdr as early as level 10-11, which is in itself already a huge powerspike. Now, the items I use for that are Black Cleaver (wheter you build Phage or Caulfield's Warhammer first depends on matchup; I can't really explain why I go for one choice or another, just try out both and find what the advantages of each are), CDR boots and a second Caulfield's Warhammer. This is the cheapest way to cap out on cooldown reduction on Riven if you do not want to waste gold (like you would when buying a Kindlegem, for example, as it only builds into tanky items and not the kind you'll want on Riven).

After that, I consider my build to be "free", but in actual games it's pretty lined out, so here it is. First, I complete the Caulfield's Warhammer. Though both Death's Dance and Youmuu's Ghostblade are possible items, I tend to prefer Death's Dance. Until you play without it, you don't notice how much it actually delays burst. After that, if I am ahead and the game is going well, I typically go Bloodthirster into Guardian Angel, but I switch them up when the game is going well. The last item is typically a Mercurial Scimitar, Ravenous Hydra, Duskblade, Last Whisper item or Spectre's Cowl item, depending on needs. When I'm having trouble with magic damage, I sometimes take a Maw of Malmortious somewhere along the lines instead of this last slot. When playing jungle, I go Warrior Enchantment (of course) and forego the cdr boots because otherwise I'll waste cdr (as both Black Cleaver and Death's Dance are too important to drop).

Now, on the topic of cdr boots versus other boots, you'll really not want any other boots, simply because it delays your 45% cdr power spike (if you're playing Riven without 45% cdr please just play another champion) and then means you have to buy a third non-boots cooldown reduction item. Your only choice is Youmuu's Ghostblade (of which the active is suboptimal on Riven because it doesn't increase your speed while dashing and because you typically use an ability to cover the time between autoattacks), and it means you're pushing both Bloodthirster and Guardian Angel to later on, or even drop one of them. No matter what way you turn it, it both delays your power spike and hurts the completion of some big powerhouse items (as Bloodthirster is the item that allows you to tank and Guardian Angel is the item that allows you to initiate).

And I suppose that also means I already somewhat arrive at my next point - Randuin's Omen, Dead Man's Plate, Titanic Hydra and whatever other trash some people buy on Riven. Heath becomes more useful with armor and magic resistance, and armor and magic resistance become more useful with health. What does that mean? Go tank or don't go tank. If you go "a bit tanky" you just find yourself hurting your damage part while not even getting anything noticable out of it. Just because you have a Dead Man's Plate doesn't mean that AD carry isn't going to tear through you when the rest of your items is damage. What it does mean is that he has more chance of surviving your burst and then outkiting you - actually hurting you in the long run. In the true late game, even a full damage Riven (and then I am talking about Black Cleaver + Death's Dance + Bloodthirster + 4th damage item) will need to throw everything she has at the enemy AD carry to kill him before he kills her. Take a tank item instead of one of them, and the AD carry kites away laughing while he takes that half second he needs extra to kill Riven.