Board Thread:General discussion/@comment-4518978-20130120123543/@comment-173.55.154.92-20130122191235

Riven, from my experiences, couldn't afford to trade, let alone harrass, without investing in armor/health/health regen/life steal/some combination of the above before the nerf, as she has no built in sustain like Cho's passive (not as good as other built in sustains but still worth noting), Voli's passive (*shudder*), Olaf's w (I think its W that gives him bonus life steal), Vlad's life drain spells (mitigated in that he has to spend health to cast, but still a factor), etc. And gold that she's investing in sustaining herself is gold that she's not investing in damage output to keep up with her enemy, which leads to her opponents snowballing in comparison, which leads to her dying repeatedly despite her investments and caution.

Now, even investing in the above mentioned options to bolster her sustain aren't really enough to let her trade/harrass. If you don't get jungle support on a regular basis you WILL lose top even if you play cautious. Its just a matter of when. Anybody with a built in sustain or a ranged harrassing tool will likely just out right own your ass when you play Riven, and you have little recourse since Heart of Gold is gone, so there goes one of your few good 'bad start salvaging' items. The best you've got is Doran's Items, Philo Stone for health regen and gold gen, and Avarice blade for gold gen, and that's only really worth it if you can farm minions, which you likely can't do if your in the position that the gold gen becomes necessary.

This is my opinion on the subject.