User blog:Care Level/Let's Nerf Riven... properly.

Preface
In my last post, a while back, I expressed discontent with how the Riven nerfs were carried out. In a nutshell, I said that the proposed changes were upsetting because, from the looks of it, she would be good at none of the things she is currently good at: it was, as far as I could tell, an Olafing. A 25/90, Smiter's-Boon-level change (I'm aware that most of you won't get that joke, but, for those of you that do: I love you).

But instead of just complaining and criticizing, I'll offer a few solutions. However, in order to do that, we need to identify the problem that needs to be solved. In my mind, it is a disparity between Riven's intended role (with its intended strengths) and her actual role (with her actual strengths). As I see it, Riven currently does everything that she's supposed to do, but the issue arises when she also does many things that she's not supposed to do.

Riven is supposed to be hyperaggressive; this much is blatantly obvious. She was given the tools for that: hypermobility and the ability to soak up damage while she deals it. However, in the same way that giving a man a hammer will allow him to both hammer nails into a beautiful oakwood cabinet and smash car windows to steal stereos, giving Riven her tools allows her to both play hyperaggressively and play with extremely good defense.

Smashing windows and stealing wallets is wrong. Defensive Riven play is wrong.

Fortunately, while it is very difficult to fundamentally balance a hammer (anything that drives metal into wood will break glass), it is not the same case with Riven.

So let's get started.

Too Much Defensive Mobility
Broken Wings is the major offender, here. While, clearly, it is an offensive ability (no one swings a sword around at their allies in order to run from their enemies), the fact that it incorporates a total 780 units of dash (260 per strike) means that it's not inherently much different than using Cait's net as an escape. It's equally as silly as Cait using her net to engage: sure, it works, but should it?

I think that, in Riven's case, the answer is "no, it should not work". How, then, do we break it outside of its intended use cases, while preserving it when Riven is, indeed, being hyperaggressive and working as intended? Well, I've thought of a couple of solutions:

Force the Offense
This is the worse of the proposed solutions for this issue, I think, but it is workable:
 * Make Broken Wings a targeted spell.
 * Implement a passive movement speed boost based on either:
 * The number of dashes that Riven currently has available.
 * Whether or not she is in combat.

This fixes the abuse cases quite handily: Riven can no longer QQQ away from enemies, period. Because she loses the ability to QQQ around the map, the passive gives her movement speed similar to what she currently enjoys (either she is out of combat, period, and gains the map mobility; or she is not actively fighting [her dashes are not used], and so gains the map mobility).

The issues here are that it harms her ability to reposition in fights, even offensively, and that it generally reduces the number of decisions that the player can make. For these reasons, I am not fond of this workaround.

Move the Mobility
My more-favored solution entails moving (some of) the mobility on Broken Wings into another piece of her kit that forces her to be offensive: her passive.
 * Reduce the dash distance on Broken Wings' first two dashes to 120 (from 260).
 * Add to her passive: "Basic attacks cause Riven to dash 120 units toward her target".

This literally cuts Broken Wings' mobility by more than half for escaping purposes, but leaves it more-or-less unchanged for its intended purpose: hitting people and hurting them. Udyr's Bear Stance already features the mini-dash on basic attack mechanic: the fix is just a simple port. Notably, I don't recommend changing the range on her final Q: firstly, it's the one that jumps walls; secondly, the 280-unit hit to her other two dashes ought to be enough of a shaft to her escape potential; and, finally, I feel the range on her third Q is a key component of her offense, which I do not think needs to be hurt in addition to her defense.

One of the big issues with this change is the hit to her immediate gapclose: she loses 140 units on her initiate, which is actually a huge deal. However, I don't think that that's an issue that can be fixed with changes to Broken Wings; instead, her initiate will have to be fundamentally altered in Valor.

Shield is Overbearing
I'm okay with nerfing the shield, but I do not believe that it should be nerfed in the presently-suggested manner (reducing the duration to 1.5 seconds). The problem I have with it is such: if you use it to engage a trade, it expires before it prevents a significant amount of damage, and, if you don't use Valor to initiate, you are unable to initiate in many matchups. Like Broken Wings, Valor currently serves its intended purpose largely as it should; the issue is that it's also good at things that it was never supposed to be good at.

If Valor must be balanced near its current state, that is possible; however, I think that it needs to be reworked in order to be viable without being ridiculous in edge cases.

Flow-esque Valor Shield

 * Using Valor's dash gives you a buff for a short duration: during that time, if Riven takes damage, then the buff is consumed and the shield begins, expiring after 1.5 seconds.

This means that, when used to initiate trades, the shield should be largely the same as before (unless the opponent can hit Riven while she's engaging, thereby popping the short shield and creating the possibility of waiting it out; this introduces counterplay where, previously, there was none). When fleeing, the shield should be popped and, from that point, expire more quickly than it currently does.

Redistribute the Shield

 * Swap the shield on Valor with the damage on Ki Burst.

The problem with Valor, previously, might have been stated as "trading one ability for zero": Riven's Valor did everything it was meant to, and the ability that the shield absorbed did none of what it was supposed to. Moving the shield to Ki Burst changes that: if Riven uses Ki Burst to absorb harass, she loses her stun in her next trade (as opposed to "Riven used Valor to absorb harass and that was the beginning of the trade"). When used by a Riven playing properly aggressively, there is almost no difference in her E -> Q -> W initiation. Moreover, since Ki Burst is not instant, stopping to shield herself during an escape comes with real consequences, as does blowing yet more damage (on Valor) to get away.

Conclusion
The end.