Talk:Riven/@comment-5077844-20150626121023/@comment-26586252-20150707165657

A lot of top laners have a decent level 2 spike; give a Gnar or Irelia the level 2 advantage and you can expect to get chunked hard.

I think you're overestimating how powerful she is early game; her base defensive stats are aren't even close to that of bruisers like irelia and Jax, and she has one of the lowest hp regen rates in the game. Yes if you're letting her dictate trades around her cooldowns you're going to lose the lane, that's why you need to dictate trades based around your cooldowns just like every other matchup.