Talk:Riven/@comment-4834593-20140809070452/@comment-5209745-20140817153617

"Riven can't out trade anyone early.  it might look like their hp goes down more, but some of it will come back while hers just keeps going down each time, so she'll eventually lose unless she goes all-in.  And if you go all-in too early and they survive, you lose the lane."

Allow me to disagree. True, you're going to lose a lane if you fight against somebody with good damage and sustain, but not every top-laner goes by that standard. Like every character, she has her ups and downs. Just try to not match her against Aatrox or Trundle.

"As for getting both hydra and bt... that's just too many wasted stats since her main purpose late game is crushing squishies, which doesn't take that much ad(in case you didn't know, getting 700+ ad and 1-hitting tanks doesn't work anymore. 250-300 is plenty.) and involves very few basic attacks, if any.  The extra sustain isn't enough to make you survive as long as if you buy a defensive item, like randuin or banshee."

Bro, do you even math?

BT+Hydra= 155 bonus AD, which with her base AD is closer to your 250~300 AD standard than to your fabled 700+. BT+Hydra = 32% lifesteal, with 150% AD hits on your main target, and 16% lifesteal with 60~40% AD on sencondary Cleave ones, means a lot of sustain (Let's not forget that Cleave and Crescent apply only half of your lifesteal, source here). Getting both means you're going to be able to use your other 4 slots for itemizing CDR and tankyness (And arpen. Don't forget arpen), which I believe is what you're seeking, if I understood you.

Personally, I never liked building Hydra on Riven, but with the recent changes on BT, not getting them together it's what feels like a real waste.

Btw, 250~300 AD is plenty when you build BotRK or Muramana, but none of those work on Riven. If you don't build any of those, 300~400 AD should be your common standard.

"Even if you don't teamfight, it would only take 2 enemies to kill Riven before she could hit anyone if her only items were hydra and bt.  So then you either join your team for a 5v5 and die instantly without doing anything useful, keep going back to your lane and get ganked and killed every time, or start farming the jungle to make your jungler be the one feeding or losing 4v5s.  Doesn't sound like a very good plan, unless none of your enemies have half as much gold as you."

Look, I am a huge fan of getting Riven tanky, since S2 actually, even before everybody and their mother began with the Riven fever (Not trying to be a hipster here). But what you say doesn't fits reality, going tanky with Riven is not about going full tank, but to find a balance between her offensive stats (AD, arpen, lifesteal and CDR) and defensive ones (HP, armor, MR, tenacity, some effects like Coldsteel or Lifeline). I have been doing this since then, and I can tell you: Your first three items should be offensive, like BT, Hydra, TBC, then your other three ones should be Merc's/Tabi (If not needed, go for Ionian's), a pure defensively item like Randuin's or Banshee's, and a defensive-offensive one, like MoM or (Sadly, since it's the only AD+armor item) Atma's.

What I try to say with this is: You CAN teamfight with just offensive items if you know how to play her. Tankyness, if needed, should be added later when ADCs have 3 crit items and APCs have 3 major AP items (I realize this doesn't fits GA, but I never build GA, so... Yeah, that).

Also, if you snowball during your lane-phase (Something harder now than before, I acknowledge that), it's not impossible that you'll double your enemies' gold.