Talk:Riven/@comment-4834593-20160814204358

So I started thinking about a possible Riven rework because of several different things, namely the comment thread directly below this one, where it's mentioned she's a bit of a weird champion compared to most, as well as her being generally weak currently despite not recieving any changes compared to last season when she was a top pick at world (and heck, if you just looked at the items (Death's Dance, new Youmuu's, Caufields Warhammer etc), you'd think she got buffed in the preseason), which just goes to show how dependant she is on meta (can be top tier or useless without any changes and within a patch) and therefore how little reason there really is to pick her for what she brings in uniqueness - I pick her because I absolutely adore her playstyle, but the pros simply picked her because she dealt a lot of damage and the top lane demanded damage; when the top lane didn't demand damage anymore, she was just gone. At the same time however, someone who dedicates himself to playing Riven finds it is still possible to have extreme success with her, being able to win nearly any lane matchup and be an absolute beast in teamfights, carrying game after game. This only solidifies her being in a weird spot, just being a champion you cannot really fit into anything.

So, what should this rework do? I'm going to approach this in a very Riot-like way, by asking first "what should this champion thematically do?" Riven is a character, lorewise, that showed extreme proficiency at fighting, and eventually gained the huge sword that she has when she uses her ultimate. A sword, without doubt, able to slash down everyone in front of her with ease; heck, the idea of Wind Slash is that she uses the sword to release a gust of wind so strong it can kill her enemies.

What does Riven do now, and what should she be able to do? Right now, Riven is a high damage skirmisher, but with some survivability in her kit. She is also very AoE heavy, with all her damaging abilities dealing damage in an area around her. This makes her exceptionally good at 1v2ing. If she is ahead by a kill or two, she might be able to turn a gank around and simply kill both her lane opponent and the jungler.

Now, I'm not so sure she should be so AoE heavy. I wouldn't want to call her "normal" blade small, but it is by no means so big I would expect her to hit everything around herself like she does. However, maybe her ultimate could change that; while she has that huge blade, her abilities are buffed so that they do hit everything around her. Her high damage is something that - I believe - should stay, as she was an extremely good fighter, and I would say it is also the most important part of her as a champion. Her shield though, while I have always been defending it, should maybe not be in the kit, being replaced by an ability that allows for mobility, just like Valor, but with damage instead of a shield. Also note that I will not include numbers in this rework, because that would drown out all other discussion and I doubt that anyone on this wikia or even anyone at Riot would be able to correctly estimate at a glance wheter the numbers on a champion are balanced.

Passive: Her passive is actually a key part of her kit that I forgot to mention earlier on - Riven was originally designed with a combo-like idea in mind, weaving autoattacks and abilities. This is a defining part of her kit at least when playing her - maybe less so when playing against her - and therefore I believe it should stay the way it is, possibly with number tweaks. One possible change, though, would be for her abilities to only buff the very next autoattack (without stacking up to three times), but for a slightly higher amount. This would increase the reward for playing Riven right, without giving possibly three free buffed autoattacks away.

Q: A short, straight dash. When targeting an enemy, Riven dashes past the target on the right side and deals damage to the target, as well as being able to use the ability again within X seconds (I propose 4, like in the current kit). On second use, Riven dashes past the target on the left side and again deals damage, as well as being able to use the ability again in same X seconds. On third use, Riven dashes through her target and knocks that target up for Y seconds (a bit longer than currently, but not much, to make up for it being single target). Cooldown reduced versus current kit, but only goes on cooldown after the straight dash (so when you use your third dash or when you don't target an enemy).

The idea behind this is to keep her triple dash intact, but only when in a fight; if you want to flee, you have to use minions or you only get one dash. Also, the last dash is always a straight dash, which means you can wall-hop just like currently, and in fact even without having to build up. On the other hand, you cannot space out your Qs, wall hop, and then fast use your Qs to wall hop again 2 seconds later.

W: Enhance your next autoattack (note: this ability does not generate a passive charge) to deal bonus damage and stun your enemy for X seconds (scaling .75 to 1.25?). Cooldown gets reduced by X every time you dash.

This is to remove the standard AoE stun you have right now, in exchange for increased dueling power. The reduced cooldown for dashing is simply to put even more emphasis on dashing, and of course the base cooldown should be balanced accordingly. (maybe the reduced cooldown should also scale down with your cooldown reduction)

E: Fully reworked. Dash towards target enemy (slightly more range than Q) to deal damage and briefly slow (think Trundle Q). All units hit in your dash take the same slow and 50% of the damage. Works on a charge system (max 2 charges). Cooldown for the next charge is reduced by 1 second for every unit you kill, and by 4 seconds for every takedown.

This new ability actually allows for more mobility than the old Valor, but only when you are already on the offensive, and it also takes over a bit of the power taken away from Q, by not always giving three dashes anymore; it will be harder to catch up to an enemy, but you have better sticking power if you actually reach said enemy. On top of that, you gain increased mobility from farming (in lane) or getting kills (in teamfights). Also, the cooldown reduction should maybe again scale with your own cdr.

R: Your autoattacks now additionally deal X% damage to all enemies in front of you other than your target (scales with rank, maybe something like 65/80/95%), and your basic abilities gain additional effects. Q deals damage to all enemies hit (and can knockup all enemies hit on third charge), W stuns all enemies hit (as autoattacks are now AoE) and E gains charges faster and works towards a charge on ult activation (X seconds of cooldown reduced on ult use).

Yes, this proposal removes Wind Slash and the bonus AD completely, because it contradicts the idea of the ultimate. While it might help you out in a 1v1, that's not what the ultimate is meant for. It should be used not when fighting a duel, but when you have to take on multiple opponents, being it in a gank from an underleveled jungler (or with an underleveled lane opponent) or in a teamfight; it's for those moments when you don't run from several enemies but instead want to take them down. It increases your AoE with your autoattacks, Q and W working AoE now, but it does not grant you any extra single target damage whatshowever, excluding the additional E charge(s). As far as incentives to rank it up (I did not have those at first), the autoattack %dmg and the speed with which you gain E charges together with a reduced base cooldown should be what make you want to level it when you can (I consider "leveling whenever you can" a requirement for any well-designed ult).

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The general idea of this is to put all Riven's AoE damage into her ultimate - no ultimate, no AoE damage, no 1v2s except if you're that far ahead it'd be possible on other top laners too (and no, I do NOT mean Renekton then, but someone like Gnar or Mundo) - while at the same time focusing more on her mobility in battle; she has only one dash possiblity out of battle, but in battle she has many more, plus added sticking power in the brief slows and the stun and knockup.

Honestly, this is a risky rework, because it puts so much importance on actually hitting enemies with your dashes - if you can't hit them with the first dash, you're not gonna hit them at all, contrary to now, when you can just use all four dashes to get to your enemy. Minions do help in this regard though, similar to Yasuo. (talking about that, a very important point in balacing this kit is making E unable to kill minions (at least in a normal game, no one is going to account for 15-0 by 12 minutes games, this can be done by either not making damage too high or making it deal reduced damage against minions) as that would mean reducing the cooldown of the ability simply by using it)

Well I just wrote this out all at once and now I'm just gonna post it because it's late and I wanna go to bed, I might actually rework the post soon to turn it into a blog entry. I really like how it turned out though, and am looking forward to feedback on the idea (though I guess it is extremely unlikely this is ever gonna happen like this).