As many people know, somewhat recently (although probably like months ago in “gamer time”) Riot Games released another new champion in a fairly short time after Talon, that new champion is Riven. I personally was excited to try her out but I at the time lacked the influence points to purchase her, so after playing a good amount of games I was able to afford a 6300 point champion. While there was a lot of champions that I wanted to buy like Renekton, Gangplank, Amumu, and even Talon after trying him out since he was on the free rotation for the week, I knew I could only get one and I was kind of tempted to see how Riven is. I did face my fair share of Rivens in a few PvP matches and noticed that they were always somewhat good at harass depending on the player early in the game, but near the end of the game is where they basically became a free kill, and I was curious about that, I could have easily chalked it up to “they didn't know what they were doing” but pretty much everyone fits in that category for now.
The first time I played Riven, I, like
a lot of other players who were new to her, spammed her abilities
like crazy but I noticed that this didn't do a lot of damage which
dumb founded me. I did know about her passive at the time which
creates extra auto-attack damage after doing any of her abilities,
but I didn't know that her entire play style basically revolves
around it. It wasn't until I was doing poorly in games, and I was
forced to watch the Champion Overview of her from Riot Games, as well
as reading a few player guides on Mobafire, that I found out. So,
with that knowledge in mind along with a new build that mixed AD
items and survivability items, I tried out Riven again in a few Coop
matches against bots. It went fairly well actually, I was surprised
at how much of a difference revolving everything around the passive
made, and I was also really impressed with the item build so
naturally like all of the other champions I've played on League of
Legends, I wanted to see how she would function in PvP.
To put it simply, I've had vastly mixed
results. The first match I tried out after practicing was one I did
with Alice, we decided that our preferred characters weren't really
compatible lane mates, so we just went with whoever seemed
appropriate in our matched random group. I ended up going with a
Maokai who kind of did reckless things, in any case however we were
against a Master Yi, and a Ashe which worked out pretty well, I was
able to get some kills when they overextended, and for the most part
Maokai could harass on his own so I was rarely in danger while I
harassed too. That continued onto the endgame, while I did notice
that Riven was considerably weaker, and easily focused, I was able to
do decently well. Unfortunately while I had high hopes after that
match, they weren't destined around to stay for too long.
The next day when I wanted to practice
Riven more, in the morning before Alice had to leave for work we did
a quick Coop game for practice and points. I was laned with a
Tristana and we did really well, I was surprised. On a side note,
Adam joined us too for the game and he as Leona laned with Alice's
Lux and did well. Back onto the main topic however, after everyone
left for business elsewhere I decided to practice Riven more in PvP
matches to get used to her, but it wasn't just practice that I ended
up getting, it was more like a revelation. The games didn't go as
well as they had the day before, I don't really remember my laning
partners, but I do remember in one of the games I could hardly do
anything against a Talon who was good at harassing. His rake just
limited my mobility way too much and Riven is heavily dependent on
mobility to do anything it seems like to me. I don't believe I was
partnered with laning partners that synergized well with Riven
either, although I can't remember which specific champions that I was
partnered with.
As I always like to say though, in the
end I still admit that I don't know Riven well enough to say that
she's weaker than other champions who's players are probably at least
90% of the time are using an established build that works, where as
Riven's builds are still in debate. However, there's a lot of
problems that I personally have with her. She does not do the damage
at mid and end game or even early game that other melee characters
are able to do, and they're able to do it much easier as well with
simple auto attacks or abilities. Gangplank or Garen are both other
melee characters I've played and with DPS builds they have about the
same survivability that she does, however they're able to kill much
easier with Gangplanks Parrrley able to do 1k crits, and his melee
attacks hitting for 400-600 easily. As for Garen, he's much easier to
use than Riven and he's great early game a lot like Riven, endgame
however I was hitting fairly quickly for almost nonstop crits of
600-700, I hit a Singed to death so that was fun.
All in all, I like Riven's backstory,
and her as a character, however in a primarily competitive game, that
to me is not exactly about winning although that helps, but at least
giving a really good shot at winning, I don't believe I enjoy playing
her when everyone else picks champions that have solid builds, and
are proven to be very good at what their role is instead of just
mediocre.
So for now, after reading a
confirmation of it especially on a guide on Solomid, I've decided to
still keep Riven in mind, but experiment with more champions for now.
Specifically Garen.
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