Hello, Wingsofdeathx here. I am currently 2.2k+ Elo in solo queue, though Elo doesn't mean anything. I've been on the front page before and its just a back and forth game.

I'm also the top lane player for team Epik which has been recently acquired as a brother team under Solomid. We're currently referred to as Team Solomid as well, although my team consists of different members than the original Team Solomid. My teammates are Salce, Unstoppable, Aphromoo, and Nhat Nguyen and is distinguished apart from the original Team Solomid.

I also stream solo queue with commentary at: http://www.twitch.tv/wingsofdeath

and you can find my facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wingsofdeathx/225655727513965

This guide is for playing Riven top lane.

Riven is one of my most played champions in ranked games and I have player her for tournament games. She is frequently banned against our team because of how I play her.

Riven is a melee fighter with high mobility, damage, aoe CC, and initiation capabilities. She is sometimes referred to as a hyper-carry, but this is not correct. She is more of a soft-carry since she can snowball, but is still very effective throughout the start of the game up until early-late game even if she doesn't snowball.

I personally like her because she is a very versatile champion that can be deceptively tanky while dealing huge amounts of damage in an aoe. I'm a sucker for mobile champions with high damage and she fits the bill perfectly. Her laning phase is also really strong, and is among some of the best in the game. She is very good at controlling creep waves, harassing efficiently, and bullying people out of lane or even scoring early kills. You can adjust your playstyle, summoners, and runes to overcome just about any lane matchup, although she does have some more difficult ones I.E. a good Kennen.

She fits into many team comps but generally does best if your team already has a tanky initiator or someone to draw the initial focus since if you try to initiate yourself most of the time you will get gibbed. Riven can initiate with flash but I generally try to shy away from doing so unless it is completely necessary. If a Riven is initiating for your team then it means 1 of 3 things.

1. Your team comp sucks.

2. You can 1v5 them because you snowballed and you're a beast.

3. You caught someone out of position.

She is also a very fun champion to play and one of my favorites next to Lee Sin and Ahri.

5-30-12

Since so many people complained about my generic mastery page without actually reading the masteries section to find out what masteries are actually good on Riven and in which situations I would take them, I just changed the up front mastery page to reflect what a normal riven mastery page lookslike.

These masteries are geared towards maximizing Riven's damage output with a little in the defensive tree for laning and extra durability. Offensive masteries are the best for Riven as she does not need what the other trees offer. Defense is okay if youre in a particularly hard matchup, but I feel that with proper play you can survive any lane with offensive masteries and I never go defense.

[highlight]Take the point in lethality only if you plan on picking up a ghostblade or infinity edge. While these items can work on Riven, they are expensive and I generally avoid building them since they are not optimal. I generally put the extra points from deadliness into cooldown reduction and leftover points into havoc or lifesteal depending on the lane. You can also substitute life steal for havoc or cooldown reduction. I will generally move the points around between lifesteal and havoc depending on if the lane is more aggressive or defensive. You can run with either one and be okay.

Naturally for the defensive tree, your points into the magic resist or armor depend on the laning matchup so there is some wiggle room there. You can split your points however you want, if you dont feel you will be too aggressive you can take the points out of minion damage, if you feel like the lane has alot of poke and not alot of burst, you can take the points from HP and put them into regen HOWEVER I prefer the hp just because thats an extra ~140 hp which actually can help lategame especially when you have shields. massive amounts of lifesteal, and pretty high resists with a GA. That extra hp can make the difference where as the +3 regen only helps in the lane but it can help quite a bit since it will get you the hp you got from veterans scars back in just 50 seconds, which is not nearly as long as one would typically stay in lane.

Make sure you take the improved defensive summoner spell mastery if running heal!

These runes are the most standard runes you can run on Riven. If you had to pick one page for every lane matchup for Riven, this would be it. I believe that general things are generally not good (lol pun) so I have a couple specialized rune pages and will detail some alternative runes.

Attack damage runes are simply the best in my opinion because your offense and defense scales heavily off of AD and Riven's AD ratios are extremely good. It also provides the biggest boost to her very early laning phase, where you can sometimes win the lane right here by forcing them to play passive or even picking up an early kill with well executed play.



Armor penetration is also viable, especially if you plan on building a brutalizer. It scales better the more AD you build, so in the end you'll start to see a bigger damage increase but I feel like flat AD is just too good to pass up early game.

Armor is for most standard matchups since it reduces minion damage and many champions that lane top against you deal physical damage with abilities. Even casters like kennen can have powerful auto attacks especially if they run attack damage runes, so these runes help in cases such as those.



Flat AD seals are viable and provide a little extra punch in the early laning phase if you don't need the armor. Vs. Udyr they are absolutely required since the majority of Udyr's trading is Magic Damage in the form of tiger stance procs, and without these runes you wont be able to dominate him early.

Magic resist. You have a choice between flat MR and scaling MR. Choose flat if they have magic damage in lane i.e. Rumble, or have a mostly magic damage dealing jungler like nautilus or maokai. Use scaling if the lane and jungle deal physical damage.



Flat AD if you just want to go balls deep, but I really dont think 9 runes for +2.52 AD is worth it. Use this if you're plannign on going a Full AD mage.

Some people run 1 AD glyph with AD reds and quints because they think it gives you a whole point of AD extra. This is false. They think this because it makes the rune page display go from +15 AD to +16 AD. This is just rounding done by the client. The actual ingame decimal values are recorded but only the rounded values are shown to you. Using just 1 AD glyph for the sole purpose of making your rune book look more badass IS NOT WORTH IT!

If you're against mostly physical damage in both lane and for team comp and are laning against a tough opponent (I.E. Renekton) then these runes can help you ease up the lane and farm safer until you get your big items.


Flat AD. No alternatives unless you want to be a hipster and run 25 armor pen for fun. Honestly AD quints are just too good to give up. Best in slot no exceptions unless you're doing something nonstandard like 1v2. I wouldnt try to put Riven in a 1v2 situation though as there are far better characters for it and Riven is very farm dependent.

Some other quints you can use are flat armor pen, flat health, flat armor, flat MR, or flat hp regen if youre trying to do something different

and in my opinion are the best combo of summoners to have if you can get away with it.

gives you that little edge you need to finish off targets and Riven is a champion that likes to score kills both in lane and in team fights and this spell helps you do just that. Also the master for Ignite gives you a bonus 5 AD after using it, which isn't bad either.

lets you play a little more aggressively in lane and still be able to escape a bad situation such as an unexpected jungle gank. Another thing flash is good for is offensively closing the gap on opponents to surprise them with your ult + combo and score a kill. I often use flash offensively with my ult to kill people in lane if I know I can. Flashing onto people with your ult following up by a stun will force many opponents to use flash themselves if they have it, especially if you hit 6 before them.

Luckily Riven can catch up to players that use with her Q and finish them off, or if they decide to hold on to it then just keep smacking them till they use it or just kill them.



is great when used in conjunction with ignite to win lane. Insures that you will win most all-in fights and will make people less likely to trade with you knowing that if the trade escalates into an all-in, they will lose it and be forced to take tons of free damage trying to retreat. Also great for baiting tower dives and turning around 1v2 situations. Just make sure to use it early vs. people who take so you don't get the effect cut in half.

is nice to have in conjunction with flash or ignite. Good to have another exhaust on the team vs someone like kennen to use on him during teamfights, or if you're laning vs someone who can all-in you easily and you want to avoid losing to it (I.E. Renekton). I prefer but is good as well.

Riven's abilities charge her blade, causing her basic attacks to deal 5 / 5.59 / 6.18 / 6.76 / 7.35 / 7.94 / 8.53 / 9.12 / 9.7 / 10.29 / 10.88 / 11.47 / 12.06 / 12.64 / 13.23 / 13.82 / 14.41 / 15 (+100% of bonus attack damage) bonus physical damage. Riven's blade may be charged up to 3 times and expends one charge per attack.



An extremely powerful passive. This along with auto attacks is where the majority of Riven's damage comes from in trades. This makes weaving auto attacks inbetween your abilities the most efficient way to deal damage. Remember, try to only auto attack if you have passive stacks up, or you have nothing else to do.




Riven strikes out in front of her in a short line. This ability may be reactivated 2 additional times.

1st Use: Slashes forward, dealing 30/50/70/90/110 (+60% of bonus attack damage) physical damage to all units she comes in contact with.
2nd Use: Slashes forward, dealing 30/50/70/90/110 (+60% of bonus attack damage) physical damage to all units she comes in contact with.
3rd Use: Leaps into the air and slams the ground dealing 30/50/70/90/110 (+60% of bonus attack damage) physical damage and knocking nearby enemies away from the point of impact.

Cooldown 13 seconds

Cost none



Great ability for gap closing, clearing waves, and stacking your passive. Also does alot of damage if maxed. Be sure to use auto attacks in between each Q when trading in lane or dueling, but in large team fights you'll want to spam this out to get the knockback out quicker. Try to land the knockback on multiple people or high priority targets like the AD since it also stuns them for a short time.

NOTE: The third jump of this ability is able to be used in conjunction with flash. What I mean by this is that after you use the 3rd Q, anywhere you flash to will immediately apply the damage and knockback just as if you had waited for the q to land. This is good for initiating and surprising people since they will have 0 reaction time to counter-flash. Only do this if you're sure you can land it and need the extra boost in range to catch. It's definitely much faster than using your third Q after your flash. I would spend some time getting used to doing this and figuring out the range as it does extend the flash based on your Q's travel distance. This is my favorite way to initiate if I must and I follow this up with a stun.

This skill can also be used to instantly follow up wind slash.




Riven's sword emits a burst of runic energy that shocks nearby enemies, dealing 50/90/130/170/210 (+100% of bonus attack damage) physical damage and stunning them for 0.5 seconds.

Cooldown 11/10/9/8/7 seconds

Cost none



Your main component of your harassment combo. Dash in, stun + auto attack and dash out. Few champions can trade with this since you essentially get free hits and get out of range before they can retaliate. Also great for initiating with flash + stun. Try to save this ability for disengaging or harassing. Don't randomly throw this out or other players may try to force a trade with you while it is on cooldown.

You can use this to immediately follow up a wind slash, but if you're in range to stun you should always stun first since it prevents them from dodging wind slash and puts them at lower HP so wind slash does more damage (in most situations, sometimes you need to get the wind slash out fast to hit multiple fleeing targets).




Riven does a quick dash in the direction of your cursor and becomes shielded, blocking up to 40/70/100/130/160 (+100% of bonus attack damage) incoming damage for 2.5 seconds.

Cooldown 11/10/9/8/7 seconds

Cost none



Great for trading in lane and avoiding harassment. In some matchups I will take this ability first (For example against a Nidalee) and use it to last hit while avoiding harassment. This will also cause their creeps to push towards you since hitting you with auto attacks draws creep aggro.

This ability can also cancel the animation delay on blade of the exile and can immediately follow up a wind slash.

Also in the middle of dashing with this ability, if you attempt to use the third charge of your Q it will INSTANTLY apply the knockback and damage when Riven STARTS TO JUMP instead of when she lands, This might be a bug but can help for interrupting channeling spells very quickly or catching someone by surprise. Just note that doing this will cut down the total combined travel distance of the two spells.




Riven's weapon surges with spiritual energy for 15 seconds, granting her 20% bonus attack damage, increased range on her damaging spells and attacks, and the ability to use Wind Slash once.

Wind Slash: Riven fires a shockwave that deals from 80/120/160 (+60% of bonus attack damage) to 240/360/480 (+180% of bonus attack damage) physical damage to all enemies hit, increasing based on how much health they are missing.

Cooldown 75/60/45 seconds

Cost none



This is the ability that makes Riven who she is! There is quite a lengthy explanation following since this skill is rather complex.

First off, this is your major damage steroid and execution ability rolled into one. Make sure to use valor right after you activate blade of the exile to cancel the long delay animation it has. Valor actually allows you a quick and instantaneous cancellation and allows you to use other abilities or auto attacks almost immediately after activating your ult while also allowing you to surprise people by closing the gap. If you're close to someone try to use Ki Burst as soon as you pull your sword out to stun them and get a free hit, while leaving all of your gap closers up for the chase.

NOTE: Make sure you use pull out your blade of the exile when you have all of your abilities off of cooldown unless you only need to use wind slash! This skill GREATLY increases the damage of all of your abilities and the biggest mistake I see people do is combo someone to probe a kill opportunity and pull out their ult once they realize they got the person low, only for them to survive with 10 health off of wind slash or flash out of the obvious wind slash attempt.

Also remember that your ultimate increases your auto attack range from 125 to 200. This is longer than EVERY MELEE CHAMPION IN THE GAME, including polearm wielding champions like fizz, jarvan, and xin who have an attack range of 175. It also increases your stun and q aoe so try to get used to your ability ranges both with and without your ult on.

When using wind slash, try to force your opponents in a situation where they will die to you if they dont flash and die to wind slash if they do flash that way there is ZERO POSSIBILITY of them flashing your ult and outplaying you. I suggest getting familiar with the range as the cast time is a bit long and it will feel clunky to smart cast if you're not used to it. Also if you have any damage abilities up make sure to use them immediately following wind slash if you're in range to pack more of a punch in a smaller window. It looks more fearsome and surprises people with heavy burst! Keep in mind that Wind slash does its maximum damage when the target is at 25% health or below.

Generally in most matchups I will take a point of or to start. if they have ranged harassment or out trade me early, if I'm stronger can can bully them early or need escapes from strong jungler.



If I started I almost always get 2nd just because it's very dangerous to go for so long without your main mobility skill since you may be ganked early. If I started then I will take if I'm looking to all in and trade hard early or If i want to wait until 3+ to trade and to just farm and hold my wave.

By level 3 you should have 1 into each of your basic abilities and what you prioritize from here depends on the matchup and your laning goals.

So what should I max?

You can max if you want to play extremely aggressively and all-in them with heavy damage. This is good to do vs opponents like or That have small shields where you need heavy damage to break through and in the case of , needs to all-in to trade effectively. By making your all-in very strong you force to lose those styles of trades and make it very difficult for him to do anything to you without getting bursted down.



If you max first I generally will max 2nd since you're trying to be aggressive and more damage and having your stun up more frequently helps with that, but you can also weave in points of in as well.



Maxing first allows you to trade efficiently in lane with your standard harass combo of dashing in with , stunning with , getting a free auto attack, and then disengaging with . When done properly you can zone low sustain champions while not pushing the creep wave as you would with Q since it is easier to position yourself to hit little to no creeps using . When maxing first you can chose to get either or second depending on if you need more defense/mobility or higher damage.



Lastly, while I would never max first all the way, sometimes it is smart to take an extra point or two vs champions with high poking and kiting potential like since it will be very hard for you to gap close and get meaningful harass without taking alot of damage in return and putting yourself at huge risk for a gank. Putting extra points into allows you to sustain better in lane by shielding ranged harassment while still being able to last hit and control your wave. Do this if you feel you need to just farm vs a ranged harassment opponent and your goal here should be to equalize farm or even out cs an aggressive opponent and kill him later with items. I would almost always max ASAP after doing this since putting off points into your stun for a long time is very detrimental. As a side note, I would never max last since that is the bulk of your utility and you need it on a shorter CD.

Obviously take your whenever you can, as the increased damage on wind slash and the cooldown reduction are just too good to pass up for another point in a basic ability which gives you a marginal boost compared to skilling up your ult.

, OR , (Wait in base for 35 gold before going to lane)

FOR ADVANCED PLAYERS!

You can start if you went and need the early power to win lane or can completely crush certain champions early (I.E. vs ) However starting this item leaves you vulnerable and should only be done with specialized rune pages/mastery setups and an extensive knowledge of Riven + her matchups.



Rush if against heavy physical damage and you started

(1 or 2)


if you're vs small poke harassment in a passive lane


Maintain at least 3 if necessary and make sure you buy 1-2 at all times!





Get this if you want to snowball or be aggressive!



If you want the extra cdr and are snowballing your lane. Generally good to buy if the enemy isn't stacking armor and you want to apply heavy early game pressure. Increases mobility and burst damage nicely and is relatively cheap. If it helps you score at least 1 kill in lane then it's worth the buy. Every stat this item gives is amazing on riven, but feel free to skip it for a

Also note that if you're not afraid of anything on their team and don't need much defense you can buy in combination with as CDR is very powerful on Riven. There gets to be a point once you hit 30%+ cdr where Riven will have such a short downtime inbetween trades that enemies will have a hard time staying in lane and you can bully them quite easily if you play hyper-aggressively. Once you hit lvl 11 and get your rank 2 ultimate, with ~35% cdr your ult will be on a ~40 second CD meaning that you can spam this just about every other wave! This really allows you to bully people out of lane and makes you really intimidating when you're chunking them for 50-70% of their HP on a very consistent basis. This is a playstyle I have tried and its pretty effective if you get an early lead and they have a weak jungler. Just be careful and really think about what you're doing before you purchase these to try and pull this off! If you are going for the CDR stack aggressive style, make sure you buy these after your brutalizer. Just be aware that if you don't snowball off of these items you will fall behind the standard BT rush, so I only recommend trying this if you're experienced with Riven and you understand the matchup and overall team comps of both teams.


Get this if you're laning vs AP damage in a heavy AP comp and want to trade efficiently and avoid being bursted!



If you're against a magic damage opponent and against a double AP comp, look to pick this up early along with merc treads if their cc is heavy. The early MR combined with a vamp scepter should ensure that you can farm up your BT freely while still being able to pressure the enemy. However, one mistake I see when picking up this item, people tend to rush the full . This is not necessary and finishing your first is better in more situations.



Get this if you're RICH AS BALLS and dont need an early game item to help you transition to midgame.



If you don't want any early game items and just want to rush for your . Generally good to get if you can afford the whole thing at once after your first buy, otherwise you'll want to buy some smaller items to help transition to avoid stockpiling gold that isn't helping you win your lane.










This item provides everything riven needs for mid game. Lots of AD, sustain in the form of lifesteal as well as bulking up your shield.




If you haven't rushed , then it's about time you either pick those up or depending on if they have high magic damage/CC or alot of physical damage. Your priority should be CC reduction > defense. So if they have high CC and physical damage still pick up (This is situational of course and should be left to your judgment to figure out if you can avoid the CC and should get the damage reduction, this is just a general case).



Now you should be looking to complete your second item, From here you have 4 viable choices for MOST situations.










Perfect defensive item for Riven, especially if you find yourself initiating or being focused often. Synergizes very well with her [skill=valor] and lifesteal from to keep you alive and in the fight.

for double AP teams if you still want to play like a high damage assassin type character. Finish this off if you've built a hexdrinker early after getting and possibly .

for extra HP and the ability to stick onto people once you've caught them. Really rounds out your tanking stats and utility once you pick up a .

if They have multiple targets with high armor. Good to get after if they are stacking armor immediately. Generally only pick this up when you notice they are starting to build armor or you don't need anything else.

for purely extra tankiness. 19/20 times I will prefer frozen mallet because it provides a little damage and far more utility, but if all you need is health then by all means pick this up. HOWEVER, just because you get this item does NOT mean you have to buy ! Since the nerfs, there are better ways to get AD and defense. Usually should be all the resistances you need as you're not a tank, but mainly a fighter/dps.





NOTE: I usually dont build these and they are situational





is generally an overlooked item on cooldown based bruisers. It is viable when combined with brutalizer and will replace hexdrinker as your early game MR defensive item. You basically trade damage and a shield for actual HP and CDR. The only problem is that this item does not build into anything better whereas hexdrinker leads into a lategame item. Still, stacking CDR on Riven starts to completely change the way you can play her as it opens up an in-your-face playstyle and allows you to hard engage and combo much more frequently such that weaker champions will have a hard time catching a breather. It is especially good for shutting out champions that must hit things to sustain such as shen, as long as you are stronger than him and can put meaningful harassment into him with each combo. Remember that you only buy this if you need extra tankiness vs a magic damage lane and are vsing a high AP damage team comp. Make this only if you made a brutalizer! Hitting that critical % of cdr is one of the main reasons you're getting this over hexdrinker! I dont really like to build this but its still out there.

is good to upgrade that for pretty cheap. It is only 1350 to upgrade and gives you a nice chunk of stats in the form of extra armor pen, cdr, damage, crit, and a nice active that is great for chasing and actually is a sifnificant dps increase when combined with your ult and passive. Using the active to conserve an extra charge or 2 of Q by running up to someone can be very devestating as you can potentially force a panic flash and use your Q to close the gap again. Great for expending charges of your passive although generally attack speed is not a desired stat on Riven.

Just remember that upgrading this delays your late-game items so it's a judgment call on whether you feel you can snowball off of this item enough to justify the cost!

: Nice midgame tanky item. Makes you tankier, makes your team tankier and is pretty cheap. Generally would pick this up after a and only if you've been farming well and your team needs it. I personally dont build this but its still viable on riven. Combined with and can make you quite tanky.

is great if you find yourself initiating into a high physical damage team and need a followup to your initial aoe CC combo. Also gives a little bit of cdr.

has one purpose. Sustain damage item that allows you to play very aggressively on weaker enemies in lane to snowball. It costs slightly more than a BF sword but it allows you to put people in awful situations that can easily result in a kill or forcing them out of lane.

Imagine you have a champion farming lane on the other team and he gets a little to close to you. You pop ult and animation cancel with E into a stun from W and auto attack. Right about now you pop your cutlass and just start swinging away at him. Now he has 2 options. Sit there and get chunked over and over from huge autos while possibly dying, or to expend an escape like flash or some form of dash and allow you to gap close for free using Q. At this point they are in a position to either burn flash or die. With this item's short cd and your ults relatively short cd you can pull stunts like this rather frequently but its very risky and sets you back pretty far unless you get a couple kills with it.


,, OR ,,,

Early game should be focused on csing and controlling your wave. Some matchups you can dominate from a very early level if you play aggressively, but keep in mind that even if you secure an advantage, you will most likely push your lane if you turn the aggro switch on too early. This can make it impossible to zone opponents as they can farm near/under tower and force you to overextend to cs.

Generally what I like to do is bait people into hitting me early by making a "mistake" like walking too close for no reason. If you can, make sure to shield the hit so that you take no damage. What this does is it causes your minions to switch target onto the enemy champion which causes his minions to switch targetting onto your minions. This makes the lane push towards your tower. From here you can hold the wave near tower by tanking it with your . Try to cs as best as you can, especially since Riven is very item dependent and scales extremely well with farm.



When you have control of the lane you have two options. You can force him to overextend to farm by holding the wave at your tower and set up a gank, or you can play aggressive with restraint and try to do a basic harassment combo whenever he comes in to cs. To do this you will dash up to him with either your or , stun him with , get a free auto attack, then walk or dash away making sure to drop minion aggro and contrinue last hitting.

If at any point you feel you can go for a kill don't be afraid to do so but always pay attention to your map for any clues on the enemy jungler's position as well as your own jungler's position. Playing aggressively when your jungler is hidding and their jungler is exposed in another lane can easily make the enemy top laner play more passively and miss cs.



So by now if you've been keeping up with harassment and controlling your lane you should have an hp advantage on them and be near level 6. One of the things I like to do vs. a wounded opponent is to start pushing the wave so I hit lvl 6 before them. If this happens and you have a bit of damage on them don't hesitate to skil up your ultimate and either flash onto them or E-cancel (You cancel your ultimate delay by casting E immediately) into them aggressively with your ult up and stun + ignite and start fighting them.

If they dont have any major escapes you can gap close their flash with your Q and continue the beatdown which should result in a kill unless they have a jungler with exhaust and CC that happens to show up at the exact right time. Just dont get baited into a tower dive if they have stuns/exhaust unless you know you can kill them and escape if the jungler comes. Sometimes it is worth it to trade kills if you have a large wave pushing on their tower as it either forces their jungler to cover top for a while which relieves pressure on the map or they straight up lose 1-2 waves of exp/gold which can be devestating to them.

NOTE: If they hold onto their flash, make sure you save wind slash for when they are forced to flash unless you're sure that they cannot juke or the attempt at flash juking would put them in a position to die (i.e. trying to flash behind you in which case you kill them anyway if they are low)




Assuming you haven't been keeping up harassment because you just don't trade well due to the matchup, have been camped, or whatever circumstance has caused you to not be winning your lane at this point don't worry you're not out yet! Hopefully you've at least been equal on farm and the lane is pretty even. Now you can evaluate whether you want to push and roam or not or continue farming and trying to gain control of the creeps. With and your , it should be very easy to roam and get a kill on their mid lane if hes even the slightest bit extended as long as your mid laner follows up. Just make sure to shove the wave into your opponents turret so that he cant follow you and the roam is a little less obvious (you have the option of basing as well).

If you are weaker and behind on cs just try your best to never push and to farm at the tower. It is paramount that you get a BT ASAP if you're behind because Riven's strength grows rapidly with the acquisition of a and ultimately a

By now you should have a and possibly OR if you chose to build a more early game item. Your main goal here is to farm up that bloodthirster ASAP and get it stacked. One of riven's strongest points is when she acquires a fast, fully-stacked BT. From here you have many options. You can try to roam and take objectives or shove top lane in and try to dominate them. Control their jungle and buy many wards. You can bait more pressure top and easily escape with your mobility while your team takes objectives under less pressure or even uncontested. You can ask the jungler to cover your lane while you base and look for a gank either bot or mid and try to force towers down. Also dont be afraid to take your tower once you've acquired a and have farmed it up.




This is the point in the game where you want to be with your team and controlling other objectives such as enemy buffs, dragons, and of course Baron Nashor. Make it a point to write down a timer for these even though you're not jungler or support.

The respawn times are as follows:
Buffs : 5 minutes
Dragon : 6 minutes
Baron : 7 minutes (The buff lasts 4 minutes so if you didn't time the kill you can time the buff)

When teams do their usual poke and dancing back and forth for zone control, you generally want to stay behind your main initiator but still in range to engage if something happens. If you have to be the main iniator for your team then I highly recommend rushing a after your and try to avoid teamfights until you have both unless you're extremely far ahead.

Assuming your team comp doesnt suck, you should look to do 2 things in teamfights.

1. Burst and zone/kill squishy targets with your CDS
2. Bait CC and summoners such as exhaust and use your mobility to get away.

Try to keep people locked up in a fight but pay attention to your cds and health. Be wary about using flash to go into their team. Time their summoners, make sure they dont have much CC or exhaust if you're flashing in unless you know you can get an easy pick. Also don't be afraid to hit tanks that overextend trying to commit, but dont blow all of your CDS on them unless you know for sure you can pick him off and disengage until CDS are back up or just win the fight outright.

By this point in the game you should be pretty stacked. While uncommon, its likely that you'll find yourself with an inventory that matches the example completed item build or something close to that. Its not uncommong to have 3-4 items in a normal late game setting. This is the point where unless their AD carry is morbidly underfarmed, you're going to need to watch your ass in a team fight so you dont get wrecked and sent to the morgue for bringing a sword to a gunfight. AD carries are king at this stage of the game and you will do best to remember that. With my ult up, I've had games where I had close to ~700 AD which is pure insanity, but without crit and attack speed you're not going to do as much dps as an AD carry with scaling dps stats. You can burst people down and tank quite a bit with strong low cd shields and alot of life steal, but you still need to be very careful as a CC'd Riven is a dead Riven at this stage of the game.

Remember that at this point in the game, where damage will exceed your mitigation, sustain, and tankiness, you will want to transition your role from more of a fighter to a fighter/assassin. Try to pick off an squishy AP or AD carry and again, don't be afraid to hit tanks that over commit and overextend as long as you have backup from your team and can disengage. Don't be afraid to show presence and be a threat as long as you have other threats on your team, but always be looking out for that opportunity to instagib/zone squishies from a fight but dont overcommit because you aren't as much of a god as you were eariler.


This is the point where flash truly shines as it is very difficuly to do your job against an equally farmed team since riven will start to drop of late late game. She will get CC'd and focused and even a GA wont keep you alive if you're not swinging at stuff with your stacked lifesteal and AD. Her early-late game is very strong, but noone is going to stand up to that super fed AD carry, especially when people stack CC on you. If you're the only threat/initiator on the team then god help you now...so hopefully your team has someone to take care of that role! Just remember proper positioning and stay out of range of poke and CC while still staying in range to follow up with your initiator and try to land your CC's and cooldowns on their high priority targets.



Sometimes your team needs you to protect/peel for your weaker allies. This means trying to break enemy focus with your CC (including frozen mallet if you build one, its very good at peeling bruisers and tanks charging your carries!) and allowing them to maintain good positioning to do their jobs. It comes with judgment and experience as to whether you should be going for their high priority targets or protecting yours, but don't thing that your job is to only dive and kill squishies! Sometimes you have to protect your team too!





In short, remember to:

1. Position properly before the fight.

2. Don't waste cooldowns!

3. Don't jump the gun, wait for your initiator or for them to initiate if you can help it.

4. Realize whether you need to peel for your team, or pressure theirs!

5. Be a threat, take up focus and deal damage. Don't be scared even though they may be able to kill you easily. If they focus you then your AD carry has free reign and should be helping. do this by trying to zone/kill high priority targets.

6. Don't overcommit. If you're being exhausted and focused, dash and flash out, wait for it to wear off and reenter the fight when focus has shifted. Don't try to be a hero and get yourself killed for no reason.

This is my first guide so hopefully you like it as I put alot of work into it.

Unfortunately, I just don't have the time to detail all of Rivens matchups and Riven is a very matchup specific champion. The items you get, order of skills, and how you play depend on the matchup, as with any champion. To learn this you're going to have to figure out your own style and what works for you or find another guide with matchup details. I believe goldfather8 has a nice Riven guide on Solomid.net that details how he handles certain matchups and if you're interested you can check that out. My info would differ from his in some cases but its definitely worth a look and has good information in it.

Again for those of you who are interested

I stream solo queue with commentary at: http://www.twitch.tv/wingsofdeath

and you can find my facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wingsofdeathx/225655727513965

Thank you for reading my guide and I hope you enjoyed it and learned something!