Great read, very inspiring. "Good day" to everyone who says says that I'm a noob Riven building her wrong when I go the AD route instead of offtank Atmogs/Fratmas. I will send those trolls in this direction.

thank you

This guide is pretty helpful! But I've some questions since I'm not quite familiar with going solo top. I just played as riven against Irelia. Early level 1 or 2 I did feel Riven being stronger than Irelia with damage from Q and her passive but once Irelia started maxing her W I just got outlaned due to her strong sustain. What spells am I supposed to level and how am I supposed to lane against her? Also, if I am against Kennen top how am I supposed to lane?

Nice guide navitar, but what are you supposed to do against a strong, manaless laner, like Vladimir or Garen. I had some trouble laning against them.

Navitar, I just headed here thinking that I wanted to make sure that people understand I like the guide a lot and aren't coming to you with complaints. I understand how much work updating the guide is, and why the first thing that's updated is the cheat sheet at the top.

The train of discussion started with my reply to Fryth, which aren't actually marked with an @ :)

Thanks for the guide and taking the time to update it!

The one thing I'd change currently is in the description of the skills, the description of the passive, which is copied from what Solomid states is wrong. The passive is a lot weaker than that, though still pretty strong:

(Innate): Riven's abilities charge her blade, causing her to do 5 / 7 / 9 / 11 / 13 / 15 (+0.5 per bonus attack damage) bonus physical damage on her next autoattack. Riven can store up to 3 charges, and will only expend one at a time.

EDIT:
After the changes to Riven's Q and W, I feel that her Q is sufficiently strong to be leveled first if desired. However, W and E's CDs reduce with level, so there are several different scenarios in which you could vary your skill order.

1. Against pokers whom you would want to run oom / not engage head on at level 1:
You could grab a point in E at level 1 if you are confident in your ability to reaction - E, say, a GP parley or Pantheon spear and make them waste their mana at earlier levels. Due to their passives, engaging full on at level 1 is often suicide.
E @ level 1 and then flexible depending on how hard you want to commit at any given level

2. People against whom you run very close in trades at medium levels:
Rumble / Olaf have good damage at level 3-4 and beyond, Rumble due to his low CD and high base numbers kit and Olaf due to his true damage mechanic on his E. Against these folks, the increased pure DPS that you get from maxing Q is superior to the lower CD on E & W, each of which still has longer CDs than, say, Rumble and Olaf's main nukes.
R>Q>W>E

3. People you would bully regardless of whatever you leveled:
R>W>E>Q for decreased CD on W and E for teamfights and more frequent harassment and overall safety in lane and from ganks

4. You do well and want to safeguard your advantage:
R>W>E>Q after however many ranks of Q you took to gain your advantage, higher ranks of E are stronger defensively than Q

5. You do well and want to push your advantage:
R>Q / W> the other not leveled first > E
Greater damage to force kills more easily

She gains 36% and 40% cdr on her w and e respectively from leveling them from 1->5.
Q will have more damage per sec at all stages of the game, but consistently using your q sets up a pattern of predictability for ganks as well as being less likely to have E and W off cooldown to escape from ganks as well as forcing you to commit to trades.

Everything in this game is risk reward, and if you feel if the reward from leveling any of her skills outweighs the respective risks (weaker in teamfights, easier to gank, more predictable, less mobile, less cc, etc.) then go ahead and do so.

Regardless of what you level you should be fine in most lanes, and in some lanes some skills are better than others, as might be obvious to some enemy laners whose mana you can drain or burst damage dealers who aim to get you low enough to dive in for the kill by maxing E.

You can also do well by maxing w for enemies who have to bring the fight to you to win the lane (i.e. they dont want to trade farm with you) and/or are extremely mobile yet come into melee range to deal damage (renek & lee come to mind).

Q is strong versus those who typical w max builds come dangerously even in early fights yet are winnable if you had a little more oomph early (Rumble or Olaf). In this case you may as well go all in for the 1v1, and probably would want to run ignite or exhaust along with this build.

for you my dearest

You mean how he updated this, under the "Skill Order" section?

"R>W>E>Q
with 1 level in Q"

@thunder_god
he did update the explanation

great update, in depth explanation for skill order, gj

Seems he changed the skill order, but didn't update the explanation. Seems he maxes Q first now.

Wait so the nerfs to the w dont really effect her regular skill build? Were the buffs to the q not as efficent to level it?