Reign of Gaming

The fact that you don't come right out and tell people to stop buying Frozen Mallet on her is nothing short of depressing.

A typical endgame Riven build should look something like this:

Boots, BT, BT, BT, BT, LW if you are just steamrolling.
Boots, BT, BT, BT, GA, LW if you are only kind steamrolling and need some resists.
Boots, BT, BT, Maw, GA, LW if you are having a bit of trouble and need some extra MR.

Stop building HP on Riven and buy more damage. Damage, essentially, gives you HP you clods.

timing of this is pretty epic as I started playing her two days ago (of course I had to buy her just before she went free for a week >.<) and have been really enjoying her both as a top lane and a jungle. I know she might not be the best jungle pick, but its quite fun and something I think people should try with her at least once.

as always a mix of some stuff I already knew, and some stuff that has come in handy. keep it up!

Ok, im Olaf/Irelia/J4/Xin/oter-GOOD-solotop-champ and after 1st recall my items - 3 HPpot, tabi and chain vest. What Riven should do, if not want 0/3 at lvl 6-7

If you're unkillable (and you aren't completely with 130 armor) doesn't mean you get to kill Riven, all she has to do when engaged by a melee champ is W - E out if she can't win the trade. If you itemize that much armor, you'll have weaker sustain if Riven gets 2x Doran's + Vamp, which she should. Getting to the point where you buy that is usually not that easy vs a properly played Riven, and she can just push your lane and roam when you do. This isn't true for some match-ups, but it's the case with most.

As a trade-off, Riven has no form of sustain in her kit.

Stopped reading right there.

She has the highest health regen in the game.

Riven is extremely imbalanced.

I did find a fault in your article, you claim that the stun of Riven lasts 0.5 seconds, but in reality it stuns for 0.75 seconds.

It's a minor issue, but still worth mentioning.

Riven main checking in.

Few notes

1. Riven has sustain, her early hp5 and shield make her one of the highest sustainers in top lane early, and the fact she naturally itemizes lifesteal makes her one of the highest sustainers in top lane late. To say she has no sustain is misleading.

2. The reason she is not as strong as other bruisers isn't all because she does 100% physical damage with no natural shred, but she's just not as effective as an Irelia flying into the enemy team and instantly bursting the enemy AD, a jax doing the same while stunning the enemy peelers and proceeding to kill everyone else, or an olaf running into the enemy Ashe/Janna/Turret and coming out with 80% of his HP and a double kill to his name. Other bruisers just do their job better, and more consistently.

3. I personally max W, I'm not alone here. If you play Riven you'll find yourself using Q for mobility most of the time. Riven has early power so increasing your trading isn't as effective as making trades happen more. The fact you can run into the enemy and hit them with your 3rd Q>Ignite>AA>W>AA>AA>Wind Slash for a kill is what makes Riven special, not that she can trade with someone who decided to trade with the champion whose power is in the early game.. Not to mention it lowers the cooldown on W. I have experimented with Q on riven enough (ok, I've experimented with everything on riven) and I personally don't like it. 

4. On your comment about what you max is matchup dependent- against rumble you go dorans and first blood his yordle butt. If you don't do that, you max W, push him to tower early, and outroam him all game. Maxing Q is something you'd do if you wanted to actually trade with him, but why trade with a Rumble? What can happen in a rumble matchup and the solutions: 1. You succesfully FB him, lane is now secured and you should max W to beat him up further. 2. You don't FB him, you push him to tower and can outroam him, maxing W to roam. 3. You get camped by jungler hard, or FBed by him due to severe misplay on your part, or in general just mess up the lane, preventing roam. Maxing W will give you the best chance at surviving, allowing for waveclear when needed along with CDR for hitting them back when they harass under tower/gank.

Many solotop champions (WW, Cho and Irelia come to mind) can't handle a 1v1 with riven at level 1 if she has a dorans blade. Thus, it's very possible to zone or kill them outright. 

Good article, I enjoyed reading it. I'll just add 2 things that may be worth noticing:

1. Riven at lev 18 has (one of, if not) the highest base Health Regeneration ingame, since her regen bonus per level is quite insane. This, along with her shield, helps her a lot during the lane phase.
2. Even if Q grants the highest damage and scaling, many pro Riven players prefer to max W over Q because it's a more reliable source of damage in teamfights (since has a bigger radius), its CD lowers with ranks and it offers a form of AoE CC.

Who cares about HP regen at level 18? Although I do agree that her hp regen in lane is pretty high, if you run the hp regen masteries in the Defence tree, your regen and shield [almost] makes up for her lack of sustain.

Quote from registermyaccount»

Who cares about HP regen at level 18?

I may have messed up with the link... Here. It's the highest value at lev 1 and per level. And yes, having an additional 0.9 per lev definitely helps her quite a bit in lane.

Edit: apparently any link directing to leagueoflegends.wikia gets automatically redirected to RoG...