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Riven Build Guide by Seth346

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[10.16] Play Riven Like A God

By Seth346 | Updated on August 12, 2020
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Runes: CDR Stack Build (TP)

1 2 3 4
Legend: Bloodline
Last Stand

Gathering Storm

+1-10% CDR (lvls 1-18)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor


For Consistency
LoL Summoner Spell: Flash


LoL Summoner Spell: Teleport


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Top Lane
Ranked #16 in
Top Lane
Win 51%
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Threats & Synergies

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Champion Build Guide

[10.16] Play Riven Like A God

By Seth346

My name is RivalofAll, but you can call me Rival. I reached the Diamond 1 promotional series this season and have been diamond the past few seasons as well. I have over 5 Million Riven Mastery Points and even coach Riven players specifically, so you could say I know a thing or two.

Right now, streaming on Twitch is what I want to do. I'm living on my own in an apartment currently so if this doesn't work out I'll have to give in to my mother's constant nagging of "go get a real job!" and then rot at a desk the rest of my life. I'm doing everything I can to prevent that future. I would be forever grateful if you come to my stream and throw me a Follow/Twitch Prime Subcription.

Hello Riven players or people looking to get into Riven, as mentioned earlier, I coach people on how to play Riven.

$60 for a 4 hour coaching session. While this is extensive, it's the best I can do to give you everything you need to succeed. I've shaped this one coaching session to be all you'll need to get where you're wanting to go.

Here's a recent student's review:
I am incredibly happy with my session of coaching with RivalofAll. Not only did I come away with a genuinely better understanding of the game as a whole, he went above and beyond and coached for longer than was intended by the offer. If you want to be better at league, come to this man. If you want to be better at riven, come to this man. I am very pleased with it and would recommend it to anyone looking for coaching. The only reason I am giving this review a 9 instead of a 10 is because of my lack of context for coaching and how it is done; ie I have no real experience of other coaching to compare this to.
-Kingslayer Riven (Luke)

When you're ready to see improvement and progression, contact me @ RivalofAll#2276 (on discord) or join my Discord community and post in #coaching inquiries with the link below.

+ Least Limited Champion: How can I only play Riven (Over 5000 games; I know, I spend too much time playing League, but that's good for you!)? Because I'm attracted to difficult champions that reward the player for their skill, Riven's the best example of this. Amazing adrenaline-inducing plays can be addictive.

+ Infinite Skill Cap: The mechanics for Riven have no skill ceiling.. Keep improving, my friends. A champion with no limits, is a champion begging to be "mastered". When I, or someone else, finds out new stuff, I add it to this guide... Lucky you.

+ Spammable Abilities With No Resource: You don't have to rely on your mana to deal damage or help you sustain. You aren't (old) Pantheon. The only limits are her relatively short cooldowns. This augments her potential. Being oom all the time is kinda lame though. ;P

- Weak To Crowd Control: Ever been in a Soraka silence or rooted by her Equinox? Every champion has a rough time with this, but it's especially hard for Riven due to the fighting potential from her Valor. However, Quicksilver Sash, Tenacity runes, and Mercury's Treads are a huge help for some of these. Being able to do away with CC at the push of a button is a godsend.

- Vulnerable To Ganks: Ever faced a Quinn jungle? You know my pain. If you're playing someone like Malphite, you can just hobble away with 100 armor at level 5. Unlike Malphite, you have to conserve your abilities for escaping when the time comes instead of using them for aggression.

The main 3 spells on Riven: Flash, Ignite, Teleport. Taking Flash is pretty much required, its the best spell to take on almost all champions and Riven is definitely one of them. Engaging, escaping, closing the gap, it has it all. This spell reduces counterplay and allows you to trick your enemies, which is of the utmost importance in this game.

Teleport (A must in this meta in most circumstances) works a lot better when you have to be more passive. Against tanky champs, champs you have a hard time against in lane, or if your just a more passive player in general, Teleport is a great alternative to Ignite. One of the main uses of Teleport in this meta is to help secure the "Dragon Soul". This is the main reason I recommend it now due to just how much of an impact this mechanic has on the game now.

Ignite is a little more situational, it gives riven amazing kill pressure and goes hand in hand with aggressive playstyles. Against tanks like Cho'Gath, it falls off immensely after about level 4 or so. Whether it is to help burst an enemy, reducing lifesteal and health regeneration, or just finishing off an enemy, Ignite can do it with style.

Runic Blade
Range: 125
Riven's abilities charge her blade for 5 seconds, causing her to do 25 / 29 / 33 / 38 / 42 / 46 / 50 % of her attack damage as bonus physical damage on her next basic attack. Riven can store up to 3 charges, and can only expend 1 at a time.

This effect lasts 5 seconds allowing you to "prime" it and have 3 procs when the cd comes back up. If you're constantly priming qs, it's hard to engage on you because of your third q and a whole new cycle of qs are just around the corner. This proc really helps with lifesteal too, giving you more survivability in the lane so it wisely, not just offensively.

Broken Wings

This is the best ability to max for DPS, as well as being a good tool to engage, escape, and burst down enemies. To deal max damage in as short a timeframe as possible, auto between each Q and use animation presets.

The 3rd Q: This strike is quite different from the other 2. Its animation is slightly longer, you knock enemies up and can even hop over many walls and towers. While officially counted as a bug, it has been embraced as a base part of her kit. I have even discovered a pretty crazy one I call the "Your Mother" which I'll link in the extra's section of this guide. Let me know if you discover any other, surprise me. :)


Ki Burst
Range: Terrible... Wait i meant: 125/135 with ult.  Cooldown: 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 / 7

This ability allows very profitable trading. A stun that deals good damage has a short cooldown and scales nicely. It has a lot of outplay potential but hitting it can be a bit tricky due to its limited range, horrible indicator and an effect that's larger than the hitbox.

Range: 325  Cooldown: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8

Blocking damage, engaging, disengaging, your E is an incredible tool. Time Valor right and you can block anything from Decisive Strike to a turret shot. A great tool that can really help keep you alive and win trades.

Blade Of The Exile
Cooldown: 120 / 90 / 60

This ability can turn almost any lane around. The increase in damage scales well with any kind of build making you deal a **** ton more damage. And the increase in range will help make hitting the knockup and stun just a little easier. Add on top of that, its secondary activation Wind Slash and you have yourself a strong *** ult.

Wind Slash
Range: 900 Angle: 75° Speed: 1600

That's a massive amount of damage, having something that scales at a 3.0 ad ratio is all you could ever ask for. This is Riven's greatest strength, a true execution, do not let it go to waste.

My matchup section started to become way too large a while back, and as such, I have moved them over to their own guide. It has recently received an overhaul, it doesn't have every matchup in the game but it has the harder ones. It can be found by going here

Lvl 1: So, you know that front bush in top lane? Yeah, that one close to the tower. Well, if you're facing a squishy opponent or anyone with a weak level 1, sitting there will give you a great opportunity to get first blood. Make sure to prime your q for your passive procs. Now, just walk at your opponent once they cross an imaginary line in the lane that you set to where you can get a q combo off. If they respond immediately, use your first Broken Wings to get to them then Q combo. This most likely won't kill your target, but often it blows flash or gets a huge health advantage.

Lvl 2: Take W, and after the lvl 1 trade, it should be easy to one-shot nearly any champion, especially if you took nimbus cloak. The level 2 oneshot combo kills from most health values. If the enemy TP's back you should be level 3 so bully them before you recall or just kill them again. If you're facing a ranged champ that you haven't got much poke onto, e is the best option level 2 because it allows for farming without losing hp, which is crucial in those matchups. It also allows for more damage by not having to use Broken Wings to close the gap.





How do you forge a lead? There are many ways to do this, killing your laner, having your jungle put some pressure on your enemy laner, roaming to other lanes and getting kills there. But by far the most effective way to gain a lead on your enemy is through CS. Unless an enemy has a large shutdown, 2 waves of minions will be worth more than just a single kill. Not just in gold but XP too, and trust me just 1 level can make a world of difference. To help train your last hitting, I made a video for you. This video will show you what I believe to be the most optimal way of training your last hitting is.

Lane Control

However, last hitting is by far the only mechanic within farming and gaining a lead. Controlling your waves, knowing what time is most optimal to back and when to push, and other such mechanics are intrinsic to gaining lane dominance. And while I could make a large section talking all about this, visual representation works much better here. And thus I would recommend you watch the series called Leaguecraft. This playlist is made by a rioter, and explains in good detail how to play this game. Watch as much of this playlist as you can, then come back for all the info he doesn't cover.

Counter Jungling

Some games pushing your lane and then invading for red/raptors and killing the enemy jungle is the best thing you can do. If done correctly this can be a 1k gold swing. If you're not blue side, wipe the entire jungle and kill them at wolves/blue. When you're doing this, make sure to keep an eye on the enemy laners though. If they leave early you need to leave too.

Abusing a lead

There are two main ways for you to get a lead,
The first is constantly pushing to tower and applying pressure while power farming

The second is freezing the lane and pushing your enemy away from the farm.

After you forge this lead, you can abuse it like in the videos below. Have fun :)

Since I know you didn't watch all of Unswlolsoc's videos, here's one to explain team fighting.

If you've made mistakes, don't worry, it happens to the best of us. Sadly, after one mistake, more are sure to follow. A good way to avoid these is to itemize defensively, as well as adjusting your playstyle to be more defensive for this game. But you can NEVER! Ever! build a full defensive item before you have a full damage item. A Hexdrinker or Chain Vest is alright, but a Randuin's Omen is not. If you do this, you will be useless. Unless we're talking about sunfire cape, that item is nasty

Susan knows this sh*t better than anyone. If you look at the pro's, or even myself, we all get an insane amount of cs throughout the game (I average ~200). If you're fed enough, you get kills with a discounted effort. I think this is by far the best way to recover. And since, in the late game, Riven sweeps away minion wave after minion wave and can even take some from each jungle to help her come back quicker. You can win a game just off of cs if you do it right.

When your laner is done bending you over... he'll run off to impact the rest of the game, JUST FARM! Get every damn cs, get jungle creeps, and suddenly you're getting items. Your laner returns and you destroy him. Just remember to ward the spots I've told you to maintain safety. Also, when he leaves, alert your team the best way you can.


Credit Where Credit is Due
- Unswlolsoc for his multiple tutorial videos
- All the people who wrote the league of legends wiki pages
League of Legends Build Guide Author Seth346
Seth346 Riven Guide
[10.16] Play Riven Like A God
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