What supports work well with Riven?
 

I have a friend who is learning the game still, and he took a liking to Riven. Since he is new, and the newbie island ELO players don't have junglers, I've been trying to get in his lane to support him so he can make some more mistakes, and have some leniency while learning. I tried Zilean, and he got laned out by the Twitch/Alistar combo and I ended up having to kill the two of them for Riven to get any gold at all. Teemo/Riven vs Caitlyn/Talon was a disaster, particularly since I'm not a particularly adept Teemo player.

Is Zilean a good idea? I thought the passive would help keep Riven up with everyone else and Time Bomb counter-harass keeping him in lasthitting range, but that didn't work so well. I would try Soraka for the more direct support, but I feel like Infuse would be slightly wasted points in that lane. Janna, Sona, and Blitzcrank are within my price range. Would a new player to League be able to take advantage of their brands of support more ably than Zilean support?

Also, slightly troll question...would Heimer's passive be worth playing him support-style?

Alistar or Taric. Double stun. Ali can push around the enemy. Taric allows you to eat a little more harass with armour buff.

Jarvan is also really good as well at this type of thing.

well why you trying to have him lane against ranged? why not go top lane with him?

Because Riven is melee, having a ranged auto attacker as a support to keep up harass on enemy champs probably works best.

Janna is probably numero uno in this situatuion as she controls a lane better than most everyone. Lulu is one of the best ranged auto attackers in the game and would work great too. While i love taric, if you were against 2 decent ranged pokers(which is the norm) and you were both melee auto attackers, you might/should be harassed unmercifully.

In the Teemo game, because we actually did have a jungler and the solotop was Jax, so no trade was possible, and in the Zilean game because I had the lane mostly under control. Riven just wasn't able to get farm under the pressure of a Twitch and Alistar who didn't properly fear my Time Bombs (I made them die repeatedly for it, but I don't want the star role in the lane. I want to help Riven be able to learn.)

Not bad ideas at all, hadn't even thought of Taric, but would a double melee lane really be a good idea? We'd need to be pretty aggressive, wouldn't we? Could work. I'll definitely give Janna a shot with it since she is free this week! Lulu, I wasn't much of a fan of when I played her. Probably my least favorite support. Never heard of support Jarvan, sounds interesting to try when I have the points :)

Hands down... the forgotten support.. Karma

Karma is very, very good at supporting a melee AD. Her kit is basicly designed to do just that- and it's why she's such a bad support normally- if your ally isn't in melee, her skills are kinda useless.

She's also needs a bit of farm to be effective late game. Normally is a problem, but if your friend is missing lots of farm anyway, you can just pick up teh slack there.

Additionally, she has a heal that is strong when needed, but isn't good at simply keeping a carry at full the way soraka or sona can- and so she teaches good habits to new players, forcing them to manage their health bar more effectively rather than rely on a crutch.

However- the best possible thing you can do is probably rotate through a bunch of different champs slowly. It keeps you from getting bored, and it gives your friend some more exposure to the large number of champs he's going to see in game.

Ah yes, Karma! I can see that being absolutely perfect! :D I'd also forgotten about Morgana, who I in fact own and simply never use as a support champion. Not as perfect as Karma, but will do until I get the IP...

Aikimiller, that's probably a good idea! Support is a team role that doesn't get much love, and I enjoy it and could use the practice there.

Heimer isn't a totally silly idea. Turrets are not necessarily all that easy to deal with at low levels, and his passive HP/5 is about 1/3 the strength of Soraka's heals (cost-free, I should add). That said, I don't see his W or E being all that well suited to being a babysitter at all. If you want an HP/5 aura, grab an Emblem of Valor.

That's what I was thinking. It'd be something different to try :) And E DOES have that blind. Might level that before Rockets for once, since Rockets would steal lasthits. It's something to experiment with! ^_^