The health regen nerf hurt quite a bit, but I got around it by running health regen quints. Maybe try those and see what you think.

Okay here, after playing a ton of Riven in 3s....

I can rip through ADCs, Bruisers, Tanks, APs, and the super-rare supports.

My only problems come with Teemo and his shrooms. (Once he gets a blackfire torch, they can seriously one-shot me, forcing me to carry around tons of health pots.)

My other problems come from assassins like Yi, Akali, and Kat.... They out-burst me in a head-on fight, they out run me if I try to escape, and team fights are basically my only way of killing them...

Any advice from fellow Rivens?

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How is it that you lose trades with Akali, Yi, and Kat? With the right Riven build she can obliterate them. At any point of the game.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say because they're capable of snowballing equally as hard under the condition that they make a build with similar priorities, or, to an equal extent, are fed. There's no champion that counters another or does better than another 100% of the time. Any champion can beat any champion under the right conditions, which is especially if you take Akali's potential into account; she IS more than just "capable" of beating a Riven, she has the burst damage to do it. With one-sided matchups though, it simply takes more effort and capacity for thinking, but it can be done.

Way I see it, riven is still a good pick, just easily counter picked in s3 environments with item changes and the release of champs that have been reworked or introduced in the last few months. She isnt the ideal choice for top anymore, but still a decent to good one.

As for warmogs, thats probably going to get a nerf in the near future. A lot of meta now when it comes to many bruisers is to get mogs, and on a lot of bruiser champs, it lends itself to well to their power. I feel that honestly that it will receive some tweaks sometime in the next few patches, so it wont be as much a deal, especially considering that right now there is little risk involved with going mogs as a bruiser. That or they may end up buffing botrk, cause high hp pools is the new defense now.

Building straight AD, they simply hit me too hard and cut me down. Even trying to time my stuns and Art of war procs, I'm usually forced to use Broken Wings and Valor defensively to move out of their abilities, rather than offensively like I would prefer. (Especially Akali)

And then even with Blade of the Exile up, Yi has a tendency to sprind away (where I don't have a chance in hell of catching him) Meditate in a bush somewhere, and then come back and rip me a new one.

The visualization of this post was way funnier than it should have been.

When it comes to fighting Yi I think it's usually best to save your ult to the end in such a way as to not scare him off. Outdamaging him is never a big problem, even the Yi in question will usually know that, but it's a matter of catching him and locking him down for a kill which isn't easy if your ability cooldowns are still ticking and he's not dead. You need to take into account that your ult is a terrifying sight and most enemies will run from a 1v1 if you give them the time. What I like to do is bring Yi to low health with my ability combos, and then when he's stunned or knocked back or even if he's just at low health, execute him quickly by turning on your ult mid-fight and using wind slash as quickly as possible.

Interesting.

I was under the impression I wanted to initiate fights with my Ult, rather than save it.

I'll be sure to try holding it back more.

In most cases that IS what you do, but for enemies that will easily escape, you want to be SURE not to allow them to run. I mean high mobility champions or champions with stealth; you don't want to get into a fight and blow your ult without knowing that you're going to be using it, especially not early game, so I figure it's safe to say that saving it for the exact moment you're going to use it, given the opportunity against said mobile champions, is safer and more subtle than just going in with it open. There's always the possibility that they'll just run at the sight of you.

Otherwise though, you do want to initiate with your ult, the 20% damage steroid is an incredible amount of damage output with any good build. If you don't think they'll be able to escape then go ahead and use it the whole fight.

I never found it to be much of a problem either way though. Riven's a good champion for forcing enemies to fight or die and half the time you'll be more of a priority to kill than the adc.

Nothing is wrong with riven? wait, what did you say? you can't roll your face across the keyboard and get kills anymore? i get so tired of people crying about champs, i main riven and IM GLAD they NERFED her. i mean jeez, im a player that takes pride in having skill, i used to play ez alot but now every 5 year old that can right click does good with him... its just rediculous how "watered down" some of the champs have gotten.