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On October 10 2011 13:08 Navi wrote:
what makes you think she is a terrible top solo? i have beaten many garens and the like in lane with her.
the lack of early survivability in your builds perhaps lead to your bad solo top experiences.
maxing q, while having more potential max burst in one exchange, is worse in the midgame because your cds on w and e are relatively long. E and W's scaling is similar to q's (better if you only get two q's on the enemy in terms of damage mitigated / dealt) but their cds scale per rank whereas q's doesn't.
I've made that experience too. She has alot of tools to make her strong top: she beats some of the common picks, she scales well with farm, she can solo push quite far because of her mobility, she is hard to gank early on as well, she has tools to force trades and has tools to evade unnecessary damage.
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Riven wins pretty much every trade with bruisers early game
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anybody know of a good way to share replays?
i have dropbox but iono what the easiest way would be
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Personal thoughts against akali:
I run apen red, flat armor yellow, flat mres blue, and 2 flat hp/sec and 1apen quints (still trying to save up for a movement speed quint to replace the latter)
I feel like akali has a slight advantage in this matchup. Against a friend, I went the usual cloth+pots and felt a bit stronger at lvl 1, but started to fall behind once she got her shroud up, thus getting zoned a bit and ending up last hitting under my tower more often.
The second time I played more defensively, prioritizing e over w and managed to kill most of his ranged minions without taking too much damage. Instead of the usual cloth+pots, I started with boots+3pots. On my first trip back, I get 2 NMM and the usual ward and pots. I build these into mercs and hexdrinker. My reasoning is because of the current metagame which usually has an ap mid. If akali's top, it's pretty obvious that they have 2 ap carries in their team, making my choice at least reasonable.
I'm not sure if I should get wriggles after these 2 items, though. I was thinking about skipping it and getting a bt.
All in all, I was mainly focused on her early levels 1-6 with an objective of free farming against an akali, and this is strictly from my experience. If you guys have a better alternative, feel free to critique my playstyle.
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if you think you can survive without wriggles or dont need its benefits (armor, good lifesteal for passive value paid on wriggles, AD, procs for quickly stealing jungle camps / dragon) then rushing bt is great. idk if just a vamp scepter will be good enough vs akali though, since she has a nice mix of damage and more sustainability than a riven with just a vamp (as most akalis build gunblade first) letting her trade with you while coming out most of the time.
from my very hazy memories of that matchup its a win for riven pre 6, i will try it again today
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Akali's pattern is pretty predictable; throw a Q at you, wait a bit and then R onto you to proc Q and probably throw another Q + proc.
With good enough reaction you should be able to distance yourself from akali and avoid being Q procced when she dashes in, either by Eing away or stunning her first and then Eing away. Since riven has the same natural speed as akali plus a lot of bunny hops she shouldn't be able to do anything beyond that unless she's willing to expend more R charges. While Akali is low on R charges she's really not that scary and riven is capable of harassing her in that state with Q -> E -> W -> and then Q Q away pattern.
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United States33802 Posts
I haven't had too much trouble with Akali, but then again, most are trash. Rush Merc's (and maybe NMM) after BF rather than waiting for BT to be finished, plus scaling MR blues means she isn't going to blow you up as fast as she would otherwise. You can farm a bit more efficiently, and smart E usage can really save you.
But like I said, low ELO Akali's can be dumb and they don't have the necessary Runes, so I'm not an official source on this. I'd say this is a champ you might want to get FMallet against. Counter picking Exhaust against her might be really smart, the damage reduction plus E can save you or secure a kill.
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I gotta say that malph with full armor rune page and 200 armor by minute 12 is pretty freaking gay.
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I find when I'm up against an AP on top, that rushing a Hexdrinker and the Mercury Treads with just a Vampiric Scepter does the trick. (At least, if you are having issues against them) Then I usually do not get a Wriggles and instead run straight into a Bloodthirster. Most Akali's will do some insane dives when you are low regardless of whether you have a Hexdrinker or not. Riven with Ki Shout and Valor can usually trick them into getting themselves killed a that point.
As for whether or not to get Doran's Blades with Wriggles... I pretty much just can't help myself. I know Riven scales ridiculously once she picks up that Bloodthirster, but Doran's Blades help you get there safely and come with the added HP which is still useful. If I find myself back with around 2k gold then I'll pick up the BF Sword, but I usually need to back before that due to needing a ward anyway. Heck lately I've even been running Wriggles, Doran's, Mercury Treads, and Brutalizer all before the Bloodthirster and I've had no troubles. I will however, try 5 or so games where I force myself to run Wriggles, Boots of Speed, into a Bloodthirster and see how it goes. Just to see the difference.
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United States33802 Posts
Yeah, I kind of like that. Hexdrinker isn't a terrible solution vs an AP, where the armor isn't as useful early game.
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Hexdrinker isn't bad but you can't delay that bloodthister + guardian angel if you want to carry the game.
The longer you delay your big hitting items (BT, LW, I.Edge) the less time you spend godmoding.
QSS + GA + Merc treads, which are the only good defense items for riven, is all the MR you'll ever need.
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United States33802 Posts
Hrm, if I got Hex to deal with a strong AP in lane (namely Akali in this case, maybe Rumble? Don't see him enough), I'd skip Merc treads and get CDR boots maybe? Missing the tenacity would suck, but they're cheaper and give damage as a tradeoff.
Hexdrinker also means you can (mainly) go straight to BT instead of getting the NMM for GA, since you'll have enough MR at the time, so it might be alright. It's hard to test, getting a solo lane against Akali who's not bad and going long enough to build.
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I don't see how building hexdrinker is going to make much of a difference versus Akali. It only works for you because they get baited by hexdrinker's passive and towerdive you. Otherwise, you having hexdrinker and some ragtag items is just going to make you a bigger food for akali once she finishes gunblade and just roll you because you didn't get to your big AD items fast enough to compete.
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United States33802 Posts
How does 30 MR and a 300 magic damage absorbing shield not good against someone who deals mainly burst magic damage? Her Q, Q proc, passive, and R all deal Magic damage, the only thing that does not is E, which isn't super high damage as it is.
I'd skip on Wriggle's with this, getting Vamp Scepter after and going straight for BT. That way, I'm not missing out on gold spending for the most part and still getting a decent amount of AD (35 from Hex) for my money.
However, of course this is theorycraft. I rarely go against an Akali solo, so I'm just putting new ideas out there.
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It's not going to help you win the lane because Akali will outsustain you. You are putting yourself behind on your absurd AD scaling by building some magic resist item that just means it'll take slightly longer for Akali to wear you down and kill you.
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United States33802 Posts
Well, honestly, I think it depends. If the Akali is aggressive, I'd try this. If they're not, and I'm out-exchanging them as is, obviously it's not necessary. But in the end, no one is the best player period, so out there there is probably a better Akali than I am Riven, and if they're super pressuring me and I'm constantly going back from the damage, I think this is a nice alternative.
I'm not suggesting that this is the "go-to counter AP laning" build, but I think it'd be something interesting to try in certain scenarios.
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What do you guys think about cleanse/tele instead of flash/tele? it seems like she has enough mobility to escape ganks assuming you're not constantly spamming your spells.
on the topic of hexdrinker+vs vs wriggles, the difference is only about 650 considering they have another ap carry mid. It's also a pain to free farm against an akali after lvl 6 in order to be able to get enough cs for your core items.
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To be fair, if I'm having trouble in a lane I'd always pick up a counter item with a Wriggles. Wriggles offers you crazy powerful lane sustain to combo with that counter item. If it's AP (like Akali) and I'm having trouble I'd pick up some Null-Magic Mantles and finish that Wriggles and Mercury Tread's quickly. If I'm still not doing well, then it's a Hexdrinker, but that's the extreme. It's better to have a Hexdrinker + Wriggles and be able to farm against the AP then it is to be zoned and unable to farm. If you can manage it, the Bloodthirster and Guardian Angel rush are so good though, I've even weaned myself off getting the Brutalizer and a Doran's Blade before hand. Just because it's that good of an item combo. You know, the more I even consider it, the less likely I'd be to even finish the Hexdrinker. I'd rather pick up 1 or 2 extra Null-Magic Mantles or a Negatron Cloak. People underestimate how effective just the single resist/armor item can be during the laning phase.
Honestly I don't find Akali as big of a deal as you guys are mentioning. I used to main Akali before all of the hype and because of that hype I tried out and then switched to Riven. Akali's sustain and harass pre-6 are terrible unless you stand in her shroud on purpose and let her trigger multiple marks. Typically she will throw a Mark and drop a Shroud to zone you. Use Valor to absorb the Mark and Ki Shout to harass her in the shroud. Then you can usually just walk out to avoid a triggered mark (or Broken Wings out if you want to be sure). Without the shroud you have superior control, if she goes to tag a creep you Valor and Ki Shout in her face. If you have the advantage you can always Broken Wings spam in her shroud which should put even more pressure on her, but she will probably get a triggered mark on you. Even then, a single triggered Mark isn't that painful if you are properly runed.
I have been running Flat Armor, Flat MR, and 6 in the Defensive Masteries however. Starting with 50 MR against an Akali who usually only has 2/15% MPen is amusing. If she has anymore, she lacks either spell vamp or pots early making it really easy to zone her out.
Maybe trying Cloth Armor or Null Magic Mantle starts could make things easier, but honestly I haven't had troubles with her using standard Boots of Speed starts. Could also try picking up Valor and Ki Shout before Broken Wings as a more defensive start, but again I just haven't needed to experiment. It's possible I've not met a good Akali yet, but from my point of view I can't see where they could improve against me. Even if I did, I'd make it important to pick up that Null Magic Mantle early. Riven can have over 80 MR with just a single Null Magic Mantle at level 5. Between Valor, Ki Shout, and Lifesteal I can outlane her even with her Ultimate at that point. I think though, I'm going to get my brother to play a good 10 1v1 top lane games with me as Riven vs. Akali. From what everyone is saying, I have to be missing something. It just doesn't seem that hard to me.
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United States33802 Posts
After all the theorycrafting, I gotta admit Hexdrinker sounds better on paper than it does in game :\
Wriggle's with safe farm play quick building NMM and GA alongside your BFS just works better. The shield saved my bacon many times, but really only early game. Once you get to mid/late game, its effectiveness doesn't carry through as well.
Except against Karthus. I always get one then, cuz fuck that guy.
Edit
Akali's not terribly hard in lane with smart play. You know when she's coming, because you can see the mark, obviously. Eat the throw, dance around or just E and eat some of the incoming damage, then stun her. Q makes her pretty predictable, because it basically screams "I'm coming to attack you right now", so you can run, shield, charge Q, or even just get ready to stun her. I'm really learning to read opponents playing as Riven, which is cool.
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EPT
