really? I find that Irelia is the only champ that bullies me in lane as riven. And late game i tend to mop the floor with her. Riven is great for her interruption and escape kit. Her build is extremely flexible, from flat dmg, to tank. With proper positioning she can peel away champions from a carry, or counter an opposing carry with proper stun and dodging.
Early game Irelia is about the easiest match up in the game for Riven. You can QW Level 2 her and keep her low or just kill her outright. Late game Riven suffers the same problem pretty much all top laners suffer, though that's not really an issue with random teams I suppose. She isn't a tank, however. She's still an AD Caster. Her shield makes up for the fact that she's rather squishy.
it's weird cause when people say that irelia has a weaker early game, what they mean is that she has to play safe pre lvl 4. after that she can run wild on most matchups
I think she definitely beats out riven around lvl 4/5/6, I mean, if the riven is dumb enough to blow all their cooldowns on stupid shit. it's a weird lane, any side can win really, depends on jungle pressure.
Riven should win it until closer to 9, though each level after 4 will be harder and harder. Level 9 is when Irelia really picks up with Hiten Style sustain making it so that you have to trade remarkably well or just try to 100-0 her to force her out. 1-3 points into Hiten Style isn't enough damage to significantly win trades or enough sustain to heal up between trades.
For random games, I'd also say Riven snowballs better due to her amazing AD scaling. A mid-game snowballed Riven is basically an AD burst caster. Irelia scales better into a bruiser, however.
And, yeah, Jungle presence basically means all match ups have an asterisk next to them. *You're going to get 2v1'd if you do really well, or get baited, or because you overextended, or because fuck your top lane.
irelia isn't so hot late game if the other team knows how to protect their carry. like all she can really do is try to kamikaze the other team's damage, if she tries to focus on peeling or whatever she can't really put a dent on whatever bruiser is coming, I mean she can but all her cooldowns will be down and she'll be pretty shitty and just be getting beat up
whereas riven is good at messing with the flow of a team fight. but I've never really seen one contribute THAT much unless she has been snowballed like crazy throughout the game. that's kind of the gimmick for riven though, where she really tries to put the hurt on her lane during early game. I dunno, you just gotta know how to play the different match ups
Irelia is able to zone an ADC really well and she'll survive the incoming damage a lot better than a Riven will. Granted, this is usually due to the fact Irelia builds bruiser-y and Riven builds are mostly AD. Irelia also gets to basically ignore CC during team fights so her diving carries is a lot easier than Riven, even with Riven's gap closes.
