Riven with Karthus
How to Synergize Riven and Karthus
based on 1,681 Riven with Karthus pairsHow We Analyze Champion Pairings in LoL
Riven Karthus Synergy Summary
Best Riven vs Karthus Counter Build
Items
Starter Items
Early Items
Core Riven Items
Optional Items
Summoner Spells
Skill Order
Runes
Guide to Synergizing Riven and Karthus
Tips for Playing as Riven with Karthus
Riven lacks a source of healing or strong defense and must compensate with burst combos. Lead into fights with Broken Wings and Ki Burst, while using Valor to escape and absorb counter-harass.
Riven's Broken Wings locks onto the champion your cursor is over at the time of cast. If you want to move past your opponent, make sure that your cursor is past your opponent as well.
Advice to Understand How Karthus Will Play
Lay Waste is very strong at farming minions and harassing enemy champions.
Ask your allies to help point out when you should use Requiem to get kills in different lanes.
Riven Karthus Synergy Stats
How to Play with Karthus as Riven in LoL
The Riven Karthus synergy stats shown here demonstrate the areas of her gameplay that do better (or worse) when paired with Karthus, compared to her overall stats. Significant differences are areas of focus that highlight how her gameplay changes when paired with this other champion.
Overall, Riven sees a large worsening in her KDA (ratio of kills and assists to deaths) when paired with Karthus. His KDA fell from NaN to NaN. This fall shows that Karthus helps Riven perform poorer in ranked League rounds. Yet, the small difference shows that this performance change is not very impactful.
When Riven is an ally to Karthus, she sees a small increase in her full damage output. This difference could signal that Karthus provides cover for her to deal more damage or that his presence also helps increase the round's duration. Similarly, when Riven is played with Karthus on the same team, he usually scores many fewer killing sprees than when she plays on his own. This is contrasting evidence that she is worse when playing alongside Karthus.
Moreover, when Riven plays with Karthus on the same team, she often receives more damage than when she fights alone. Getting dealt more damage may indicate that Karthus does a poor job of protecting Riven during team fights.
Synergies between Riven and Karthus
Damage Types Compared
Champion Playstyles Contrasted
Is Riven better when played alongside Karthus?
There is no universally accepted best ally for Riven that will always be her #1 ally. However, Karthus is a terrible ally for Riven. By locking into the same team as Riven, he drops their win rate by -3.9% to 46.2%. This signals that there is a terrible strategic relationship between Riven and Karthus that allows them to perform not as well together than without each other.
Karthus has a lower difficulty than Riven. That means Riven players don't need to be cautious when finding Karthus comrades to fight alongside, as they will need a relatively low level of skill to fight well with you.
Fighting cooperatively, Riven players should witness an overall large increase in your team’s ability to deal magical damage. Combined, these two are able to dish out a surprising amount of magic type damage.
Conversely, by grouping Riven and Karthus together, you may not be providing your side very much protection for burst damage. Plan to bring other champs on your team that offsets this relative disparity in this pairing's kit.
Regardless of the skill of your Karthus ally, you need to focus on maximizing your gold income, outlasting your enemies, and clearing objectives. If you do this, you will do well anyway.
Other Champion Matchups Against Riven
Other Top Synergies by Role
Additional Information for Riven Players
How We Calculated Our Riven Karthus Synergy Build and Stats
Other Useful Resources
Further Insights to Win with this Champion Pairing
To truly master Riven to synergize with Karthus during both the early game and mid / late game phases of LoL games, you should continue reading to pick up additional tricks and insights into this champion pairing. If you listen to the build and suggestions shown here, you will grow your win rate by a lot.
The most crucial finished items to include in your Riven and Karthus synergy build include Spear of Shojin, Death's Dance, and Sundered Sky. When Riven included at least these three great items in her build, she did significantly better when paired up with Karthus than with many other typical item sets. In fact, Riven boasted an average winrate of 46.2% when playing alongside Karthus with these items in her kit.
To have the best probability of coming out on top against your oponents, you should use the Conqueror, Triumph, Legend: Alacrity, Last Stand, Nimbus Cloak, and Transcendence runes from the Precision and Sorcery rune sets. Of all the rune sets players picked for this team composition, this blending of runes resulted in the top win rate. In fact, these runes gave a 46.2% winrate overall.
By default, tips, stats, and builds on how to synergize Karthus with Riven are displayed for all skill levels combined. If you want to narrow the stats and builds to a distinct rank, you may use the selection menu at the top of this page.