General Riverflow Vs. Memento

I'm not sure whether I'm the only one with these problems, but they were spurred when I found this thing while grinding.

Wall of text incoming, warning in advance

From my observation, Riverflow is designed to be a pair of defensive water boots with a good bonus of mana regeneration. But when you look at Riverflow's brutal punishment to your Thunder Defense and Memento(which is probably a different issue in itself), the niche that I interpret Riverflow to fit in seems to be fitted by Memento better.

I'll do a comparison(not side by side, as the images I took were too large and I'm too lazy to shrink them).

And here's Memento, for reference.

Now, both boots seem to share a high intelligence requirement and have the base 3/4(max 4/4)mana regen. However, Memento has a group of identifications(-life steal, spell damage % and raw)that makes it geared for an offensive, spell-based build. Riverflow has small boosts to speed, water damage, and reflection, as well as a large boost to water defense, which(how I interpret identifications)tells me "defensive".

The greatest offender to Riverflow, however, is its -260 thunder defense(which becomes -346 after the base value for the -thunder defense % is factored in). Now, I get that Memento has its own -thunder defense, but this can just get canceled out by using Dark Channeler+Hive Chestplate, and now you have over 250 thunder defense. Granted, I can do the same with Riverflow, but this leaves me with less health and less ability to resist thunder(Memento has over 200 more)while having an excessive amount of water defense.

The point I am trying to make is that Riverflow is kind of underwhelming for defensive(not tanky)builds, and any other niche it tries to fit, Memento fits that niche better. And I get that it makes sense for a legendary to overshadow a rare, but how I feel, Riverflow as a pair of defensive boots doesn't have what it takes to have a different face than Memento.

Now, you may not have to listen to me, but it's a problem I've run into, and I would like to throw it out there.

See you in the comments section, hopefully with constructive and conversation-starting comments.

-Alta

 

Hey, look! Memento got nerfed! Wonder whether it'll be enough to make Riverflow usable.

 

Why not just buff Riverflow slightly?

 

Yeah, Riverflow is a bit lackluster compared to Memento, but we all know how good Memento was. 4/4 Mana Regen is still powerful, no doubt about that. But let's be honest, it's up to the IMs as to how they want to do it.