All I've ever seen them do is spam Q and ult, she has no resource reliance (Mana, Energy, HP, etc.) do stupid amounts of damage with just 1 AD item and 5 tank items,
Has CC, a dash (4 if you include each Q hit), a knock up and an amazing ult to pull a "psyche motherfucker!" Stunt.
Ethan Allen3 votesKnowledge of animation cancels. Knowing when to use the right combo. Knowing when to trade. Knowing how to engage Knowing your limits
BlackFlux1 votesnot to be rude. the first one I SORTA get. I mean, AA skill AA skill is pretty simple. the rest applies to almost every champion in the game in any area of the map.
Joxcab1 votesYes, and that's like only one of literally dozens of different chains you can do or things you can cancel into.
Automated Riven1 voteswith riven tho its aa skill ground click aa skill ground click aa skill ground click. Its a lot harder to pull off consistantly in high pressure situations then it sounds. and choosing which skill to use when is really important also. engaging with the wrong skill e instead of q or mistiming a q or using q and locking yourself out of e can literally cost you the lane as she loses straight up damage fights with a lot of other champions.
This doesnt even count the 30-50 diferent variations of combos you can choose from depending on the situation. I wouldnt say she is the hardest champion to have success with in low elo. but she is the most mechanically intensive and she requires a good knowledge of her kit to truely be effective.
And her more flashy combos require precise comand imputs with precise timing.
BigBellBrute2 votesIt only takes skill if I'm winning with her. If someone else is, it's just luck.
SEKAI1 votesMost of the spotlight on her mechanical skill department that people talk about the most lies in how to pull off the exploits (animation cancelling) right, which sounds a bit weird but that's what they are doing.
Otherwise Riven is a spam champ who only needs a relatively moderate, if not slightly less, amount of game sense to work adequately generally, as in, in Norms and lower elo range. Otherwise, her mechanical ceiling could be quite high in high elo situation even without abusing the animation cancelling, so that's something.
Her issues seems to be that people are actually glorifying and teaching each other about how to break the game in unintended fashion and think that's a skill. The fact that Riot tried to fix the exploit, and failed, and so they ended up just balancing Riven around it instead now doesn't help either.
Vanic9981 votesRiven has a low skill floor so yes it doesn't take much skill to do ok on her but like every other champion with low cd abilities, she also has a high skill ceiling which means with a lot of skill, you can do amazing things with her.
Joxcab1 votesBecause they don't just "spam" Q and ult. And with 5 tank items, her damage is complete shit. She is extremely skill intensive.
Radiant Wukong1 votesAny Riven should be full AD cdr/ls which is op af and I hate her. If you lost to riven building tank, you deserved to lose lol
Glîtchy1 votes[{quoted}](name=Radiant Wukong,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Qfq4uFns,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2017-05-30T02:57:17.053+0000)
Any Riven should be full AD cdr/ls which is op af and I hate her. If you lost to riven building tank, you deserved to lose lol
I've only had tank Riven on my team, the life steal/AD Riven needs a nerf though, as she SOMEHOW bursts like an assassin.
Joxcab2 votesWow it's almost like if someone goes full fucking damage and does their entire combo with multiple AA resets on a squishy, they die.
Stop complaining.
Tank Riven is literally intentionally trolling shit.
Limmie3 votesThat was exact same thing I was thinking, a full tank Riven would be the most useless think after going AP Riven. Her whole schtick is that she has a shield that scales with ad...
The Whamboozler1 votesIt kinda depends on your level. If you're gold or lower... she really DOESN'T need skill. She CAN just faceroll her keys at you and win a lot of the time provided she isn't a complete idiot about when to go in. In high elo though, she requires complicated and difficult mechanics to be effective... making her a very skill intensive champion. In short, if you think she's easy to play then you are likely A: Someone who has never played Riven. And B: not terribly good at the game.
Now personally, I HATE Riven. But I won't pretend that playing her to a high skill level is easy.
The JigSAW1 votesAs bad as people say she is I've rarely had issues with her due to the fact her kit is entirely physical damage - no magic, no true, just physical so building armor and health helps tremendously with her. She has no resources, but she's not the worst example.
Master Yi has true and physical damage, can meditate recharging his passive and putting E/Ult on pause, gains bonus AD passively and has an ult allowing immunity to any and all slows for 7-14 seconds depending if he gets an assist or not.
Yasuo doesn't have any mana and has no idea what cooldowns are since his Q goes to 1.3 seconds and E 0.1 seconds - one tenth of a second. He also deals physical and magic damage, has a 4 second indestructible wall, double critical strike chance, a shield that regenerates during combat, and an ult that refreshes said shield and gives 15 seconds of 50% bonus armor pen with a cooldown of about 29 seconds at level 3.
Xin Zhao has physical and magic damage and basically reliant on auto-attacks but has built-in heal and critical damage on third attacks, all abilities CDR on Q, his E hits a large radius away from him, his R grants MR/Armor and his passive allows him to cut through armor like butter.
Tryndamere can't die for five seconds when his ult is on. Literally, that's the only thing wrong with him but its significant - no matter what you do, he can't die. For five seconds.
Garen has no resources and his Q is on a short cooldown and does four things: movement boost, slow removal, silence, and bonus damage. His E is a built in black cleaver that also can critically strike and double damage to single targets, his ult is magic or true damage based on missing health, and he can do as much damage as any fighter with the tankiness of any tank with two items.
I'd take Riven as an opponent any day of the week over those five. She's also a lot better to look at!
Glîtchy1 votes[{quoted}](name=The JigSAW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Qfq4uFns,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2017-05-30T03:27:03.086+0000)
As bad as people say she is I've rarely had issues with her due to the fact her kit is entirely physical damage - no magic, no true, just physical so building armor and health helps tremendously with her. She has no resources, but she's not the worst example.
Master Yi has true and physical damage, can meditate recharging his passive and putting E/Ult on pause, gains bonus AD passively and has an ult allowing immunity to any and all slows for 7-14 seconds depending if he gets an assist or not.
Yasuo doesn't have any mana and has no idea what cooldowns are since his Q goes to 1.3 seconds and E 0.1 seconds - one tenth of a second. He also deals physical and magic damage, has a 4 second indestructible wall, double critical strike chance, a shield that regenerates during combat, and an ult that refreshes said shield and gives 15 seconds of 50% bonus armor pen with a cooldown of about 29 seconds at level 3.
Xin Zhao has physical and magic damage and basically reliant on auto-attacks but has built-in heal and critical damage on third attacks, all abilities CDR on Q, his E hits a large radius away from him, his R grants MR/Armor and his passive allows him to cut through armor like butter.
Tryndamere can't die for five seconds when his ult is on. Literally, that's the only thing wrong with him but its significant - no matter what you do, he can't die. For five seconds.
Garen has no resources and his Q is on a short cooldown and does four things: movement boost, slow removal, silence, and bonus damage. His E is a built in black cleaver that also can critically strike and double damage to single targets, his ult is magic or true damage based on missing health, and he can do as much damage as any fighter with the tankiness of any tank with two items.
I'd take Riven as an opponent any day of the week over those five. She's also a lot better to look at!
In all honest,y Tryndafuck's ult would be balanced if he couldn't use it while CC'd. waits for Tryndafuck mains to begin screeching
Arcus Diabolus1 votesI checked, the highest Riven could hope to do with just one 80 AD item is about 300, which is including her passive and ult.
Now compare that to Yasuo with say a 
who is doing 427.5 on a crit (40% crit rate) with his passive ALONE.
Tank Riven is NOT doing damage, especially late game.