[{quoted}](name=The Sword Saint,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=VyMt6I60,comment-id=0008,timestamp=2015-09-25T22:44:04.375+0000)
Every single aspect of riven's kit is interact able. None of her damaging skills are targeted, they can all miss or be dodged or baited out. She's not pantheon with a point and click ranged spear for harass on low cd and a point and click stun and one non point and click skill that's only used when they're stunned anyways.
That's right. Riven is not an assassin. She is a fighter. Her kit is supposed to have more sustained damage and more counterplay. Comparing her to an assassin is...not a valid argument?
Anyone who fights riven can outplay her by the nature of her kit. In exchange, she has tools to survive bad lanes or falling behind such as her shield and waveclear to farm under turret, and a close range stun to deter dives.
If by outplay you mean you can dodge her abilities? Yes. But not every champion can harass her while her shield is down.
You know what her kit does, you know what her skills are and you should have an idea of what kind of combos she wants to use.
Yes. And those skills and combos frustrate players.
At the very least you can count and know that her third q is the hopping knockup one. It is telegraphed by the 2 qs preceding it, and has a longer animation. Any cc or knockback on her during this animation will fizzle her q leaving her not only without it's damage and the empowered auto she would have hit you with during the knockup, but giving you a chance to get free damage on her that's guaranteed to not be shielded.
Any cc or knockback. That refers to basically Maokai's Q, Garen's Q, Darius's E, Fiora's W...But what about Olaf, Galio, Malphite, Shyvana, and other melee champions with no ranged harass who don't get to play top lane very often simply because lane bullies like Riven exist? The very threat of Riven has knocked so many tanks and low range bruisers out of the top lane entirely.
You know that her shield has a decent cooldown early game and only lasts for a second so if your ranged harass has a shorter than ~10 second cooldown you know that if you use it on her and she shields it then you can use it on her again on cooldown for either free damage, to force her to try and trade with you when she has no shield up, or to zone her from the minion wave until she has her shield back.
Here's a list of top laners with 0 ranged harass: 
You know that she probably wants to go on you, so position yourself where you know she'll jump on you right when the jungler comes. Her mobility doubles as her damage, so she'll be boned.
That works if you have a ganking jungler. And if you have a control jungler or a farming jungler? Someone who isn't going to assist the lanes? You could argue that Riven's job as an early game champion is to punish these champions, but she does it too effectively currently.
If you dance around on the outside edge of her range you can bait her into going in on you and then back off. She'll have wasted one or two spells just to close the gap and will have to get zoned from the wave now because she's worthless without cooldowns.
Unless you are playing a champion who cannot harass effectively, cannot trade efficiently, because you are playing a tank or someone who brings UTILITY and CC to a team, traits that are important and absent from the damaging carry you are guaranteed to have bot lane.
In a fight, you know that she wants to windslash you at low hp, so you can save something like a fizz e or diana ult or something to dodge it when you feel like its probably going to come at you, and avoid a lot of her damage that way.
Yes! Yes! Don't worry guys, she may have an execute, but as long as you're playing League of Mobility it doesn't matter! And if you're not? Well...sucks to be you then.
She already has counterplay woven into her kit. She's not a ball of stats. Therefor (amoung other reasons) she won't be getting a rework - or at least if she ever does it will be completely different from darius/garen/skarner/mord and for different reasons entirely.
All of her abilities can be dodged. That's a perfect reason to make her stronger than everyone else in the early game. 
Her kit does not work even a little bit without animation canceling, and her numbers have been tuned around the existence of it. It provides a large amount of mastery and depth to her and is a large part of her theme.
And because she's difficult to play, she's allowed to be stronger than other champions that are easier. We must reward mechanical skill with raw power.
For those unaware, Riven's designers sat down and modeled her gameplay after the idea of , "what would a fighting game character look like in leageu?". Specifically, Marth as seen in super smash brothers was used as inspiration for her q, but on a whole the animation canceling, combo depth, 'special move' spam without a resource, footsie game, ministuns that exist to prolong a combo, etc. that riven has are all modeled on fighting game concepts. Riven is a beautiful and successful translation of what it means to be a fighting game character in league. She has a low skill floor and a high skill ceiling, clear strengths and weaknesses, is satisfying to play at a high level, and her character design itself is well done enough to draw in players to learn her.
And then there's the fact that she just has flat out MORE damage potential. Also, fighting game characters have something called a resource bar. Heat, energy, special power, whatever you want to call it. Something you build up as you attack that allows you to use your special finisher. That would seem like it would lead to a Fury-based champion in League, which Riven is not. Not really a strong argument for you here.
I think we need more champs like riven. her kit filled with melee skillshots showed us what an interactive and healthy fighter should be like instead of a ball of stats, way before the age of yasuo and new fiora.
I think we need more champions like Riven too, but I also think Riven herself needs to be nerfed.
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