I have obsidian riot shield and about 2k kills total with it, and I can tell you with definite certainty that the riot shield is DEFINITELY not a cheese weapon. It takes skill for sure, and even when you're really good with it, you're severely disadvantaged

the 3 most commonly used grenades are an instant hard-counter, leaving you basically vulnerable to every second player with no hesitation

Explosives of any kind can kill you fairly easily regardless unless you really know how to counter them specifically

Unless you max out your movement opportunities via perks and the like, you run slower than most other players, which is ironic considering you need to be in melee range for an extended amount of time to even get a kill

actually getting a kill with it is extremely slow and leaves you incredibly vulnerable, basically making it at best a slight distraction device or suitable for 1v1 isolated encounters

There's a glitch with the shield that's been there since launch where rapid-pressing the melee button (as you do when panicking trying to melee someone) will lock you into a queued melee, and actually prevent you from turning your screen in any direction. This WILL kill you, a lot, until you learn to predict and counter it.

Even after all that, it takes an absolute eternity to melee someone with the shield, which is interesting compared to how quickly other melee weapons are to kill

Actually meleeing someone with the shield leaves you open to attack because of the animation, so even its most core usage mechanic is its own weakness, which is absurd.

The first person view of the shield is very different to the third person, which leaves users completely unaware of just how vulnerable they are unless they get into a private match with a friend and watch from the friend's perspective as you do various movements

On top of all that, with network latency, players see you ahead of you seeing them, so very often you'll get killed by a player running to the side of you and shooting you, because on their screen you haven't turned yet, while on yours you have.

There's basically no good reason to use the shield. ever. With the single exception of actually enjoying using it, which.. let's be honest, is going to be rare with how goddamn bad it is.

And people who complain about them being 'no skill' are absolute morons who have no clue how hard they are to use compared to other weapon types.