I'm almost exclusively a melee player and I caution you when you say buff dorans shield

There's no doubt that the item is extremely lackluster and barely has a place in this game currently. And I think Doran's Shield does need some sort of change to make it better because it's really not even good in its niche. It's niche is to help protect you from ranged single target spells and auto attack poke so effectively, it reduces the power of "click on me from range and when lane really hard early." It currently doesn't do that because x4 or are superior in every way except for early all-ins. And that's a pretty shitty reason to ever buy an item.

Here's why I caution you though. I've played league for quite awhile now, since season 2. In season 3, mostly towards the end, Doran's Shield got a retardly strong buff. It lost its armor but gained block and don't quote me on the numbers here, but pretty fucking absurd hp/5, something like 10hp/5 and he fs cost reduced so you could buy a health potion. To say that this warped top lane and even bot lane meta to an extent would be an understatement. It made sustain champs in top lane unmovable, Nasus, was basically perma banned at the time. Shen was dumb because if it, Zac was dumb because of it, Renekton or Jax could opt for either d-blade or shield and still be just as effective regardless of what they took. It made Rumble pretty hard to deal with (Rumble good towards the end of the season???). And hell, supports would run it too and even VAYNE WOULD RUN IT IN BAD MATCH UPS.

I caution you because back then, buying D-shield before it was nerfed was basically a way to avoid losing lane early. So it made scaling champions ridiculously safe, which should never be the case. And while I think D-Shield can be positively changed to help with ranged laners abusing melees, there is a possibility that it can make typically weak laners ridiculously safe. So we have to realize that D-Shield needs a specific niche and it needs to be really good at that niche. And part of that niche probably needs to remove any potential sustain it could have (unless you remove its block entirely and just give it ridiculous health regen).

I don't say this without experiencing the pain of top lane as a melee player. Jayce/Kennen of now pale in comparison to what they were in season 3 in the ranged top meta, along with Elise, Ryze, Vlad and Lulu. Picking melee then was basically suicide until dorans shield was buffed the hell up and those champions were nerfed. But an item shouldn't automatically make you unable to lose to a mechanic that has typically been good against a certain class (range can melee). And in s3, dorans shield did just that. And going from one extreme to the other has never proven to be healthy.