"Ah, I'm up against a ranged AP champion toplane. What shall I build?"
"Well since he's most likely trying to gain an early spike of power with the HP, Ap, and mana regen of a Dorans Ring, I should respond with
Doran's Cloak 80 health 3 HP/5 3 Mana/5 Unique Passive: Blocks 10 magic damage from abilities, or 2 damage from each tick of a damage over time ability.
And then I'll be on an even footing!
Oh. I can't build that huh. There is actually no counter-AP Dorans item despite that making every kind of sense. Well, okay, I guess I'll go with the cloth 5 start and just turtle it-what? The only option is a 400g item that gives me only two pots for far less effective HP? And I can't even build that into any item worth a damn out of it? Well, that's not an option.
So my option is...flask and pots. Which ensures that I will lose every trade possible, and get zoned out of CS while my HP regens back over the course of 10 seconds. And then I get to build that great item they put in to stop mindless AP harass, Spirit- what? That got Nerfed? But Banshees is pointless against repeated harass damage.
Well at least I know that I have a few options, right? A pure MR thornmail equivalent, an offensive/defensive Sunfire equivalent, an active focused item for hard engages...oh, so it's just those two items huh. How many item choices does my opponent get? Nine, huh.
Well that must be balanced. I'm sure melee champions are doing just fine at top levels of play or else Riot would do something about there being no defensive item choices."
actually does an okay job against Lulu and Gragas, as much of their harass early-game is empowered autos. Moreso Lulu.
, the item is basically built to counter sustained magic damage. You can rush one early and then just sit on it while you build your other early game items. You don't have to finish it right away to see the benefits.

into
, which would at least do something vs
, but yea, I agree anti AP itemization is lacking, esp for top lane
has burst, speed, and an anti-damage shield,
makes
<- this annoying guy useless pretty much. but if they have heavy cc