Rylai's Scepter is in dire need of a rework

Back in the day Frozen Mallet was an extremely strong item. When Riot decided to nerf it and make mallet into a very niche purchase, Xypherous had this to say:

At its core, there's a lot of interesting design space we could put on fighters or ranged characters - but Frozen Mallet doesn't help any of those patterns when it's good. It simply flattens all the patterns down to 'land one basic attack.'

It's not the permaslow - or the stats really. There's a richness in how ranged vs. melee fight each other and how they position against each other but Frozen Mallet, whenever it's been good basically tells people that a single basic attack should be what defines that pattern.

Now I'm not saying that there aren't numbers or mechanics that you could do to make the current Frozen Mallet work. It's just, the gains really wouldn't be worth the costs in the end - You'd have a cool item at the expense of a lot of other things. This isn't a question of viability or whether or not we can make it attractive. All that is really simple to do. It's whether or not it's worth it and I'm not really sure at this point.

The above is no less true today than it was back then. The only difference is that with Ryalai's in its current state, the above problems are only exacerbated. Anyone who has played melee champions into enemy can attest to just how difficult it makes the matchup, teamfights, and the like.

Combat patters become stale and boring. If you land the slow, you are usually guaranteed to land the rest of your abilities, chase people down, maybe even get a second combo off. Cassi is utterly awful for most melees to fight. Viktor's ult feels less like a spell than a "dash checker", and if you lack one prepare to take all the damage.

Does this mean Ryalai's needs to be deleted? I don't think so. There are a number of items in the game which apply a slow, and which are more or less healthy I feel:

• Blade of the Ruined King
• Gunblade
• Gauntlet
• Hextech item which shoots out iceballs
• Frostqueen's
• Randuins

And what do all these healthy items have in common besides offering some sort of slowing effect? The slow is restricted by a cooldown of some sort.

Rework Rylai's to have some sort of gated slow and I think it will have a great place as an item which gives a nice mix of AP, health, and utility.