Most items would be way healthier if passives became actives

i meant to make this a bigger post but i'm not really feeling it now

examples of what I mean would be shit like frozen heart, sterak's, hexdrinker/maw, probably Duskblade, plenty of the ADC items, Cleaver, Thornmail, etc.

the issue with these items is and has usually been that making their passives - often the reason you buy them to begin with - can't be made satisfyingly strong because they are passive. back in the day when Frozen Heart had a stronger AS reduction, and Randuin's also had the MS slow when someone autos you, you couldn't touch that person or go near them without getting crippled as a rightclick champ. Similarly we've had multiple times now where Thornmail is strong enough that it can cancel out lifesteal entirely and you kill yourself hitting that person.

I strongly believe that all of the problems surrounding these items is by transferring that power into windowed, active gameplay - stuff that requires some thought and action to pull off correctly and is thusly, more justified in its reward. For how much Riot has fetishized outplays and how much Boards pretends to love strategy, you'd think this would have been a topic of discussion sooner

some examples of what I think would make these items healthier, without addressing any stat changes the items might need

- shift it into a delayed+ground targeted debuff that fucks up the AS of everyone who's hit by it.

- press for a magic shield, now you have to actually predict needing it rather than it going off passively

- activate to deal heavy return damage to all auto-attackers that target you for a few seconds (like Blademail from dota, but less extreme since LOL is babby mode)

- activate and your physical damage applies a stacking armor debuff on enemies you hit. in exchange for not being a permanent -24% armor to everyone you feel like fingering the effect can be made much stronger and more noticeable in the windows that you use it.

- activate for tenacity on-cast, get a shield after a delay equal to a % of your HP plus a % of damage you've taken during the delay. (makes it less friendly to OP divers who take far less damage on their initial engage than juggernauts, while not completely destroying the item for them)

just a few examples. I think more classes really ought to have more and stronger item actives and that it's a huge untapped resource for interesting/dynamic gameplay that Riot has been neglecting.