"Light Fighters" have no itemization paradigm.
Light fighter, or "melee carry" itemization currently focuses around a gimmick that involves doing damage at such a high rate that you kill your opponents before they can respond to you. That isn't good for game health when it does work and it displaces the assassin class. When it doesn't work the melee carry is forced to split push and be very non-confrontational with the enemy team, which though is effective not only isn't interactive or fun, it isn't specific to the light fighters kit so much as it is specific to the gimmicky itemization that light fighters use, which I explain later in this thread.
First off a "melee carry" is a "light fighter" but any "light fighter" isn't necessarily a "melee carry". Fizz plays exactly the way a "light fighter" should play, though he isn't a melee carry. What makes fizz successful as a light fighter is his assortment of tricks and itemization that allows him to survive his own shenanigans without stacking resists. Yasuo functions as a light fighter because he has a kit filled to the brim with tricks that allow him to survive without stacking resists, though he doesn't have to itemize for activatable or skill based survival (like zhonyas hourglass) because that itemization doesn't exist for light fighters. This means Yasuo ends up building raw damage but doing the exact job that fizz, using a comparable kit of tricks and shenanagins but does it objectively better since he doesn't have to spend gold to support that playstyle, which isn't good for game health.
Melee carries do not need more steroids or tons upon tons of raw damage from their itemization. They need tricks and actives that they can use to survive, the same function that zhonyas performs for "glass melee ap" such as fizz. In fact, they should be forced into building such items in order to do their job in team fights. A melee carry would much rather prefer an item that allows him to leave a translucent clone that he will swap places with after 3 seconds, regardless of position or state (aside from death), than he would just another steriod like ghostblade. A melee carry would prefer an item that allowed him to disengage so that he doesn't have to be "all in or nothing" in team fights, or an item that allowed him to break focus at the push of a button, rather than a gazillion damage from infinity edge or hydra-- at least they should.
Why should they? Because a gimmick shouldn't be more effective in all circumstances than a less straightforward, more flexible kit in a variety of circumstances. You shouldn't be able to just pick a champion, build the exact same set of items every game, and have more of an influence on the game than someone who builds items specifically suited for that particular game. A gimmick that is exactly the same in every case-- dive hard onto the enemy carry with high damage from the standard infinity edge / statikk shiv melee carry nonsense and then die in the exact same way that you died the last 5 times, shouldn't be as effective as a strategy that morphs as the game progresses and the conditions change.
Melee carries have enough damage and multiplicative scaling as it is. Doubling their damage just makes them frustrating to fight, but it would hardly make them any more fair for the game than they are-- that path leads to a point at which you would have to increase their damage by such an amount that it would finally make them viable, but only because they would be overpowered as all hell.
Melee carries just want the ability to survive. They are "light fighters". Heavy fighters like Malphite do small amounts of damage over a long period of time, and exist for such a long period of time because they have so much innate defensive scaling. Medium fighters like Jax look to balance offense stats with defense stats. Light fighters do not stack defensive stats-- they look to survive by using their skills and tricks. Yasuo got it right with his kit. He has what he needs to survive as a melee carry by using the mechanisms in his kit. Yi does not have what he needs. Fiora doesn't have what she needs. Not even Tryndamere has what he needs, because it is all or nothing and a one time one use trick, unlike Yasuo.
The problem is that Riot expects melee carries to function like assassins but refuses to give them the means to survive or the purchase survival, without stacking resists and health like anyone else. If they could stack resists and health and function as they would be expected to, they would be overpowered and people would complain, so RIOT justifies letting them be subpar assassins by giving them the POTENTIAL to kill multiple targets in a short time frame, whereas most assassins may be bound to kill only one. They can't even do that better though, because assassins like Katarina or Kha'Zix can reset on kill, and the energy system that most assassins use was specifically designed so that the cooldowns of assassins could be shorter so that they could contribute more frequently to a fight and score kills more rapidly. An assassin has easier itemization because he doesn't have to worry about crit or lifesteal or attack speed, but a melee carry has to build those things in order to tap into their scaling.
They can't even kill multiple targets in a short time frame unless they are on top of unprotected squishies with no CC in sight, and only if they don't die to damage first. For everything they give up that marksmen have, they don't gain the ability to duel tanks-- they only gain the ability to do more damage to squishies. That hardly matters because it typically is the difference between killing something in 3 hits late game, or overkilling them in 3 hits late game.
A tank has the means to build 4 defensive items and passively duel any AD auto attacker without using skills, just from the damage return of thornmail and here is mathematical proof: http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/balance/RsiUFa61-4-item-tanks-beats-6-item-marksmen-in-a-duel-via-thorns-alone-mathematical-proof
Aside from the fact that pure defensive itemization is powerful enough to allow you to duel any pure offensive itemization, it is also cheap enough in terms of gold and item slots that you don't even have to dedicate yourself to one resistance type. Aside from dueling, you have the ability to turn a siege into a dive, and you can disrupt the enemy team just by doing damage and being present in the middle of the team. Being so durable that you can place yourself wherever you want to go means being able to apply a persistent area of effect to 4 or 5 people at one time, greatly magnifying your base damage so that your total damage dealt is comparable to a carry, though distributed across multiple targets. Champions like Shyvanna, Nasus, Mundo, and Renekton can have such an immense presence and what do they give up, in comparison to melee carries? They duel better, do more damage in team fights over the course of the entire team fight, soak damage better, disrupt better and can turn a siege into a dive. A melee carry can't do any of that.
It comes down to one simple fact: if you want to survive in team fights while under pressure and focus from the enemy team, your only means to itemize into that as a melee carry involve stacking resists and health. You cannot hope to do that better than Nasus or Mundo, becuase they are practically designed around that, while you are not. You cannot expect to stack moderate resists and moderate offense any where near as effectively as Jax can because he is a medium fighter and you are not. So you don't have the means to survive in team fights, outside of what your kit provides, period. Yasuo has what he needs, but Yi, Tryndamere, and Fiora do not. So either you don't need to survive because you have snowballed so hard with your sustained damage output that team fights are over before they begin, or you need to survive but can't because you have no itemization that supports the "light fighter" paradigm. The first case is frustrating to fight against and the second case is frustrating to fight with-- they are both bad, balanced on the average across multiple games or not. I would say that light fighter itemization needs reworking, but I can't, because it doesn't exist-- light fighter itemization needs to be created before these champions can have a solid place in the game.
The few things that melee carries do that other champions don't do as well aren't a consequence of the "light fighter" paradigm or the substance of their kit, but almost entirely is a consequence of their (inappropriate) itemization. They push towers because they build glass cannon. Anyone who builds the items that melee carries build can push just as fast. In fact, rengar with 2 bloodthirsters, Hydra, Randuins, Tabi, and Sunfire cape will push waves and towers down even faster and he doesn't even need a minion wave to take down a lone tower because he can do more damage to the tower than the tower can do to him, thanks to his high raw damage and armor. What I'm saying is that the things that melee carries do that make them remarkable is a consequence of their itemization and practically nothing else-- you could build anyone that way and have the same influence on the game. Jarvan 4 could be built as a glass cannon and do the same thing that fiora does-- kill one person in a team fight and do a lot of aoe damage before dying, pushing lanes fast and splitpushing hard, though Jarvan 4 is appropriately a medium fighter or even a heavy fighter, but certainly not a light fighter. On the other hand, You cannot build Fiora as a heavy fighter because she offers no persistent area of effect damage, no high base damages, no disruption, and no synergy with resistance.
It doesn't feel good knowing that light fighters can't be played as heavy fighters, but heavy fighters can be played as light fighters, because it reveals one flaw: Heavy fighters work because their kits and itemization synergize. Light fighters "work" because their itemization is a gimmick. I don't like playing against Yi when he crits me twice for 1000 damage apiece in 1 second, do you? I wouldn't like it if Malphite did the same thing with the same items.
Giving someone "+60 attack damage and +35% critical strike chance at full fury" to justify all those weaknesses is a joke. 35% critical strike chance and 60 attack damage is a drop in the bucket compared to the totality of the stats that they are forced to buy in order to force the gimmick they are expected to revolve round to work. What is 60 attack damage compared to the 340 he has without it, or the 55% critical strike chance he has without fury, in light of the stupendous weaknesses he has for being squishy and melee? Being able to become immune to death for 5 seconds only reaffirms people that they should build Tryndamere as a gimmick. Though Tryndamere can perhaps function as that gimmick better than anyone else even among other "light fighters", a gimmick is still a gimmick. He is predictable, terrible for game health when he is too far ahead for counterplay to matter, and terrible for game health when he is too far behind to contribute in any meaningful way. That is the nature of relying on a singular gimmick as your identity-- either it works or it didn't work, and there is no opportunity to differentiate skilled players from unskilled players. 5 seconds is 5 seconds is 5 seconds, no matter if you are a professional or if you are completely new to the game.
TLDR: Make light fighters less gimmicky and create appropriate itemization for them, and fix the ones that have been designed to function without it.
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