Fiddlesticks' Design is the Problem Not Power Levels

TL;DR: Fiddlesticks' weaknesses all synergize with one another, and his strengths are far less relevant against competent enemies leaving him as a pubstomper, of which there are far better choices.

I'm going to list what strengths and weaknesses Fiddlesticks has but before I do, I want to point out that at the bottom, I am willing to discuss context and application, rather than discuss the champion solely in a vacuum. Such demonstrations are rarely fruitful otherwise, as describing a champion on its own is completely useless information.

With that said, onto what I see as his trade-offs.

Early Game

1. He has to farm to 6 to gank well
2. He has to wait ~140 seconds between ganks after 6
3. He farms slowly and doesn't reach 6 very quickly
4. Highly telegraphed ganks
5. Extremely low pressure, relative to other junglers
6. Prone to being counterjungled
7. Very poor duelist
8. If his ganks aren't seen coming, it's almost a certain kill
9. Damage and CC in the same kit leads to strong ganks if they can actually be performed
10. Theoretically, can solo dragon if he isn't interrupted and doesn't run out of mana
11. Still highly mana intensive, exasperating his weakness to counterjungling

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Mid Game

1. Needs to continue farming to get to teamfight, or people will simply burst him down if he ults in.
2. People can out-run his ultimate radius pretty easily due to its limited range and casting time
3. Extremely easy to avoid fiddle ults, because you can ward to see it coming.
4. Casting time of the ultimate starts to matter more, because you cannot manually cancel it, unlike every other ultimate channel in existence
5. CC interrupts his drain and ultimate, making wards even more effective.
6. Can start to reap higher efficiency out of his ultimate, as it's AoE; the more potential targets he can get into the radius, the more efficient it becomes
7. Given the above, it can be argued that his teamfighting becomes fairly potent at this point, although mid game wards are still a tremendous problem.
8. His damage output begins to reach a relevant level for teamfighting at this point.

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End Game

1. Wards should be everywhere. This destroys any effectiveness Fiddlesticks can have.
2. Teamfighting becomes far more difficult as the game has more wards placed, and teamfighting without becomes extremely difficult.
3. Fiddlesticks' damage reaches near-carry or carry level, depending on how the game went. One good ult can cause catastrophic levels of damage.
4. When everyone's' inventories are full, warding becomes harder.

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Context If we look at the champion, we see he is gated at every point in the game. Early game, he requires level 6. Mid game, he needs hourglass and vision control. End game, he needs Flash and vision control with his ultimate and hourglass up.

HERE is where the issue with the champion lies. To gain vision control, YOUR TEAM MUST BE AHEAD. He has tremendously poor pressure compared to most other junglers. Chances are, his team isn't going to be ahead because of him. This is often the case with junglers that have a strong end game, and this is not the dealbreaker. **However, FIDDLESTICKS IS UNIQUE IN THAT HIS WEAKNESSES ALL SYNERGIZE WITH ONE ANOTHER. **

1. His pressure is low, which can cost his team an early advantage. This in turn costs his team vision control, meaning that his mid game is by extension harder.

2. He is prone to being counterjungled early game, but he has a strong reliance on blue buff, making it easy to set him back and deny him level 6 which lowers his pressure even further. Furthermore, he clears very slowly, making it easy to read his pattern and counterjungle him, or steal his camps. These all serve to again, deny him his mid game.

3. He's very predictable. Through warding, knowing what it is that Fiddlesticks does, knowing where he can ult from, knowing his clear path, knowing he'll in all likelihood rush 6 and so on makes it very easy to assume what Fiddlesticks is going to do. This likewise means you know where to ward to prevent Fiddle ganks.

4. You need vision control or to land a good ult on competent opponents. Your weak early/mid/exploitable weaknesses means your chances of having an early game lead are lower than the average jungler, making you less likely to have vision control against competent enemies, making it even less likely you will land your ultimate effectively.

What this all boils down to is that his effectiveness is largely in his opponents' hands as well as his own. The enemies need to fail to abuse his weaknesses. They need to not ward properly, to not counterjungle, to not out-pressure him early game, to not predict his ganks, to not predict his teamfight ultimates, to not ward dragon to prevent a solo, to not maintain vision control and to group up against a Fiddlesticks while going in blind while he's mysteriously MIA during a teamfight. The fact is, if your opponents will let you exploit , there are a LOT of other champions you could exploit a LOT better.

In conclusion, he has too few windows of opportunities, and too much counterplay in his current iteration to be very successful. He specializes at something that just isn't very effective against competent enemies and as a result, the buffs and new jungle item (Which he also cannot even use very well) will not make him a desirable jungler.