Ziggs Nerfed for the 4th (5th?) time this season

V4.2: ◾ Short Fuse ◾ Base damage reduced to 16 + (4 / 8 / 12 * level) from 13 + (7 / 8 / 9 / 10 * level). ◾ Damage at level 1 and 18 unchanged.

◾ AP ratio reduced to 25 / 30 / 35% from 35% at all levels.

◾ Hexplosive Minefield ◾ Damage reduction from consecutive mines now applies to minions (40% damage for each mine they hit beyond the first).

V4.5: ◾ Stats ◾ Base armor increased to 16 from 12. ◾ Attack range reduced to 550 from 575.

V4.11: ◾ Stats ◾ Base movement speed reduced to 325 from 330.

◾ Bouncing Bomb ◾ Explosion trigger radius reduced to 150 from 180.

V4.13: ◾ Mega Inferno Bomb

COOLDOWN120/105/90 seconds ⇒ 120 seconds at all ranks

These are the now FOUR different times in Season 4 that Ziggs has been nerfed. From the start of the season to 4.11 Ziggs has definitely been a dominant force in the game. After his 4.11 nerf, and the emergence of Xerath, he has since left the game as a must pick champ, still good for sure, but not top play. And yet riot felt the need, despite him receiving significant play loss (17% pick rate down to 11%) and win rate loss (53-54~% down to 51.5%) they felt it was still in due course to nerf him yet again.

In my title I stated 5 because there was indeed another nerf but it did not directly affect ONLY him, but among those it did it, it hits him higher than most, if not THE highest, but that is debatable and not something I am good enough to know. I was speaking of the Athene's Mana regen nerf. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this item cause this is definitely debatable for sure, but Ziggs is a champion that spams his spells moreso than most other mids. He in fact MUST spam his spell combo several times in the lane stage to do any semblance of decent damage.

My question is why did they feel the need to nerf him a 4th (or 5th) time. A huge part of Ziggs is his ability to clear a wave, and his ult was one of those functions, it allowed him to stall hugely yes, but it was already a pretty high cost if he had to do it. With full CDR before hand it was a still a 54 second cooldown, and most Ziggs builds do not have him building full CDR, typically 30%. That leaves basically a full minute of a window for the enemy team to capitalize on his loss of his ult due to needing to use it on an enemy wave. It has always been a big decision to clear a wave or save it for the team fight, one that could be heavily punished if he makes the wrong choice. With the nerf to his ult of this level it will no longer be a choice to make, he will simply hold it for the team fight if he has any sense, the cooldown is simply too long.

Ziggs has always been a huge utility mage, and he has done it well. Nerfing him was merited, but now they take away one of the biggest and most unique things about him with this last nerf (if they are truly even done hurting my little yordle.) I have seen riot speak a few times here and there very recently about them wanting to bring back the traditional mage, and yet one of the few traditional mages that's actually competitive they nerf to the ground, meanwhile Fizz continutes to completely dominate any solo queue game ever. (not continuing on fizz train, want to remain focused, but really tho?)

This final nerf needs to be undone, and undone quickly. But my opinion certainly isn't the only one and I wanted to get others thoughts. And hopefully maybe a rioter too.