the state of shaco in 2019

Shaco has been around for a while now and I think it's finally time (after his recent skin, which by the way, is amazing) to address his situation in the meta. As a jungle AD assassin, his focus in-game should primarily be executing high-priority targets, such as the ADC. However, his early-game style completely contradicts this; he plays more like a farming jungler.

Allow me to elucidate.

Shaco's only strength early is his W (jack in the box). The only good thing about this is that it interrupts a 1v1 and gives you a short window to gain the upperhand. However, his boxes deal a painfully miniscule amount of damage unless you're building AP (which I prefer not to, especially in the jungle). The only reason he survives before 2-3 items is because of his Q (deceive).

By making his stealth/dash his only non-fighting strength early-game, Riot has essentially shifted Shaco from an assassin to a "you're going to lose early 1v1's, so here's a dash+stealth just so you don't die. But don't even think about scaling early game."

Shaco requires an early lead in order to snowball his way into an effective assassin. However, with the fact that his E ability is just so unreliable, you really have to wait for the enemy to make a terrible mistake or have your teammate help 2v1 in order for you to get a kill.

What I've found is that despite having a few amount of kills, if I farm enough, I can still gain a sufficient amount of AD to burst the ADC down late-game. During that time, I am functioning as I should; during teamfights I initiate by Q'ing in and then deleting the ADC/mid/squishy jungler. This is how shaco should be played! The problem is how long it takes to get to that point, and how convenient the game has to be.

Please, Riot. Fix shaco. Make his E better.