Calling All Players for Gnar Critique, Rito pls.

So I used to play Gnar sometime last year in top lane and I remember my games being quite successful. Recently, I played a few games with him and now I've lost every lane. Now mechanics wise Riot hasn't really messed with Gnar outside of the 'glitch' of his Mega form lasting longer than intended. He stays transformed for 15 seconds last I checked. That's 15 seconds to use every reason you picked Gnar for, 15 seconds to make a difference! Right?

Wrong.

I'm not sure what the significant difference for Gnar is between the time I used to play him and now, but when you lose your lane with a champion you tend to notice things. Painfully obvious things. Such as his rage bar. Unless your enemy laner is overly aggressive or just plain negligent, realistically speaking, it is next to impossible actually positioning yourself to burst your enemy down 1v1 without jungle camping top. Let's be honest, auto attacking someone to death in Mega form is never going to happen because he's too slow unless it's mid-late game. So that leaves you with spamming all your skills and bursting them down. Not going to happen if your enemy is watching that rage bar you can't stop from filling up and making you waste Mega form or missing farm.

So let's talk counter play. Having a passive you need to manage consistently and can't really stop because you're trying to farm/trade/poke with enemy laner present sounds great. Except... once it's full, you go Mega. Your enemy's counterplay to this? Just walk away, wait 15 seconds, come back when you're mini and push you out of lane or kill you. Because let's be real here, mini Gnar can't take damage early game for nothing. To me, early game is where it's at for him. If you're not successful there, you're nothing at all for the rest of the game.

So let's talk team fight. Positioning for him is key and his mega form is what you want to use for an AMAZING 15 seconds right? If your team and enemy team are waiting for the right moment to engage or disengage, odds are that precious rage bar has been decreasing. Believe it or not it takes a bit to build up from nearly zero, long enough to the point you could get destroyed or one of your teammates gets destroyed. Congratulations, you've missed the part where you're supposed to contribute. Mini Gnar is virtually useless unless you're ahead, and the enemy will know this.

In summary, the only way to make Gnar realistically viable in laning phase or team fights would be to remove the uncontrollable transformation. If there's a better method to using him, somebody please tell me because I honestly love the little guy but if I'm stuck going in with the mindset my early game is guaranteed to suck unless the enemy is dumb, what's the point? The champion's no longer fun, the game's no longer fun, and the champion should be removed for being only useful depending on how bad your opponent is instead of how good you the player are with them.