Open Discussion on Volibear

Meddler is wanting to buff Volibear soon so I wanted to make another thread about him

So lets talk about Volibear, his problems, and where he stands relative to other juggernauts

Volibear is a DPS fighter/tank whose main purpose is to get an early lead and then transition into a meat shield. What he offers are two CCs and an execute with a smidge of AoE damage. He is not an initiator; in fights he plays reactionary, either for peeling or for follow up after the primary tank. He is incredibly good at killing squishy champions, but struggles against tanks due to not building any damage items or penetration. He falls off hard late game.

From playing him endlessly the past two weeks, these are the problems I think should be addresses either in his VGU or in whatever small changes he'll get soon.

Poor allocation of power. At the moment almost all of his damage budget is tied to his execute, and his ultimate suffers for it. E and R feel very bland and not satisfying.

Season 7 jungle. Volibear has trouble keeping up thanks to these new camps, which is the biggest reason he's actually weak right now.

Too simple. It's impressive that Riot made a champion that manages to be more simple than Garen. His skill cap is his skill floor; there's no tricks to him beyond flash Q.

Dependence on snowballing. Kind of obvious for any stat heavy champion, Volibear is horrible if he falls behind early

Lack of specialty. Volibear does not excel at anything; his best claim is being able to kill squishes at low health but Darius can turn his execute into a steroid and carry a teamfight. He has no real niche and only becomes popular when his stats are stronger than his competition.

Relative to other juggernauts, what does Volibear offer? Not much. He has the worst time of them in dealing with tanks, others can kill squishes just as easily or easier, and Trundle, Nasus, Darius can all peel for teammates from further than melee range. His sustain is the easiest to deny, too. His peeling is fairly good, though, and with CDR he can spam his flip fairly frequently. He is also the one most dependent on snowballing to stay relevant into mid game.

I would like to see Riot shift power out of W and into his ultimate and passive, and open up some offensive items to him so that he can be more of a fighter than a secondary tank. He will probably need larger changes; if he needs a new role in his rework, I wouldn't mind him being a little more utilitarian and team oriented, given that he currently doesn't play as selfishly as a Darius or Illaoi would. Someone to pick if youd like to be a little more of a team player while still being able to carry.

Interested to hear what you guys think or would like to see Volibear get.