Whats the "actual" state of Nocturne?

I'm asking, on paper/stats.

In game, you can take raka jungle and do well, if you have the skill, as you can with any champion, in any role. ~some challenger player i saw on stream.

Nocturne was my first champion i ever bought back in season 1 when i first started playing, followed up by Morde and Teemo. (inb4 flames). I recently started grinding out ranked this season, got to gold 4 so far, close to gold 3, and for the most part i win, and when we do, i carry or at least go full tank with him (minus bloodrazor) and have a even/respectable score to contribute to the Win. Even when we lose, (as my most recent loss with him, two massive duo q feeders), i still had the best score.

But everywhere i go all i hear is "dont pick noc, pick ____, hes bad now".

"Now"? When has he ever been "bad". Hes had a few tweeks here and there, but never a hard nerf other than the range on his ult from going from global, to ranged. Which still makes sense and can still ult from beyond ward vision, so its all good in my opinion.

In my opinion, his core stats (without runes) suck ass, and without runes/masteries its hard as hell to clear with him. But with that said, if you build him correctly (more on this in a second), you can cheese the jungle and farm to lvl 6 without backing. But as i said, correctly, theres no set in stone build path, you can go or the Red smite version depending on game and playstyle, and go full damage for assassination, Bruiser build, or Tank build. He has plenty of viable build paths, but in my mind, bruiser is always the way to go. are his core, then or for lifsteal, then the last two items, any of these combinations. are all decent picks on him depending on who your VS and what your team needs.

So what is your guys opinion on Noc?