Gragas Nerfs... again.
So W's %HP damage is getting lowered to 8% at all ranks on the PBE. Now I will admit, he has been a dominant jungler in competitive for a long time and he was once at a near 100% pick/ban rate in ranked. But he is definitely falling out of flavor for a reason. His Ultimate and innate tankiness have make him a lategame threat and his ability to sustain in the jungle and strong ganks make him strong in the early game as well. This is a potent combination, but let's check off all of the recent Gragas nerfs both direct and indirect that are putting him in a bad spot since his heyday in 5.8/5.9.
E width - nerfed Q slow duration - nerfed HP regen - double nerfed
Righteous Glory - Nerfed (and again in 5.16) Frozen Heart - Nerfed Randuin's - Nerfed Thornmail - Nerfed
Cinderhulk - TBD
MR items - buff and a nerf at the same time. It lowers his damage output, but he can effectively take more magic damage.
New AD items = more AD fighters + not as much armor from items = nerf
And these are all for his Tank Jungle build. Where he is sitting at a 46.5% winrate in solo queue according to Champion.gg. I have seen statistics that he is around 49% in Diamond and above, but this is still only average so why is he getting nerfed yet again in a universal fashion.
What I mean by universal is that he has other positions that he used to be able to play but thanks to one specific nerf, he has not been viable in Solo lanes for over a year. Patch 4.13: Q damage reduced to 70% when damaging minions. He currently sits at around a 43% winrate or lower in toplane from a champion that should have all of the tools to succeed in this position. But you decide to nerf his W damage so he has an even harder time anywhere he goes. A better nerf would have been to lower his Q's base damage but remove the 70% reduction to minions. This would lower his early game damage output, but make sure his Solo lane power wasn't hit as hard as his jungling. By reducing his W's damage, you hurt his ability to do significant damage in the mid-lategame, but you've already nerfed his ability to pressure (as well) early thanks to his E and Passive nerfs, so what do you want to do with Gragas? When in the game is he supposed to be strong? When he was a Midlaner/Toplaner, he was very Midgame focused, but he was nerfed as a laner. As a jungler, he is strong early and has teamfight altering utility in his Ult. It can either win or lose you the teamfight based on how it is positioned. But his early game was nerfed as well. Can I get some feedback?
Anyway. I noticed Rek'sai is getting nerfed too and I can only think that they are both getting nerfed because they have been so prominent in competitive in recent patches and Riot wants to test the players in competitive to try something different (which they already are playing Elise, Nid, Eve, Olaf, and Ekko rip). I really don't think they (Gragas and Rek'sai) need more nerfs and this will just push them lower and lower in the tier list.
