Taric: Too Team Dependent Now?

I'm not an experienced league player as this is my first year committing to the game once I got over the 'flavor of the month' agitation that comes with balancing issues.

I used to main Taric prework and while the rework is impressive there's a lot that feels so useless about Taric aside from his mimic-ability tether and his ultimate. His passive is pretty good as well but what's the point of it when Taric can't hold his own like he used to?

Taric needs armor to live but his heal and passive strikes scale with AP. Taric can't viably survive as well as the meta demands without armor so his Heal at any stack level is trash and his damage with passive rarely gets employed without being severely punished by a AP squishy or a barrage of health melting ADC/Support strikes. I understand his kit is team oriented but you robbed him of any viable independence.

He can work just barely in jungle in terms of roaming and gank effectiveness due to his stun being a skillshot and tether requiring a considerable range before the laner can be effectively tethered to seal the deal. His melee damage is just sad outside his passive and even during his passive isn't impressive at all. Another problem with Taric is while his stun and ultimate are fantastic he brings nothing else to the game. He's a walking utility and doesn't feel like a 'full' character when his kit doesn't get a chance to be used to it's fullest except for the rarest occasions.

I feel that despite the fact Taric is deemed OP that the AP dependent side of his kit is a huge miscalculation on behalf of his rework team. Rod of ages could be the only real exception I could think of in terms of making him tanky while obtaining some AP but in all honesty even with masteries and the Windspeaker's Blessing mastery he isn't an effective healer or dueler.

Taric's heal is weak, his strikes are weak and the armor bonus from Bastion isn't really worth noting at all in a meta where burst damage and gib-kills are at an all time high (to my interpretation of the meta way back when up to now).

The most upsetting thing is I was really excited for Taric but now I' purely pigeon-holed as a support and can't rock the Jungle or Top lane without there being a magical composition or lane (like Singed) for me to beat the crap out of.

It's hard to suggest a change or give feedback when his stun and ultimate are huge gamechangers when the 'stars align' but I don't feel like he's played to the fullest on a consistent enough basis.