Regarding Gragas: Mage or Bruiser?

Alright, starting off, I'm not trying to say "Gragas's rework should be reverted", because that would be silly. What I want to bring up is Riot's direction with Gragas and how they envision him being played.

Before his rework, he was seen (and played) as a sustain mage that would chuck out nukes from the back line, while never really engaging unless he could get a kill. Effectively, he was too safe, and Riot wanted to make sure he had some risk to him. Hence his rework. I can understand their desire for a change, and I do enjoy playing Gragas still, but I really think he could get a few changes that would make him a little bit more balanced than he his currently.

The reason behind this being that Riot sees Gragas as a bruiser/fighter/what-have-you that engages on the enemy consistently without standing back too much. The only problem with this is that he has no sustained engage. Before, his W would give him an AD buff for a length of time, and also some INSANE mana and health regen. Now it gives damage reduction and a single buffed AA. Herein lies the problem. Gragas is good for only one engage at a time: when his E and W are both up, and he expends them both to deal some pretty respectable damage. Until then, he's still just sitting on the back line, tossing out kegs every now and then. And, to me, that's not indicative of a fighter.

If you look at other mage fighters -- Kayle, Diana, Jayce -- they all have ways of sticking to their opponents. Jayce relies on bonus AD items, so his AAs are already decent enough to continue engaging, but Kayle and Diana especially are great examples of how it should work. You have some ability to buff the AAs, you have a ranged spell that helps to set up an engage or continue one, you have a slow, and damage mitigation. With Gragas, you have all of that except for a way for a continuous engage.

So, here is my suggestion: adjust one value of his W to pre-rework status -- the buffed auto-attacks -- and he'll be much more viable than currently. Because then, you have E to engage on the enemy, a W to buff your weak auto-attacks and provide damage mitigation, and Q to slow the enemy to help you stick to them.