Are you happy with new the Gragas Riot?

I don't understand how Riot can be happy with this new version of Gragas.

Went from an often played champion in the pro scene to absolutely gone. His win rate was never that good and it got even worse in solo que. They took a champion that was making an impact in the LoL scene and basically removed him from any sort of relevance. Is that the mark of success?

He was turned from primarily an AP burst caster to an AP bruiser. This hurt Gragas in two big ways. First, the itemization for AP burst casters is infinitely better than for AP bruisers which have some of the worst itemization in the game. Riot takes forever to deal with itemization issues and almost never adds new items at all unless its inbetween seasons (and even then barely) so we cant expect any help on this end soon.

Second, AP bruisers just dont have much place in todays meta. The top lane is ruled primarily by manaless champs that have either a strong early or late game. Gragas lost the mana regen from his W so he cant sustain up there as well as the others and he is not strong early or late. He is just sort of mediocre the whole way through. AD bruisers get to rely on strong base stats to deal damage with when they build tanky. If Gragas builds tanky, he does no damage in comparison, yet thats the lane that Riot basically relegated him too.

But worst of all is how counter-intuitive his kit is. His W is still clunky and horrible. I dont get the design decisions that go into creating a very short duration on-hit ability and then forcing him to channel it before using it. Its a huge tell that you are going to try to be aggressive and the duration is so low its very easy for enemies to back off and not even miss CS over it because they can come right back.

Bodyslam actually knocks people away which has reverse synergy with his W. They also lowered his movespeed for some bizarre reason so even if you do manage to W without the enemy backing off and then E them to try to auto, you gave them a headstart getting away from you with the knockback and his movespeed is so low that they can just walk away. They also dont even let Gragas automatically auto champions right after his E hits them creating even more artificial delay. And that change was supposed to help Gragas lol. He should automatically auto the lowest health champion hit by his E whether his W is channeled or not.

So basically you are left with having to E in, Q to slow them, and then W all just to get off a low cooldown on hit ability. And you are supposed to survive vs the current manaless top lane crop how exactly doing this?

Finally, before what made tanky gragas possible was his W steroid. The low duration of the defensive steroid now makes it basically luck based whether it protects you from anything or not. Its a tiny window and you have to channel ahead of time. Another case of reverse synergy. Champions with defensive steroids use them when they realize they need that extra boost right away. Apparently Gragas players have to have some level of precognitive abilities no other bruisers require in order to get much use of his defensive steroid.

The last thing I saw Riot post about Gragas was jus that he was a little under-tuned which just suggests adjusting some numbers. That's just the start of the problems with this new Gragas and I just dont understand how Riot can be satisfied overall with the synergy of his kit and the invisible place within league this previously visible champ has been relegated too from a rework I never heard any player ask for.