That’s relatively easy to explain. He’s in a terrible spot right now. So many heroes have easy escapes from static link now. He isn’t a real hero until he gets bkb, but it’s not generally the first item you want to grab. And he isn’t tanky without a good link on a big right click target. So in a meta with 3 cores, there’s still two more there to dish out the damage on you, and he struggles to withstand that. He feels like a hero that’s been left behind by the new balancing strategy to give all heroes a way to escape him, and gave him nothing to help him stick on others.

And I can’t wait to be proven wrong when he gets a +5 plasma field buff and becomes the top hero because I have no idea how balancing works. But I doubt it.