Deathwing is rarely seen in higher diamond, master or even grand master ranks.
That is partly because of his “delayed” abilities, which needs a lot of planning/preparation/team-positioning and can be avoided by good players easier than the abilities of most other heroes.
Also DW has some pretty hard counters that are not that easy to play around.
Because of that using every single auto-attack between using abilities is extremely crucial/necessary. I’m probably one of the few people who play DW regularly in “higher” ranks and I really wonder about the thought process behind the auto attack nerf.
In lower/mid ranks it all might still work out, I’m pretty sure. But in higher ranks a DW will really miss the auto attack damage without a reliable substitute for it.
Also… DW hitting with his auto attacks like an old man? 
Come on.
The rest will really need to be tested in a longer series of ranked games, but I feel like the auto attack damage is very necessary to make DW a bit reliable and will be missed. Also lore wise simply a part of him being a big dragon.
I don’t think the cast time reduction on the abilities will help much on higher ranks. As it won’t really change anything for players who already figured out how to “plan” their abilities in a way to make them hit in most cases despite the delay.
MAYBE increasing the size of the area of “lava burst” (together with the other changes) might help using it as a zoning tool.
As a DW player also knowing how to play “against” DW I find it pretty easy to “counter” a DW in most situations and much less troublesome than being DW. Maybe there are even less players able to deal with the counters (there are too many heroes who can counter DW to ban all of them), but I usually am even more comfortable playing against DW than playing DW.
Though I love and prefer playing DW.
I feel like in general rarely played heroes should not need TOO many situational/draft requirements to be viable. But to a certain degree it’s also what makes the games fun. That some heroes are a bit better in certain situations than others. And I know that’s not easy to balance.
So thanks for trying!
Though I think HotS was and still is in an overall good position regarding balancing.
Some people even enjoyed that it wasn’t a constant balance change like in other games, though I am aware that’s a personal preference.
Introducing changes now without enough capacity for testing might bring a slightly higher risk for nerfing/buffing heroes a bit too much.
Anyway… just my two cents… from a DW perspective. I don’t want any hero (including DW) to be too strong, and he definitely isn’t. But I also don’t want a hero to be too weak in too many situations.
Anyway… I love hots. Keep it alive! <3
And maybe one day revive it again even more! 