I played him after the nerf, and yea it felt kind of bad... but I also have not played him in a really long time.
In theory his damage is till there, except for the phoenix... but even then, you probably weren't casting it on CD against heroes anyway... and the shield is really only most helpful within the first 1 - 2 seconds anyway... His early game is worse because it's a little bit harder to gank, but that's true across the board.
I think maybe in general he's probably just getting pushed down by Li Ming
edit: HAHA oh man, I just went in to hotslogs to see who fairs well against Li Ming, and she's got a greater then 50% winrate against everyone except Rehgar who she has a 49.5% winrate against. If that's not balanced then I don't know what is.