I dislike that Aatrox changes went into Drain Tank direction instead of melee carry direction

To be fair, he already built like that before. Two damage items, into pretty much tank for the rest

Melee carries require CC negation (see or vs or ).

There's only so many ways Riot can create CC negation and tie it thematically to a champion.

Or they could just slap it on like Rengar.

He was always a drain tank

The melee carry style of Aatrox is simply too binary to be balancable.

Wow, he went towards his intended purpose. What a concept.

Few things. Thing one, if he gets classed as a melee carry, he'd currently be a weaker Tryndamere.

Thing two, drain tanks like Aatrox are going to be late game champions anyways. He still is somewhat of a melee carry, he just goes bruiser instead of glass cannon. He's still putting out impressive DPS. He has to, because his defense relies on it.