Why Aurelion Sol shouldn't be nerfed (yet)

So Aurelion sol has some pretty significant nerfs coming to him on the PBE. For those that haven't seen, these are the current changes being tested.

Starsurge (Q) Stun duration lowered to 1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4/1.5 from 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2

Voice of Light (R): Slow lowered to 40/50/60% from 60/70/80% Slow duration changed to [2 seconds] rather than [decaying over 4 seconds]

As someone who has played almost exclusively Aurelion Sol since release, achieving level 5 mastery on the champion, and a farly decent winrate of about 80% I feel like I'm at least somewhat qualified to talk about this champion.

So why shouldn't Aurelion Sol be nerfed?

In short, he's a high risk, high reward mage with plenty of exploitable weaknesses to counteract his stregnths. While there are a few Aurelion sol players (like myself) that have been dominating games with him, I feel like the games that I have been winning with the champion have been due to people simply not playing agisnt the champion properly. Rather than the champion itself being blatantly overpowered.

There are numerous mistakes I see people consistantly make whenever I play Sol.

But before I get into them, I'd like to mention that I mostly play Aurelion sol top, so my examples will mostly revolve around Top lane sol.

First Mistake

Failure to commit.

When playing as Aurelion Sol, you are are your most vulnerable whenever an enemy champion is right up in your face. Your options here are incredibly limited. Not only this, but your dps is effectively 0 so long as the enemy hugs your blind spot. Whenever I play sol, people often make the mistake of not commiting fully to fights against me. They take short trades then back off, when they could easily have gone all in, or at least taken a much more favorable trade. When you go for short trades then kite back, you give Aurelion a window to retaliate. Simply stick onto him and you'll have him begging for mercy before long.

Second Mistake

Lack of Respect.

As an Aurelion Sol player, Rarely will I get many kills in lane. Aurelion actually has a poor lane phase agaisnt most matchups. Due to the first weakness I highlighted, many champions can simply jump on him and whail on him a bit, and there simply isn't much he can do back. However, where Sol's biggest stregnth is his roaming power. Especially his Reaction Roams, where he waits for action to happen on the map and immediately rotates down to assist his teamates. Sol can move around the map deceptively fast thanks to his Q and E. You need to respect this.

When an Aurelion sol is in Fog of War. Do not force fights. I repeat. Do not force fights.

You have to assume that, Like a quinn. When he's Mia from lane, he's on his way to kill you. And he'll be there in less than 15 seconds. Fighting your opponent while Aurelion is missing is a huge risk. And if you choose to do so, do not complain when he suddenly shows up in your lane a few seconds later and kills you.

Third Mistake

Lack of Vision

Building off of my previous point, Aurelion's biggest stregnth in mid game are his roams. By getting deep vision down, you can spot a sol out before he flies into your lane, allowing you to avoid the gank alltogether. If you can deny a Sol from roaming freely, he will have a much more difficult time, as he doesn't have the strongest lane phase, and is vulnerable to ganks himself.

You simply must play differently when there is a Sol on the enemy team. 9 out of 10 players do not know this. And as a result, getting free kills around the map is very easy.

Fourth Mistake

Perhaps the biggest mistake people make. They do not abuse cool down windows.

This is so imporatnt against sol. Especially since sol is so vulnerable when his two CC spells, Q and R, are on cooldown. If you jump on a Sol. He has 2 opions.

1. Run

or

2. Ult

If he has Rylais built, he has a third option which is to pull in his stars, run, Allow one tick of rylais to go off on his opponent (provided he an hit them with a star), then Q and proceed to kite. This isn't very effective since it takes time to set up, and you are going to take plenty of damage as you attempt to pull it off.

So look at this, his most reliable form of disengage is his ult. This is on an incredibly long cooldown, and isn't even avaliable to him pre-6. If an aurelion ults. That is a ~2 minute window that you have to go aggressive on him. CDR is not part of his core item build, so this cooldown is consistently long thorughout the game.

If an aurelion sol misses Q in lane, or uses it to hurass. You have a 10 second window where Aurelion has no stun, thus no way to disengage a fight agaisnt you. If you go aggressive on him, you will get off a very favorable trade, if not kill him.

These are just three mistakes of many that I see people make. But you might argue, "His kit is still too strong"

And I agree, his kit is very strong when Sol is on the offensive. While his kit might have plenty of exploitable weaknesses. it also boasts quite a few strong points to offset that.

Aurelion is a high risk high reward champion. If he outplays you, his CC and damage combined will spell (near) certain death for you or your allies.

However, if he makes even the tinest of mistakes and gets CC'd or engaged upon. There is very little that he can do to protect himslef. His highs are high and his lows are low. He is not without counterplay. He is a mid ranged mage that has to be within 550 units of his opponents to be effective. This is plenty close enough for the enemy to CC him, Focus him, and burst him down.

Why is Riot nerfing him then?

I can only assume it's becasue of his 61% winrate in midlane with roughtly 15-50 games played. I do not trust this statistic though for several reasons.

1. No similar winrates are shwon in any of the ohter lanes, Top, jungle, or Mid. In fact, the winrate drops at 15-50 games played.

2. The sample size is very small. Not many people will have that many games played on Aurelion so shortly after realease. This is the same reason you don't nerf a champion that has a 80% winrate in challenger. The sample size is very small, So numbers are bound to get inflated in one way or the other.

3. People don't know how to play against Sol yet. People who have played him for 15+ games have a good idea of what he does. His skill floor isn't very high. However, learning to play agaisnt sol takes large adjustments on his enemy's part, and poeple simply haven't adjusted to this yet.

My Proposal.

Wait, at least until patch 6.9 before any nerfs go through to sol. Riot Meddler wishes to nerf sol before others learn of his stregnth and he takes over games. However, Once players learn how to play against him. We may see his winrate take a significant plummet. Similar to what happened to Illaoi. Current data is too unreliable to go thoguh with such a significant nerf to sol.

In many matchups, Sol's only window to go aggressive agasint his opponent is when they are stunned. Every second of that stun is precious to him. So these nerfs are much bigger than they appear on paper. This isn't a "Small" nerf as Meddler described it. Lets wait and see how the LoL playerbase adapts to this champion. Then buff or nerf accordingly.