why dont people use pantheon ever since after aphellos went out he went DARK.

he's not a mage.

he has a 3% play rate i guess he is just bad into aatrox and aatrox is fotm

I would say it's probably just the fact that all the meta tops, mordekaiser, fiora, darius, plus whichever ranged champ the autofills happen to be playing all just destroy pantheon bc he has little sustained damage and low base damage and his e being a movable better braum shield actually took up a reasonable amount of power budget for his kit so he is nit broken like other champs. That's basically it, he just isn't broken tier

Because the balance of the kit sucks. Your E is your only defensive tool, and plenty of champs can easily just go behind it and kill your ass. Your Q is your main damage, and its good damage is put behind the passive. He needed to be a bruiser champ, not this "I go in, try to one shot the adc, then die either killing them or not killing them" champ that isn't an assassin.