"aatrox was too unhealthy to be kept in the game"

I can't, you're right.

Uh, wrong. When does he ever get to just run at anyone? Have you heard of CC? ANY cc fucks old Aatrox hard. His damage and healing (which is his ONLY build in defense--unlike other top laners that have passive resistances, shields, blocks etc) was useless if his attack speed was slowed or he was stunned. And his revive was near useless as he just sat there waiting to usually die again.

You have no god damn idea what you are talking about.

{quoted}

Old Aatrox pressed R then mashed Q and E in your general direction while right-clicking you to death (Which made him only slightly different from Trynd).

To kinda correct you on this (some people kinda forget the true combo), you would Q then R so you can get more hits in before they leave your range and have the guaranteed R damage on top. E comes after that.

No, thats not what Aatrox did. You have no idea what you are talking about just like every other person on these boards who peddle the bs narrative the Riot pushed on us to justify deleting a champion out of the game.

{quoted}

Yes, because a draintank that literally just ran at you and hit you until you died or until he died was healthy, but champions who are designed around landing high-importance skillshots (If you die to Zoe and she misses every Q and E (and isn't 5 kills up on you), you're honestly beyond the point where any coach could salvage you) that actually need to be landed to get a kill are unhealthy.

New Irelia needs to land E (Harder than it looks, since it's such a narrow skillshot) and time W decently well to actually win. Zoe isn't killing you without landing E and Q unless someone on your team actually inted into her. New Akali needs to land E and R, and is one of the only assassins with delays in the middle of her combo, rather than only at the start (like Eve's W) or after it's already over (Zed's R, for example). Old Aatrox pressed R then mashed Q and E in your general direction while right-clicking you to death (Which made him only slightly different from Trynd).

If an Aatrox pressed R before he tried to land anywhere near you -which means Aatrox most likely never ran at anyone- with the much harder to land Q and E than it looks, then the player behind him was pretty bad and predictably lost way more fights on average than one who comboed properly. You needed to be close to someone to deal damage with the R activation, it worked like an instant Leona W. I'm so pained when people claim Aatrox took no skill and believe it. I've watched whatever Aatrox gameplay I could find on Youtube and elsewhere over more than 4 years and 1 out of every 100 content creators performed reasonably with Aatrox, the rest missed at least half of the micro you could pull off (as a result the game was ultimately decided by macro, the team and general luck in all regards). The tilt I felt whenever I watched someone who wasn't even scratching the upper limits of the character's potential proves being truly good at Aatrox was a rare thing, and when the mediocre and good Aatrox (solely by micro) is set apart so noticeably that validates the stance Aatrox wasn't binary nor braindead, this applies to most other auto attacker type of champions as well, Yi probably being the bottom contender (Yi's R is braindead, I admit lol, feels this way because of the synergies it has and the double edge of low effort and hyper carry). Just as much as if you watch an average high elo player on Trynd who isn't a Trynd main you'll see way less of that possible skill (Trynd's E is somewhat hard to use properly because he has 125 range and you can easily misposition yourself, even a few units mistake you will feel if you strive for perfection in your plays, his W needs a lot of focus and enemy reading against skilled players and his Q is reminiscent in demand to old old Aatrox's resource management, you have to have good decision making, same for his R, and then you have auto attack management which is just as hard as for a ranged character, but you don't have their distance for yourself). You could say after this: "yeah but that's still not the same micro demand, just decision making". Trynda's 3-4 spells need good reflexes even if you only have to aim one. I'm pretty sure reflex counts as micro. All that aside Aatrox was more micro intensive in his own right than Trynd is. Yi is underneath these two in difficulty and let's say Garen is a mile down, which is funny for a caster champ. I don't know even why everyone seems to always forget about auto attackers that perfect orbwalking takes way more skill than it seems, just for one example.

On a side note what is the risk factor of landing such a high-importance skill shot (Zoe, Irelia). Usually not as much as an all-in. They don't need to put themselves too close in most cases, Zoe always auto warps back, Irelia has decent range with her e. Both can achieve very low cd on these. Aatrox's was one of the most counterable playstyles by such simplicity as buying cheap items against him. Attack speed reductions and heal reductions cut into his potency deeply, I always hated how hard the game geared against that, felt like most other champions can't be managed against this way. (complete item counters and not just one, imagine playing against the combination of them on top of that, and it's not even just a spellshield against one high-priority move from him, it's to nullify his threat with permanent impunity)

It might be surprising but a huge chunk of the community prefers an auto attack playstyle, mainly most of the adc playerbase. The question stands to reason that those who belong there just think in melee have to be pushed out of the game?

It's okay if you don't agree with some of my points, I just want to show every coin has two sides and these things are not as clear-cut as some others, it's easy to counter back and forth and no side is absolutely right. I also am aware autos can't be dodged by normal means, but at least here you have the fact quite a few high impact spells enjoy some priority against cc. Autos are interrupted by cc and itemization has great counter potential against them too, at least when we talk about the average auto attack. On a last note I'm not trying to defend old Aatrox hard here, I'd have been fine too if Rito had addressed the parts of his kit that apparently opponents found overbearing (which was almost never my impression though). While keeping his stoic frenzy allure and his animations/animation quality and his wings intact. Sorry if this stretched long.

That is not true. Its just propaganda that you are regurgitating. Tell me, where is the skill in jax? Point and click leap, blocking damage ending with a hard CC? Ult passive resistances scaling off of his AD items?

Aatrox was only a stat check when ahead. Guess what, many champions doe that today. And they do it far worse than Aatrox ever could.

If you think there is no skill expression, why didn't players just ride him to platinum? Because he was relatively weak, and easily countered.

You have no idea what you are talking about.