

I’m not a road engineer, but it takes more conditioning of the road around the hole to patch (due to thermal events and traffic speed - especially in the US NE for example). A poorly filled pothole doesn’t remain filled very long if done poorly, but even if done well it may only last until the next winter. This then becomes the financial debate of patch vs replacement of road sections.
You don’t have to use an AUR helper, you could build it all with makepkg, but the helper just allows you to save time searching, downloading, and building.