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Aatrox rework ideas

VelvetWalrus·5/17/2017, 3:16:18 AM·8 votes·832 views

Wanted to see what myself and a friend could come up with for an Aatrox rework, we feel like this makes him more into a proper war god who's goal is to inspire his allies then massacre an army himself. (numbers may not be great but they are a starting point based on other existing skills)

TL:DR This Aatrox rework would focuses more on buffing his allies then becoming a lifesteal tank, carving out a niche in making full ad teams more viable and adding back a damage buffing character as there are very few in the game. With the introduction of the new ammumu changes we felt something similar could work in the AD department.

Base stats level 1-18 HEALTH 597 – 2178 ATTACK DAMAGE 60 – 119 HEALTH REGEN. 8.51 – 23.8 ATTACK SPEED 0.694 (+ 0 – 45.9%) ARMOR 25.9 – 85.4 MAGIC RESIST. 32.1 – 53.4 MELEE 175 MOVE. SPEED 340

Abilities Passive: Rage of the Darkin Cooldown 300/270/240/210 (1,6,11,16) Upon taking fatal damage Aatrox will revive, recovering 35-50% of his base health (based on level) over 4 seconds. Spell hits on champs marked with enmity of the war god reduce the cooldown by five seconds.

**Q: Dark Flight ** (no cost) physical damage:70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+ 75% bonus AD) Range: 650 Cooldown: 18 / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14 Aatrox dashes forward with his blade, stopping on the first champion hit and Crippling them, reducing move speed by 80% for 1 second and applying Enmity of the War God mark.

W: Enmity of the Darkin (cost 5% current health) physical damage: 65/95/125/155/185(+40% AD) Range: 250 Cooldown: 7/ 6.5 / 6 / 5.5 / 5 Passive: Aatox's basic attacks mark enemies with Enmity of the War God increasing physical damage taken from champions by 5% (before mitigation) for 4 seconds. Basic attacks refresh the duration. Active: Aatrox sweeps in an arch with sword, applying the mark to all enemies hit and dealing physical damage in a half circle skill aoe in front of him. If the target is already marked Aatrox will also deal 5% of the targets missing life as bonus damage (200 cap vs monsters) and heal 5% of his own missing life.(max 10%)

**E: Blades of Torment ** (cost 30 health) Physical Damage 70 / 110 / 150 / 190 / 230 (+ 70% bonus AD) Range: 1000 Cooldown: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 Aatrox unleashes two converging energy waves in the target direction, dealing bonus damage based on distance traveled (up to 50%) Hitting a champ marked with enmity of the war god Cripples them for a reduced duration (.25-1 sec), scaling up based on distance traveled.

R: Banner of the War God (no cost) Cooldown: 75 Duration: 10 sec Cast range: 300 Effect Range: 1500 armor ignore 35/40/45% Aatrox spawns a war banner which sends himself and nearby allies into a rage, increasing all physical damage done by 10% and increasing all damage taken by 5% while causing allies to ignore bonus armor when attacking enemy champions. The rage ends after 10 seconds or after a one second delay upon leaving the banner radius.

Details and Reasoning I feel that Aatrox has suffered for a long time from old evelynn syndrome. its not that the kit is bad or that riot can't figure out the number, but Aatrox has an unhealthy kit that is not fun to play against. The easiest two comparisons to make is evelynn and vlad who share similar issues. Starting with eve, specifically old eve. For those who dont know what old eve was, imagine shaco, but when he back stabbed you from stealth (which lasted 50 sec) it would stun, and instead of her current ult she had a massive attack speed and move speed steroid. It was so frustrating to play against because it didn't feel like there was any reliable counter play, short of investing 400 gold for the true sight buff. So riot ended up removing the stun from the kit completely which made her almost entirely useless. Eventually they had to completely rework her from the ground up to fix this. Aatrox is in a similar spot, if he had the stats to be good no damage would ever stick to him, making all poke useless, and all inning him isnt an option as he would heal so much most top lane champs wouldn't be able to duel him regardless of how well you played. Here is where vlad is different, because the common counter argument is " Vlad isnt broken and he is a spellvamp tank/damage dealer why cant Aatrox be?" While its true Vlad does fill a similar role there is one big difference, that being that vlad is extremely weak against early all in champs where as a well stated Aatrox would pretty much walk all over almost anyone in a straight up fight, then lifesteal back to full which is incredibly frustrating. All that being said, there probably is a knife edge set of numbers that when perfectly tuned would cause Aatrox with his current kit to be both viable and balanced, the issue is that it is so precarious any change to the game could result in him falling dramatically into the super op camp, or the completely useless one. While this kit may not be perfect i believe it fits his theme and adds a way for full ad comps to be something people might think about. Would love to hear peoples thoughts and possible improvements :D

Credit VelvetWalrus & MrVua

9 Comments

GCleazy5/17/2017, 3:46:21 AM3 votes

Wait, I like this. : ) I could see something like this going into the game. Aatrox

Ramen2265/17/2017, 3:20:04 AM2 votes

Yoooo I actually posted something similar to this a few minutes ago :D

Nice to see someone who can articulate the point a bit better than me.

+1

4th Chiming Lamb5/17/2017, 4:37:44 AM1 votes

Damn fine ideas! Riot just has to make it complicated as fuck by giving EotWG interactions with every other ability!

GULAG 4 U5/17/2017, 10:46:27 AM1 votes

I haven't read the whole thing, but the passive probably isn't a good idea. The revive is one of Aatrox's major balance issues. It should go IMO.

SirLapse5/17/2017, 11:02:37 AM1 votes

Good design in terms of theme but I personally feel like Aatrox with his current kit is alright. The kit you're proposing actually feels more like an assassin type of gameplay with how all-or-nothing it is. How would this be any different from picking a less reliable Talon? You buff Miss Fortune to do even more ridiculous damage seeing as she is not a typical ADC that needs to reposition often for best DPS and survivability? It sounds good on paper but I don't see it being used in practical situations. Adding a cost onto W just perpetuates the same issue he had before for trading purposes, essentially requiring him to land an extra AA to cover the HP loss. Everyone's all about trying to make Aatrox sound cool for teamfighting and typically ignore his lane dynamic.

Blades of Torment if kept the same will reward you more for holding the skill and trying to hit it at max range, which is non-intuitive and would make Q>E pretty unrewarding in longer fights. 18 second CD dash is very impractical as well seeing as current rework Aatrox needed his Q CD reduced. Not to mention making tanks completely irrelevant via ulti is broken but when limited to such a zone will be useless outside of certain situations (like MF ulting). People constantly reposition for teamfights and Maokai's first ultimate was useless for the same reason as the ultimate you are suggesting. I think that you're not very experienced balance-wise on the numbers but I'd rather give you my reasoning than just calling it plain bad.

Only time I feel Aatrox is unfun to play against is when you're a tank, because he'll beat you at every stage of the game like Kled unless you're playing turret defense simulator. But picks like Pantheon and Jayce already force you to play that way. This version of Aatrox just ensures that he's easily kited (anyone can literally just step in front of you like for Nautilus/Galio), plays like an assassin which already gets beaten by tanks as the game continues, and would be feast or famine entirely based on how he uses ulti and if the enemy team has a tank at all on it. There's a difference between giving a niche usage to a champion and forcing them into a niche usage.

Zephyrous X5/17/2017, 2:02:15 PM1 votes

I think it's definitely interesting but aatrox isn't aatrox without a personal attack speed steroid