Aatrox, a Gameplay Update
I have been enjoying playing support Aatrox recently, but that is besides the point here and I am obviously not going to base my ideas around this. Aatrox has a really cool theme with the whole dark lord wielding a living sword so I want to emphasize this better so this means moving him away from being a bland basic attacker, this leaves room to place him into a unique status of why you should pick Aatrox rather than someone like Xin Zhao or Jax for example.
Things I like and fine cool about Aatrox: ~ Having a revive passive to be a play maker and coming back to life when focused cause you were the first one in ~ Taking flight with Q and then slamming into the ground for a potential game changing knock-up ~ His E being in the shape of a sword as it travels to a point ~ His ultimate feeling powerful ~ Being a type of drain tank ~ Having meaningful health costs
Things not so cool about Aatrox: ~ His W is often forgotten or just left on for the heal ~ His ultimate does not have a real impact despite feeling like it does ~ Too similar to other basic attack melee champions and gets lost in the mix
Things I want to accomplish: ~ Emphasize the flight in Dark Flight (Q) ~ Take away basic attack elements to grant him power elsewhere ~ Make W into a real ability rather than a basic attacker buffer ~ Make his ultimate have the impact that it feels like it has when you cast it
Basic Attack Range: 125 units Movement: 345 units per second
Blood Well (Passive): Static Cooldown: 225/200/175/150 seconds @levels 1/6/11/16 Whenever Aatrox consumes a portion of his health from his abilities he stores it up in his Blood Well, up to a maximum of 35% of his maximum health. Upon taking fatal damage, Aatrox enters into a stasis draining his Blood Well and healing himself for the value stored up over 3 seconds.
The Blood Well depletes at a rate of 2% per second if Aatrox has not dealt or received damage in the last 5 seconds.
Every 1% of blood in the Blood Well grants Aatrox 0.35/0.4/0.45/0.5% increased healing from all sources except from Blood Well.
Dark Flight (Q): Cooldown: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds; Cost: 10% current Health Aatrox takes flight to be constantly in motion and slowly descend over 5 seconds. Aatrox gains 20/25/30/35/40% increased movement speed while in flight, can see and be seen over terrain, and can fly over terrain if he is high enough.
After 0.5 second, Aatrox can choose to cast Dark Flight again to slam into the ground dealing 80/120/160/200/240(+70%bonus AD) physical damage to nearby enemies and knocking enemies directly below him into the air for 1 second.
Blood Drain (W): Cooldown: 6/5/4/3/2 seconds; Cost: 60/70/80/90/100 Health; Range: 200/250/300/350/400 units Passive: Aatrox's basic attacks gain 25/50/75/100/125 units bonus range.
Active: Aatrox pierces the target enemy with his sword to deal 60/80/100/120/140(+40%bonus AD) true damage and healing himself for 25/30/35/40/45(+2.5%max Health), this heal is increased by 200% when Aatrox is below 40% health.
Blades of Torment (E): Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/8 seconds; Cost: 5% current Health; Range: 1000 units Aatrox unleashes two converging energy waves to deal 80/110/140/170/200(+65%AP)(+65%bonus AD) magic damage to struck enemies and slowing them down by 20% to 80% for 1.75/2/2.25/2.5/2.75 seconds based on Aatrox's missing health.
Massacre (R): Cooldown: 100/90/80 seconds; Cost: 40% current Health; Range: 550 units Aatrox draws in the blood of his foes filling his Blood Well by 20% and healing himself for 15% of his missing health for every enemy champion struck and dealing 200/300/400(+100%AP) magic damage to every enemy struck while grounding them for 2/2.5/3 seconds.
Additionally, Aatrox's sword doubles in length granting his basic attack double its range for 10 seconds.
Grounding debuff causing the foes to be unable to instantly teleport, teleport, dash, hop, jump, etc all forms of very quick or instant mobility; to clarify speed buffs are not included in this. I personally feel Aatrox is cooler as a draining tank or tanky damage dealer that is both constantly low on health and I granted rewards for wanting to be low on health like a better heal (currently there), more heal on his ultimate that I gave him, and a better slow on Blades of Torment and weaker slow for being healthy, and to balance him out I tried to make him a better teamfighter and weaker 1v1 dualist.
I tried to keep Aatrox's early game sustain low just so that during the laning phase he cannot simply ignore all kinds of damage the enemy throws at him, but allow him to have pretty good healing as he levels up and the game moves away from laning phase.
