4 top mains and a supp

Make for a relentless force. Merciless. Unstoppable btw.

https://abload.de/img/4topsandabotibsjb.png

Since this is in gameplay i'd like to lose a few words about Aatrox.

I like him. I was really hyped about him unlike many other people. I also think a lot of his quotes are voice acting wise totally over the top and also too forced in edgyness as well as way too many forced jokes IMO but i love his animations, his visuals are good, his gameplay fantasy is something i totally support. I love and hate dark souls which is one of the reasons why i like the new Aatrox he looks and feels like straight from a boss fight.

Which unfortunately brings some problems.

So far i played him top, mid and jungle with actually some good results. His lane presence is pretty good it is not too hard to assert dominance. His base stat buffs were absolutely necessary since otherwise you just get destroyed. Every juggernaut is deadly in melee range which is exactly what they are supposed to do and before that it felt really bad to get jumped on and murdered. I think a lot of people still need to figure out his play pattern to keep the enemy at range and not let them get into melee range until you want it. That might sound contradictory but it is not. He can fulfill both which is why i'm not for giving him too much help numbers wise otherwise he starts to destroy everyone. Still the problem is the players i fought so far aren't very good and i can see him having a lot of trouble against a lot of your typical fighters by players who properly abuse his long windup and animations (think jax, camille, fiora, irelia).

I also fear that he is pretty good in the jungle. His clear is great, a bit unhealthy on the first one but i probably had shit runes and i'm still not too sure what to take on him in the jungle tbh. Why do i fear it? We got a toplaner taken and reworked and i really hope riot does not just say "fuck you" to toplaners and let him become a jungler or support. That's the least riot can do to appease old aatrox mains that he is still playable in toplane or even excels there.

So his lane presence is actually okay to good, his jungling is good. What is the problem? Teamfighting. While you can kinda play around it in the jungle and lane in general his problems become glaringly obvious in teamfights. It's too easy for everyone to just walk away, dash out, flash out, CC you etc. before you are even able to do something. He honestly doesn't hit hard enough to justify how utterly dogshit it feels to hit his abilities. He also has zero ability to tank in a fight (which according to riot he is supposed to do. Over at reddit they said he should be a dmg threat but also soak damage) but how can you tank when you rely on your "draintanking" but can't hit your only valuable spell? It feels like riots boner for melees having to be "unreliable" and the need of "counterplay" got into their way and an otherwise awesome champ turned into something that might as well not exist in teamfights. In riots vision they probably want aatrox to just go full tank straight away or MAYBE one dmg item and full tank but that isn't going to work. Tanks aren't played only because they are boring as hell but also because THEY CANNOT CARRY and in soloQ which is full of r word player you NEED to carry by dmg in fights until a certain elo bracket where people play around tanks.

So currently one item into full tank is just not justifiable because of how unreliable it is to hit and it really isn't that rewarding then to hit something. He should be able to build bruiserish and deal tons of dmg just like everyone else who goes for sterak, GA, BC and all these semi tank items. I firmly believe fun>everything and aatrox IS and WILL BE fun as a damage dealer champion primarily and i'm really begging riot to not try to keep his "well he deals a bit of dmg but he should primarily be some frontline dmg soaking piece of shit noone cares about" playstyle. Because when he is so unreliable and you give him tons of dmg even with a tank build he might be working but not fun and satisfying to play imo and i think it wil be too hard to not make him overpowered. Rather give him incencitive to build dmg and make him a bit more reliable in exchange for him not being able to tank as well as riot might imagine.

How to make him more reliable/feel less shit to play: Speed up his animations a bit. Before you tamper more and more with numbers make him feel better in play. Make his Q animations a bit faster. Remove that weird lock out on E. You Q E and then you can't use the second charge. That feels like shit. I'd honestly prefer his passive AA to not be proccable on minions tbh even if you have to nerf the dmg so you can't walk up all day for 10% max HP. Remove the ult lockout. You are in a fight that goes dangerously for you you pop ult and suddenly can't use anything because of the animation. Yes yes riot and other people here will tell me i need to activate ult before the fight that's why he has MS boost and shit but why would i do this when his ult runs out half way through the fight and i die regardless? What use does the ult have? If him being able to ult and immediately use his abilities make him a bit too strong you can just nerf back the CD so it is an actually powerful spell. I'd prefer his W slow to be higher but probably too easy to setup ganks then so maybe a bit more range? It kinda feels not so good to use as a catching tool. So overall as i said earlier he feels way too unreliable but in a forced way which makes it feel bad to play him despite him being fun. His laning so far is pretty okay but all these little quirks i mentioned just let him teamfight so poorly which is unnecessary i don't get why riot is so hellbent on him having to be unreliable in a way that doesn't make him feel good to play.

Edit: Okay im dumb when it comes to this high tech, why doesn't it show my picture? :(

Also: If you find any errors, like something is unclear, worded badly just ask away and i will explain. I might have made some mistakes, logical jumps i'm currently a bit sick and feel dizzy so sometimes it's hard to keep track for me.