Why Aatrox CAN be buffed and is a GOOD candidate for being buffed.

Honestly, I think this is the new thing to bandwagon. Either there's a much greater community for Aatrox than I expected or all the Aatrox mains are fed up and are finally starting to bash on the boards. Regardless, there's a bunch of other folk who have jumped on the "let's make an Aatrox post!" and others who are apart of the "no he's toxic! he drain tanks too hard!" response team.

WARNING: This is probably going to be a long post.

There's a lot of misinformation being spread across the boards recently. It's not season 3 anymore, he's not as good as he once was compared to other roster of top/junglers. He held a nice little niche back then but his sustain has been nerfed (50% -> 35% attack speed at lvl 1 is a pretty big nerf which destroyed his mediocre clear time and made him a moderately weaker duelist) and is now way overdue in terms of viability and effectiveness.

I don't get people saying he has a 'toxic kit'. The word 'toxic' is being thrown around so casually it's lost its meaning. What exactly is toxic? Aatrox's below 50% good sustain and over 50% weak sustain mechanic? I can understand if people meant snowbally but even in that instance he is a far lesser evil than many others in the top lane. I think people are forgetting that Irelia, Fiora and Riven exist. They all become obnoxious and can do far more than what Aatrox can. When you play Aatrox, you are auto-attack reliant. If you can't hit someone, you can't do jack sh!t. This has been the very same problem that all melee auto attackers have faced in the past. What does he get in exchange if he can hit someone? He gets a choice; either do more damage or heal a little bit. Fiora, Xin Zhao and Irelia don't have this dilemma, the heal is just a bonus for them and they are usually tacked on an already powerful ability.

Point being: He is not 'toxic', he is fairly balanced where he has to make a decision to either deal damage or heal, something new champions lack.

Maybe we have to scroll back all the way to the S3 threads about Aatrox and his "insane lifesteal" mechanic, back when it was actually strong and there were far fewer options to deal with him. The counter argument was simple. If he did not have some sort of sustain, his kit would not work. He uses % current hp as a substitute for mana. Whilst this may be considered "resource-less" by some, it actually is what keeps him in check. Any other champion that uses mana or fury will scale to a much stronger late game. They can buy 1 offensive item and then build defensive and get away with it and still be able to shrug off or heal the damage they receive later on in the game. Unlike those guys, Aatrox has pitiful hp recovery outside of his sustain mechanic (which i need to emphasise is ONLY strong below 50% hp, at late game it's his LIFESTEAL ITEMS that is healing him not the W) and if you want to build bruiser, you better have a lifesteal item or you effectively cannot function with those huge health costs. He just CANNOT be this 'draintank' concept that people are making out for him to be, he doesn't work like that and if you've ever seen or played an Aatrox you'd know that as well.

Point being: He is not this 'DRAIN TANK' concept people are making him out to be. He has high % health costs which keeps him regulated and fairly balanced in his state where he is allowed a decent sustain mechanic. His late game sustain comes from his items and not his W which in effect, is evidence that he cannot become this comical concept through his kit alone. Even with many lifesteal items, his core mechanic being auto-attacks keeps him from becoming a successful 'DRAIN TANK' since CC and his lack of defensive stats exists.

He doesn't HAVE to receive a buff per se, but honestly why can't he? He has not received any proper help or support for a long time. Even after his release when he was seeing 'some' games in higher elo and competition matches, he was never pick or ban. He was nerfed once heavily (unless you want to count his PBE nerf in which people were still saying he was fine, believe it or not) and after that just kind of left to rot. He has numerous bugs involving his auto-attacks which are his MAIN SOURCE OF DAMAGE and his other abilities including the Q and passive, which makes him extremely clunky in scenarios. Buffs don't necessarily mean MAKE HIM STRONG or MAKE HIM VIABLE, just ease his frustrations and smooth out his gameplay.

Point being: He has not received love or good support by the balance team in a long time. He has numerous bugs which affect his core gameplay and has been held back and punished by others who are receiving buffs while he sits on the shelf to rot.

This is season 6 now where damage (burst) and obnoxiousness reign supreme. Do people understand why Swain and Vladimir were disgusting? Because they were proper 'DRAIN TANKS' a concept which should cannot exist in a balanced state. Swain and Vladimir were not balanced, they were considered the O/Ps when they were strong (even to this day, they are still fairly strong). Aatrox, on the otherhand was a champion a lot of people considered either balanced or even slightly weak on release. It took a people a little while to see that he had good synergies with lifesteal + defensive items but he was never this 'DRAIN TANK' that people make him out to be. If people want to go back and watch past LCS games involving Aatrox, there were very few highlight reels of him 'DRAIN TANKING' or doing anything memorable. Now taking this already mediocre champion and fast forwarding 3 season to a very chaotic and bursty era we can see that Aatrox just cannot keep up. He lacks the stats needed to be a tank/bruiser (which in season 3 he was able to bypass by having high dps/sustain through higher attack speed), he lacks the support in bug fixing leaving him with buggy abilities, he lacks stickier abilities in an era where mobility creep has caught up to him, he lacks the versatility he once saw as there are just far better champions/picks now and he lacks the burst or kill potential needed to be disgusting and obnoxious as other champions are.

Point being: The meta in which he was good has long since died. He just cannot contend modern champions and in fact, has never been way too out of line. He is doing poorly in today's arena and can use some assistance. He is an already gimped champion who has not received proper compensation for being left aside.

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Tl;dr - So, can we stop the bullsh!t? Aatrox is not in a good place. He CAN be buffed if they buff him appropriately (bug fixes, slightly shorter c/ds or slightly longer cc or slightly higher base stats) and is a GOOD candidate for buffs. Do you see all these threads RIOT? If it was just 1 or 2 like in the past I understand sweeping them under the rug but Aatrox is being noticed now. He IS being played. He is a symbol for what you COULD be doing to improve the game, the thing you guys set out do in balance patches. Nerf overly strong champions and bring others who have fallen out back in line.

Thanks to everyone who reads and responds to this post, I appreciate being noticed.