@Riot, I Came Up With Some Changes That Could Make Aatrox Healthier, Feedback Please?

Right now, Aatrox has one of the lowest win rates of all top laners and overall has been nerfed due to his potential to run rampant with sustain. He can still do well in certain matchups, but overall is outclassed by most other top lane fighters. He has extremely low base stats for being a Fighter/Tank (comparably, his stats are even weaker than Irelia's, a sustain and attack speed based champion similar to Aatrox, but classed as a Fighter/Assassin).

Currently, in my eyes, Aatrox has two problems: His sustain from W and his ability to poke and chunk with E. If he manages to get ahead, this is where most of his power lies. If he gets behind, however, these abilities become almost useless. I propose that taking power away from these abilities and placing it elsewhere in his kit, along with giving him more situational power, is the way to go. All the numbers that I use are just guesstimates, I'm not a game designer or anything, so I'm simply using them as suggestions/baselines for what I'm trying to demonstrate.

Passive- Blood Well

I think it works fine as is.

Q- Dark Flight

Aatrox's Q has always been a unique but lackluster ability. It can be used for initiating, interrupting, dueling, or escaping...but there is effectively no tradeoff or benefit for using it in one way or another, no penalty for missing, and no reward for hitting.

Old Cooldown: 16/15/14/13/12 Old Health Cost: 10% current health

I feel like the damage on this ability is fine as it is, as it is such a multipurpose ability. However, I propose that its cooldown be increased by 2 seconds at all ranks, as such: New Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14 However, there is a caveat to this. I feel like Aatrox should be about initiating, and not running away. If Aatrox hits an enemy, 2 seconds are shaved off of the cooldown. If Aatrox knocks up an enemy, 4 seconds are shaved off of the cooldown and 50% of the health cost is refunded, so the lowest cooldown would be 14/13/12/11/10. This would reward Aatrox for jumping into battle instead of fleeing. If he hits an enemy, the cooldown is exactly the same as before, but if he manages to skillfully knock someone up, he is rewarded with a lower cooldown and gains health back, so he doesn't just lose 10% of his max HP if he dives in from full as initiation.

W- Blood Thirst

This is Aatrox's most iconic ability and also his most hated one. It makes him a nightmare to fight against when he's ahead, but also doesn't give him many tools to survive when behind. I feel like he could be given a treatment similar to Vladimir where he has a weaker standard heal and a stronger heal as the fight goes on.

Old Heal: 20/25/30/35/40 +25% Bonus AD When below 50% health, heal is tripled

Sure, his heal is 3x when he's below 50% HP, but if he can't even get 3 auto attacks off before he dies, he's screwed. Also, I believe that part of the problem with his heal comes from healing too much off of minions before fighting in lane, instead of healing off of champions during fights. Here's what I came up with to address both of these problems:

Aatrox's blade feasts off the blood of his victims and goes into a frenzy, granting him increased healing based on how many times he has struck in a fight. This passive would only apply to Epic Monsters and Champions. Basically, I was thinking that his new heal would be about the same, maybe slightly lower than his current heal, so maybe 15/20/25/30/35 +20% Bonus AD. This would be halved against minions, and would no longer be tripled below 50% health. However, after Aatrox's first heal on a champion or epic monster, his second heal would be double the base, his third would be triple the base, up to that sweet spot of 3x healing. This would allow Aatrox to still be a sustain machine against champions in long fights, but would cut back on his problem of sustaining so much from minions in lane. However, there's still the problem of Aatrox being unable to even enter a fight below 50% health. I feel if Aatrox was granted a small amount of bonus armor and magic resist when below 50% health that scaled upward slightly ( I don't want to get too crazy here) that would help him stay in the fight long enough to get some heals. Now, I'm not a balance expert or anything, so these numbers/concepts may be flat out wrong, but I feel that trying to shift power away from Aatrox as a minion sucker to a champion slayer is something that will increase his counterplay and overall make his sustain easier to play against, as, after all, it's his sustain that takes away from his entire kit's power budget.

W- Blood Price

I think this ability is really good and doesn't need changes. I will make a note here though that if Aatrox is using his empowered heals, and switches to Blood Price, his stacking heal should probably lose all stacks.

E- Blades of Torment

When ahead, this ability just is annoying to play against. Aatrox can poke with it and then just heal up. If behind, though, it's pretty much his only way to farm, so I feel like it should scale less with AD, but in return do extra damage to minions. It already has an extremely strong slow, and I feel that the extra damage that it has is a bit over the top in terms of the utility it provides.

Old Damage: 75/110/145/180/215 +60% AP +60% bonus AD New Damage: 75/110/145/180/215 +60% AP +45% bonus AD Does 50% increased damage to minions and monsters.

Hopefully something like this will prevent snowballing as much, while also helping the struggling Aatrox player with farming and waveclear.

R- Massacre

Massacre is an interesting ability. It's not particularly spectacular or flashy, but it synergizes well with Aatrox's kit. The damage it does is significant, the attack speed boost is helpful, and the attack range helps Aatrox stick to people more easily. However, it's the last part where I feel like it's a little bit lacking. When I first started playing Aatrox, I didn't read this ability closely and simply assumed that he gained movement speed as well for the duration (he is flying, after all!) but I was disappointed when I found out that this was not the case. I feel like giving him a mini dismounted Kled passive where he gains a small amount of movement speed towards champions but loses some when running away would not only fit his thematic perfectly, but would encourage him to turn around for that one last auto to finish someone off and get a heal.

Overall, the problem with Aatrox is what to do with him when he gets ahead and cannot die because of his sustain. I hope these changes maybe at least gave some suggestions for a way to take him if he ever gets an update (fingers crossed). I don't believe he is a bad champion, it's just that he has too much sustain to allow the rest of his kit to be strong. Making his Q better when used as successful engage, lowering his heal on minions but increasing it against champions the longer fights go on, making his E less snowbally, and giving him an 'all or nothing' approach to his R I feel are all changes that don't shift his overall power too much, but give him better situational strengths and weaknesses and increase counterplay and reactivity in his kit.

Of course, like I said before, I'm no game designer or balance expert, so take all of this more as a general direction to go in. I just hope someone at Riot at least reads this and offers feedback. I feel like Aatrox has been forgotten for so long, and any changes for him would be nice. That said, I realize that Aatrox is extremely delicate and is one of those champions where even slight buffs could cause him to have a 60% winrate or something. I just want my favorite champion to be balanced so that he's neither oppressive nor weak, and I hope that this general direction may be something that is at least considered.

Thanks to anyone for reading this.

Edit: Just like Aatrox, this post is doomed to be forgotten FeelsBadMan