Once upon a time, there was a champion called Aatrox.
And then, he was never played again.
I'm sure 90% of you reading this just now remembered that a champion called Aatrox exists. It seems Riot forgot. Perhaps that's the reason why he hasn't had a single balance update since the Neolithic. But he desperately needs one.
First off, I think it would be good to introduce myself to give my opinions some more validity. I live in Korea and play on the KR server. I've played on the KR server ever since that server was opened back in season 2, but I've actually been playing since season 1, back when I lived in the States. My KR server account stats: http://fow.kr/find/idonotunderstand
If you don't want to click on the link because lolviruses (there aren't any), I'll summarize: I'm currently Plat, was Diamond last season, was Plat all the way from season 2 to 4. I've played a total of 97 ranked games on Aatrox last season and my winrate is abysmal (because the champion sucks, not me!). If you combine the normal games I've played on Aatrox for last season and this season combined, it'll probably be around 200 games total.
For those of you who aren't too familiar with Aatrox, I'll give you a short summary of his skills and his intended playstyle. TL;DR: Imagine playing a melee version of Vladimir, but his Q - Transfuse is now a basic attack. Also, all of your skill damages are weaker. This is Aatrox in an utshell.
Passive: Blood Well. All of Aatrox's skills cost a % of current HP. The HP used is stored in the Blood Well. When he dies, he is revived using the HP stored away in his Blood Well. Also, his Blood Well gives bonus attack speed. It gives 35% when you've stacked your Blood Well full. The Blood Well decays if you're out of combat. Has 150 second cooldown at level 16. 180 seconds at level 1, I think. **Q **- Leaps into the air and slams the ground. Targets in the center of the fall are knocked up into the air for 1 second. Does 70 damage at level 1 with about a 0.8 bonus attack ratio. (This isn't very strong.) 16 second cooldown at level 1. Costs 10% of current health to use. **W **- Passive effect that grants health recovery every hit. The recovery is increased to 200% when HP is below 50%. If you activate W, your third hit deals bonus physical damage. 60 bonus damage at level 1. (This is quite strong.) Costs a little bit of flat health for each 3rd hit. E - A lame skill that fires a cone-shaped laser. It does 75 magic damage at level 1 and slows enemies by 40% for 1.75 seconds. The duration of the slow increases by 25% per level. It's pretty much only good as CC. It is a necessary skill to chase down enemies, however, since Aatrox is a basic-attack oriented champion. R - Its name is Massacre. You activate, he says some edgy lines, you deal 200/250/300 magic damage in a roughly 350 unit radius the instant you activate. His sword becomes longer and his attack range increases (like Riven's ult). Also, most importantly, his attack speed increases by 50%.
HOW TO AATROX: You leap in with Q like a hero, and then you proceed to an hero. Pop R and wildly flail at whatever target is close to you. If he's squishy, activate W. If he's not-so-squishy, just use regular W to try to zombie your way to survival (kind of like how Mundo does when he has his ult on). Usually, you're never going to last as long as a Mundo and you'll get blown up in about 1~2 seconds. (This is what happens in my plat-tier games). Hopefully, you were big enough of a distraction that the rest of your team wins the fight. You can last a lot longer if you go tank, of course, but your damage will be Scuttlecrab-tier.
In lane, you literally lose to just about every single top-lane champion except maybe Maokai. His only valid laning mechanic is to stack up the 3rd hit on W, hit your opponent, and then run away. You may use Q first, hit the W proc, and then slow him with E to evade the counter attacks. This is the ideal situation. Sadly, his Q costs a whole whopping 10% of current HP with a magnificent 16 sec cooldown, so if this ends up going wrong, you're 100% guaranteed to die unless you blow flash. His Q and E base damages are pitiful, so you have to max W first. This means all of your damage is in your basic attacks, so the only way to trade damage is to get close enough. The problem with this is that you eat a bunch of minion aggro. Also, before you have the chance to hit a second W, your opponent has enough time to counter attack with his abilities. And we all know [skill damage > basic attack damage]. You're pretty much destined to lose nearly all damage trades. Your only hope is to recover HP with your W off. Well, you can't do that. Because you have to get close enough to auto-attack minions. And you can't do that if you just got Pwn't and you only have like 20% HP left.
Q: So. I've just read the above. How do I know it's not just you sucking at Aatrox? A: Well, a couple of things. He's okay-tier in the jungle, though. It's just that his laning is pitifully weak.
1. He's been neglected. The poor edgelord needs some attention. To give you an idea of how forgotten he has been, there's a statement on the tooltip explanation for his ultimate that says, in the KR version, "대학살 스킬로 챔피언을 때리면 피의 샘이 20% 찹니다" which means "Every time you hit a champion with Massacre, it fills his Blood Well by 20%". Well, guess what? That doesn't happen. I submitted a ticket for this a couple of months ago. Nothing has changed. But then, guess what again? He NEEDS this to happen, badly. During a 1v1 duel, if he dies and his passive activates, he revives with 0% on his blood well. His blood well gives bonus attack speed, and you lose all of it after you revive. And he's incredibly dependent on the attack speed stat. The 50% attack speed bonus from Massacre alone just is not enough, especially when you've just revived and you only have like, 30% health.
2. The numbers just aren't enough to do what he's meant to do. For Aatrox, attack speed is love, attack speed is life. But, like I mentioned before, without Massacre on, you'll never quite proc enough Ws to do what you need to do. Whether if it's to kill an enemy with W on, or to restore health with W off, it won't be enough with just the 35% AS bonus from your Blood Well passive. And keep in mind it's only 35% if your Blood Well is completely full. Secondly, the health restore from W is quite nice, but it's only nice when you're below 50% HP (in other words, about to die.) To see exactly how effective W is, you need to see it in action yourself. But don't bother yourself with that. According to my 200+ games on the guy, it's like this: Even if you're below 50% HP, it's not good enough for you to keep fighting, unless you have a LOT of attack speed (probably around 150% total). This is why levels 1-3 are absolute hell for Aatrox. This is when everything in lane just goes wrong. Your basic attacks are too slow, your skill cooldowns are too long, their damages are too weak, and they eat your HP when you use them. So, attack speed runes are a must have. I normally use a 29% attack speed rune page with Aatrox. That's pretty okay. But you have no room for physical damage runes in this case, so you still end up doing pitiful damage. Next is his Blood Well. Just know that it only fills about 30% of your HP and your bonus AS is gone (and it won't restore back, thanks to Massacre not working properly). It's hard enough to be useful when you're at full HP, but even if you revive, you're not going to do much. The fact that you get to revive itself is useful at times, and its cooldown is quite short. But it doesn't help you recover from a hard time in lane, and that's where most of the problems occur.
3. His Q is too double-edged.
Not only does it eat 10% of your current HP, and not only does it have a ridiculously long cooldown, but it's his only means of escape, as well. If you go in with Q, there's no coming out.
Next, the radius for his airbone effect is quite small, so it can often miss or be evaded by your enemy. In lane, if you miss this, you're going to get a nasty beating.
And lastly, it takes roughly 0.50.8 seconds to actually execute your Q (since he has to leap into the air first), and it can actually get canceled by certain CC mid-flight. For example, Thresh's E. All airbone effects will cancel your Q, in truth. It takes roughly 0.250.5 seconds for you to actually leap into the air, and any form of snare/stun will cancel your Q during this time. And you also lose 10% health along with it. Yay!
4. His item build requires at least one attack-speed item. As illustritively described in point 2, 35% bonus AS isn't enough. There are times when you have Massacre on, but no Blood Well, which means you only have a 50% bonus. That's not much better. What about 35% + 50%, a double whammy? This is the ideal scenario, but its actual efficacy during combat is MEH. I know most of you are thinking, "85%?! That's crazy, dude!". That's what everyone thinks when they play Aatrox for the first time. Sadly, the actual numbers for W just aren't that high. So, whether it's HP recovery or damage, 85% is not enough. Imagine you swing 6 times really fast to proc W twice at lvl 6 - it'll do as much damage as Riven's ult+Q+basic attack, or 1 Gangplank barrel, or W+Q+E from Irelia (all are rough estimates). Consider that Riven can Q 3 times, Gangplank has his ult, Irelia has her ult and she hasn't even started basic attacking. Just how much AS do you think you'll need to not be completely outclassed? The magic number seems to be around 140-150%, based on experience. So, you need at least 45% more attack speed to barely be on par with the big kids. But with just 85%, you'll have to pick fights with Soraka to feel like you're winning. This presents a bigger problem. I mentioned in the very beginning that you usually last 1~2 seconds in a 5v5 unless you build tanky. Well, if you build tanky, you'll either be: swinging really fast for no damage, OR swinging really slowly for a little bit of damage. Did I mention your skills cost % of HP? You'll go into teamfights with 85% HP at most. Next, your W recovery scales with AD (not a lot), but its base amount will feel quite low in the mid-late game. This means that you've built tank, but you have no abilities that strengthen your tankiness. You'll never quite be full-blown TANKY, no matter what you buy.
PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
Aatrox is designed to be team fighter, and it makes sense for his laning to be weak. It's just that a couple of minor things has shafted him to MUCH TOO WEAK tier. A simple tweak of these details will allow a player to actually make up for some of these weaknesses with skill. As of right now, there is NOTHING you can do to survive your lane unless your opponent is 5 leagues below you. Yes, he's THAT weak. It's almost amazing how I haven't actually stressed this enough, yet. Aatrox is disgustingly, pitifully weak in lane. I bet he'd lose to Janna top. Oh wait, he does!
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Give him an invincibility frame during the Q leaping motion - like Fizz's Playful/Trickster. Q takes about 0.8 seconds to cast in full, so the actual invincibility duration will be shorter than Playful/Trickster. I believe just this change alone will do it, but there are also other possibilities.
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Increase base health and armor substantially. Lower the health costs for his skills. Slow down the Blood Well passive decay.
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Increase basic attack range by 50. Add a short but strong movement speed boost to his ultimate, Massacre. Something along the lines of 50% movement speed bonus that decays over 3 seconds.
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Add a passive effect to his E: Everytime Aatrox kills a unit (minion or champion) or receives an assist, his next single basic attack recovers % of his maximum HP. (3% if he hits a minion, 8% if he hits a champion).
Just adding 1 of any 4 of these changes will make him a viable pick for Top. Honestly, just 1 is a bit conservative. But I believe the change should reflect Aatrox's core role as a late-game carry, so laning-power buffs should be conservative. But even implementing 2 of the 4 wouldn't necessarily tip him over to OP status, either. There might even be other possible changes, and I'd like to hear some. But any change should be about curving the weaknesses, not making him deal more damage early game.
That was quite long. Thank you for reading. It took me 2 hours to write all this. TL;DR - Well, you should, mang. Please ;_;
