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Some potential Aatrox changes to make him a fit better in the game

PlayingDrunk·2/23/2016, 5:58:52 AM·3 votes·1,009 views

It's no secret that Aatrox isn't in a great spot, and that's for a few reasons, one of them being that his kit doesn't really flow together, and also doesn't really fit him thematically. I've been thinking, and I've thought of a few ideas to make him a bit better.

New Passive: Bloody Inspiration

Whenever Aatrox kills a unit, he grants nearby allied units (Aatrox included) 5% lifesteal and 10 Attack Damage for five seconds. This bonus can gain an additional stack if Aatrox scores a kill or assist.

Q: Dark Flight

Exactly the same

New W: Relentless Strike

Aatrox's sword comes to life and springs to target location, dealing damage to all enemies hit. If Aatrox enters melee range of his blade, he grabs it, and his next basic attack against a champion cripples them, dealing additional damage and increasing all damage dealt to the target for 3.5 seconds.

E: Blades of Torment

Exactly the same

New Ultimate: Fight and be Remembered

Aatrox unleashes his power, dealing damage in an area around him and applying a stack of Bloody Inspiration to all allied champions. For ten seconds, his passive benefits are doubled.

I feel like these changes will fill out Aatrox as a leader who inspires his allies to fight by leading the charge. He's also got some smoother combos with these changes, the main one being E, using the slow from E to set up for a good W, then immediately launching into a Q and then a W empowered basic attack, followed by a few more basic attacks. Same deal in a teamfight, E, W/Q onto a priority target, and then R to boost the rest of the team.

Tell me what you think, I haven't put any numbers in because I'm not sure what numbers would work best, should he have high bases and low scaling, encouraging him to go tanky, or decent bases and high scaling encouraging him to build similar to a Pantheon? I don't know, that's where I think community (or Rioter, if this gets popular enough) feedback to try and give our Darkin buddy a better place in the league.

8 Comments

Xenos111112/23/2016, 6:10:38 AM2 votes

I dunno, I feel that Aatrox has a few key weaknesses right now:

  1. His base stats are simply too low, making him super squishy

  2. His passive is kinda useless, as it's only good for escaping DoT abilities or if your team is there to cover you when you revive. If your passive gets popped in a 1v1 you're probably dead since you lose all your attack speed.

  3. His only mobility, his Q, is too slow and easily dodged or interrupted, or when he uses it to escape he can easily be killed before he actually reaches his landing point.

  4. The nerf to BotRK which was one of his core items put him in an even worse spot than in season 5.

I'd prefer if Riot just focused on amending his current weaknesses. If you rework his kit to give him auras, it will just make him that much harder to balance.

Slythion2/23/2016, 6:15:28 AM1 votes

Aatrox was my first main, he has desperately needed a rework for a long time now. I like how your ideas sound, although I have a few changes myself:

Passive: Keep it the same except make him lose bloodwell depending on damage taken

I would reduce his Q animation time, or if not then at least make it harder to interrupt (maybe have him blink above a target location and then smash down?) so that it still takes awhile to be cast but can still be interrupted after the blink.

I have my own idea for Aatrox's W: This ability will scale off aatrox's passive; have aatrox's sword form a bloodsword copy of itself and send to a target location, granting ad and att spd to allied champs it passes through (including aatrox) and deal delayed aoe mixed dmg that scales with how filled your bloodwell was and your ad (I imagine the blood to pierce enemies in the aoe then reform to return back to the sword where Aatrox will then recieve the bonus att spd again due to refilling his bloodwell).

E could be changed, doesn't have to and I honestly don't have any decent ideas for it.

Ult: Doesn't fill bloodwell, but grants increased Dmg, Att Spd, Att Range, AND lifesteal that scales on how filled his bloodwell is. Aatrox's bloodwell is cannot be depleted during his ult form (even if he W's).

Ratios would have to be figured out, but this is my personal idea as to what Aatrox should be.

P.S. - RITO, we aren't expecting an instant rework, but can you at least make Aatrox decent? His early game is squishy af, give him a higher base hp or something just to show him love until you fix him.