My thoughts on the situation with Aatrox

TheLeviathan777·10/24/2016, 1:06:07 AM·14 votes·1,673 views

I recently joined in a conversation on a different post that ended up going towards Aatrox, I decided to make a thread dedicated to Aatrox so hopefully it could be noticed. So here is the comment I made , word for word. Please drop on your thoughts and ideas! Note: there have been suggestions floating around to make Aatrox untargetable during his q, one, I think that's a terrible idea. This was my counter suggestion.

Instead of untargetability, they should make his q give you a steroid on hit, so if you do successfully land it you get something like %attack speed for number of champions hit , or bonus lifesteal on champions damaged by your q for x seconds, or if you hit an enemy champion your next attack against them does bonus damage and heals you for a % of their max how or something, make it interesting and satisfying to land, since it's so damn difficult

44 Comments

Serika Zero10/24/2016, 11:45:47 AM2 votes

I tried to main Aatrox for a while, back like a year ago or so.

Things I've found out in my ~50 games of testing.

Aatrox has terrible scaling and late game potential He either has to peal for his carries with a very small radius knock-up and a slow. Or counter engage on the enemy team, causing a large distraction, hopefully zoning away the strong enemy carry while your team hopefully kills their engage. And sadly, his split push is very weak in the later stages of the game as most of his damage comes from auto attacks which an enhancement that cost him life (and he can't do that unless he is in melee range).
Aatrox has a medium-strong early game. He cannot beat early game power houses such as: Darius, Renekton, Phanteon, Rumble, etc. But he can put pressure on the map in most other match-ups. This means he can push the wave into the enemy tower, poke em with E and even engage in trades with them. Then regen most of his hp back. His early game role (assuming not vs a massive counter like the 4 i've mentioned above) is to constantly push in top lane and look as a "juicy" target. So that the enemy jungler comes top lane and wastes time. As well as supporting your jungler in counter jungling (you know, since you got top lane priority, you can roam first to assist your jungler). However again, he has some pretty big counters where this "early game power" he has gets negated.
Riot keeps him weak on purpose because they don't like Aatrox. I mean "drain tanks" we had Akali (3 dashes) for a while until they nerfed Grasp and Titanic. We still have Graves which can regen from range even. Even the AP variant in Swain and Vlad. Both in useable forms. Aatrox however, is overall really hated by rioters. So, he is in this state.

Would a major buff make Aatrox OP? yes Would a minor buff make Aatrox OP? probably not Will the minor buff matter? if its like 5 ad more, no, it won't

Now, lets look as to why would someone pick Aatrox with the mind set "I want to win games". Because if the mind set is "I want to play Aatrox", then he could be a minion and those people would still play him. So, he is picked for his early game. But since Darius, Renekton, Phanteon, etc make him close to useless. Why won't you pick one of those 3 instead of Aatrox? Well, Aatrox is simple. So are the other 3. Well, Aatrox has sustain. So has Darius and Renekton. Aatrox has no mana so I can spam stuff. You will run out of hp... but Renekton's skills also costs no mana.

Which leaves us with. Why pick Aatrox over Renekton? What can we give Aatrox to differentiate him from the Mad Butcher? as the revive passive is definitely not enough.

And this is why you see suggestions such as: Q untargetable or similar stuff.

Personally, I think Aatrox would be in a very healthy and balanced state if his Q would be similar to Malphite's ultimate (unable to be canceled by other things except fear). This means he still takes damage. But he will reach his targeted and desired location regardless what cc hits him in the meanwhile(except death), even a grab from blitz/darius won't stop him. And that's it. Improving both his early game, his mid game, late game and split push safety. Giving him a reason to pick him over renekton, unstoppable engage/disengage. While Renekton would be a tankier version with more mobility (2 dashes instead of 1) and more reliable CC (point and click stun).

If you buff his sustain to the point he can out sustain the incoming damage. Its gona be a shitty change. If you buff his damage to much, he will just kill everyone. Again, bad change. If you are going to change his skills. His W and E might as well change together.

edit: the last Aatrox buff Riot did was lowering the CD on his passive by a bit. While this was a buff, what it did was: Allow the team that has Aatrox accept team fights slightly more often and slightly faster. As Aatrox, unless you are really feed, you don't want to team fight without passive. And yes, is possible to avoid fights for extended periods of times, but is difficult if your team doesn't get that you just CAN'T WIN a team fight on close to equal gold without passive. So, even tho it was a buff. It didn't address any of Aatrox's issues. Instead they just made it so that Aatroxes that are winning will win slightly harder and those that are losing will lose slightly faster.

DunkinNoobs10/24/2016, 4:41:51 AM2 votes

Just make his ult give tenacity based on number of champions hit so he can actually teamfight. Because right now, he's encouraged to dive into the middle of entire teams and not given the tools to operate once he gets in there.

The Deckowner10/24/2016, 3:23:48 AM1 votes

the problem ith aatrox was never his Q, but instead having to tank steroid. Without tank steroid, aatrox gets blow up way faster than he can sustain. Right now aatrox is basically used as a Q initiation bot, not a drain tank.

N0TY0U10/24/2016, 7:05:08 PM1 votes

Aatrox just has a poorly designed kit. Revive, blood well, life steal and blood price are all things that are much more effective when ahead on top of being a melee adc. Half of his kit is that of a high burst champion(Q,E,first part of R) the other half is that of a drain tank(P,W,second part of R). His Q and E are the most telegraphed skills ever. His passive is the biggest problem, it might be better to just remove his revive too put more power elsewhere, or cut his health by a third... Blood well revive health definitely has to go, it's just making something that's not great when behind even worst.

I think his Q knock up should have a shorter duration and hitting an enemy outside the knock up radius should a apply a short slow. His E should be faster so it can be used for harass, maybe make it accelerate and snap like a whip. His R could give him AoE autos like twitch ult/azir soldiers.

Boulderox10/24/2016, 7:16:16 PM1 votes

His Q for 1 is a large cost of 10% current hp for a jump that CAN be a knockup, and CAN be stopped MID CAST, this has always grinded my gears, if I am paying 1/10 my life, I better damn well get there, I always wanted the Q to be immune to cc but not to damage, securing that you will go to the location, or at least make it so if he doesn't reach the mark, he is refunded the hp, half the cdr, or just flat out lower the cost to flat hp like his E.

W is his bread and butter but also the reason he cannot be that strong, his 3 hit heal is very powerful and up there with some of the best sustains in the game, however the fact that is his specialty is why I feel it can never be changed, His second W is a cool mechanic, with a TRADEOFF (god forbid ANY champ has to make a tradeoff with abilities now adays), Aatrox is a shining example of what should be standard, deal more damage = take damage from it. Which i really think riot needs to implement more risk/reward abilities like aatrox's W. I always thought it would be cool to change aatrox's W should be changed so it no longer has the bonus damage 3 hit, but instead is activatable like currently, but makes him immune to CC, at the tradeoff of having himself slowed by X%, while the active costs hp, like a DrMundo W does, without aoe of course, giving him the one thing he truly needs, anti CC, because if he is going to stay as a dive fighter, cc fucks him over so much that he loses every battle because he cannot sustain while stunned.

His E i really always wished that it gave bonus damage if you hit the tip of it, like kinda Darius (as much as i hate him), the idea of 2 damaging points meeting and not doing double or just higher damage has always confused me.

And his Ult, although his best and staple powerhouse ability, It just enhances what he already has and needs, Range is amazing, Attack speed that his passive already gives, and magic damage. I never understood why he is a mixed champion, having very good 60% ratio ad/ap on his E and 1/1 ap ratio on ult, when his kit just feels like it should be more physical damage...

I personally feel his revive passive is kinda useless past early game, I never find it useful in a teamfight, you always get left behind to die... And then you have the thing about how you lost a fight with a full blood well giving you 30-55% AS, you revive with 0 extra AS and hope to win an already losing fight? k...

GULAG 4 U10/24/2016, 9:26:34 PM1 votes

"instead of untargetability"

this alone deserves an upvote, cause this man gets it.

Also the change of making his Q rewarding to land is great, so much deserved upvote given.

Kaioko10/24/2016, 9:31:56 PM1 votes

Aatrox's W is the thing that holds him back. It's far too good of a skill either giving him crazy damage or crazy sustain. Just remove W and give him some actual buffs and interesting playstyles otherwise we'll never see the champ again.

Pierce The Veal10/24/2016, 10:25:33 PM1 votes

Useless Q, trivial E, boring non scaling free stats ultimate. Useless W reactivation for damage.

TheHappyReaperz10/25/2016, 12:26:12 AM1 votes

Made this a bit and a day ago:

DefinitelyNotARickRoll

TyroneWatermelon10/24/2016, 1:31:01 AM1 votes

My suggestion; It's damage scales now with % of health consumed. Dark flight cast time and animation increases by 1% for every 2% missing health. Initiating-bonus damage for agressive move Disengaging/mid fight-better escape/reliability of cc

Failog10/28/2016, 7:37:13 PM1 votes

His dive being immune to CC would be too much, I agree. As an Aatrox main who sustains a 60-70 win rate at any given few week snapshot, I find his Q to be not as bad as people think. Honestly the trick is just to have awareness and wait till the enemy uses their CC first, sustain until then, and then dive to chase down....or escape if the fight turns bad.

But here is what I would do. I would make it immune to CC when his blood-well is full. Just a small reward for keeping it filled.

I would empower his blades of torment when blood well is full so that it marks and provides vision on effected enemy champions, allowing allies to do extra damage to them while marked, with the blades themselves having a small bonus magic damage and slightly faster animation when blood well is full.

Increase his base attack range to 150 Increase base movement to 350

WoonStruck10/24/2016, 1:33:49 AM1 votes

Its already a relatively low CD knock-up initiation. If you add more to that, you only make the issues worse.

In reality, he needs to lose the long range escape/knock-up in order to be balanced, otherwise he always has the potential to be picked as a tanky initiator, as opposed to a fighter/diver.

Yeah, its a fun ability, but its a large part of why he's a balance issue in the first place.

His W makes him the pre-nerf Top Warwick from beta/season 1. It would likely need to be removed as well.