About Aatrox?

eceerr·Nov 11, 2014·1 votes·790 views

i finally got enough ip and i was looking at aatrox ... is there anything i should know about him? is he viable ? can he do alot of DMG and still TANK?

2 Comments

PerishSoftlyNov 11, 20142 votes

Aatrox plays an interesting game. He's an AD bruiser that has hybrid damage on his E that makes him fairly hard to itemize against in the opening phase of the game.

Aatrox NEEDS to be able to tank, and a huge part of his kit allows him to sustain an absurd amount of health while below 50% life. If Aatrox doesn't tank, he gets blown up and wastes his passive...then gets blown up again.

Aatrox has two types of "tankiness". His lane tankiness comes from him being able to sustain himself for around 80 hp every three attacks when below half life while still doing respectable damage with his E. Building health extends the amount of life he has while still in "low life", while building lifesteal or AD increases the amount of life he recovers. Personally, I go for an early Tiamat as the first or second item for increased sustain, waveclear, and the AA-Tiamat-AA-E-AA(W proc) burst that usually bullies your opponent out of the lane.

Later, once you have items, you add the standard tankiness of resistances and life. Aatrox's effective HP is monstrous, and scales with his actual HP and sustain. Aatrox also possesses tons of synergy with tanky items. Randuin's lets him get in range to attack and slow with E, Spirit Visage increases his heal and lifesteal from "strong" to "Overbearing" Having a Hydra, BotRK, and Spirit Visage allows you to heal upwards of 400 hp on the third attack from low HP.

Aatrox scales very well with item-to-kit synergy. He gets a lot of free attack speed from his passive and his ult, allowing him to itemize a Hydra and/or Maw for heavy AD and not have his DPS suffer. He has magic damage that scales with AD, allowing him to hybridize his damage against armor stackers. He sustains conditionally with hp, allowing you to build HP (and that new HP allows your resistances to keep you alive even LONGER).

Another thing to keep in mind is that his passive blood-well doesn't scale with your life, but the rate it fills scales with how much life you spend on skills. Skills cost %current life (Q, E), or scale with your bonus AD(W). Therefore, building tanky lets you fill up your bloodwell faster, making you reach a good DPS faster.

My usual build is: Start Longsword. Tiamat into Hydra Merc Treads/Ninja Tabi (Based on enemy team) BotRK Spirit Visage/Randuin's (Based on lane opponent) Randuin's/Spirit Visage Situational (Banshee's, Bloodthirster, GA, Last Whisper etc.)

EDIT: I go AD reds/quints, and run 9/21/0 and try to run an attrition lane. Very few champs will out-sustain you or all-in you at level 2. Be wary of ignite though, it wrecks your W sustain and your passive regeneration.

badoogaNov 14, 20141 votes

A lot of what ^ said is right, but I would recommend buying BotRK before Tiamat and Hydra, solely because of the high damage that it offers and with around the same amount of lifesteal. For builds:

Start with Doran's Shield (for AAers like Nasus or someone else), Doran's Blade (for really easy matchups, like Pantheon), Longsword (for when you need the extra HP pots but still want to do more damage), or Cloth Armor (for AD casters like Riven) along with HP pots and ward

Then, go for BotRK ASAP, building the full Cutlass and daggers and then finish it

After that, go for Ninja Tabi/Mercury Treads depending on how much CC the enemy team has

Then, go either Randuin's Omen or Spirit Visage first, depending on if the enemy team is mainly AP or is full of autoattackers. After that, get the other item you didn't buy.

After buying those 3 core items (4 if you count the boots), then it is situational. Most likely, you need more AD and splitpushing potential so get a Last Whisper or Hydra, or the game is going badly so you need a tanky item such as Warmonger's (the Visage passive increases this item's effectiveness) or Maw of Malmortius or Banshee's (if the enemy team has a lot of AP).

For gameplay:

Aatrox can go either top or jungle, wrecking both roles in different ways. For top, early game trades are easy as you can outsustain and/or outdamage them with your W really easily, and get your health back up really quick with your W heal if it doesn't go well. His passive is helpful when ignited as you don't die or when you are in a really close trade and you "die" while they get killed by minion aggro. His Q acts as a gap closer or an escape but usually can only be used once in a fight due to its long CD so use it wisely. Don't be afraid to cast your ultimate while trying to quickly destroy a tower before the enemy team comes in or to destroy an inhibitor quickly while your team 4 v 5s. Also, use your ultimate in teamfights where it will do the most AOE damage to enemy champions. While top, start E>W>Q and then max E>W>Q ,with points in R as much as possible as your Q only needs one point early on for the utility, and your E scales with AD but deals magic damage, which is very useful early on.

For jungle, start W>E>Q and max W>E>Q for the high sustain/damage it offers. On the new Summoner's Rift, start double golems, take ~~wraith~~ bird camp (the latter without smite), then take red, blue/wolves, wolves/blue (depending on where you gank level 3 or so), and so on. His Q is great for initiating ganks as it has a great knockup (and is great for initiation in general) and can burst down an enemy pretty quickly with a Q knockup>R with W damage>E when running away combo.

For runes and masteries, 9-21-0 for jungle and harder matchups, 21-9-0 for easy matchups, and for runes what the guy above me stated is fine, but AS, AD and armor are all importaint.

In general, Aatrox is a good lane bully with great sustain, poke and damage who is an autoattack-dependent AD tank. People who counter him are Teemo (the little devil does that with his blinding darts), Tryndamere (who also has a heal and AA reliance), Jax (who blocks basic attacks with his E) and more. He counters people like Yasuo, Master Yi, Nasus (IMO if you do it right Nasus gets zoned out of CS), and others. Aatrox when fed can snowball easily and can carry a team as a tanky initiator that deals much damage and has a lot of sustain. This is very long but I hope this helps, coming from a fellow Aatrox player.