Balance Rework Concept for Aatrox's current kit.

TL;DR: Change the kit from being damage centered on q to damage being centered around combos (not just Q E's with a W here and there) by adjusting the power budget, retaining every spell but W.

The Problem: This champ's kit was originally balanced to be strong early and not super strong late. The recent nerfs have put him in a very terrible place. His early was severely weakened and his late even weaker due to the minion sustain nerf and the biggest change in my opinion, the E charge removal. This change completely affected how Aatrox could combo and the fluidity of Q E's combo. It added unnecessary clunk on a champion restrained by clunky work (Still looks great though). The issue is there's nowhere else on the kit currently, in my opinion and observation, where meaningful power allocation will fix these issues and make it so he isn't super strong early (The reason why Riot nerfed him) and better late (What us Aatrox players want in return for his early being diminished). This in my opinion starts making Aatrox's kit look unbalanceable in its current state, but not like his old self which was left in the dumpster due to the insecurities of what buffing him could do.

The Solution: Instead of reverting the champ back to his old state and wasting all the resources put into it, I decided to try and combine the current kit with some old Aatrox aspects, several effect and skill changes changes, and some stat increases/changes. These changes aim to make the kit less reliant on Q for all damage, combos, and sustain and more towards using more spells in new combos (W Q E Q for example) instead, along with better late game sustain. With all of it bundled, hopefully it makes Aatrox be able to feel and play like a juggernaut and not like a clunky AD assassin with cc and a revive.

Base Stats: Base Health increased from 580 to 600 Base AD increased from 60 to 62 Base Armor increased from 33 to 35

Compensation for some damage and sustain shifting. May or may not be needed.

Deathbringer Stance (P): Cooldown changed from 25 seconds to 20 / 15 / 10 seconds. Damage changed from 8-16% Max Health Physical Damage to 10-50 (Based on Level 1-18) + 4 / 6 / 8% Max Health in Bonus Physical damage. Only procs on Champions. Bonus Range reduced from 50 to 25. New Effect: Lowers the opponent's armor by 5 / 15 / 30% for 5 seconds (Does not stack with Last Whisper). Mutilator no longer reduces healing and shielding. Removed: Deathbringer Stance's Cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds when Aatrox casts an ability or hits a champion with the edge of The Darkin Blade.

New Blood Well (P): Aatrox heals from the carnage he unleashes on champions, healing for 10-36 (Based on Level 1-18) Health and up to 20 / 25 / 30% of damage dealt. Healing from the damage dealt scales with how full the Blood Well is (scales with how long he is in combat with the enemy champion (has to be actively hitting them), up to a max of 5 seconds). Decays after not hitting a enemy champion for 3 seconds. Hovering over the resource bar displays the current strength of the healing.

Goal: Make Deathbringer Stance more reliable in the late game by changing what it does and how strong it is early game, and shifting e's healing to a second passive and changing it for a more reliable heal late game, allowing Aatrox to build some tank items and not be severally hindered by it compared to now.

The Darkin Blade (Q): First Swing damage changed from 10 / 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 (+ 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75% AD) to 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+ 50% AD) Second Swing damage changed to 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 (+ 70% AD) Third Swing damage changed to 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+ 90% AD) Cast speed slightly increased. Changed: Hitting monsters at the far end of the first two casts and the center of the third deals 50% bonus damage and knocks up for 0.75 seconds. Changed: Edge hits do not knock up or grant bonus damage vs Champions.

Goal: Changing the amount of power on Q by removing the bonus damage and knockup for hitting the edge of the first two spell casts and the center of the third on champions and the damage scaling to make his late game better in the long run by not having all the power in his kit feed only into his Q. Cast speed increase feeds into E's touchup. If needed, more work could be done to bring back the knockups.

New Infernal Rapture (W): Aatrox charges a heavy blow for a brief moment (1.5 seconds) before slamming his greatsword in a line in front of him, damaging enemies and slowing them for 2 seconds. He can move while he charges the attack, but is slowed by 15%. Deals half damage to minions. Impact Damage: 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 70% AD) Slow: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% Cooldown: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12

Goal: To provide Aatrox another damaging ability to alleviate the issues of having one main damage spell that is slow to land. Retains the idea of slowing targets. This should hopefully allow Aatrox to fight better towards the late game and possibly survive a dive in the early game. Debating on giving it cooldown reduction vs monsters or not.

Umbral Dash: Cooldown changed from 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 5 seconds to 10 / 8 / 7 / 6 / 4 New: Grants 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 / 24% Attack Speed for 2 seconds. Removed: Aatrox heals for a percentage of the post-mitigation-physical damage he deals against champions. Removed: Aatrox gains 15 / 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 Attack Damage on cast for 1.5 seconds.

Goal: Respecting the situation of Aatrox sitting on dash charges and abusing them, I upped the cooldown early (along with a slightly faster Q animation) so that his E has a lower cooldown late game to make Aatrox players not have to take Inspiration to get the E to a cooldown that makes using Q-E feel better and achievable than when at 40% CDR. Healing gets moved to a second passive and Bonus AD gets removed in favor of adding attack speed for when Aatrox's other spells are down and he needs to fight back with autos.

The World Ender: Duration lowered from 10 to 8. Revive changed from 15-50% of Aatrox's Max Health to 15 / 25 / 35% of Aatrox's Max Health. Bonus AD changed from 20 / 25 / 30% Bonus AD to 25% Total AD all ranks. New: Gains 50 attack range for 8 seconds. New: Gains 20 / 30 / 40 MS when a spell or auto lands on a enemy champion. Removed: Gains Bonus Movement Speed when out-of-combat with Champions and Turrets.

Goal: Lowering the power of the revive and changing the AD from bonus to total to benefit late game Aatrox with the other changes to World Ender. Adding attack range to make the size increase be more than a visual. The constant MS should help Aatrox against champs who slow him constantly and make it impossible for him to fight back in his ult. The bonus ms when out of combat is great for starting fights, but Nimbus Cloak kinda just does that job better imo.

So, what do you guys think? Think this could work?