Aatrox was a Scaling Lane Bully, without his 2nd dash he is neither Lane Bully or Scaler

I wanted to leave my thoughts about patch 9.3 and Aatrox's gameplay in it, as a rare main of Aatrox I'll try to speak up for those who can't on the boards(even tho I should talk in my name only). Where to start...ah yes, his most major change.

1. Umbral Dash - No Longer Has Charges Cooldown lowered from 26/22/18/14/10 to 9//8/7/6/5

Even tho majority will say that this isn't as big of a nerf as I think because dash cd is drastically lowered, it is still considered a nerf to both his laning phase and + lvl 10 and late game teamfights, but we'll get to teamfights later.

** 1) The Laning Phase**

The primary discussion about his laning phase is his lack of mobility during it, even with low CD such as 9 seconds at rank 1 on his E, he will still not have two dashes available for his Q, which is composed of 3 Q's. This means Aatrox won't be able to hit 2/3 his Q's, or even if he hits one by prediciton without using a dash, he will still fail his third Q. Even tho it's unhealthy for Aatrox to hit all of his 3 Q's, it's not healthier to have him guaranteely miss a third of his Q kit either. No matter how much you try now, you will NEVER be able to hit 3 Q's at lvl 2. His lvl 3 chances to hit his Q's are increased by a third because his W pull locks a person in place for a brief moment, giving him a momentum to hit one of his Q's. But even then, he is sometimes fored to W Q E(therefore, consuming a dash) in order to hit someone(because in this given scenario, he would've sniped someone who was mobile enough to almost get away from his W). Also keep in mind that his E was also his only source of defense(besides his R revilval), as Aatrox USED TO kite away from people with Q1 E1 and Q2 E2. Without his second dash, he will be more difficult to disengage with and easier to gap close against(which is his primary weakness). What I am saying is Aatrox is now more punishable and more difficult to escape a deadly scenario(even with his R). So when you see Aatrox feeding Garen and then you start spam pinging him, it's because he doesn't have enough dashes to kite away from Garen's Q movmeent speed gain.

Overall, his laning phase has been drastically cut as he can no longer hit all of his 3 Q's(unless facing someone who is terribly slow, but even with boots of speed you'll be able to dodge his Q's and one dash), even tho he is meant to scale(on a Caitlyn level of scaling where is a deadly lane bully and scales to late game but falls off unlike others from her class), Aatrox no longer fullfils the role of a lane bully, you can say he's being more of a fightened chihuahua when someone pokes him with a wooden stick now. He needs his charges back, despite huge CD, because with an additional dash on display he can do what he is meant to do in the laning phase - both to chase to finish off bullied targets with Q1(2) E1 and (W) Q2(3) E2.

2) (Late Game) Teamfights

The following change is more shifted towards his late game, in which he falls out of scaling comparing to other bruisers, let's say every high elo's favorite, the one and only, . Does Aatrox have the DPS of a Camille? No, because he has even more delayed burst than Camille's Q2 Precision Prootcol, if not. Does he have the same burst on his Q3 E as Camille's Q2? Answer, no, at full build no, especially if you put and/or into her cocktail of a build(which reduce his damage by a lot, and Aatrox can't exactly prioritize the same items against her 1k true damage AA empowered spell). Yes, with 5 seconds CD on your E and additionally 40%(or 45%, who on earth goes cosmic insight on him?), you can barely even notice the changes....can't you? The changes are still noticable, wanna know why? Remember when people complained how Aatrox's animations on Q and E were clunky? Due to a slight delay between late game E dash consumption and 5 second CD combined with 40% CD from items and/or runes, your next Q + E cast will be delayed by around 0.5 seconds, primarily because your dash won't be ready by the time your Q2 or Q3 are ready, therefore making his Combo even more delayed and clunkier than before, and you know how Aatrox hates when he loses to a low HP adc in a fight for exactly those 0.5 seconds(because having even more delayed time on his delayed damage would make him even less impfactful vs. Marksmen as a Bruiser). This change is yet again, a nerf to his Late Game despite being late game change just like the majority of his changes were.

2. Healing vs. Champions only

As much as I struggle with this change, I find it justified when comparing to someone like Akali, who lose her healing COMPLETELY. It's going to make it more difficult when laning against tough match ups and that's it, doesn't mean he will still lose those match ups, just won' make it easier to cheesily heal off of minions after (win)trading. But that doesn't mean I'll just spam ravenous hunter and roam for more stacks just to ignorrantly have healing from minions or even rush again. :I The HP regen part was...interesting. I wasn't expecting it, even tho I should've since they wanted to give him a compensation of regenerating HP after a trade that isn't based on healing minions, lol. Maybe this will motivated me to spam more often.

TL DR: Aatrox's Q's are immobile unlike Riven's which is why he needs more dashes than her, even back when he had 2 dashes he would need to burn his to get a hit with his third Q. Removing his additional E removes a chance to get a hit on another one of his Q's, therefore having only 1/3 chance to do his full combo with just one dash. A dash and a flash will onlly fill 2 out of 3 Q's, therefore rendering his Q's incomplete for hitting a desired target(even with W where you'd need to burn a dash or flash vs. mobile champs at some point).

There, these are my thoughts on Aatrox losing~~(his other half of the finger)~~ dash. What is your opinion about the state of Aatrox this patch? Comment down bellow! Oh and, here's a poll about his dash if you are too lazy to comment or want to do both.