For a champion who's a Fighter/Tank, WHY does Aatrox feel so damn squishy?

4NoxiousHours·May 23, 2016·29 votes·3,657 views

Even if building tank items and having your W off, he just feels oddly so squishy o_O

54 Comments

SmitemuffinMay 23, 201613 votes

Because he IS really squishy

CremepieMay 23, 20163 votes

Plus he's not supposed to build like a tank anyway. .... Granted he doesn't work well with any build these days really.. poor Aatrox

DesolationKaizerMay 23, 20162 votes

Yeah it sucks. I keep feeling like he should be a melee carry or something, rather than a bruiser.

BeuhlakorMay 23, 20169 votes

Thing is, his current kit doesn't allow him to be a melee carry.

He doesn't have good sticking power and he doesn't have an ability that allows him to survive through all the abilites that are thrown at you in a teamfight (Tryndamere has his R, Yasuo has very high mobility + a shield that can be reset with his R and his windwall and Master Yi can if timed well, dodge anything with his Q and avoid some lethal damages through his W).

And especially, he has nothing in his kit that hyper-scale. He just have a dumb 3-hit passive on his W but it is far from enough to provide good damages in lategame.

Problem is : he is also a failure as a bruiser currently because he can only build shitty offensive items.

Overall, Aatrox is an epic fail.

BeuhlakorMay 24, 20162 votes

I'm just going to add this :

Aatrox has 1983 HP at lvl 18.

Graves has 1979 HP at lvl 18.

But Graves has tons of armor and MR thanks to his E and he only needs raw AD to do damages (and thanks to that, he can build a good mix of raw AD items and tank items, making him, through builds, very tanky).

Aatrox has to choose between being "tanky" (Blood Thirst) and dealing damages and he needs in order to feel "whole" AS + AD on top of tank items. Since it is impossible to get everything, he has to make choices and as a result he "feels" bad to play in later stages of a game.

Great champion yeah.

Critmaster GarenMay 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I'm just going to add this :

Aatrox has 1983 HP at lvl 18.

Graves has 1979 HP at lvl 18.

But Graves has tons of armor and MR thanks to his E and he only needs raw AD to do damages (and thanks to that, he can build a good mix of raw AD items and tank items, making him, through builds, very tanky).

Aatrox has to choose between being "tanky" (Blood Thirst) and dealing damages and he needs in order to feel "whole" AS + AD on top of tank items. Since it is impossible to get everything, he has to make choices and as a result he "feels" bad to play in later stages of a game.

Great champion yeah.

please dont compare him with graves though.

its not like graves isnt complete bullshit.

yea, aatrox is kinda bad and needs a rework. but graves also does at least need another mini rework.

LlaniteMay 24, 20161 votes

Why stopped at Graves, why not Malphite, Amumu or Sej.

LordGeovanniMay 26, 20161 votes

because none of them do damage on the scale he does(or is supposed to at least cant do damage when dead 3 times) and they are designed to tank more damage than aatorx.

VerxintMay 23, 20167 votes

His base stats are terrible.

Aatrox is for the most part a failed kit

LordGeovanniMay 26, 20161 votes

Aatrox kit is fine but his base stats are so horrible he cant focus on useing his kit cause be cant stay alive aatrox has to use all of his kit to just be on par with regular champions as far as attack speed goes

NocturnesMay 24, 20166 votes

Aatrox isn't allowed to be good. He was good once but then Riot did what they did to champs like Yorick: nerfed him into oblivion because it's easier to do that than to make him viable / balanced.

QuephaMay 23, 20162 votes

Because they have to factor in the durability his passive will add in a duel. If he could win duels without his passive then his passive would make him broken.

Critmaster GarenMay 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Because they have to factor in the durability his passive will add in a duel. If he could win duels without his passive then his passive would make him broken.

dont know why youre being downvoted, its a good point.

his passive needs to factor into his power budget. aatrox looks and feels squishy on the surface due to his base stats, but his drain tank mechanics and his passive make him a lot more thanky in extended trades than he seems.

i guess the idea was to still leave him relatively squishy to burst.

that isnt to say his kit isnt kinda terrible overall. but even if he was stronger chammpion and his kit worked, his weak defensive base stats would still be an intended aspect of his kit and playstile.

its kinda how youre not going to defeat a full ap fiddlesticks by trying to deal sustained damage to him while he drains you, but you can cc and burst him.

fuktihsgameMay 24, 20161 votes

but his passive where it is just like team fight burst down .. kill team .. go back to downed aatrox . bam . bork zephr blade and then spirit visage was my old fav build :)

Only Play DariusMay 23, 20162 votes

Because his base stats got nerfed shortly after release. No matter how he builds he is always squishier than other fighter/tanks.

Many tanks also have loads of hard CC to stop people from putting out damage, making them seem tankier than they really are (this is partly why Amumu can often get away with building AP heavy). Aatrox has unreliable hard CC and is reliant on lifesteal to tank, but because of all the CC in the game this isn't feasible.

He needs a rework. His kit isn't healthy and when he is strong (in the top lane at least) he is a total pain in the ass to deal with. He might get one during the next class update for divers Irelia Jax MasterYi Yasuo XinZhao

Blue Moon WolfMay 24, 20161 votes

I think Jax and possibly Irelia would do better with a full rework rather than a class update (considering Jax has a really old model, kit and lore). Master Yi I think he really just needs his E to change so he doesn't get free bonus AD plus true damage on activation (maybe some adjustments to his ult as well) and Yasuo... I don't even know. He could use some changes sure, but I can't think of what can be done without practically making him a different champ all together. Maybe change his windwall?

SpecterVonBarenMay 24, 20161 votes

From what I'm seeing of his patch history, the only change to his base stats that he's ever received is an armor buff when Riot raised everyone's base armor to compensate for nerfing armor seals.

Blue Moon WolfMay 24, 20161 votes

He used to be pick or ban around his release cause he could easily become be near unstoppable if fed ( item 3072 item 3124 item 3026 item 3068 item 3006 item 3156 was a nightmare) . Then Riot nerfed his damage on blades of torment and attack speed bonus with his passive a bit to compensate for it, but I think most of the damage was done with Item changes and the rise of Juggernauts.

SpecterVonBarenMay 25, 20161 votes

Well yes but I was replying to someone claiming his knock down from being OP was due to base stat nerfs but aside from those two changes (Which are honestly small in comparison to the kinds of nerfs it takes to take down a modern OP champ) he's never been nerfed for his entire existance.

It's just baffling to me that somehow that was all it took to make him a loser to all but dedicated Aatrox mains and that even with all the changes to the game over the years there has never been a point where he's become a strong pick again aside from when Feral Flare was released (And even then he wasn't the best at using it).

Blue Moon WolfMay 25, 20161 votes

I believe it has something to do with the fact he's a health based champ honestly. Health based champs seem to be really hard to balance since they can either heal extremely well and become all but unkillable, or can't heal enough and become glass cannons that throws rocks at themselves (for lack of a better analogy). I remember one important aspect of his kit when he was really good was his attack speed and lifesteal, cause if he could attack fast enough, he could practically out sustain anyone. But one of the biggest problems is one he's always had, the other side of his toggle ability that takes health/ gives bonus damage instead of healing him. To this day I can't think of one moment when it would have been better to toggle off the healing.

BeuhlakorMay 25, 20161 votes

This is one of the core problem of Aatrox.

If you are fed, unless it's a 1v1, there is no reason to use Blood Price instead of Blood Thirst. When you are fed as Aatrox, you tend to build so much AD and/or AS that you simply murder your ennemies with your AA and base damages while being at the same time unkillable thanks to Blood Thirst.

BoulderoxMay 25, 20161 votes

It is not too viable, but the fact is they say you should NEVER use your healing w when at ~ 75-100% hp, It wastes output and you have the ability to turn it back at any moment. And with some builds that have Grasp, he HEALS off of the Empowered W still, I have won many a fight due to myself healing off of a blood priced AA for a VERY strong hit, so never underestimate it. The true mastery of Aatrox is knowing when you CAN and CANNOT utilize your Blood Price without Dying in the process, aside from keeping passive up and such.

Blue Moon WolfMay 25, 20161 votes

I did exaggerate when I said it's never useful, but the usefulness of it does lack a bit compared to blood thirst. It's the decision of "do I want extra damage at the cost of some health" or "do I want to deal less damage but heal off the hit". Most people would rather heal than take damage. Though I now see how it'd be helpful if you have a nearly full health bar and you need some extra damage to finish off a low health enemy. a team fight on the other hand seems to only be useful for a kamikaze dive onto the ADC with your passive up.

BoulderoxMay 25, 20161 votes

exactly :), and It is true that many people will choose to go for the safer option, but in the end, Aatrox IS one of those champs that ACTUALLY has risk/reward to him, build pattern, W, no matter what he does, he loses out in another aspect, and this shows when ~85% of the roster has 0 drawbacks to there skills. MasterYi you can heal, AND get damage reduction while doing it.... 0 tradeoffs. And it shows more with Taliyah , a champ that BY design has BUILT IN trade-offs. And people say she sucks. Which is sad because that is one of the BEST things about champs when they have actual counterplay by design instead of standard CC end all be all...

9kPluzZMay 24, 20162 votes

WTF? Yasuo doesnt need a update!

LordGeovanniMay 26, 20161 votes

Yes he does that E is utter bull shit for the person playing agianst him not gonna mention that double crit chance

LordGeovanniMay 26, 20161 votes

wtf why would they touch jax he needs a dam hp boost and thats it maybe give another item the same thing guinsoos used to do pre rework

Miror BMay 23, 20161 votes

Aatrox was supposed to be one of those "life-regen" tanks, in that while his overall "armor/mr" is terrible he has the ability to regend a lot of hp back making him annoying in extended fights (kinda like ww). The problem is that not only is his entire kit terrible, but trundle almost outclasses him entirely at what he does.

SpookyNeedleMay 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Aatrox was supposed to be one of those "life-regen" tanks, in that while his overall "armor/mr" is terrible he has the ability to regend a lot of hp back making him annoying in extended fights (kinda like ww). The problem is that not only is his entire kit terrible, but trundle almost outclasses him entirely at what he does.

A "drain tank" is the term

Oakleaf RangerMay 24, 20161 votes

You think he would take page from graves then lol, does aatrox secretly smoke?

SirSmokeysAlotMay 24, 20161 votes

Drain tank bb. He's a lot like graves in that sense. Drain tanks like xin graves and aatrox are disgusting when they reach the point where their life steal is stronger than your damage. Not very fun to play against. That's why muh graves had to be nerfed. Was just too easy to reach that point with him.

fuktihsgameMay 24, 20161 votes

graves is still broken and needs to be nerfed.. everyone plays him everywhere.. hes not supposed to be able to win every lane just because hes op.

YumaS2AstralMay 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

graves is still broken and needs to be nerfed.. everyone plays him everywhere.. hes not supposed to be able to win every lane just because hes op.

Well, Graves is a lot manageable now, compared to before. I've seen a Graves late game 1x3 the enemy team... and he was not fed when compared to the enemy team.

fuktihsgameMay 24, 20161 votes

idk i still think he needs nerfs.. super low cds on dash gains mr and ar. his kit is too good atm. its like late game lucian but like mid game..lol

fuktihsgameMay 24, 20161 votes

mained aatrox since season 3.. and just has gotten progressive worse every season since then .. its sad. last season was almost viable.. this season.. not even close.. his kit is "fun" but with everyone's cc these days and burst.. he cant sustain through fights like hes supposed to .sad riot wont do anything about him .

WolfessMay 24, 20161 votes

because he has no steroids or decent crowd control. his E is more like an annoying poke than good fighting cc.

xin, trundle, jax, etc can all get away with one or two atk items and rest tanky and do what aatrox can do, but way better because their steroids help boost their sustained combat damage. if you want a tanky aatrox, i strongly recommend bork to supplement his atk speed bonus from his bloodwell and to proc his passive W heal more, not to mention the bork active that has a speed-leeching ability making you move faster as well as some damage.

CurlyFriezzzMay 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

because he has no steroids or decent crowd control. his E is more like an annoying poke than good fighting cc.

xin, trundle, jax, etc can all get away with one or two atk items and rest tanky and do what aatrox can do, but way better because their steroids help boost their sustained combat damage. if you want a tanky aatrox, i strongly recommend bork to supplement his atk speed bonus from his bloodwell and to proc his passive W heal more, not to mention the bork active that has a speed-leeching ability making you move faster as well as some damage.

It's hard to build tanky on him because then he does little damage with only BotRK, especially after it got nerfed so hard.

Count ZubatMay 24, 20161 votes

Because once upon a time, Aatrox, similarly to Ekko now, could build nearly full tank and deal shit tons of damage, so Riot decided to nerf him so if he doesn't build damage, he does jack shit, but if he does, then he can deal damage, but dies in less than a second, so he still does jack shit.

metaworldpeace10May 24, 20161 votes

I think the real reason why Aatrox is so weak compared to other champions in the same class as him is because so much of his power budget is paid with his revive passive and his innate sustain throw blood thirst. He will never be strong because of how much power both of those factors bring.

SpoofghoulMay 24, 20161 votes

for a hypertank why does Sion feel so squishy

BastionKrossMay 24, 20161 votes

Aatrox is a tank like Warwick and Xin are tanks; they are drain tanks. If you cc them so they can't attack, they lose both their damage and their tankiness at the same time. However, letting drain tanks become strong is a great way for people not to have fun, so Riot keeps most of them underpowered.

At least until they buffed Xin randomly out of nowhere. I maintain that someone at Riot lost a bet for that one.

xxxDogmanxxxMay 25, 20161 votes

They buffed Xin outta nowhere in 6.3 then nerfed his ass back to the ground the next patch. Then they destroyed the items that made him get nerfed in the first place, sending him to rock bottom. At some point in patch 6.9, he had a lower win rate than Cassiopeia.

YaskamasandwichMay 24, 20161 votes

In season 3 when the pros found out the right build for Aatrox was godly to the point where it was getting close to release Xin Riot had to Poppy him. With 3 Doran's Blade top lane he was essentially unkillable with damage, or spirit lizard/golem (depending how well he did) + zephyr for jungle. Aatrox took advantage of "bad" items and builds and abused the shit out of them. One of the reasons Zephyr is gone, it was abused if it was good and Aatrox was one of those cases.

AlleoMay 24, 20161 votes

Because you either build damage and get deleted or build tank and do no damage and die. Or build damage/tank and just be all around useless.

Blkninjar87May 24, 20161 votes

ITs simple... Aattrox is Squshy cause he needs to tank by draining HP... but unlike trundle who does the same thing.... Attrax gets his HP back from autos + his passive. His W heals base on his AD... but he need attackspeed to get the last auto to heal.. to make up for the deficiency of the HP costs on his skills he needs lifesteal... Also needs defenses cause hes mainly melee. There's not really any item where u can get two of these things at the same time... sure u can get Lifesteal but no decent lifesteal item has decent attackspeed item 3153 .. and the only lifesteal item with defenses is item 3139 , Sure u can get attackspeed but no attack speed item has AD... outside of items attrox really really don't need like item 3078 so then the best option becomes item 3046 since Zephyr was removed.

I could go on and on and give examples but the 100% main reason why AAtrox fails at his "theme" of Tank/Fighter harder than any of the others is cause his lack of Itemization... Riot has REMOVED and NERFED/Changed every single Item that made Aattrox Viable in those roles.. the only two remaining "useful" items on him are item 3072 and item 3139 which are so expensive that if u never got fed as attrox u'll never be able to buy either. Attrox can't really make good use of things like item 3742 item 3512 item 3083 item 3075 cause those items don't support a truly offensive playstyle that attrox has.. outside of item 3065 and maybe item 3143 aatrox doesn't have many defensive options. AZlso did I mention Attrox needs attack speed.... most likely u cant buy a defensive/offensive item like item 3072 cause u'll need item 3153 which gives crap for lifesteal and AD... but gives a movespeed active.. another thing Attrox needs cause if u miss his E then u will never keep on ur target. Not to mention somewhere u'll need Armor pen to actually do damage.. Aatrox is just a hot ass mess of a champ... Too many stats needed to make him a threat... When he's Fed tho he's on par with fiora/Riven as a threat....

Also as a side note Aattrox is one of the only champs that uses health as a resource that doesn't have a way to get it back without using auto's... Zac Mordekaiser Vladimir all can get health back from a long range attrox can't...

MazariamontiMay 24, 20161 votes

He feels squishy because if you build him tank then he essentially offers nothing in a fight besides a short knockup. So once you show up they should be able to kill you extremely quickly because you have nothing else going for you. Like a maokai or Alistar go in and they get insane damage reduction on top of multiple cc abilities. Aatrox gets a small radius knock up for initiation and a life steal boost.

TacB VIPEREYEMay 25, 20161 votes

I'm pretty sure he's ment to be played as a kind of melee burst assassin. Dive on the carry with Q, E them in the face, press R and ignite. The continue to sustain off the closest thing to you until they knock out your passive and your team cleans up.

It's as simple as that folks.

BoulderoxMay 25, 20161 votes

because he is forced to be squishy, otherwise his sustain would be broken beyond all belief and unbeatable. But I do agree he is counterproductive to his initial design and in his role.

Mountain WardenMay 25, 20161 votes

Personally I like to start him out with item 3074 . He needs that early AD that item 3153 is lacking. And the boost to HP regen from ravenous helps offset some of the health costs of his abilities. Then item 3139 is phenomenal on him. More lifesteal, AD and a get out of jail free card which he sorely needs. Then the rest can be tank items. item 3026 is your core defensive item and the other items should be selected based on opponent's team comp.

I don't believe he needs a whole lot of attack speed. His base AS scales quite highly with level. Combine that with his ult steroid and he's got enough AS to sustain and destroy. The only AS speed item I might get if I'm fed is item 3006 . Otherwise go with tank boots.

LordGeovanniMay 26, 20161 votes

Lets make a fighter that heals in his fighting then we have to make him not have much base health even though his skills cost % current health (riot logic) much like ranged adc being safe in the back line so lets put 2 forms of mobility or mobility and cc on the safe back liner but but if we use skill slots to give the mobility and cc they wont have as much ability damage even though their damage is supposed to come from auto attacks. No problem give 1 person traps that make their autos specialized crit then and a net that does damage and does the same. make another lower their dash when ever they use their damage enhanceing passive and gain speed when every they hit some one they marked with their damage spell but i guess that means they have high cooldowns wtf you want them to not be easy for people starting out gtfo. they will run out of mana eventually right put mana regen into their damage build with with cdr on their low cd spells