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Aatrox's true issue

OyddAWqJ5r··4 votes·658 views

So a long while back after heavily breaking down each part of his kit to no avail as to what is truly problematic on him (his W heals? his W damage? E poke existing? R's cost to his power budget?) I came to this conclusion that made the most sense to me:

Varying Attack Speeds are his entire issue

You make Attack Speed less of a fluctuating factor on him and he's suddenly not feast or famine. Right now his heals heal for more when he's low on health which then scales dramatically with attack speed. Which is what causes a behind Aatrox to be a worthless drain tank whilst a fed Aatrox is able to even switch to Blood Price on occasion since he isn't worrying about his health anywhere near as much. Making attack speed less varied would make both a behind and ahead Aatrox function similarly and thus can be buffed in compensation for his carrying potential loss.

How do you do this? Well you nerf his base attack speed & scaling and then tie most or all of his attack speed to Blood Well. Ofcourse this means his Blood Well should function in a way that would make sense for him to have the attack speed that he does when it's full/empty.

Note: everything after this point is just my opinion on how to achieve this

The best way to do this in my opinion would be to give him an Olaf passive. But since stealing Olaf's passive ain't cool I really dunno what else there is. I tried tons of paper kits that all ended up either not working out or not feeling like it'd fit Aatrox. But then Malicious Metal posted an interesting thought: making Aatrox a Support.

I had thought of a few team related ability tweaks for him before but always with the thought of him being a top or jg. As a support though they all make more sense. So here's what I think should happen:

  1. Nerf his base attack speed (item scaling essentially)
  2. Make Blood Well fill up with the missing health of nearby allies and provide obscene amounts of attack speed when more filled (maybe an exponential-ish increase with more blood?)
  3. Let his W proc the heal on first hit after being out of combat or after not basic attacking for awhile so he can function without having to shove all day. Maybe this should be a thing for Aatrox currently too, since right now behind Aatrox's are pretty shafted in the healing department when having to cower behind turret.

Thoughts?

15 Comments

Urf Mode Is Life3 votes

AAtrox's biggest issue is how CCable he is during the use of his Q

Make him untargetable during his Q, aatrox problems across the board solved.

Hes very far from a feast or famine character in my eyes

GULAG 4 U2 votes

If you think a minimalphite ult on a 14 seconds cooldown is balanced or healthy, you're insane.

AirKingNeo1 votes

It's not a mini malphite ult. Malphite ult has extreme speed, Aatrox Q doesn't. Malphite ult has a large AoE, Aatrox's aoe can only hit 1 target. Malphite ult deals a lot of damage, Aatrox's Q doesn't.

I don't see how cc immunity or AT LEAST MAKING IT TRIST AND KHA'S JUMP WHERE YOU DON'T FALL OUT OF THE SKY makes it like malphite's ult.

GULAG 4 U1 votes

It's called mini malphite for a reason. Aatrox isn't fizz, he tanks your shit and beats your ass up close not dodging you crap with untwrgetability

Zen Ineth2 votes

I would say let his Blood Well be something that fills up with auto-attacks and he uses that as a resource instead of his own health. He would drain life and heal himself with his W passive normally, but blood price would drain from his resource instead, as well would the rest of his abilities.

Troy2426211 votes

A lot of Aatrox's power relies on him committing to a fight and stalling it into a sustained skirmish. He benefits from this because the longer the fight, the more often he procs his heal, and the more full his blood well, which grants him AS (better DPS) and more health on revival.

Because of that, he's encouraged to built tank; this way, he can survive at 50% and below HP for his stronger heal. However, he's also encouraged to build AS to proc his heal more frequently. The result is that it's extremely difficult to manage an efficient build on Aatrox without a ton of gold, and because of poor base stats, that's not likely to happen.

This is to say nothing of his ability to stick to a target, or lackthereof. A highly interruptable Q and a crappy slow are insufficient.

Asayake 5150glow1 votes

{quoted}

A lot of Aatrox's power relies on him committing to a fight and stalling it into a sustained skirmish. He benefits from this because the longer the fight, the more often he procs his heal, and the more full his blood well, which grants him AS (better DPS) and more health on revival.

Because of that, he's encouraged to built tank; this way, he can survive at 50% and below HP for his stronger heal. However, he's also encouraged to build AS to proc his heal more frequently. The result is that it's extremely difficult to manage an efficient build on Aatrox without a ton of gold, and because of poor base stats, that's not likely to happen.

This is to say nothing of his ability to stick to a target, or lackthereof. A highly interruptable Q and a crappy slow are insufficient.

I guess that's why Triforce is recommended.

I still prefer bork tho.

I should play aatrox again sometime.

Asayake 5150glow1 votes

Aatrox will use Blood Price instead of Blood whatever the heal is called whenever he is on the offensive. If you're running, he doesn't have to worry about his health, after all.

I'd also like to give this guy some better diving, aka more burst. As a Diver, he should be able to dive towers too, right?

DauthiSlayer1 votes

In my opinion from playing Aatrox and eventually giving up on him, or playing him on occasion. He tries to do many things, sustain fighting is what he is supposed to do. He is a late game monster at the expense of his early game. He suffers greatly in the early jungle, due to lack of waveclear. He is simply to slow at it, thus fast clearing junglers can abuse that. But, he can hop into the Dragon Pit and sneak an early dragon. Top lane he is ok, not great. He is ddecent split pusher mid game. Ok Intiating, escaping, and peeling tools on his q, his aoe slow is ok and he can stick targets decently. He can do insane damage on his w flipped over to damage while ulting.

His main problem is he needs items badly. He needs attack speed. He needs a lot of hit points and defensive stats to survive to make it a sustain fight or to burn them down with w flipped over. Kinda hard to build all of that all at once. One of the main appeals to playing a lot of champions in the current meta is having a decent early game. Ashe with her volley for waveclear and poke tools. Viktor and his safe farming abilities. Darius not really having many bad lane matchups. Shyvana with her excellent waveclear in the jungle and ability to translate that into stolen jungle camps on the other jungler...... you get the picture. Aatrox does not really have that. He is almost a pure late game champion, takes to long to ramp up that high thus other champions are better for that.

OyddAWqJ5r1 votes

That's the problem though. He desperately needs items but if he gets them too early he becomes an unstoppable 1v2'ing monster but if he doesn't he stays pretty worthless.

His attack speed scaling and therefore itemization is what is making him such a feast or famine character. Imagine if his attack speed didn't scale with items like Jhin but instead just gradually scaled as the game progressed? He would be a much easier champion to balance and possibly allow to be a competitively viable champ. The problem is that he scales exponentially with attack speed. Something you can feel the exponential deficit for when you revive with nothing in your Blood Well and your attack speed is at Nautilus levels.

AirKingNeo1 votes

Well you nerf his base attack speed & scaling and then tie most or all of his attack speed to Blood Well.

Doesn't that make his attack speed vary more thanks to his stupid revive? Otherwise you make no sense.

OyddAWqJ5r1 votes

Which is why you rework how the Blood Well functions. Ofcourse current Blood Well is ass. Just a tacked on statstick passive with no real intuitive gameplay associated with it.

Rebonack1 votes

Aatrox's issue is that if he's good then he's a manaless Irelia with AoE CC or a manaless Jax with sustain and poke. His kit is a grab-bag of Diver tools tossed together in such a way that no one tool can be great without totally breaking him.

OyddAWqJ5r1 votes

Essentially. Which is why removing the most binary aspect of it would allow the other parts some room for improvement.

Rebonack1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sleeper Cell,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=P98VpI8N,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2016-12-04T04:29:05.013+0000)

Essentially. Which is why removing the most binary aspect of it would allow the other parts some room for improvement.

Possibly!

I personally don't think that super-sustain champs being manaless is really that great of an idea. Do we even WANT Aatrox to be a super-sustain champ? I never really thought it fit well with his theme of 'legendary warrior who leads losing armies to bloody victory'.

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