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Aatrox--for whom was he changed?

DarkinPrime··9 votes·1,786 views

I ask you. Who benefited?

Surely, his rework didn't attract new players to the game. "League looks lame...wait, holy shit, they reworked Aatrox I guess I will sign up" Okay, THAT didn't happen.

So who was it for? The non Aatrox players were not hoping for a rework that they would like. I don't sit around hoping a champion I don't play gets reworked into something completely different so I can maybe like him. So, how would it be for the benefit of non Aatrox players for this rework? Clearly they were content maining other champions.

How about the Aatrox mains? The ones who clamored for years demanding a rework? Well, most of them are not happy.

I personally have abandoned the champion. The insult to injury started when the ricklessabandon did that absurd mini rework, which made Aatrox's revive contingent on stacks, thus making him very easy to tower dive when behind, and adding a lot more complication to playing him.

So, basically no one has benefited. Hes just another champion who has an abusable kit for people at high elo to cheese with. So people are playing him. So what? That doesn't mean anyone, or the game, has benefited from this new Aatrox.

So why did Riot do it? Well, incompetence comes to mind. They didn't have the creativity to created a balanced champion out of Aatroxs kit. Also, bad PR. They spun a narrative that Aatrox was toxic or unfun.

You know whats unfun? Darius ulting 4 of your teammates. Or Tryndemere lifestealing BETTER than Aatrox ever could. Or Trynadmere hitting R to win, literally. LeBlanc, who kills you before you can possibly react and then gets way with it scott free.

Aatrox was the least offensive, and you could EASILY counter build to shut him down, and avoid 1v1 fights.

I'm sorry, but this was a horrible decision. A lot of you like to chime in who side on the sidelines off this--you never mained Aatrox, you have no idea what you are talking about. Don't waste my time and come on here parroting what you THINK you know about him, often from Rioters like rickles who never even played the damn champion.

This was a shit decision. If ever have the means to acquire Riot in some massive multi billion dollar transaction, everyone who had a part in this is going to get fired. I promise you, I will never forget this ass fuckery. They took away the only champion I really like to play, in the only game I liked to play, which was a reprieve from my chronic depression, PTSD and anxiety. So, Riot can go straight to hell for 1) not actually giving a shit what Aatrox mains said 2)telling me, literally, that they listened to Aatrox mains and polled them, which is a lie. I have an account with over 10,000 ranked matches on him. They never polled me and 3)making these asinine changes for the benefit, literally of NO ONE.

All of you at Riot should be fucking ashamed of yourselves. How dare you promote game, ask players to spend countless hours playing to get good or climb, and the nullify their time spent by changing a champion into something where literally ZERO of the skill set translates over to the new kit. How fucking dare you defraud players of their time they spent on YOUR game.

All of you who never played Aatrox should be outraged. The point of game is that the rules dont't really change to the point where the basics no longer apply. Hockey, baseball...football, you could tweak the rules and yet the same basic mechanics are needed. But when you completely overhaul a champions kit that you may have practiced with for years you are basically telling us that we have no job security so to speak with any main, and that OUR time is worthless if you deem it so.

Again, go to hell, everyone a Riot who had a part of this shit decisions and shit design and who helped peddle the lies.

You know who you are, and you should be ashamed of yourselves

41 Comments

Moonscourge8 votes

He was weak garbage before that had a kit that was intentionally kept weak because he would just statcheck everybody else. He definitely wasn't worth playing. Your entire last tangent was worthless, rethink your life perhaps.

DarkinPrime2 votes

Irrelevant argument--most champs stat check when ahead. Also, what I do with my life, and what I choose to value with my time is none of your business. keep your unsolicited opinion to yourself.

He was kept weak because Riot couldn't figure out a way to balance him and keep the essence of his kit. Hence the part about them lacking competence. Did you read the post?

And if the last tangent was worthless, tell me what about it was worthless? My argument about the nature of games? Or peoples time? What specifically? I will wait.

Moonscourge8 votes

So you're biased and you don't even want to have a discussion, got it. Stop posting threads when you don't want to listen.

DarkinPrime2 votes

Listen? You didn't post ANYTHING of substance for me to discuss.

kingDeDeDarius3 votes

Your whole post is an unsolicited opinion. Double standard maybe? And it's true, old aatrox was too binary. Not saying that he couldn't have been fixed, but as he was, he was terrible design. New aatrox is a cool design to play against (just was balanced). You're just salty your old main essentially got removed from the game. I would be too though, tbh. Riot should just keep shadow version of champs when they do total or near total reworks, much like smash Bros (young link, botw link, toon link, Samus, dark Samus, zero suit Samus, pretty much all of the fire emblem sword fighters, Mario, doctor Mario, etc) and keep the original champ design in a slight perpetually nerfed condition so that they can be easy to balance, but viable in the right hands or in or against the right team comps, etc

DarkinPrime1 votes

Yes, ALL posts are unsolicited opinions. Congrats, you just succeeded in saying NOTHING.

Nothing you say now is irrelevant because you dont have the reasoning to tell the difference between a post on a forum, and someone giving life advise in response to a post.

Ill be happy to thoroughly wreck your argument, but not until I make sure that you understand how very wrong you are for suggesting a double standard.

General Matty1 votes

{quoted}

Irrelevant argument--most champs stat check when ahead. Also, what I do with my life, and what I choose to value with my time is none of your business. keep your unsolicited opinion to yourself.

He was kept weak because Riot couldn't figure out a way to balance him and keep the essence of his kit. Hence the part about them lacking competence. Did you read the post?

And if the last tangent was worthless, tell me what about it was worthless? My argument about the nature of games? Or peoples time? What specifically? I will wait.

So how would you have balanced old Aatrox?

DarkinPrime1 votes

I would have kept his kit almost the same except his ult. I'm talking pre mini rework. The few good changes Riot did were making is dive unstoppable on the way down, lowering his CD of his revive at higher levels.

I would have lowered his healing in exchange for increased toughness either via stats changes to his passive such as gaining defenses based on how outnumbered he is. Aatrox has no defense except from healing. However, anyone can heal with the right items, and often have built in tenacity, shields, or bonus armor or MR etc, in fact most top laners do if not all of them...except Aatrox. Lowering his healing would make him less toxic, less effective at 1v1s but also not blown up as easily in a team fight.

I include his ability to move about while reviving, and allow him to hit R again to decide WHEN to revive. Say a window of 5 seconds, and you can hit R to decide when to come back to life.

Blades of torment would go back to mixed damage. Or, I would have changed it to his sword extending in land with 2 swipes--hit E to swipe from right to left, knocking enemies slightly to the side if it, and cast again within x seconds to swipe back to the right, again slightly knocking enemies to the side when hit

His Ult would be a team buff, Darkin Rally allies anyone on the map gain movement speed while moving towards Aatrox, and when they are near him, also gain reduced damage and bonus AD. Casting his R would immediately reset his CD on his abilities. No aoe magic damage or bonus attack speed.

Or something like that.

General Matty1 votes

{quoted}

I would have kept his kit almost the same except his ult. I'm talking pre mini rework. The few good changes Riot did were making is dive unstoppable on the way down, lowering his CD of his revive at higher levels.

I would have lowered his healing in exchange for increased toughness either via stats changes to his passive such as gaining defenses based on how outnumbered he is. Aatrox has no defense except from healing. However, anyone can heal with the right items, and often have built in tenacity, shields, or bonus armor or MR etc, in fact most top laners do if not all of them...except Aatrox. Lowering his healing would make him less toxic, less effective at 1v1s but also not blown up as easily in a team fight.

I include his ability to move about while reviving, and allow him to hit R again to decide WHEN to revive. Say a window of 5 seconds, and you can hit R to decide when to come back to life.

Blades of torment would go back to mixed damage. Or, I would have changed it to his sword extending in land with 2 swipes--hit E to swipe from right to left, knocking enemies slightly to the side if it, and cast again within x seconds to swipe back to the right, again slightly knocking enemies to the side when hit

His Ult would be a team buff, Darkin Rally allies anyone on the map gain movement speed while moving towards Aatrox, and when they are near him, also gain reduced damage and bonus AD. Casting his R would immediately reset his CD on his abilities. No aoe magic damage or bonus attack speed.

Or something like that.

I like your proposals, i just think the ult has the potential to be way too strong. Thumbs up tho.

DarkinPrime1 votes

Thanks. This is why i say that Riot telling us that his kit was too toxic to fix was a bunch of bullshit. That was just the narrative they peddled to justify what they did. There were infinite ways they could have tweaked his kit to fix it. They lied to us either because they lacked the TALENT to fix it or because of some other biased agenda

boricCentaur15 votes

STILL HAS A BETTER PLAY RATE then the old one by around 40% more at worst depending on elo and was just nerfed to the ground and usually play rate spikes down after a nerf then goes back up after a couple patches so it definitely increased the number of players that actually play the champion.

But you know just ignore the facts and keep acting like more then a very very small minority of players actually liked old one.

DarkinPrime1 votes

His play rate has nothing to do with the point I made. Maybe read my post again.

Just because people WHO WERE ALREADY PLAYING THE GAME AND ENJOYING IT switched over to new Aatrox doesn't mean anything. They didn't benefit--they were perfectly happy maining other champions.

You literally made no point.

boricCentaur12 votes

Play rate has basically everything to do with the post since it answers the question of who the rework is for if more people play the new one that means riot made a more enjoyable champion that people can play. That is the answer aatrox was changed to not be a boring champion that no one played and so more people can find him fun.

Also how do you know then rework didn't bring in new players, and the players that switched over could of left the game and even if they were happy with the champions they already played adding one more probably would of made them happier.

DarkinPrime1 votes

Haha a rework of an obscure champion did not bring in new players. I don't need evidence for something so obvious. Thats not how the world works.

kingDeDeDarius6 votes

Man you really are a dickk to just about anything who disagrees with you,but I'm just sitting here eating popcorn reading your posts lol

General Matty1 votes

{quoted}

Man you really are a dickk to just about anything who disagrees with you,but I'm just sitting here eating popcorn reading your posts lol

Unrelated, but you're almost at 1K upvotes. GJ lol

Ralanr1 votes

1k?

We gotta bump those up. Them’s rookie numbers!

General Matty1 votes

{quoted}

1k?

We gotta bump those up. Them’s rookie numbers!

Aw man i'm only just starting to get to 700. rip me

kingDeDeDarius1 votes

Great point

GreenKnight4 votes

I wanted to agree with you, because all reworks suck, but since you want ALL Rioters to "go to hell", i'm not going to.

Reworks should not exist, but you need to control your emotions about them. Hate, but don't insult. At least not directly.

DarkinPrime2 votes

My emotions have nothing to do with my argument. I mean what I said. Its not an emotional out burst.

Furthermore, I didn't ask for your opinion on what you think are my emotions, nor your high roading platitudes about what I should or shouldn't include in my post or arguments.

Maybe focus on the content of the post, not your opinion of your inferred subjective opinion of my emotions.

Also, you need to learn to READ. I didn't say every Rioter should go to hell, just the ones that had a hand in the shit decision and final outcome of the rework.

GreenKnight6 votes

{quoted}

My emotions have nothing to do with my argument. I mean what I said. Its not an emotional out burst.

Furthermore, I didn't ask for your opinion on what you think are my emotions, nor your high roading platitudes about what I should or shouldn't include in my post or arguments.

Maybe focus on the content of the post, not your opinion of your inferred subjective opinion of my emotions.

Also, you need to learn to READ. I didn't say every Rioter should go to hell, just the ones that had a hand in the shit decision and final outcome of the rework.

Your post is just another rant, why would i pay attention to it? You post here, i will comment on that, with what i have in mind.

And by the way, i think that reworks suck, and this design philosophy should not exist. But, i'm not going around telling people that they are shit for making something i don't like. You need some perspective, my man.

Insulting someone is not an argument, by the way.

DarkinPrime2 votes

I never said you had to pay attention to it. If you REALLY didn't want to pay attention to it you could have not read it or glossed over it and not commented.

I don't need your perspective on how to live my life. I never asked you nor anyone else.

I also never claimed that insulting someone is part of an argument. You are here inventing things to attack me with.

The level of ego, and the lack of understanding, that you must have to come on here and think you can A) accurately assess me and whether or not I need perspective and B) think you words would change anything even if that was the case, is absolutely astounding. YOU should be embarrassed of yourself.

kingDeDeDarius2 votes

Yep you are definitely angsty and Greenknight is right. You seem to have the attitude of a highschool freshman

DarkinPrime1 votes

Wrong. "Definitely"? You don't know me. And drawing absolutely conclusions based on a post that uses words or insults you don't like is a fools way to draw conclusions on a person

kingDeDeDarius2 votes

You are a troubled person, and have seem a little unstable if I'm being honest. Not everything is about whether you "asked" someone for their opinion or not. That's just a weak deflection when you can't make a true counterpoint, an admission that you were in the wrong about something, but that you just don't care because it doesn't play along with your narrative.

DarkinPrime1 votes

A counterpoint? Him saying he doesn't like me insulting Riot is not a counter point. I don't think its wrong to insult people, by calling out their incompetence and lack of transparency, if they really have screwed up.

kingDeDeDarius4 votes

I disagree about the comment "all reworks suck". That's incredibly subjective. I for one think that nunu, we, taric, galio, akali, aatrox were all good reworks (some of which were out of whack but still malleable enough to be worked into something good), but if you see my response abive, I think the healthy solution for everyone is to introduce shadow warriors. After all, no one likes losing their main to a rework

Ralanr1 votes

I think the downside to an introduction to shadow versions of reworks as the originals is that Riot still has to balance those originals on top of the rework, and a rework usually is made because the originals needed more than just balancing.

Old Sion for example had a kit that either worked full AD or full AP, with no real inbetween. Old Poppy was a mess, and old GP was too RNG focused with his ult.

Keeping shadows of the old champion just seems to make a rework of them pointless, you might as well make a new champion, except that new champion has a similar mechanic or ability to the previous that’s sometimes a direct copy (GP Q and W, Sion W, Poppy E, etc).

General Matty1 votes

{quoted}

I wanted to agree with you, because all reworks suck, but since you want ALL Rioters to "go to hell", i'm not going to.

Reworks should not exist, but you need to control your emotions about them. Hate, but don't insult. At least not directly.

But Taric though.

GreenKnight1 votes

[{quoted}](name=General Matty,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PBBArFyl,comment-id=00000002,timestamp=2019-02-18T16:28:50.781+0000)

But Taric though.

Taric is a garbage rework, like all of them. Same with Kayle and Morg's rework, i can already tell you that, from what i saw in the teaser.

General Matty1 votes

{quoted}

Taric is a garbage rework, like all of them. Same with Kayle and Morg's rework, i can already tell you that, from what i saw in the teaser.

What about Warwick? His rework was great imo.

GreenKnight1 votes

[{quoted}](name=General Matty,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PBBArFyl,comment-id=0000000200000000,timestamp=2019-02-18T16:34:44.635+0000)

What about Warwick? His rework was great imo.

No, it was not.

Ralanr1 votes

So even Sion and Poppy were garbage reworks?

GreenKnight1 votes

{quoted}

So even Sion and Poppy were garbage reworks?

Pretty much, yeah.

Ralanr1 votes

Ah. Well, respectfully, I disagree. I feel the older versions of them were more problematic for the game and couldn’t be allowed to be strong meta wise.

General Matty2 votes

{quoted}

Pretty much, yeah.

Can you provide an explanation as to why? Because i assure you nearly everybody would think you are wrong to some degree.

General Matty2 votes

''Over 10,000 ranked matches'' my ASS.

DarkinPrime1 votes

100% true. Maybe you see why I'm upset. I have no reason to make that claim unless it was true.

Thaumaturge Void1 votes

Yeah, they really did screw up with Aatrox, and the Darkin in general. Kinda funny how his old kit fits his new lore better than his current kit, seeing as how he’s supposed to use the blood/bodies of his enemies to improve himself. (Hence why almost all Darkin are supposed to be able to utilize Fleshcrafting/Blood Magic of some sort.) In fact, the whole concept of the Darkin is confusing now—the definition is quite literally Ascended who try to gain personal power, yet they refuse to see Renekton and Xerath (provided he is an Ascended) as Darkin and at the same time say that if someone saw Renekton they’d call him a Darkin (Which is just a title now). I can understand the tiny wings, I get that he’s supposed to be a colossus now, but I’d still prefer the old or somewhat bigger wings and him having an improved version of his old Q.

I also get that he’s supposed to be nigh unkillable and can probably reinforce himself with magic, but why not make some of the Chitin that his old form had to make himself even harder to kill? His model, while also looking terribly pixelated, is like 90% red now, and his new splash art, despite its attempts, just doesn’t look menacing to me. Rather, it looks like I do when I view it; mildly annoyed that it exists.

Aside from that, some of his gameplay just doesn’t make sense. Any carried over aspects feel superbly underwhelming, with his healing being nearly unnoticeable until late game and his ult essentially being his old passive and R mixed together yet worse still. Why does the blood colossus hurt a target for max health, reduce its regen/healing/shields, and lowers cooldown with every ability use? Why can he swing his sword 3 times in less than a few seconds (Which, mind you, is supposed to be proportional to his size—colossal—but apparently is also small enough for humans to wield comfortably, and nothing in lore states it can change size other than this inconsistency). Where do the chains in the ground come from? How would a colossus be able to dash with no charge up considering its size and the fact that it is made of flesh? Even Galio, a Petricyte golem that can absorb and utilize the magic around him and is of similar size to Aatrox has to charge up before being able to dash any distance.

I’m not trying to say that all of this is terrible and that Riot is horrible for making these changes. It just seems to me that all aspects of this (Story, Design, Balance) works off of bad material or the material is turned bad on its way to delivery and there’s nothing they can do about it. I think it’s commendable the ideas the story team is trying to go, but they’re focused too much on Shurima/Targon/Void aspects in too many things. I just wish the Darkin wasn’t one of them. And Aatrox’s while wanting to eliminate himself is pretty stupid based on his plans (attack everything until something kills me) seeing as how him being trapped by cosmic magic means only cosmic beings will be able to kill/free him. Why not make him decide to go covert and try to find ways to solve this problem while secretly building himself up and improving himself? Other than this, the handling of other Darkin characters/stories have been done relatively well, though they could have done a bit better at fleshing out the backstories of Varus’ shared minds (can’t remember their names). I actually quite enjoyed the color story where Misha betrayed the assembly of Darkin despite my disposition to some of its base ideas.

Addendum to gameplay, the design team says that they took into consideration the Aatrox mains, but I doubt it. His whole schtick before was that of a battle manipulator and hard to kill. His new schtick is being a one-person-lock and hard to kill. Let’s see what carried over and was used. His old passive allowed him to revive every so often with bonus as and ad based on how much you hurt enemies over a moderate period of time, while his new one deals large damage and reduces healing/shielding for a bit. His old passive has essentially become his Ult but an active instead, but his new passive draws from nothing. The original implementation would have fit so well with his new theme that it’s sickening it was thrown out. His old Q let him fly into the air and knock up at most 3 champions and damage minions around the landing spot after a short delay or let him escape, while his new Q is him smashing his sword into the ground and knocking people up in a small area. While all aspects are carried over, him knocking up some people and being able to escape (with his e), the implementation is less than fine. His whole personality being angry, straight to the point, aggressive, somewhat honorable, etc and he prefers to stay back from a battle rather than charging in? Honestly, it would’ve been better if they reworked his old Q into a better ult than what it is now. His old W allowed him to either heal every 3 strikes or deal extra damage at the cost of health with the same trigger, while his new W allows him to shoot chains at a target that drags them back if they don’t escape an area. The healing was carried over as an inferior version of Death’s Dance’s passive as an attachment of his E. This is the only time chains have even been associated with his champ. Why add this? His old E allowed Aatrox (the sword) to emit 2 rays of energy towards a point, which had an admittedly weird hit box, while his new E is a very small dash with some insignificant healing attached. There wasn’t even an attempt to convert this, they drew a medium-ranged flight-to-knockup on impact and the ability to heal based on your health/deal damage based on your health into a VERY small dash and a rehash of Death’s Dance but worse. His old R improved his passive based on how many enemy champs were nearby and improved attack range, speed, and damage for a small time along with a bit of AOE damage on cast, while his new R does almost the same except is also allows him to use his old passive. I still can’t grasp the concept that he uses some sort of magic to increase his already colossal size three-fold and give him access to the ability to resurrect himself.

The balance team...exists. You can refer to the rest of the boards for you to determine your own opinion on them. All I’m gonna say is that Ohmwrecker has sat through several seasons and through multiple balance teams as the least used item, as well as that I’ve actually never seen almost all of the new items introduced in the past 2 years in any sort of use.

All in all, while the story team tried to satisfy the question of who or what the Darkin are, they didn’t do it in a way which feels organic. Even so, they do make good use of what they have without going too far or too short of the expectations they set up in a satisfying way. The design team, however, seemed to decide that they wanted to only take bits and pieces of the original Aatrox, make them worse, then add mechanics that don’t really fit his story/personality. The result is less than admirable. The art team did seem to try, but his splash art seems goofy and his model seems just...infuriatingly less detailed than his original model.

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