Defining Aatrox's Role

I've put a couple of threads up already about Aatrox and how he needs some love. I've looked at some suggestions on how he should be buffed or tweaked to better define his role in the game. Right now he's sitting in an area where he has quite a bit of potential, but his stats and lack of utility inhibit him from reaching that potential. I've come up with a couple of ways to make Aatrox better in a certain role, whether it be a strong duelist/splitpusher with tons of survivablilty and undying aspects, or to make him more of a teamfight engager/tideturner with the ability to fight on till the very end and increase his team's chance of victory in that fight.

Option 1: Duelist Improvements

Base health increased to 425 (from 395)

Innate: Bloodwell - Maximum attack speed bonus increased to 1% for every 1.5% in the Bloodwell.

Q: Dark Flight -Radius of Darkflight (both damage and knockup) increased by 10%. Increased damage scaling to 70% AD

W: Bloodthirst/Bloodprice -Every third auto attack restores 20/25/30/35/40 (+35% bonus AD) health. The heal is increased by 200% when below 50% health -Every third auto attack deals 60/95/130/165/200 (+100% total AD) bonus physical damage

E: Blades of Torment -Also slows attack speed by 35% and deals 75/110/145/180/215 (+90% AD) (0% AP)*

R: Massacre -Deals 175/250/325 (120% bonus AD) magic damage to all enemies in the area and heals Aatrox for 50% of the damage dealt -6.25% for each enemy beyond 1 hit (50% for 1 enemy, 43.75% for 2 enemies, 37.5% for 3 enemies, 31.25% for 4 enemies, and 25% for 5 enemies). Increases his attack speed by 40/50/60% and increases his movement speed by 20/30/40% for 12 seconds.

Option 2: Team Fighter Improvements

Base health increased to 425 (from 395) and scaling health increased to 100 (from 85.0) per level.

Innate: Bloodwell -Revive static cooldown reduced to 180 seconds.

Q: Dark Flight -Radius of Dark Flight (both damage and knockup) increased by 25% and cooldown reduced to 14/13/12/11/10 seconds.

W: Bloodthirst/Bloodprice -Applies 1/3 the selfheal/damage/cost every auto attack instead of every third auto attack

E: Blades of Torment -Basic attacks reduce the cooldown of Blades of Torment by .5 seconds

R: Massacre -Deals damage equal to 10/15/20% maximum (or current) health of all enemies hit and grants Aatrox 40/50/60% increased attack speed and grants nearby allies half the bonuses for 12 seconds.

These changes definitely give Aatrox a significant amount of power either way, giving him either increased damage or increased utility. His base health is definitly low for a fighter/tank and needs to be improved whichever case is chosen. Currently his damage scalings on his abilities are garbadge since two of them scale better with ability power than they do with attack damage. His Bloodthirst/Bloodprice seems too weak in terms of both the damage and selfheal to make him a significant duelist since he is completely and utterly countered by hard cc and attack speed debuffs. Usually to compensate for low damage scalings, a champion would be given tons of utility, but Aatrox is also missing that; his knockup's radius is too small to hit more than one or two champions and doesn't knock up for very long at that. His slow is very difficult to hit on more than two targets unless they are lined up for him, not to mention that its range is really small. Finally, his ultimate is headed in the right direction, but needs to be improved to either give him a chance to turn the tide of a fight for either himself significantly or slightly for himself and more for his entire team. Making it heal him would cause an opponent to over-commit to a duel and allow him to win a seemingly lost fight, while giving his teamates an attack speed buff would mean having him nearby in a fight extremely valuable and allow fights to be turned by the timing of his ultimate's use.

In conclusion, if he is supposed to be a duelist, buff his damage to make him viable when competing against top duelists like Udyr, Zed, and Fiora (Jax would still easily win in a duel). If he's supposed to be more of a teamfighter, imrpove his utility so he can have a significant teamfight pressence comparable to Lee Sin, Riven, and maybe even Wukong. Either way, he needs to be improved. The numbers and suggestions above aren't perfect, but it's a start. Please look into this and give Aatrox some love.