@Riot @Meddler What I want to see in an Aatrox Rework

The TL;DR is down below

Now for anyone that's played Aatrox, we can all agree that he is a very fun champion, albeit very trash. He is meant to be a bloodthirsty warrior who, against all odds stacked against him, will come out victorious. A lot of my friends have described to me him as an attack damage Vladimir, but significantly worse. Aatrox is meant to be a splitpusher and can also serve as a diver, the problem with him diving in is that he just doesn't have the mobility or utility to do anything once he's dived in. Typically, he will dive in and knock the enemy(ies) up, ult for a bit of damage, get his passive popped, wait, then die. And it's like this Every. Single. Time.

Now I will be comparing Aatrox to Tryndamere and sometimes Kayle for simplicity, for their kits are extremely similar and so are their class and playing styles.

First of all, the passives. Tryndamere's passive is Battle Fury is crucial to him because it allows him to get that strength he needs in combat. It ties in significantly with his Q; Bloodlust and is allow brought to full upon activation of his ult; Undying Rage. And when Undying Rage has ended or is about to end, his Bloodlust is there and ready to heal Tryndamere for a rather significant amount.

I also find it quite stupid that Aatrox's only source of sustain is in combat, thanks to his health regen being so bad. It is interesting to note however, that Tryndamere's damage is partially dependent on how low his health bar is, while his health regeneration is one of the highest in game, tied with Olaf and Sion and only being topped by a couple of others. I think it'd be much more interesting to see that low-health based damage transferred on over to Aatrox, since his entire theme is based upon winning against all odds. Just to note, Aatrox's regen is 6.59 - 15.1 while Tryndamere's is 8.51 - 23.8, which is quite stupid since Tryndamere has a free 12 second heal that scales with his AP whereas Aatrox's heal is entirely dependent upon him being in combat.

Now one thing that is particularly unfair for Aatrox is being out of combat, the one place he sucks about as much as he does in combat. Out of combat, Aatrox loses 2% of his Blood Well per second if he doesn't receive or deal damage for 5 seconds, compared to the super lenient 8 seconds Tryndamere gets on his depletion start. Now, while it will take a whole 55 seconds to lose all of Aatrox's Blood Well compared to Tryndamere's 28 seconds, Tryndamere's ultimate completely fills his Fury bar at max rank and at least 50 at rank 1, compared to Aatrox sometimes not even being able to secure 20% of his blood bar upon activation of his ult.

So I propose:

1. Change Aatrox's depletion rate of his Blood Well from 5 seconds to 8 seconds
2. Allow Aatrox's Massacre to contribute at least a portion of his Blood Well

Aatrox suffers from extreme lack of reliable mobility. His Q: Dark Flight is on a rather long cooldown, 16/15/14/13/12 vs Tryndamere's 13/12/11/10/9 Spinning Slash. To add insult to injury, Tryndamere's Spinning Slash's cooldown is reduced by 1/2 seconds whenever he critically strikes, in which is not rare, since crit chance is something inherent in Tryndamere's kit (his passive brings him to 35% on full) and his build usually has two items just for it. So Tryndamere will always have his engage / escape on a lower cooldown than Aatrox.

Not only that, but Dark Flight scales 70/115/160/205/250 (+60% AD) whereas Spinning Slash scales 70/100/130/160/190 (+120% AD) (+100% AP) Tryndamere also has an additional 10 total range on his Spinning Slash than Aatrox does on his Dark Flight. When you consider that the epicenter radius of Aatrox's Dark Flight is only 75, you can deduct from that he may practically only knock up one target, due to unit collision and how people are typically organized when they play. So we want to see a larger epicenter on his knockup radius so that his initiation source isn't such a laughable move, and a bigger reason to think "oh shit" if you fail to dodge it. This is much like any toplaner with a telegraphed CC, whether it , , or there's always a desire to counterplay their lockdowns more than to try to do with Aatrox, since Aatrox seems to be laughably be at his weakest point at close combat.

So that's:

1. A larger epicenter for his knockup
2. Better damage scaling
3. Make a reliable engage / escape tool (less cooldown OR uninterruptible)
4. Health back based upon how many enemies damaged by his Dark Flight.

Even his poke too: Blades of Torment is something that weakens him considerably. While it only takes 5% of his health, it's only strength that it's a mixed source of damage that is difficult to itemize against in the earlier stages of the game. But who needs to itemize for a skillshot that has an awful slow and a hitbox that gets narrower and easier to dodge the CLOSER it gets to you? It legitimately makes no fucking sense. Anybody who is directly in front of you you're going to hit either way, either with an auto attack or this dumbass skill - the hitbox getting smaller only solidifies this skill as a trash skill.

Comparing it to Tryndamere's mocking shout, while it does have the advantage of range and , it doesn't have the length (4s), the slowness scaling (30/37.5/45/52.5/60)% and Attack Damage reduction of enemies by (20/35/50/65/80) AD affected by it like Tryndamere's Mocking Shout does. Tryndamere's Mocking Shout can also be used to sort of determine whether someone is in a bush or in stealth or not based upon if it lights up on your HUD. While it is on a rather moderate cooldown, there's no risk associated with using it like there is with Aatox's / Aatroxes' / Aatrox'??

It's actually very interesting because Kayle's it's also comparable to Kayle's point-click combination of burst poke in her kit, since it scales extremely well 60/110/160/210/260 (+60% AP) (+100% AD) vs Aatrox's 75/110/145/180/215 (+60% AP) (+60% AD) that also has a scaling slow of 35/40/45/50/55% vs Aatrox's flat 40%.

Some things that would be nice to see added to Blades of Torment would be a combination of the following:

1. Armor shred for late game relevance and utility
2. Scaling slow ratios
3. High scaling damage ratios
4. Health restored upon hitting (Like Mundo's Q)
5. A more plausible hitbox
6. Something unique like a Grounding effect

Now Aatrox's ultimate, Masscre, is something that needs a fair bit of work as well. It's damage is something that could be far more impactful, but not anything too much. I'd say any increase between 25 - 75 is fine. I'd also like to see an AD scaling component in there as well, since AP Aatrox isn't something that is fully viable at the present moment. I also think that for a 100/85/70 second ultimate it's increase of attack range is pretty fucking garbage if it's being outdone by a 16 cooldown regular spell Righteous Fury from Kayle that gives her so much damage.

This coupled with the fact that a core item on Kayle gives her +20% CDR, and then a minimum of +10% cooldown reduction from runes and masteries on her brings her between a whopping +30% - +45% cooldown reduction, she practically has Aatrox's ultimate every 6 - 9 seconds. And then again, these champions serve relatively the same exact purpose. I'd also like to see a lot more utility in Aatrox's ultimate, one thing that I think would tie in thematically with his character and lore would be an AoE fear for a brief amount of time, enough time for him to sufficiently injure a key target within that timeframe.

One thing that I also contemplated about with his ultimate would be damage based upon his Blood Well, or a refreshing component on the fear based upon if he kills a target within his 12 seconds or something like that. Thought it'd be a rather interesting component seeing as lore is then again related to winning against all odds. This would also uniquely tie in with who Aatrox is as a champion, since he is so drawn to carving masterpieces out of his battles, the original virtuoso, before the likes of came along. Another thing rather interesting to consider would be a cleanse effect on his ultimate, since, as an auto attack based champion, CC is even more heavily Aatrox's weakness than anybody elses. Tryndamere can ult while CC'd and Kayle has invulnerability, so it's just something to consider

So for his ult that's:

1. An increase damage (25 - 75)
2. AD scaling
3. Better attack range
4. CC Cleanse OR Immunity
5. AoE Fear with a possible reset upon kills

TL;DR All in all, us Aatrox mains don't want to feel left in the dust with such a laughable champion that is such a joke. He has a rather basic kit, but to make it work and to outplay your enemies as Aatrox takes an incredible skill especially for the state he is at right now, since a lot of it comes down to knowing the minute numbers that will win you the trade and then the fight. We don't want to be going 3/0 early game just to get curb stomped by a 0/3 Olaf with no items. We don't want to be a stinky little caster minion anymore .

So all in all, this is what I feel is necessary to restore Aatrox to is former glory:

PASSIVE - BLOOD WELL:

1. Change Aatrox's depletion rate of his Blood Well from 5 seconds to 8 seconds
2. Allow Aatrox's Massacre to contribute at least a portion of his Blood Well

Q - DARK FLIGHT

1. A larger epicenter for his knockup
2. Better damage scaling
3. Make a reliable engage / escape tool (less cooldown OR uninterruptible)
4. Health back based upon how many enemies damaged by his Dark Flight.

E - BLADES OF TORMENT

1. Armor shred for late game relevance and utility
2. Scaling slow ratios
3. High scaling damage ratios
4. Health restored upon hitting (Like Mundo's Q)
5. A more plausible hitbox
6. Something unique like a Grounding effect

R - MASSACRE

1. An increase damage (25 - 75)
2. AD scaling
3. Better attack range
4. CC Cleanse OR Immunity
5. AoE Fear with a possible reset upon kills

I'd also like to see some new skins for Aatrox as well as more incorporation into other characters lore throughout League of Legends, since he's arguable been present in , , and stories as well. Such skins would be:

1. Demonblade Aatrox (Continuation off of Tryndamere's skin, since Aatrox's weapon is already considered a living weapon)
2. Soul Reaver Aatrox (An referance to Draven, how their personalities are both ones that place an artistic value on killing)
3. Blood Prince Aatrox (Reference to Daedra from The Elder Scrolls)
4. Eternum Aatrox (Continuation off the Eternum skinline, where Aatrox is more of a symbol of timeless, eternal strife and warfare)

Feel free to comment other points you think I may have missed out on, gotten wrong, things to add, etc.