I'm a big fan of the big Guy. I've played plenty of games with him and was able to overcome alot of his counters in lane. The problem is his skills outside his W are really weak, making a duel against a 1-3 Riven difficult when I'm 4-0 with Aatrox. I think he needs a buff on his skills, but thats just me.
That buff has already happened.
But honestly, I think it is more the fact that a lot of people still just don't know how to build him correctly or team fight as him honestly.
They're buffing him soon. On the PBE, he gains 20% bloodwell for his passive on-hit during his ultimate, Massacre.
Aatrox is one of my main champions, and I would say that his biggest problem is that he just doesn't deal the most damage. By the same token, there's this really weird idea among people that Aatrox needs to build full damage, when he really does well to build a lot of durability. Like, I'll barely ever build more than one damage item on him unless I'm just snowballing, and at that point, I'll usually just go 
and 
into whatever tank items I need most.
As for dueling Riven, that's pretty much a losing battle for anyone, because she scales so incredibly hard, even from behind. She's definitely the sort of champion you should just start to stack tank items against.
All in all, I would love Aatrox buffs, but he mostly suffers from the current meta, rather than his kit itself being bad, in my opinion.
I completely agree that a duel with Riven is impossible, and she needs a good deal of nerfing, went up to level 4 while I was still level 1 after she won the first trade, wtf... way too easy to hit hard at the start. But Aatrox does suffer from the fact that his mobility isn't that great, renek, riven, fiora all have far more versatile escapes and gap closers. so coming up against any of them is just horrible. Aatrox is like an AA version of renek without the tankiness or the regen, or the close and escape or... I mean really he is a bit crap, or rather his W can be great if you have the health to survive it, or the lifesteal to back it up but without those it's crap and the others are all crap, skillshots, interruptible and what's that AP scaling you say? what a great idea, I'll build AP on a champ that has to rely on AA's just to actually survive, not to mention do damage. Yes you can Penta with an AP trox but really it's just a troll move and most of the time you'd just be pummeled into oblivion, then get lucky in a teamfight and everyone is like wha... you broke da game. For a champ that's meant to have his own style he's a bit confused about what that style is no? I still play him most cos I loves him, but it's a bit of a hassle. He should be a proper sustainer, or AD caster with a decent Ult, or AA reliant, but with a decent AA buffing ult. Something to make him more viable instead of just a jungler who you'd rather not actually gank with because you're more likely to be killed than get a kill, even with the surprise.
I know he needs buffs but let me give you a little tip in the mean time, I main this guy and I did a lot of experimenting with him for a long time.
He has scaling armor and unlike most champions he also has scaling MR for pretty much the exact amount you got on scaling MR glyphs.
So just get full scaling HP per level glyphs, seals and quints and a dorans blade to start, it REALLY helps his early game and lets your damage items you need and takes that feeling of squishiness away from him.
I'd get attack speed marks also.
Start with a blood thirster (fuck hydra's) and you'll be able to duel riven no problem every time ur ults up.
As long as you do all this, at level 6 at least you'll be gaurentee'd to be able to duel her, though I've honestly beat her earlier at level 2-3 and such.
This isn't mandatory but I'd lastly suggest getting summoner heal, its a great spell for him, when dueling if you feel you arn't going to make that third heal win your duel u can use it AND get that next heal, it pretty much always wins me duels early.
Late its good for when u jump in and kick some ass but then the next person has the ability to kite you, it lets you either chase while getting some sustain regardless of attacking or escape, it also helps your team in team fights.
He really dose not need a buff it really just depends on how well you do in lane he's a high risk middle Award champ if you do bad in lane you are really useful mid game or late game. But his impowered w gives you burst early on to get ahead yes the heal is good but your damage w is can save your life cuz the damage is unreal. Here's a ability path I go e w q w w r e e e e r w w q q q r q. This makes your sustain makes sense cause you heal over 100 below 50% HP. And you damage is 130. Aatrox dose need a buff it that will make him op. The only thing he really needs is his health cost tweaked some. 15% for q and 5% for e that's 20% true damage to your self that's 1/5 of your HP. That's all he really needs. To me I feel like I can this cause I have 240 K mastery with him
Thanks for the inputs.
lol build armor, win duel against riven. Aatrox is fine and doesnt need buffs.
