I break down aatrox in this topic, tell you why he's garbage and maybe suggest fixes?

Passive Blood Well When using an ability that costs Health, Aatrox stores the self-inflicted damage into the Blood Well. Upon taking fatal damage, Aatrox extracts the blood from the well and recovers it as Health over a brief duration. Additionally, Aatrox gains 1% Attack Speed for every 2% blood that is in the well.

So, most top laners have some kind of attack speed steroid or an ability on short cool down to help them poke, farm whatever right? Aatrox has this, he inflicts damage to himself to gain up to a 50% aspd buff right? So, he either toggles his w or e's because if you use your q before you have to, you're dead on account of you have no real crowd control or reliable escape mechanic or innate tankiness.

"But his passive brings him back to life!" Yeah, for the meme it does. You come back to life with less HP than you would've gotten just dying with GA. Except with GA it wouldn't have consumed your blood well stacks. So you come back to life, your q has a shit cd, so it's still down, and you have NO attack speed. You're just dead. period.

Moving along.

Q Dark Flight Cost: 10% of current Health Range: 25000 Aatrox takes flight and slams down at a targeted location, dealing damage and knocking up enemies at the center of impact. Aatrox takes flight and slams down at target location, dealing 70/115/160/205/250 (+60% bonus Attack Damage) physical damage and knocking up enemies at the center of impact for 1 second.

Alright, this in my opinion is one of the worst abilities in the game. This ability is a very short range jump that has this totally unnecessary like 1.2 second wind up. Not to mention it can be interrupted in the wind up part (I only mention this because technically aatrox is off the ground about to jump) This skill might as well deal no damage. The knock up itself isn't bad but the zone size- much like this entire champion, is a bad, bad joke.

W Blood Thirst / Blood Price Cost: No Cost Range: 1 While toggled on Aatrox deals bonus damage every third subsequent attack at the expense of his own Health. While toggled off Aatrox restores Health every third subsequent attack. Toggle Off: Blood Thirst: Every third attack, Aatrox restores 20/25/30/35/40 (+25% bonus Attack Damage) Health, increased by 200% when below half Health. Toggle On: Blood Price: Every third attack, Aatrox deals 60/95/130/165/200 (+100% bonus Attack Damage) bonus physical damage and loses Health.

This ability is actually pretty good. HP sac to deal more damage, lose the damage to get innate life back every third hit. The only promlem with it is actually this bit "Blood Thirst: Every third attack, Aatrox restores Health, increased by 200% when below half Health." This is garbage. With the game the way it is and all the assassins that are meta this is a death sentence.

"But warwick does nearly the same thing and he's okay right now"

There's a key difference. Warwick gets HP with every auto. Unless you build it aa gets it every third auto attack. the amount of HP you get back vs the infrequency that it takes place. Makes this added passive worthless because in league if you're below 50% HP you're already dead. Again, moving along.

E Blades of Torment Cost: 5% of current Health Range: 1000 Aatrox unleashes the power of his blade, dealing damage to enemies hit and slowing them. Aatrox unleashes the power of his blade, dealing 75/110/145/180/215 (+60% Ability Power) (+60% bonus Attack Damage) Magic Damage to enemies hit and slowing them by 40% for 1.75/2/2.25/2.5/2.75 seconds.

Alright, so immediately it does no damage, the slow is pretty much worthless and the scaling (much like his q) is nothing. I'm going to touch more on this in a moment but for now, lets move on.

R Massacre Cost: No Cost Range: 550 Aatrox draws in the blood of his foes, damaging all nearby enemy champions around him and gaining increased Attack Speed and bonus Attack Range for a short duration. Aatrox draws in the blood of his foes, dealing 200/300/400 (+100% Ability Power) magic damage to nearby enemy champions. Massacre fills Aatrox's Blood Well by 20% for each champion hit and grants him 40/50/60% attack speed and 175 attack range for 12 seconds.

Now the thing that makes this champion the ultimate shit sandwich of the roster. Aatrox's ult has got to be the most awkward thing they could have possibly added to this guy. So, it does MAGIC damage, scales with AP hits in a circle around aatrox (incredibly small range) and fills the blood well a bit for each champ you hit and gives you some aspd and attack range.

Lol, now lets REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLY look at this ult. So you're telling me to use my totally obvious q to dive into a team, hit no one with my q because they saw it coming/ knockup zone super small so it didn't hit them. Toggle my e to give me hp back ult, effectively dealing damage to no one, and start autoing and praying that their viegar doesn't just turn around, ult me and that'll be the end of me.

Keep in mind this is after i risked being either out in a lane or farming the jungle to fill blood well somehow before this fight.

So what we're really looking at here is a champ that doesn't have a reliable way in yet is aa based doesn't deal damage yet has abilities geared like he was intended to burst, and can't really escape. You have to work insanely hard to get even the most remote reward as aatrox. In top lane the game is stacked against you. Lets say you're laning against camille. Camille doesn't have to kill herself to get her aspd steroid, she just uses her e to engage on you and rank 1 is rewarded with 10% more aspd than you get from your passive at any stage in the game. not to mention her E is very long range, quick, and relatively difficult to punish.

Not complaining about camille i'm just pointing out a way that a different champ is rewarded for using their kit correctly. Where aatrox has to expose himself to extreme danger to do so. This champ design might have been okay when it came out but lets be real. Aatrox has never been good. Even on launch he wasn't spectacular.