@Riot Meddler, my Aatrox rework

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Auto-attack based drain tanks simply are not healthy for this game. They either heal too much and you can't duel them, or they heal too little and they're useless. It's very hard to reach a middle-ground while making the champion feel satisfying for the player, which is why I turned away from that playstyle and focused on making Aatrox more teamfight-centric since it matches his lore.4

This is often true, and applies to current Aatrox, but I think it only applies in the context of life steal and similar mechanics (Blood Thirst's AD-scaling heal on every third auto, for example), because the healing is tied to your damage, and so leads to the binary situation you mentioned where you either steamroll your opponents while being unkillable or die before you can do much. However, if you were to decouple the healing from your champion's damage, such as by having it scale with your health (ZenonTheStoic was working on a version of that on his kit), you could avoid that kind of situation by having your drain tank still function without being required to deal too much damage.

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The W active is reliant on cursed blood stacks, as in you cannot activate without at least one stack being near his vicinity (think of Twitch's E).

Yes, but what I'm saying is that you can go a step further and parcel the healing based on each stack your opponents have (like 's E but in reverse), so if you had a total of 10 stacks lying around on 2 enemy champions, for example, it would heal for more than 3 stacks on 3 enemy champions. As a side note, while I'm guessing this is already the case, you might have to specify if the AoE damage on your new ult applies Cursed Blood stacks.

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Sorry, but the old E had to go. It gave him too much safety in lane and more utility that doesn't fit his theme (ranged poke and wave clear). You can't really justify buffing his base stats while he still has his old W and his old E.

I think you're targeting the wrong ability here. His current E only grants him safety because he can heal for massive amounts while poking down his enemy, which is admittedly not a healthy gameplay pattern. It's his W that's the problem, not his E, and even if his E were a problem you'd still be mostly treading over them with the new ability you gave him. You're still giving him ranged poke and waveclear (plus more utility than before, with the new armor shred and the slow being moved to W), except you're making it even more dependent on laning, because you'd need a minion to damage your opponent behind it. I think his old ability's thematically fine (, a durable and disruptive close-range initiator, has ranged poke and waveclear with his E, why can't Aatrox have his blade poke?) and carries good gameplay (it's more difficult for him to poke targets at farther ranges, due to the shape of his projectiles), so I still don't really see the reason to change it.

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I already answered this before, but while the AA range increase may seem redundant, it is necessary for when the enemy retreats after your pull. They're not gonna stand there, they're gonna try to run away from Aatrox. With the AA range increase, he can land a few more AAs before they're out of his range so he can provide his team a stronger AoE slow with his W and a stronger heal for himself.

But isn't the slow after his pull strong enough? You're already giving him a self-centered ult and the power to hamstring multiple enemies at the press of a button, on top of his existing knockup; does Aatrox really need all of those bonuses and effects to help him stick to his targets? I'm not saying you need to get rid of the range increase, specifically, but there's a lot going on with your ult, and I think it would be better if you trimmed it down to the essentials and made those effects strong. Current Aatrox suffers from a big case of diluted power, mainly via the split autoattack steroids on his passive and ult, and I think one of the best things that could happen to him would be to concentrate his power as much as you can (which you've done really well overall).

Yeah, I remember reading about them talking about that. They said that thematically, an AoE fear would be cool and fit, but it's def a tank ability, and Aatrox is a fighter (or bruiser), not a tank. His cc and whatnot needs to be more selfish, instead of team-oriented. Like his live E has a slow so he can catch up to you and kill you, his live q has a knock up so he can kill you while you're defenseless. His kit shouldn't care too much about what the rest of his team is doing. :P

yeah but fear slows people like 95% so who cares.

He's strong because he has great jungle clear, sustain, and lvl 3+ consisstant ganks. he has a great initiate,escape, and CC in team fights with his Q and passive. Devourer fits him like a glove and with Botrk He becomes a absolute beast. His E snares multiple people in group fights and catches runners allowing you or your team to catch them. The longer the game goes the stronger you get. His sustain isn't toxic because it really doesn't help in team fights at all. counterplay is that he melts like ice in the microwave when focused. Toxic is some flashy obnoxious skill like a blitz pull or kat ult ect ect.A small bit of sustain on the third hit doesn't even come close to that. If every 3rd hit chunked the enemy for like 30% of their lifebar and healed you it would be toxic.

With the right ruins, items, masteries, and strategies he is pretty awesome. Don't mess with muh Starscream!

I agree that his kit is overloaded but IMO riot doesn't want to fix aatrox because he has a lot of counter play aka he is balanced which makes him bad because there are a lot of champions that can do what he does with far less counter play. In the jungle his whole goal is pretty much to get early ganks and snowball a lanes but if he doesn't do that then he will be in trouble because his mid game is pretty awkward as jungler. (At least for me anyway because if i build a tank item i do no damage, but if I build another damage item then I just get bursted down.)

As a top laner he is full of counter play his sustain does not become a problem until he gets an item and it only works when he is under 50 percent HP and even then if the Aatrox player is only using the heal then they will never win any trades. His Q is god awful. He can die during it, it is interruptible, he can get cc'd which will again cancel his jump, it is slow, if you don't land them in the middle then you failed, and it cost 10 percent of your HP. His E is pretty good over all the slow could be either more potent or longer to prevent him from getting kited, and his Ult looks cooler than what it actually does lol

But over all he is a decent champion that doesn't really need an overhaul all he needs is either a slight increase on his q or change his ult to physical damage that scales with AD and he would be fine.

You took the words out of my mouth!

True, true, but it doesn't really offer much synergy with the rest of his kit. He wants champions grouped up before he jumps in, and he wants them in a line afterwards. You are right that it needs to be more satisfying. Something that I forgot to say about this ultimate is that it removes the "two passive attack speed boosts at once" thing he has at the moment. I forgot to mention just how important that change was.

What every champion needs is something that they can do better than the rest of the roster, and they need that thing to be the strongest part of their kit. They also need a cohesive theme. That is why I like the new champions (including the Sion rework) better than the old ones in general.

So what is Aatrox's theme? And what can you put into his kit to fit that theme. Well, core to Aatrox's play is his toggle, so that has to stay. After that, the most important thing is to ask "what is Aatrox?".

Well, Aatrox is a fighter, a lord of battle. We have a lot of those in league, so that isn't unique. Aatrox has a blood well which, while unique, doesn't offer much that can be expanded upon. Revives are fairly common in League, and actually this doesn't fit with a theme for him... From Aatrox's current law, he has been the deciding factor of human history on Runeterra, inspiring armies to fight when all is lost.

So, I think he needs a way to control battle OR to inspire his allies. Not terrain, that is Jarvan's power, not a speed boost, that is Sivir. We need to be careful not to make this power invisible (like old Sona or Taric).

At this point, my understanding runs out. I think I understand what is important in design, but I am not very creative, so I will leave that part to you.

I hope I helped.

I dunno I like how he is currently. yes his W has low counterplay but so does other champ abilities such as 's ult it is no longer reduced by tenacity.

Yea.. I agree to a point. I think his passive is GREAT early. I dive for first bloods ALL the time. But as soon as you get to midgame, where fights are generally not 1v1, his passive is almost useless unless he's huge. You get rekt as soon as you get back up, because you have no attack speed and half your health (if you were able to fill up your blood well completely). I think with the rest of his kit being underwhelming (again mid-late stages) he needs some kind of boost to stay relevant in team fights.

I wouldn't make it a good chunk of damage.. but enough to make someone at less than 25% hp think twice before all-inning.