Sure, I got fed and won lane pretty hard but after that it was a struggle. What is his purpose? What does he actually contribute? How do you even build him? I played a couple games, and no matter what he felt lacking. When I built him Bork + tank, he felt like he had no damage and still didn't feel tanky. When I built him with a little more offense, he just exploded despite having additional life steal.
What's his deal?
Knight SoIaire 4 votesi already told on this boards countless times aatrox needs to comit too hard to too many things he needs to build glasscannon to work well with his lifesteal and deal good damage and heeds to build realy tanky to compensate for his lack of evasiveness and requrement of stacking the blood well
whatever you build on him there is a realy significant tradeoff he cant realy take he isnt like riven who can just go all offense because her kit fills the gaps, he gets only what he builds
he kinda needs a rework aimed at this, he has no role, its just ageneric ball of stats without a purpose and this lack of purpose is killing him
ScreamPaste1 votesAatrox works a lot like Tryndamere, he's a hard to duel melee carry that doesn't team fight well, but can push towers like a bastard. Force your weaker laning opponent to deal with you or lose towers.
InSingedWeTrust1 votesAatrox works a lot like Tryndamere, he's a hard to duel melee carry that doesn't team fight well, but can push towers like a bastard. Force your weaker laning opponent to deal with you or lose towers.
I thought that at first, but then I thought for someone with a revive passive and getting bonus blood well damage based on people hit, he should be a team fighter. but he's just another version of Trynd?
Knight SoIaire 1 votesnot ever another version of trynd, he is sub par to trynd in many aspects unless realy fed
ScreamPaste1 votesThey're on a similar level, imho, but Aatrox takes more finesse to get your money out of, he does have his upsides over Tryndamere, and vice versa.
He's honestly in a bit of a scary place because he can snowball a lane very well currently and roam mid game while he's strong and just be Tryndamere, Destroyer of Towers and Buttholes™ late. This is scary because he's in a place where he might get buffed and I'm not sure what would happen.
Knight SoIaire 1 voteswell i called aatrox sub par in playing like trynda (my bad for not being clear) tryndas playstyle is defined, he lives his own life at top and pushes, aatrox isnt as suitable for that play as trynd
the thing with atrox that he is sub par to fighters at teamfighting (easily burstable, can be ewaded, the fact he has only one gapcloser can be accounted a low range of reach so he wont get his targets so easily) and sub par to trynda class carries in splitpushing (not the masted of escape, also doesnt win 90% of the trades by default)
ballance wise he is fine, but playing aatrox for any longer time does not provide this much fun, he takes loads of input to generate medicore results (if you are fed he will win most of fights, but there are so many champions who would do it while just giving you more fun and not draining 90% of your brains capacity to decide which stance you need now)
also the lack of thematic fit beetwen his identity and kit, the only part that is covered kinda propertly is that he lives on drainng bloot through his sword (he is supposed to drain enemy blood not his own lifeforce, but thats a detail not realy worhty of mentioning), but besides that he is a war lowing demon who appears at a battlefield and inspires warriors for the greatest massacre of their lives .... and this is the biggest part of his thematic, yet totaly ignored
lets face it aatrox has probems, not ballance problems, but problems with how his kit feels for the player and how his kit portrays who he is
This is scary because he's in a place where he might get buffed and I'm not sure what would happen.
if riot buffs him ill lose all of my faith in them he relies solely on sustain so he will easily explode into an unkillable monster with just a little help from riot
right now he is fine, maybe a little underwhelming quite often, but he holds his ground ballance wise
InSingedWeTrust1 votes:[ Halp! Am I doing it wrong?
Tartaros1 votesGenerally, I don't actually build BoRK first, unless I'm dealing with a massive tank, most of the time I build Ravenous Hydra, then either Randuins or Spirit Visage, depending on what I need. Although, usually you should end up with both, after your two defensive items are built, then I go for either BoRK or Hydra, depending on which of the two I didn't build. Last Item can be a toss up with another defensive or offensive item, depends on how the match is going.
In term of an actual team fight, generally I just Q onto their back line, and Ult. After which it boils down to AAing something (Target Priority of course). And yeah, Aatrox can split push hard.
Hard4Hamsters1 votesBuild him AP and be a nuke initiate for team fights. Ult with 1-1 AP scaling. :P Seriously though, I have no idea how to play him effectively throughout the entirety of a game. Early game he's strong, but even if you're snowballing, you end up falling off. He can't initiate very well as he gets blown up, and if your passive isn't up/your team doesn't have a second initiator, you will not contribute much. The change to his Ult gives me an idea. Usually after your passive activates, you are very weak after you revive due to having your bloodwell depleted. If you save your ult until after you revive, you might be more effective as it will fill your bloodwell and give you the AS from your ult too. Build wise; good luck. Bork, Hydra, Maw are good offensive options and build defensively based on your opponents. Because you will lifesteal and use your W to sustain against AAs. MR and Health are usually better on Aatrox to prevent him from being blown up. 
is your best bet if you need armor and it is great for engaging on the enemy. Anyway, good luck.
InSingedWeTrust1 votes??
NemeBro1 votesSure, I got fed and won lane pretty hard but after that it was a struggle. What is his purpose? What does he actually contribute? How do you even build him? I played a couple games, and no matter what he felt lacking. When I built him Bork + tank, he felt like he had no damage and still didn't feel tanky. When I built him with a little more offense, he just exploded despite having additional life steal.
What's his deal?
He's basically the poor man's Jax or Tryndamere.
He does less damage than Tryndamere or Jax due to his weaker steroids and, compared to Tryndamere at least, inability to build full damage. He also is less survivable than both due to shittier base stats and a less reliable method of surviving fights (Jax and Tryndamere have their ults).
See, a lot of Aatrox's power budget is in his revival passive, which means he's a bit underwhelming without it. He scales quite well as a duelist, but not nearly to the same extent as Jax or Tryndamere does (there's a theme here). What Aatrox does have over them admittedly is arguably better roaming (particularly compared to Tryndamere) and quite powerful sustain.
Top lane Aatrox builds two offense items then straight defense. Generally, these two offense items are ravenous hydra and blade of the ruined king, though you can substitute one of those for a bloodthirster. I prefer hydra first for the greater wave clear. After that itemize depending on the game. Merc's treads for annoying CC, ninja tabi if dealing with a lot of AA threats. Spirit visage is a must due to synergy with his sustain, and randuin's omen is the best armour item on him IMO. After that your last item is situational. Build warmog's if you need health, banshee's if you need more MR and there's more annoying CC that is locking you down and killing you. Thornmail is good once more if against a lot of AA assholes like Trundle, Tryndamere, Vayne, or whoever. Build another offense item (like a bloodthirster) if you're snowballing super hard.
With a hydra he's pretty good at splitpushing. He can duel most champions, and can use his Q to get over walls to keep from being caught out, though it is slower than Tryndamere's E. In team fights, either dive the back line with your combo or peel for your ADC.
Laning is probably Aatrox's weakest point. He's super squishy early on without items, and has to pick his fights carefully. Max your E against a strong bully like Darius to poke them down and make them not want to engage you head on, while sustaining off the creeps. Max W if you can fight them on a more even footing early on. He's actually a solid counter pick against certain champions that are weak early on, like Vladimir.
I should mention that if Aatrox snowballs he becomes extremely oppressive in lane. Most opponents will find him overwhelming 1v1 due to his incredible sustain. But if he doesn't snowball he's fairly meh.
All just my opinion as an occasional Aatrox player. I wouldn't recommend using him in ranked unless it was as a counterpick.
Shénzhì1 votesI've discovered Aatrox works better in Jungle with Sated Devourer and either Ravenous Hydra or Blade of Ruined King. Still, he's very unreliable team contributor as he can die too quickly and may post-pone his dive into battle. As with all champions, positioning and timing is key especially for Aatrox.
Besides all that's broken about Aatrox, maybe, his [Q] doesn't seem to work properly. Here's my thought on Dark Flight (Q)
He needs attention and he's so cool he deserves some attention. Since every update is now passed through a new story and lore team, I imagine things being longer than usual. just wtf is the Aatrox? o___o