My experience with patch notes/PBE notes in the last 2 years...
...as an Aatrox main, have been scrolling to the first listed champion/balance update, not seeing Aatrox, and then closing the tab.
94 Comments
Riot: We want to update Aatrox at a later time when we can find a good direction for him, and despite the various community ideas, we cannot figure out what the fuck to do with him. So for now we'll leave him in a feast or famine state in which he must be fed to be relevent and also he's gonna suck shit late game unless teams are stupid enough not to build a morellonomicon/mortal reminder lol that'll be good for now Soon™
Aatrox should get the old Sion's AOE lifesteal on his ult.
Currently he is terrible in teamfights His theme is about inspiring other warriors to fight. What better way than to let them taste the blood of their enemies and regenerate from it?
Riot: Nope, nope, nope, let's give this AOE heal to Fiora, because she's a duelist and needs a better presence in teamfights.
He can't be buffed traditionally as he is a binary champion - like old Fiora was. This means that even with the slightest damage buffs, he gets out of hand considering he has built in lifesteal and R + revive and any advantage like this early can get out of hand pretty quickly.
That means Riot can't throw some buffs or nerfs his way and see what sticks.
They buffed Caitlyn - the most oppressive early game champion that scales into a great ADC, but they can't buff Aatrox? He is similar to Trynda who is semi-playable in soloQ, but worse in every aspect outside of the poke (his E).
Aatrox is a drain tank, and Riot can't handle them. Look at their past history with drain tanks:
- They all but deleted Warwick.
- They nerfed Olaf so hard that for a couple years if a champion got crushed in the patch notes it was said that they "got Olaf'd".
- Aatrox has never been a big deal even back when he debuted.
- Graves is an accidental ranged drain tank and that's so wrong it can't be put into words to do it justice.
- Xin is so delicate with his balance that any small change could instantly take him into OP or UP territory.
- The healthiest "drain tank" we have currently is probably Irelia, but she focuses on other things and only dabbles in being a drain tank.
Riot is probably going to try a solution with the upcoming WW rework. If it succeeds in being healthy and makes drain tanking easier to balance, they'll probably spread it to Aatrox and the other drain tanks in some form.
Sounds like a good plan, except CertainlyT is the one doing the rework and that guy couldn't make something healthy if he was a chef at Whole Foods. CerT is known for a lot of things, but "easy to balance" and "healthy to play against" are not among them. In fact, it's the opposite.
If I were an Aatrox fan, I would be paying very close attention to the upcoming Warwick rework. For better or worse.
Aatrox in lore: a powerful warrior who can defeat several enemies at once with ease and inspire others to fight besides him giving them savage prowess and savagery
in game: easily dies to everything and only a few players can make him remotely powerful without getting obliterated in a moment
seriously he sucks right now, you build glass cannon and he dies in teamfights, build tank and he takes longer to die but doesn't do much damage
THANK YOU SOMEONE FINALLY REALIZES HOW I FEEL
they can't really buff him with how cancerous he is. hes basically a melee adc that heals about 10 times more with a revive. very annoying to lane against him and all he does is spam his E at you and heal all the damage you do to him. ends up diving you under the turret because he outsustained you and then he gets turret agro away because of passive. really annoying. the other side of the coin is that riot dislikes melee carries which is why ranked marksman are required to be picked. items are range blind. they give all the same strength. since aatrox doesn't have much of anything beside going in and autoing people to death. he often dies because he gets bursted by the adc hiding behind their tank,
the only way to generally balance melee carries is to actually nerf adc items so that they give melee more power. now you ask why? well range is the best advantage in league. makes sense you deal less damage when you can start doing damage to me first. and to give melee carries a chance to do damage before dying instantly to the enemy adc that crits them for half their health an auto. giving melee carries tankiness never works. because damage doesn't fall off but tankiness does.
aatrox doesn't do a whole lot of damage outside of 1v1s and even then a lot of champs 1v1 better than him and split push better than him. even though hes in my opinion. too obnoxious early game levels 1-10. hes meh. even if he gets fed. just like any other melee carry you just cc them down and win a team fight. unless they are far too ahead in general as a team. other melee carries have some sort of an. another tool. jax his his dodge and he does mixed damage. yi has his ult and true damage. tryndamere gets invulnerability. the only thing melee carries can do is catch off the adc or the mage or something. or splitpush which aatrox sucks at the second part because its more important than catching off a carry because its a lot less likely u can do that against good players.
aatrox has sustain. which in a game that a full tank mundo ulting gets bursted. a squishy aatrox doesn't stand much of a chance in.
caitlyn alone can kill an aatrox before he gets to land 3 autos to get a heal lol. thats how stupid this game is right now.
vlad is strong because he heals on a press of a button not over time. aatrox is melee and in league of legends you get fucked for playing melee in an even fight
If they improved the quality of his Q, by making the epicenter larger and even making it so that he cannot be displaced at some point during Dark Flight (Q), then it would make a lot of situations so much more bearable. I think he has more extensive problems than that, but playing him as much as I do, I can say his Q is without a doubt the most dysfunctional part of his kit.
If they don't want to do that, then they could improve his base stats. Once upon a time, it made sense, but he's probably the squishiest fighter in the game with some of the clunkiest mechanics at that. His autos are ridiculously easy to cancel, he can be kited super easily, even with his ultimate range extension, and his Q's most important aspect misses so damn easily. It feels like a suicidal skill shot more than a reliable engage.
Instead of looking for buffs you could look for solutions on how to build him so he can perform well in the game. Here's an Aatrox main in Masters with a 63% win rate: http://www.lolskill.net/summoner/KR/%EB%A1%A4%EB%8B%A8%EA%B8%B0com%20%EB%AF%BC%EC%A4%80
I'd personally love to spectate that guy but I don't know how I can do that, lolnexus their website refuses to cooperate.
F*cking same brothaa.
It's true. Aatrox never gets any love