Let's Talk About Aatrox
I love Aatrox. I love the idea of a melee auto attacker who has huge life steal, 1v1 potential, and scales into a late game monster who excels at split-pushing and diving backlines. What I DON'T like, though, is playing him. Because, whenever I play him, I feel like I am none of those things. Instead, I feel like a fragile weakling who is easy to beat at all stages of the game. Sure, against certain matchups he has an good early game, but he will very rarely have kill potential in that lane and is never the kind of bully that a Renekton or Riven can be. I don't know how to fix him, but he definitely needs fixing. Yet, despite this he stays out of patch notes time after time. I feel like Riot doesn't know what to do with him either. It's either that or they are just ignoring him.
According to Champion.GG he has a 46.82% win-rate. Perhaps the meta is simply not in his favor (I don't know, I can't think of a time when it WAS in his favor) but this is incredibly low, ESPECIALLY since most people playing him have a large number of games played (115.78) on him. To me, this says that he needs some buffs, but from what I've heard about his first release that isn't something we want to go back to. What he really needs is a rework, something that allows him to be playable and balance-able at the same time.
Finally, he's super similar to other champions (though worse). For example, Xin Zhao. They are both auto attacking champions, they both have a slow, an engage, a knock-up, a heal and/or damage boost every third hit, an attack speed boost, playable in the top lane or the jungle, and AOE damage on their ultimates. BUT Xin Zhao gets to have BOTH the damage and healing every third hit, a point-and-click engage over a skillshot, bonus damage on EACH hit for three attacks when he hits Q, an attack speed boost as a basic skill, and an ultimate that can be used to counterplay enemies. In Aatrox's favor there is only the poke on his E.
Why is Aatrox so similar but worse to other champions? Why is he out of the patch notes? Pls Rito, buff ya boy Aatrox :(
is on the radar
Right now it's more likely that they are adding him in the diver update and giving him some QoL updates like his passive stack modifications - then waiting for his full VGU.
