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@RIOT You cannot balance the new Aatrox for Pro Play and Solo Queue at the same time.

Abandon·9/7/2019, 4:42:42 AM·23 votes·15,690 views

You can't.

The reworked Aatrox is quite literally a champion designed with Pro Play in mind. Even when Aatrox is just doing 'good' in Solo Queue, you can't help but want to change him because the Pros are complaining that he is too effective in Pro Play. The crux of the issue is how his entire kit revolves around his Q. This one ability has a lot of inherent power added to it that makes it incredibly lethal in coordinated play. First and foremost, it's ranged - for a melee champion to have access to ranged damage immediately makes him a cut about the rest. This allows him to be 'safe' in the hands of a pro as well as enable him to fish for picks without the dangers inherent with the classification of a melee champion. It also enables him to take on ranged match ups with much more ease. Secondly the potential for 3 interruptions guarantees players to have to take immediate action to leave or be immediately collapsed on. It has a lot of set up potential from the rest of Aatrox's kit as well as from his teammates. Thirdly, it's AOE damage. This allows Aatrox to be a good wave clearer as well as a strong team fighter.

There is no one immediate change that can remedy the fact that Aatrox is a champion designed specifically for coordinated play. If you rework the Q then you're probably going to have to rework a major portion of the rest of the kit as his power budget resides mostly in his Q. If you continue to hit and buff things without tackling the crux of the issue, all you're doing is shifting where he sits on the ladder of champions without addressing his main balancing problem. We've already been through multiple changes as well as a minor rework shifting his focus from burst/assassination to sustaining/dueling and yet, he still remains an issue.

So what my question really boils down to is, do you want Aatrox to be a pro play champion only? Or do you want him to be accessible to the masses in which you say your rework was done for in the first place?

44 Comments

Tahminatrix 9/7/2019, 5:10:20 AM12 votes

It might be too late to do anything else but give him number changes unfortunately...meaning aatrox has 100% (or 99.9% if you wanna be scientific) chance of staying in his current state until worlds is over....which will be in awhile.

Nobody would bat an eye and scold you if you remade this thread at that point, if riot staff see it now they have an actual legitimate reason to ignore this thread up until worlds is over, and by then they can just pretend they forgot about it.

So maybe repost, not telling you to take it down, just telling you to remember to bring it back up.

GelsominoKiller9/7/2019, 8:35:46 AM9 votes

In all honesty, Aatrox is the worst rework to date, and it sucked up a ridiculous amount of balance team's time over his existence. It is a lost cause by now.

Since the Q is a fundamentally broken spell, but also the core of Aatrox's kit, they are slowly stripping him of everything else. First the second E, then the iconic revive, and many other little things.

What's left to remove is:

any form of minion sustain, because honestly he doesn't need it.
his E going through walls
the reset mechanics in his ultimate

Hayaishi29/7/2019, 9:04:41 PM7 votes

Fuck pro play.

voidscaler9/7/2019, 7:38:48 PM7 votes

I genuinely believe they should revert the rework Oldtrox was never the problem child newtrox is, newtrox has been in nearly every patch since his release with so many things being removed from his kit to the point he shares basically nothing in common with the original champion other then name, while oldtrox was a viable toplane pick for nearly a year with basically no presence in any patch notes

Their reason for reworking him was he was a "stat check" but he actually had skillshots and timing/strategy in his kit, while there are champions still in the game like yi udyr Olaf and others who can do litraly nothing except stat check

So yes, imo aatrox should be reverted Oldtrox wasn't the patch notes problem newtrox is He wasn't so disparate in pro/solo as newtrox Nothing that made aatrox unique has been kept in newtrox as his kit is so problematic they couldn't afford to keep it Etc etc etc

Zealot XII9/7/2019, 5:47:40 PM3 votes

I have no problem playing against Aatrox. Just counterpick him with fiora and it's gg.

Tobykachu9/8/2019, 12:22:01 AM3 votes

This problem isn't exclusive to Aatrox in all honesty. The same argument could be made for Akali, Irelia, Yuumi, Galio, Sylas, most of their recent champs really. It really goes to show how out of touch their design and balance teams are.

Düff McWhalen9/7/2019, 8:24:22 PM2 votes

Aatrox is the WORLD ENDER is he not?

Yet he's some kinda Riven clone with all around slower rate of fire and worse steroid ult. As stated above he has THREE KNOCK UPS. The implications for organized play or in the case of a Solo Q team that isn't brain dead monkeys is enormous. If nothing else, find some way to remove the knock up and shift that utility into the rest of his kit.

Just as a funny thought; you could almost take Tryndamere's current ult, give it to Aatrox, and it wouldn't be super OP because unlike Tryndamere the right click champion, Aatrox would need to use that ult to keep aiming and landing his Q lol.

two and ten9/7/2019, 4:01:00 PM2 votes

I like to think of aatrox as the new Ryze for top lane. Gets changed every patch but they have no real idea how to balance the champion, reworked and still a problem (Ryze 4th rework and still not balanced)

A Frisky Jacket9/7/2019, 5:43:54 PM2 votes

God this post speaks so much truth. Like, why can't riots balance/design team see this? Strong wave clear and mobility on the same champ has always led to toxic in pro but useless in normals. And they keep making this same mistake.

Secretly a Phos9/7/2019, 8:32:31 PM2 votes

Honestly, a lot of people are probably going to disagree with me for this, but I wish Riot would learn that not every champion needs to be good in solo queue. Some champions are satisfying precisely because they take skill but have high reward when you pull things off, and champions high skill cap champions being balanced for solo doesn't make sense when their entire power budget is based around them being strong when played at peak performance. Aatrox should be able to delete you if he lands edge on all or most of his q's, but the fact that I can play Aatrox like a monkey and still do well makes no sense. That's like playing Fiora, not going for vitals, and still doing well. Or not using passive on Akali. Or not building Mana on Kassadin.

Krispy Cack9/7/2019, 9:05:58 PM2 votes

they just need to ban champs from pro play so we don't have useless stuff like kalista and azir

Jennifer4209/8/2019, 11:07:17 AM1 votes

this for me always raises the question, why not let pros play on their own unique "pro play" patch?

"cause that would be a real pain in the ass for them"

they alrdy play every week of lec/lcs 1 patch behind. and worlds sometimes up to 2 patches behind. i dont think it would bother them that much more honestly.