Aatrox Isn't Bad But He Sure Feels Like It: A detailed explanation of Aatrox's mini rework...thing

So I just got done playing my first game with the rework. I played him over the last couple of days to get a comparison of how he feels now. So I will now break down his kit from Good: better than his old kit and Bad: Worse than his old kit for each portion. I will also provide how this affects gameplay. I'll touch on builds a bit but because I have only played one game with them, I won't go into detail

Passive:

The Good: it gives attack damage now which is pretty sweet. Pretty much just a raw numbers buff. Helps with tank builds not needing as much raw ad to do damage with auto attacks. It's also incredibly easy to keep filled in team fights if you keep autoing people. I'm including this with the good because it's better in comparison to keeping the passive up than in the old version.

The Bad: This thing is impossible to stack and probably the part of his kit that got changed for the worst. It's impossible to manage and there doesn't feel like a way to strategically keep it where you want it. Aatrox passive suffers from identity crisis. "Do I stack fast like a passive and run out quickly!?" it asks, "or do I take a long time to fill up while never draining like ?!" Well you're in luck because it takes the worst of both worlds and COMBINES THEM. Not only do you have to somehow manage it from the fact that it takes forever to stack but you also have to keep stacking it fast!

It just feels bad especially in lane. Push the wave as an already weak champion aatrox JUST to use your passive or just don't use your passive? 95% of the time, I'll just chill in lane. I'd rather not get ganked. "But wait don't you just revive?!". Nope not anymore. Difficult stacking means you almost never revive anymore. Your extremely useful passive in lane has now shifted to team fights and even then it's barely used. Then if you lose the team fight it's lost anyway. I didn't believe the revive portion of the passive was particular balanced in lane but now it's practically non existent anyway.

The attack speed is also difficult to use. On old Aatrox, the triple healing meant hitting one w was like hitting three. Now you have to hit three in order to get the same amount of healing. So beyond doing damage there's not a real lot of point to it now. It's just raw numbers for numbers.

Your Q:

The Good: No health cost, "better" damage scaling. No health cost is a straight buff. The ability has worse base numbers but scaling is now based on total AD instead of just bonus AD which is great for you passive.

The Bad: Who use's this for damage? I tend to use this as more of an escape or dash to engage but I rarely go "oh I better hit them with my Q for damage". That's just a bonus that it does damage. That's just not what it's for though. It's just for mobility so why it was buffed for damage, I have no clue. Does it feel better? I mean I guess but its just gravy to the play style. It didn't change anything.

Your W:

The Good: damage toggle doesn't deal cost anything now. On old Aatrox it felt kinda bad using your W toggle but now you get to use it for free which feels pretty nice

The neutral: Scales off health instead of AD. Will be talked about in the build

The Bad: healing is worse. Way worse. Healing is so bad I wouldn't even really call Aatrox a drain tank now. Hes more of a tank that happens to have life steal built in. Yeah it can sustain you in lane pretty decently, but it's just a bonus to his auto's and not part of his kit. At least mortal remainder isn't as good against Aatrox now because he doesn't really sustain anymore...

Your E:

The Good: Health cost way down, Better AD scaling. Just a buff in my opinion. Doesn't punish you for building tank and is just a flat cost.

The Bad: Slows for less. Actually I think this one's pretty fair and doesn't really change a whole lot.

Your Ult: It's the same but different. Will talk about it at the end.

Build:

Disclaimer: I've only played one game so this build may just be absolutely awful but it worked in that game

Aatrox build pulls him in three different directions at once. You need life steal to make full use of the attack speed, attack speed to get your passive to do more damage and surive, but your healing is based on your missing health. Da fuq? If you build fighter you get punished with less life steal and if you build tank you get punished with less scaling. Because of this, it's almost better, in my opinion, to forgo lifesteal and attack speed and just play as a tank with some sustain. Building items like or just make better use of your w than attack speed. This absolutely dumpsters your attack speed steroids with your ult and passive (which is never up anyway) but it's STILL better than building attack speed. You essentially just throw away half his kit because it just doesn't work as well as the other half. He build's in two different directions so you have to pick the better one and dumpster the other. This makes his passive and ult feel bad as well as his W even though the tank build is the most efficient use of the W. Aatrox has a lot of power in his kit That he can't even really use.

Now how to fix it: The passive is the main offender. It needs to be easier to play around instead of constantly worrying about it. Additionally, Aatrox need's a defined role. Is he a tank or is he a fighter? Right now he's trying to be both and is just being bad at both.

Honestly I'm extremely disappointed on how this got the green light. The passive is such a glaringly obvious headache that it makes me feel like no one even played the champion before release.