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9.9 Aatrox Discussion

Düff McWhalen··5 votes·7,969 views

*HP per level increased to 90 from 80. -Step in the right direction.

*Armor per level increased to 4 from 3.25. -step in the right direction

*Movement speed decreased to 335 from 345. -baseless nerf, complete wrong direction

*HP5 decreased to 5 from 8. -Compensated by HP base and Armor base. Fine

*Deathbringer Stance (P): No longer reduces healing and shileding on champions. Now heals Aatrox for the bonus damage dealt. Bonus damage decreased to 5-10% from 8-16%. Cooldown decreased to 15 seconds from 25 seconds. Cooldown reducing effect changed to “2 seconds per damaging attack or spell on enemy champions + 2 on sweetspot hit” from “2 seconds per spellcast + 2 for hitting champions with sweetspots.” Maximum bonus damage against monsters decreased to 100 from 400.

-Overall smoother usage and the healing is a nice touch. Mutilator will remove any advantage Aatrox had vs top champions like Mundo or Garen, but this just shifts his match ups around a bit. So overall a better ability, but not buffed or nerfed.

*The Darkin Blade (Q): Damage increased to 10/30/50/70/90 from 10/25/40/55/70. Cooldown changed to 12/10.5/9/7.5/6 seconds from 16/15/14/13/12 seconds. Cooldown start time changed to [after Q cast sequence ends] from [on Q1 cast]. Max time between casts decreased to 3 seconds from 4 seconds.

-Again, overall just a shift in how you interact with it, but with a straight buff to the damage. Over all a buff.

*Infernal Chains (W): Slow increased to 35% from 15/20/25/30/35%. Cooldown increased to 26/23/20/17/14 seconds from 22/20/18/16/14 seconds.

-An excellent buff to early game the way it should be. The cooldown increase is a fair trade, but this shifts the power to early game where Aatrox should be massive.

*Umbral Dash (E): Passive healing increased to 20/25/30/35/40% from 20/22.5/25/27.5/30%. No longer grants AD for 1.5 seconds. Passive healing source changed to “non-periodic champion damage” from “physical champion damage.” Cooldown decreased to 8/7/6/5/4 seconds from 9/8/7/6/5 seconds.

-This was needed if he wasn't getting his second dash back. The extra AD was kinda just "there" and didn't provide much anyway. Again, this shifts power into the early game where Aatrox is billed as being strongest. Great change.

*World Ender (R): Aatrox now only revives if he gets a takedown during World Ender. Aatrox gains 60/80/100% movement speed decaying over World Ender’s duration. Aatrox receives 50/75/100% increased healing during World Ender. On takedown, extend World Ender by 5 seconds, refresh the movement speed, and revive upon taking lethal damage. Cooldown decreased to 140/120/100 seconds from 160/140/120 seconds. Increased total attack damage increased to 25/30/35% from 20/25/30%. Cast time decreased to 0.25 seconds from 0.5 seconds. Revive self-slow increased to 99% from 25%. Revive heal changed to 50% max HP from 10-50% max HP. No longer fears allied minions. No longer includes blood well.

-Over all a straight buff. Though you will NEED a takedown to use the revive, the revive is only useful as it is now for the same reason; to get a take down. You will have to play a bit smarter so as not to waste the steroid on simply running in and dying, which is just plain teaching better gameplay imo. The stats alone give Aatrox some very nice threat in team fights, and you can still do everything you could do before with it, cept now you have to think and can't jsut go ham.

It seems Riot has really tried to put Aatrox into that early game dominant laner he was meant to be, and he can scale into the mid game half way decent and still be an asset to the team if played smartly. He doesn't hyper scale/falls off late, he still requires aim to use effectively, and they've raised the skill ceiling with the ult change since you HAVE to be sure you can get that kill in order to dive, which will separate the good from the bad. Over all these are finally decent changes imo.

His build options and item pool will likely expand a bit as well. The new ult in particular imo really lends itself to abusing item 3161, which has all kinds of stats he likes.

What do you all think? Discuss.

21 Comments

Neko Siren3 votes

I like the overall attempt, and I suppose the direction as far as the current iteration goes, but I just miss old Aatrox...

ByVenomZzz3 votes

CHANGE HIM BACK, he is so bad rn his passive is trash and so is his ult

iDarkWind2 votes

I love the direction they're taking, making Aatrox a drain tank juggernaut with a unique playstyle and a amazing ultimate for team fights. One of thing tough that would be nice, would be if his passive healing on his E would heal for all the damage, so that if you take Conqueror, you don't heal less from the E because of the convertion into true damage.

Tin Obliterates3 votes

{quoted}

I love the direction they're taking, making Aatrox a drain tank juggernaut with a unique playstyle and a amazing ultimate for team fights. One of thing tough that would be nice, would be if his passive healing on his E would heal for all the damage, so that if you take Conqueror, you don't heal less from the E because of the convertion into true damage.

That's exactly what they did, though.

iDarkWind2 votes

Didn't notice. I tought they were going to make it able to heal off minions for x% again. Oh well, mistakes were made.

LordGeovanni2 votes

played Aatrox the other day first buildingitem 3047 i still get out ran by Kayle with item 2422

Ragnaveil2 votes

They are changing where his power is. Its no longer stronger early game, but stronger mid to late game. That was the entire point everyone who played the champ said needed to happen if they were gonna gut his early game (this was said before his nerfs, and preached then onward). So even if you keep saying "Oh, his early is better" for several of these changes, they aren't. He'd need sustain from hitting minions (E) for him to be batshit strong early game. They are keeping him relatively the same early, but giving him some very strong late game agency.

Mavëríck1 votes

I like the direction, but I was actually on board for that ult reliant Aatrox that could spam Q's and cartwheel across the battle field! I'm curious also what items will be good on him now. With the increase in tanky stats and lifesteal I imagine things like Spirit Visage will be good investment or you can afford to take thornmail vs other sustain toplaners in the absence of Mutilator on his passive.

What i really wish they had done was make his Q animation a bit faster. Not full on Riven, but faster to wind up and land.

Items I'm going to try on him;

item 3161 (good suggestion) item 3075 item 3065 item 3074

LordGeovanni1 votes

I still play new aatrox but i Prefer his old kit. His new hit has great base attack speed but every single one of his new spells are so clunky and keep you out of your auto attack animation for so long you cant ever build attack speed on him this keeps him from being an effective split pusher too because you cant invest in attack speed because it gets wasted in a fight but it keeps you from taking towers well which is what old aatrox's main job was. Same reason i didnt like warwick's rework despite people calling CT a god for it.

Nyarlathοtep1 votes

Still shitty in duels. I would have preferred if they had tried to raise his dueling powers. But hey riot be riot.

Boondockz1 votes

Idk, seems better in duels honestly.

Less reliance on Q and E usage, more on AAs and healing. fairly standard for non hyper scaling duellists?

Boondockz1 votes

Passive is more boring, less unique, less effective at killing opponents, and has less synergy with Q cast and more with auto attacks. By itself it's a change I could live with but I prefer the current version.

Q damage buff doesn't seem particularly rewarding, don't know the exact math for all levels with all items but just looking at base stats on Q and E it seems like a damage loss mostly. The CD functionality is the biggest nerf of the reworse, forcing Aatrox to not be a champion for 3.6 seconds minimum at rank 5 whereas on live he has threat up to 100% of the time. Its even worse early game increasing minimum downtime from 8 seconds to 14. Cast window back to 4 seconds because people wanted it but clearly Riot doesn't understand why. The point of wanting the cast window to be 4 seconds was so that you can Q>E and then wait for your E CD to refresh and then Q>E again; using this playstyle is highly effective because it minimizes downtime while maximizing your zone control. People fear the followup to an Aatrox knock up more than the damage of the initial hit itself which is why the damage shift from E into Q is restrictive and unrewarding and the CD timer start point is punishing at every single level of the game. The cast window being 4 seconds is also pointless if the base CD of rank 5 E is 4 seconds instead of 5, if you can't figure out why it's because you don't understand the champion; gosh, I wonder what that says about Riot. Honestly this is such a clusterfuck I can't believe it's real. When I say "can't" I mean "don't want to".

W slow change seems like a straight up buff to me, early game people just walk out of it for free, late game W is most useful in team fights where people will have greater incentive to run towards the long end so the 10% reduction in slow power won't be as important. I think this change by itself is a nice buff or at least nothing to complain about. The CD on the other hand seems genuinely insane to me. I don't play every champion so I don't know the CD of every ability in the game but off the top of my head the only ability that I can think of with a CD in that ballpark is Ashe's E which seems like an apples and oranges comparison. I want to say I don't understand the point but I do, I just don't understand why it is necessary. With the change to Aatrox Q CD start time and the W CD nerf the champion will be pretty fucked in the early game, having massive windows of simply being a minion with a dash to exploited and bullied by actual champions such as Fiora and Renekton as well as minions with dashes and better stats such as Jax and Tryndamere and the old Aatrox. Good times incoming.

I thought the whole point of the rework was to nerf the ultimate so that E could have 2 charges. Apparently that isn't happening. So...what...was the point? I'm just experiencing a really hollow feeling of disappointment and powerlessness knowing that a slightly weak but super fun champion that I liked to play is getting heavily nerfed during what was supposed to be a buff for players like myself, I was excited by some of the proposed changes just days ago and now I wish they'd never decided that the champion needed to be "buffed". This is a reworse, nothing else, nothing less. Anyway, the CD buff was pointless on its own and is actually a nerf considering it "forced" a nerf to the CD mechanic of Q; now I will be able to reposition my character with a dash one time during the 3.6 seconds I was previously playing the game, using my abilities to accomplish things, having fun, etc. So that's exciting. And then there is the change to the healing portion of the passive which allows Aatrox to heal from any type of damage he deals to enemy champions. Aatrox only deals physical damage in his kit, the true damage from red buff is periodic and thus not affected by this change, on-hit damage from Rageblade and Wit's End now affords healing, the magic damage from grasp now heals and so does true damage from conqueror (which both of those already did...just...they heal more now...). So what I'm seeing from the non-ultimate changes to the kit is: your CDs have been savaged, there is no one shot potential anymore, and your Q and E have much less synergy, but your auto attacks are better and your E is now essentially an auto rest only, so use those. I don't realistically think that Aatrox is now an AA champion again because the Q animation is too long and the knock up is too short for it to properly complement that play style, but I do think that Aatrox is a worse champion that is more reliant on auto attacks than before and that the optimal runes are now conqueror and grasp which were previously used to deal with more edge case match-ups in which longer trades involving more auto attacking were forced on you.

There are some positive changes to the ultimate. Reducing the cast time and CD, increased healing seems like decent compensation for the revive change, baseline 30% revive is acceptable, and the reset is pretty solid. I think all of these changes speak for themselves and aren't really a big deal one way or the other except for the reset which is a pretty nice buff. I do have an issue with with the move speed functionality change (not the numbers, I don't know what the numerical or feelcraft difference between +60% and +100 is), I think the fact that you can re-trigger the movement speed to quickly move from one engagement to another is actually very useful, fun, and one of the more underrated and misused parts of the ultimate. I would prefer the current functionality integrated with the reset mechanic. Of course, the new move speed mechanic is more useful for auto attacks, because that is what the champion is designed around now, apparently.

All in all I am going to miss the reworked Aatrox, a champion that required mechanical skill and yomi as integral parts of his base kit. I guess r/aatroxmains will be happy, it seems like that was the point.

Mavëríck1 votes

Dude... they nerfed his bases and damage at the last second before he went live. The 35% slow was reduced to 25% at all levels. What is this, Riot?

Vlada Cut1 votes

Cast time changed from 0.5 to 0.25? YES. FUCK YES. THIS IS SOMETHING WE NEEDED SINCE AATROX'S REWORK WAS LAUNCHED. NO MORE WE WILL DIE ON OUR ULT CAST MY DEAR AATROX MAINS. NO MORE.

Rincewind19001 votes

Well but if you are so low that you die in 0.5 sec you will die anyway.

HlwH Basileus1 votes

Some days ago i tried him Jungle with an attack-speed build. At first it wasn't so great, but once i built Guinsoo and DD I literally fell in love with it. Basically you got your passive every 4 autos and you get the same feeling of Aatrox's old W. You can still use W, E, Q and R's movement speded to catch up your targets. Maybe it's not optimal as the classic setup and it's a bit weird to see Aatrox swing that Greatsword like a stick, but it's funny as hell(Bent xp) and can work pretty well if you manage to close your 2-3 items!

Rincewind19001 votes

I think the “new” Aatrox is overpowered and underrated. Let me explain. With the change to his passive hes more like a Riven. You not longer Q-Q-Q, you Q-AA-Q-AA-Q, because it reduces your passives CD. He is now an AD Bruiser who wins short trades (thanks to his sustain advantage) AND long trades (same as before). With his healing increased on World Ender he now also abuse Conquerer. Hes a Mundo. A Mundo with damage and the range advantage.

Gay Goblin Jack1 votes

I've been playing aatrox since he got reworked and I must say, his ult not allowing him to revive unless he gets a kill feels really bad. If you are struggling in a lane this ult kinda becomes useless.

SundryGames1 votes

your meant to use it for kills, not to just survive, just surviving isnt very aatrox :P

Nyarlathοtep

Less reliance on Q and E usage, more on AAs and healin

He is still centred around his q. However with no the free flat ad on his e he losses a lot of damage. Now add in the fact that he still has difficulties landing sweetspots on his q on his own because of having one dash and the fact that after he uses his 3rd q he has a huge downtime. Said downtime is 3.6 seconds. For 3.6 seconds he can only aa to deal dmg. Now you can argue that thats a good time to aa but how much damage can you get off it in that time frame? Unless you invest in atk speed you wont get much value. However investing into atk speed and your q will become useless. With these changes aatrox will have a lot of build paths. However none will work 100% to their full potential because of innate flaws. For example bruisertrox will have more sustain in teamfights but way lower damage/dps overall. Atkspeedtrox wont be able to make use of his q.

Boondockz1 votes

Yea I don't think atkspeedtrox will return the way it used to be, I simply think they have heavily incentivized AAing over using his abilities well which doesn't synergize with what his abilities actually do. So...I think they just nerfed him pretty hard and that's it.

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