Long azz post on why I think the Aatrox update is a total flop.

Man did you guys screw up Aatrox with this update, not a single proper buff.

• (Passive) Bloodwell: - Where do I start with this, it’s totally ruined, say good bye to those risky gameplays, say goodbye to split pushing and getting instabursted by an assassin only to come back to life and punish him while his CD are up, say good bye to having the enemy team decide n team fights to waste their time on you with your passive up, or ignore you and let you deal tons of dmage to them, and say goodbye to building 1 or 2 attack speed items max for a nice smooth gameplay.

Instead we got this weird passive that is horrible on so many levels. First off what happened to the AA steroid? Tryn got a free crits passive, Yas got a double crit chance passive, Yi got a double strike passive, Aatrox got that new sweet ”I hope people only engage me in those 4 seconds that I got extra AD and AS boost” passive.

And lanning it feels so terrible now as you can’t feel safe knowing that you got the free GA passive, and if someone tries to engage you now you won’t have the ability to land 2 or 3 hits because of your AA speed. I used to always win laning against Riven’s and Fiora’s, but now they they are too quick for me, and there is no use at all trying to fill your blood well as no one on Earth is so impatient that they can’t wait 4 seconds for bloodrush to run out and then they punish you some more for picking this new and improved Aatrox when now it is true that he does not stand out at all and every other fighter champ got an advantage over him.

And the best thing about his passive was that you can survive ganks or surprise midlane assassin roams and when they burst you down you got another chance to retaliate. Now it’s just works when you are already in middle of a fight, which is kind of like you got a health item that worth 30% of your max hp but only triggers after staying idle for 4 seconds. And is somewhat useless as in if you lost all your hp in a fight then the 30% won’t help you much, and if it will then you can bet that the enemy will be long gone by the time you are back in action.

It also forces you to engage whether you like it or not because that bloodrush won’t last for long, and it’s useless for farming as you will have only 4 seconds of the buffs before you are back to farming as if nothing happened, also you got to fill it up as fast as possible to use it to its max potential because now if you are out of battle it will drain for 20% per second. This also affects your split pushing potential and now you can’t destroy towers super-fast, and you can’t push the lane fast enough before an enemy comes top and chases you away because you don’t have your revive ready.

• (Q) Dark flight: - the only ability that was absolute dogsh*t before the update amazingly stayed the same.

We all know Aatrox’s wings are all torn up, but that does not mean that a simple gust of wind must knock him inside out, Riven’s third strike, Yasuo’s Tornado, anything that will displace him pretty much will totally cancel the ability and bring him right down. And it does not help that he triggers Teemo’s shrooms, Cait’s traps, you can’t jump over Yaorick’s (W), if you jump into the air and a champ uses an ability then when u land you will get hit, even if it’s something that you get out of range of, like a Nasus Q, even if he uses the ability when you are in the air about to crash down then you will get hit when you land, or even when you are midair.

This means that you are only supposed to use it to engage as it it’s terrible as a way to escape as if you are low or trying to escape a 1v2 then you in the air is nothing but free damage for the enemies to deal and you are forced to flash and then use your (Q) if you still got to cover distance.

• (W) Blood Thirst / Blood Price: - Well “blood price” has no price any more, and it totally over shadows the newer, crappier blood thirst. Well how do I put this, without the 120% heal BT is pretty useless. It used to feel so good that after getting kitted to oblivion, or going through a rough exchange you can just land 3 hits on a minion to gain back so much hp that it puts you right back into the game. This was also the reason you can solo dragon at early levels since as soon as you go below 50%hp you switch from BP to BT and you will be healing more than how much dmg they can deal to you.

And now even after the damage numbers were increased and the 5% of missing health, it always seems like it heals like the old blood thirst / blood price used to heal when you were above 50% hp. And it used to be that you would switch between BP and BT in middle of fights to manage your heal/damage and as it would damage you as well. But now with a single lifesteal item you can forget about BT as BP will heal the same amount if not more than BT would.

• (E) Blades of Torment: - Well now it deals physical damage so armor will totally kill off all your damage except for your ult.

The slow reduction at low ranks is not that big of an issue, but now you can’t poke very well in lane any more, as when they build armor as anyone would against Aatrox they will also be cutting off your main damage output and you will have a tough time poking at tanks especially Malph and Rammus because of their natural armor. Ooh and for some reason it’s the only ability that still costs hp, so good luck spamming that in laning.

• (R) Massacre: - Still a great ability. I’m really happy that it remained the same since in every post where people suggest a rework for Aatrox for some reason they want to turn it into a sort of Sivir ult because of his lore.

TL: DR: - Riot officially gutted Aatrox, and I don’t see how they saw any of this as buffs except the removal of health costs which kind of make him a braindead champ to play.