I think Aatrox needs a rework.

(Warning: Wall of text incoming! Evacuate if you don't want to read! And TL;DR at the bottom)

I can say without a doubt that Aatrox is my favorite champions in League. His lore, his character, his quotes, his fighting style, everything. Which makes me very sad to say that Aatrox is in a very poor state currently. And I think he has been this way for a majority of his lifespan. I think me and other Aatrox players would love it if he would get a little love thrown his way.

Below, I have identified what I believe to be his major flaws and why the rest of his kit conflicts with itself. Remember, these are my personal beliefs and could very well be wrong in these beliefs.

1. Tank or Damage? As I and many others have identified, Aatrox has a conflicting build path. If he builds damage, he is so squishy that any assassin can just fart in his direction and he dies from the smell. If he builds tank, he will deal negative damage, healing his enemies instead of hurting them. And if he builds both he will deal neither that much damage nor will he be that tanky. Even worse, his kit** ACTIVELY DISCOURAGES PLAYERS FROM BUILDING HIM EITHER TANK OR DAMAGE!** If your wondering how let me explain. Aatrox's resource is health. He deals damage to himself to hurt others a la , , , and . His Q deals 10% of current health damage to himself and his E 5%. You might be thinking "Why is this a problem for him and not the other health resource champions?" It's because the others either have a much better form of sustain or their health costs are FLAT HEALTH and not percentage. For example, Mundo and Mordekaiser only deal a flat amount of health in damage to themselves and both of them have a better form sustain and tanking, with Mundo having massive health regen in his ult and passive and Mordekasier and his W and passive. As for Zac and Vlad, who both have percentage health costs, why don't they have these problems? Well Zac has sustain in his passive that heals him for his MAX HEALTH and Vlad has a spammable ranged heal and increased regen and healing from his E.

These champions, unlike Aatrox, are also rewarded for building bruiser and tanky. In the case of Vlad, he builds AP and he gets health and builds health and gets AP. Meanwhile Aatrox, if he builds damage, his current health costs on his Q and E chunk him supremely hard if hes full health and are clunky skillshots/dashes at that. AND HIS W (BLOOD PRICE) HEALTH COST SCALES WITH YOUR AD! Along with his horrible base health, you are punished for building damage so you can kill yourself faster than the enemy can kill you. And his sustain is a flat health heal that scales so poorly that there might as well not be a scaling for it. Not to mention that his scaling ratios are horrible. It's just not a good combination of things.

2. Great Passive or Great Hinderance? Another thing that holds Aatrox back is how overloaded and ultimately useless his passive is. Why is that? "It's like a free , what's so bad about that?" Well if any of you have seen the byproduct of a GA revive and Zhonyas, it usually doesn't end well for those who activated the effect. I know it's probably for when you want to initiate a teamfight or turret dive and in that regard, it could be somewhat decent. But in the end its not that good in this regard and other champions do it way better by not dying in the first place because they have the innate tankiness to keep them alive or the damage and mobility to quickly kill and quickly leave before taking serious damage. The revive is just a crutch because he doesn't really have either.

Lets not forget that his passive also gives him attack speed based on how filled up it is. and its not to bad. My big problems with this passive attack speed is the method with which you get it and how it actually screws you over if you get your revive popped. If you didn't know, Aatrox's Blood Well is filled up based on the damage he does to himself via his Q and E and Blood Price. Also his ultimate, but that isn't perpetually off CD and it really isn't supposed to be used in the way that it was buffed to do.

The reason this is such a bad way of the bar filling up is because: One, his cooldowns are very high. In a teamfight you may get 2 to 3 E's off and probably only one Q off. And remember, he does CURRENT health damage to himself. So if he uses his abilities with less than half health and his Bloodwell is empty, it fills up more slowly. Two, it doesn't mesh with his playstyle of "Massive Lifestealer". His W (Blood Thirst) doesn't fill up his passive AT ALL. And yet his kit tries to encourage to fight at low health

Lastly, his revive consumes his entire Blood Well so once he revives he actually has less of a chance to fight back. So you better hope you have your Q to try and run away and hope that the enemy pursuing is the slowest champion in the game and has no dashes.

3. Originality or Mundanity? And this one may not occur to every Aatrox player, but I find his kit to be very boring and underwhelming. His Q is delayed dash that knocks up targets at the center of the slam, his W a 3-hit effect of either bonus damage or healing, his E is basically a V-shaped slow and his ult is a AOE magic damage attack speed steroid. That's it. And it doesn't even come that well together, with a terrible chase potential, a semi decent burst (if you can land everything) and decent dueling (unless you fall behind). I know it's supposed to be "cool" and "original" how his abilities work but they don't feel like that and neither do they bring out the power and mystery of his lore. He feels like another boring champion, but nonetheless, I love him. He doesn't have to make the LC$ Big Plays. But it would be great if he didn't feel underwhelming at the same time.

4. Comparisons to other similar playstyle champs The five other champs that come to my head that have a similar playstyle to Aatrox are , , , , and

For , he has cd's reduced by auto attacks and resets on kills and assists as well as an ult that increases in duration by getting kills and assists. And prevents him from being slowed so he can actully kill his target and they don't just walk away from him. For , he has cd's reduced by critical strikes, a decent heal and low health steroids along with an ultimate that prevents him from dying for 5 seconds. How is it that the character that Aatrox basically created is stronger than him? For , he has a better attack speed steroid passive, an auto attack dodge, reasonable cd's and much better hybrid scaling, and a ult that makes him tankier actually keeps him alive a bit longer For , he has cd's reduced by a spammable ad steroid, a better W overall, a dash that is a slow and a knock up, and again a ultimate that keeps him alive longer and does damage. And for , she has innate resistances, percentage health magic damage and auto attack resets

5. Some possible ideas for a rework I don't have a whole rework for him, just toying with some ideas. I've seen people want Aatrox to become a lifesteal monster with Sion's old ultimate. I have also seen people want him to become a leader of the battlefield by making minions aggro targets that he hits. I have even seen people who would want to see him as an AD support, which would actually be pretty cool. What I would like to see is a reengage like champion made out of him, something like or , by giving him additional effects on his abilities when he is below half health or increasing effects based on his missing health. Or even giving his team a steroid that scales on their missing health. He just seems made for something like that as in his lore he saves the Protectorate army when they were on the brink of defeat and his quote "Now we turn the tide" just meshes with that kind of concept. He has such a elegant fighting stance so making him into a better duelist wouldn't make me angry one bit. Heck, I'd even embrace them turning him in an AP auto attacker considering his hybrid scalings right now.

Here's what I say. Change his passive. Keep his Q and have the cooldown reduce itself based on either his missing health or do like Amumu's E. Change his W into what could potentially be a stacking mechanic (because his sword basically drinks in the blood of his enemies) or a AoE effect for his auto attacks or even a three hit proc in a AoE, something like Sion's old ult or whatever. Change his E completely. I don't know what it could be instead, but its is just a weirdly shaped skillshot right now and could definitely use changing. And his R could potentially be a team oriented thing instead of a attack speed steroid, an increase in aa range, and magic damage.

Conclusion Even through all of these flaws, I still love Aatrox better than all of these other champs. It's just that his kit is so bad overall that he cannot contend with many other champs. The Aatrox players either needs to be really good AND the other enemy player(s) need to be less than decent because decent is usually enough to contend with really good Aatrox players. Now I'm not saying Aatrox can't have his moments as I have witnessed what Aatrox is capable with my own 2 eyes and hands. But, as one person said before on another Aatrox post, you have to do so much just to be rewarded a little. I want to see Aatrox be good even if he isn't great, if even for a little bit.

Whew, I'm finally done. Feel free to leave any ideas for a potential rework or anything I might have left out or grammatical errors or even pointing out how much of an idiot I am that I haven't figured out that Aatrox is secret op and I just haven't been playing him correctly.

TL;DR Aatrox isn't that good (but I'm pretty sure you knew that) and I want him to be at least niche or good. Do you? Also, Stonewall! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh_lVKC-kao