Preliminary Thoughts on the Aatrox Changes, and How to Play Him Now

After testing out aatrox, I immediately noticed 2 things: his lack of attack speed feels awful, and his blood rush doesnt refresh on large monster hits. I remedied the attack speed by going 33% attack speed runes, and running as much lifesteal as I could in masteries. Warlords is pretty underwhelming after your first 2 clears, but fervor really helps his damage against champions as I sacrificed raw AD in my runes. I also went for fearless instead of perserverance in the resolve tree because I wanted to focus on surviving in a fight instead of sustaining through my farming.

As for the blood rush not refreshing on large monster hits, it would go a long way for his jungling power if it did. It would cut off about 1 second off each camp (the buff appeared when I was about halfway through their health bars, then disappeared when i still needed ~2 more hits to finish them). It would also significantly help his dragon or baron killing power.

As for strategy, I found that, while jungling, it helped to build my bloodwell to 4/5 then focus on bloodthirst sustaining the rest of the camp before Qing over the wall of the next camp with blood price active to get a good speedclear going (allowing his blood rush to refresh on large monsters might make this OP). This strategy can also be used when preparing for a trade while laning. I also found that it was best to rush recurve bow before my t2 jungle item, then finish the jungle item into a bloodrazor. In lane i would consider rushing a recurve and then fully build a black cleaver, grab boots, and go for deaths dance, only then finishing my recurve into a botrk. Titanic hydra can potentially replace botrk (tiamat would replace recurve as your rush item), as the AA reset can partially substitute for the attack speed.

Since aatrox's E is now physical, BC and DD are now pretty good on him. It not only gives him some very needed armor shred against tanks, but also 30% CDR, some extra durability (more health and delayed damage taken) and sustain (his Q and E now heal him thanks to DD). My third item would be to finish t1 boots into whatever you need (berserkers unless you really need the defense against a certain comp), then to finish botrk. If you need even more defense, finish your titanic hydra as it provides more health and an AA reset. If you rushed a recurve instead of tiamat, finish up a tank item before botrk (i found GA was pretty decent). Your last item should be another item with both durability and damage/sticking power, such as randuins, BT or sterraks (lets hope for buffs on this item).

TL;DR the most effective way to build aatrox now is BC and Death's Dance as core items, with either a botrk or titanic as secondary core items. You need to offset the lost attack speed ASAP, either with full attack speed runes or a rushed recurve/tiamat.