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Dear Riot, a suggestion for Aatrox

I Main Swain··30 votes·1,494 views

So Aatrox is honestly rather weak right now. he was considered to be incredibly op by most people when he was released until people figured out how to play against him, and ever since he's honestly been pretty underwhelming. why? because you can either build him tank and deal very little damage or you can build him carry and die pretty dang quickly (unless you're already pretty ahead). now don't think I'm complaining that he has weaknesses, I think his vulnerability to cc is great for his balance, but I feel like he needs a few tweaks.

to start, going on a slight tangent, aatrox's w will actually slow his attack animation significantly once you get higher attack speed levels. this is incredibly frustrating and I ask that it be fixed asap.

back to my suggestion. in Aatrox's lore, he has two unique aspects of his character: he basically lives for battle, and he inspires those around him to fight with him to the bitter end. my thought is that Aatrox's ult should grant an aura similar to sivir's ult. to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what exactly those buffs would be that wouldn't just flat out mirror sivir's own ult, but I still think the idea should be implemented.

the second idea is actually a nerf in a sense. I think his revive passive should not work if isn't actually fighting the enemy. so if he hasnt dealt damage in the last few seconds, he will just straight up die. HOWEVER, if he is in combat, it will heal him for more based on the number of enemy champions near by. after all, why should a being that lives and dies for battle be fleeing or in any way not participating in the fight?

22 Comments

Salt and Veigar12 votes

he inspires those around him to fight with him to the bitter end

What if we gave him Sion's old ultimate where his team gained HP through his lifesteal?

Obviously we would need to tweak but it fits Aatrox pretty well

AFK Push1 votes

Someone suggested this and Riot said they wouldn't because they don't like "invisible stats" or something like that.

Messaiga6 votes

It wouldn't have to be "invisible stats". It could act like a Hecarim W, but for the whole team. For those that don't know, Hec's W heals him for a percentage of all damage dealt by anything to an enemy as long as they are within the radius of it. Imagine that, but with a larger radius and healing your whole team. That's what I think of when I think Aatrox.

AFK Push2 votes

item 3050 would be a better example to live by, because it would fit him more thematically and would be best with certain comps. Perhaps he gives temporary spell vamp to apc's on the team as well. Idk, maybe it could work.

OyddAWqJ5r1 votes

I feel like defensive stats would make sense. Would also give the enemy more reason to target him if he was a walking Aegis.

Something like 10% healing from damage dealt or just flat 10% damage reduction or bonus armor + mr idk.

Still, the invisible stats thing is kinda still an issue.

Teridax687 votes

I mostly agree with this, though I think there are several core issues with Aatrox's playstyle that need to be addressed before he can be fully functional, his biggest problem being his drain tanking: right now, it's fairly binary in that he either feels super-weak and reluctant to use the damaging portion of his W at all, or he snowballs really fast and becomes nearly impossible to kill via burst and DPS, all while out-DPSing his opponents. Combined with his ranged poke and dive/disengage, it also allows him to permanently remain at full health in lane if he gets a lead. If he wants to become a drain tank, he needs to be able to do so in a manner that has some kind of weakness besides his own personal strength. In this respect, his passive also makes that difficult, since it makes him hold up very well against burst, whereas drain tanking is already very good against DPS, so there's already no clear way of dealing with him if he does get ahead.

I like the idea of his ult being a team buff, since right now a) his ult is pretty unsatisfying, b) Aatrox's kit feels pretty generic overall, and he needs something that stands out, and c) his lore and theme are amazing, yet he incorporates neither into his ability set, which feels like a huge waste. I'm not a fan of having his passive deactivate out of combat, since that sounds more confusing than anything else.

MidEvilKnight3k3 votes

Totally agree with this. I don't own Aatrox, but during a free week I tried him and I got a mirror lane. It was the worst experience because the first thing we would do is go ham on each other and try to push the other off of the minion wave. Whoever won got to lifesteal all the way back to full health and the other one lost.

There is a problem with allowing a drain tank to also do a lot of damage. If he is weak, then he is easy to kill, if you let his stats get too strong then he is impossible to kill.

One solution might be to put a cool down on w so you can't just switch whenever you want. Also reducing or removing the lifesteal component from attacking minions (only works on champions and monsters), could allow them to give him more power.

Teridax681 votes

{quoted}

There is a problem with allowing a drain tank to also do a lot of damage. If he is weak, then he is easy to kill, if you let his stats get too strong then he is impossible to kill.

I think this is the biggest problem with drain tanking as a concept so far in League: currently, the only way for drain tanks to scale is via damage, which automatically leads to this feast-or-famine playstyle where those champions are either too good at drain tanking or incapable of fulfilling their role. While it got dropped now, ZenonTheStoic's Warwick rework had an interesting thing going by having his sustain passive scale with bonus health, and I think having Aatrox heal based on his own health might be a step towards making him a better drain tank.

{quoted}

One solution might be to put a cool down on w so you can't just switch whenever you want. Also reducing or removing the lifesteal component from attacking minions (only works on champions and monsters), could allow them to give him more power.

This would help a lot in gating Aatrox's healing in lane. I think the ability might need slightly heavier changes, though, since right now it doesn't feel like it presents the right tradeoffs (free life steal always sounds better than self-mutilating damage). I completely agree that Aatrox's sustain should only come into play in high-risk combat, as opposed to just passive farming, and limiting his healing against minions might allow his healing to be a lot stronger and more reliable.

Rinky Dinky3 votes

Give him Sion's old ult

Dunkrius2g1 votes

They realky need to tweak him a bit. 1st start giving Aatrox a bit more HP. He has pretty small HP lv 1 compared to different champions. Then Riot could do something after that.

ABlueQuaker1 votes

tbh when he was teased I thought he was going to be a support.

Baron of Bread1 votes

I think a decent and thematic change to his ult would be that he shares the AS boost from his blood well. Probably shouldn't have much range on the aura since he inspires those in the front lines, but it would still feel a lot better than his current ult.

That or increase the base values on his W. It won't affect him much if he snowballs, but will help him out if he doesn't (or if he builds tanky).

Shield Villain1 votes

The nerf on the ult sounds like a real downer. As it currently is, Blood Well begins to drain when you're out of combat, so there's already an incorporation of that factor in his passive. So, honestly, it sound like over kill to make it so that even if you have blood well, which drains really fast once it does, you get no revive.

If you really want to buff aatrox, make it so that his sustain and damage increases the longer he stays in a battle. His passives already kinda do that when he gets low, but honestly I never notice that small extra bit of damage. So perhaps tweaking that would be best,

The only thing I notice off his ult, is in terms of dueling. Going in and getting that Attack speed buff is amazing. But the damage on it is low as all hell, and hardly noticeable as well. Perhaps they could change it so that it debuffs the enemies movement speed, or perhaps locks them down like Amumu's Ult. Though, I think the best thing to do would be to make it a hybrid Ult between Amumu and Nunu's ults.

When you're in Healing Blade form, you could temporarily stun enemies around you, and gain your atk speed. And when you're in Damage mode, you could start channeling for a few seconds, to deal major damage. That way it fits more with that, you know?

I think giving him more options in general, given he can switch between Sustain and Damage, would be the best direction. Not to mention, you could add changing effects to his Q and E. Where perhaps Sustained would keep them as is, and Damage would add an effect stack similar to Darius' attacks.

Obviously not everything I mentioned, but they're all suggestions.

NeoScout1 votes

he's balanced, you build damage on him and pick the right skirmishes

Omiwom1 votes

Good ideas. Riot should steer him(it?) away from an auto attack bot and more towards being a mascot for battle type of gameplay. Inspiring his team, like you said. There's more to battle than slashing away and hoping you live to slash some more.

Saianna1 votes

I can think of few other champions who currently are in just as lame spot as Aatrox (no dmg & tankish vs dmg & squishy). I really hope that if Aatrox would get some love, then other champs aswell.

WolfBV1 votes

If anything, I'd like it if his Q made all disables applied to him only take effect after he's reached his destination.

The Bíg Ticket1 votes

He is decent in my opinion if you know how to play him. Strong early game and a solid splitpusher, if the enemy happens to not have a Jax, Riven, Tryndamere, etc.. on their team you can rock that top lane all game long and apply tons of pressure.

I Main Swain1 votes

really? In my experience, he's weak against just about any top laner with cc and he can't do almost anything outside of split push and 1v1. his early is strong, but he just gets destroyed late game usually

The Bíg Ticket1 votes

Thats not entirely true, he has good sustain and a ranged poke in lane plus very good csing abilities. There are not many matchups he dominates but he also doesn't have many champs he totally cannot lane against except maybe Riven. He actually beats Irelia early and while she beats him midgame he does outscale her, a full build Aatrox wins a 1v1 vs Irelia. He also has a very easy time vs Cho Gath who has been very popular lately, outduels him at any point of the game.

Raptamei1 votes

As suggested elsewhere, his ult should be replaced with Sion's old ult.

I Main Swain1 votes

ya, I'm pretty sure he saw the suggestion on one of the comments (a few people had already suggested it) and thought it would be a good idea to post. personally, I always had a problem with the old sion ult, and I don't feel like it totally fits him thematically, although I do feel like it's on the right track. my thoughts were similar, that it should grant his allies bonus lifesteal, spellvamp, and either atk speed or ms

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