Aatrox needs some buffs.
Flawed champion, yes. However, I don't think that means he doesn't deserve buffs in the chaotic preseason. I'd like to give my input on Aatrox since nobody tends to pay attention to this champ.
To give a short summary, Aatrox performs badly when he is against ranged champions. This is due to his E cooldown being abnormally long for what other champs with poke are used to, as it is their main trading tool. Not even counting the fact that it does not really need a cost to it in this day and age, Aatrox struggles to keep up with champions especially BECAUSE his E will push up the lane if he is not being careful with it, putting him into more dangerous territory against champions that he cannot just walk up against so he can grab CS. He has always had this issue for season after season, and it's worse now because of Summon Aery.
In melee matchups, the dynamic greatly changes. You can treat this similarly to Singed, but more auto attack oriented and less proxy oriented. You can all-in weaker in-lane champs like Nasus at level 2 or at least force Flash off of them if you're playing correctly, actually being quite oppressive if your passive is also up and ready to go. I do not necessarily want Aatrox's presence in melee matchups to be more oppressive in the early game, which makes buffing his base numbers very difficult.
However, when we look at champions like Kleptomancy Illaoi or Ornn in general, it is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to play around ANY of what they do. Aatrox is a champion that bases himself around being in close range and auto attacking, which both of these champions are adept at punishing. Illaoi's ultimate is a great example of where Aatrox can simply do nothing unless he specifically builds armor to circumnavigate himself around the damage. As for Ornn, he is overtuned, but is definitely still beatable if we're speaking Aatrox vs. Ornn. However, the matchup is extremely difficult due to not being able to itemize Black Cleaver for first item or deal mixed damage. Even if Ornn's W damage is toned down, Aatrox will likely still struggle in the lane (unless of course the W is made entirely irrelevant).
That leads me into one of Aatrox's longer standing issues after his mini-rework, and that is that you cannot suddenly itemize outside of Blade of the Ruined King. It's a very effective item on him, but not optimal in situations like against Ornn who will immediately build armor in your lane. It's perfectly fine if Aatrox has bad matchups, but limiting his item pool because of his poor base stats isn't really fair.
My propositions are:
1. Buff his passive's attack speed bonus and revamp decay.
Aatrox has one of the lower base modifiers in the game when it comes to fighters. It's about time he got a buff in this way to kick off his item builds. Looking more toward 80% attack speed as the total bonus and incremental boosts buffed to match it. It helps him get to his passive faster, it helps him heal faster, and it helps him damage faster. The most important factor is that he should be able to itemize better depending on well this is handled, and if it's not handled well enough, then barely anything changes. And that's not what we're looking for. Just as an extra note, he does not need more power given to him in lane phase when he has dominant matchups already.
As for the overall duration/decay bit, what is being looked at by me is mainly the decay time being so absurdly short, especially when you're looking to last hit minions and not constantly push the wave. In other words, non-combat decay. This passive deserves at the very least an ability to respect the minion wave and not force you to push the wave or add more risk onto yourself just for an advantage you sometimes need in addition to respecting the minion wave. This is more important than the attack speed bonus.
2. Add a refund portion to his Blades of Torment, both cooldown and cost.
I can't generate numbers for the lane phase and expect it to be stable across the board. Aatrox is a sustain champ. His E is (what I assume to be) carrying a cost to lessen the impact of his healing in lane phase.
However, there are matchups where he cannot safely auto to even heal in the first place. I suggest a cooldown and cost refund when it kills a minion so he's actually capable of handling these matchups without being majorly spoonfed. There is now a rune page that allows Aatrox to handle these lanes much easier, but due to his E's long cooldown and massive penalty of inflexible build paths, he cannot access this rune page easily. The cooldown is the most important factor, while the cost is the least important (but still somewhat impactful) factor. Has been necessary for a very long time to handle ranged matchups instead of being an auto-lost lane.
3. Allow Blood Thirst/Price to be used on towers.
Simple change and a simple explanation. Aatrox is a splitpusher by nature, but has been heavily gated by the fact that he cannot use Blood Price on towers. Yorick received a similar change before, so I find it extremely ironic that Aatrox didn't receive a similar change when they both attempt to do the same job. The precedent is there for Trundle and Yorick, so I do expect a change like this as something deserving of going through regardless of the aforementioned Aatrox-specific elements.
Just as a disclaimer, I do not believe this will fix him as a champion. Riot has shown no intention of fixing his Q (likely because they're just waiting for his inevitable rework to actually work on graphics), so I will not attempt to address it. However, I do believe this will make him more usable. Thanks for reading.
