So, with the new nerfs on PBE, Aatrox is shaping up as the new Kalista/Azir/Ryze
Balanced around pro play, complete garbage in lower ELOs.
Fantastic rework design, that was exactly what the champion needed. Complete success.
45 Comments
That's what happened when you put all of the damage on one ability. That ability has to scale super hard so when maxed it does way too much damage too early.
That's why riot made rakan heal and Camille q scale with level. Because they would be way too strong if they maxed first at the place they are supposed to be late game.
Aatrox is literally a champion who has 1 useful ability. His q. Everything else in his kit are 1 point wonders to just facilitate his q. This is part of the reason I said before he was even released that he was going to be a balance nightmare.
Can I just have my auto attacker back?
I mean, is it really all that surprising? When he got released, he was majorly criticized for being essentially an entirely new, vaguely Riven-like champion with Aatrox's name slapped on, and even after that his clunkiness turned a lot of people off. When he inevitably got overbuffed with a few hotfixes, a handful of people on here decided that that was enough to make him successful, but then we eventually got to see his core design issues come to the forefront. It's very much the same situation as Galio, where the champion got replaced by something expressly made to be a competitive poster child, then slowly fell into mediocrity because the core design is poor and unsustainable.
Hes broken in high elo solo q, so i dont see the similarity here.
Hes just a design abomination, old aatrox was much, MUCH more healthy and balanced champ.
Like whats sad is, instead of fixing the main issue (Being his late is just Renekton 2.0), they decided the issue was his early, buffed it, and then said, "Oh, we messed up, time to nerf him and not fix the huge issue." Like I get it, you cant ship anymore large changes, but for gods sake, just leave the guy on the PBE for a extra week or something next time.
The heal is actual garbage against champs because it's only (max rank) 25% of the physical damage he deals, BEFORE resists. Last Q with a build consisting of 
,
,
,
,
, and
against minions: Can almost full heal his hp bar on a whole wave grouped up into the hitbox. Same build and Q on 5 champs: Lucky to heal at least 250 or 300.
This guy can't last on the front lines for even a second without being murdered by cc because low and behold, they removed a pretty honest to god balanced heal (grievous would gut it, but it would still sustain him) for one that only gains any good amount of heal from either his passive or Q. (Wounds just murders this heal tenfold)
Like, i'd be fine with Aatrox if he got a % missing hp heal for hitting a champ with the edge, that way his early gets toned down because he cant perma sustain on minions, but his late gets a pretty nice buff.
Yeah it was a bad rework
You might as well put Tahm Kench on that list too at this point sadly.
your right and thats because riot has no idea what they are doing
Honestly I'd rather them power shift from his E or Q into his W instead of just flat out nerfing him, you're screwing over his jungling with what's currently on PBE.
The rework turned out fun to play but sustain+revive on a manaless champion with amazing laning is just asking for abuse in pro play
More emphasis should be put on his passive and W, pull damage off of Q and give it a little more CC to facilitate the shift, increase his ult's self slow while reviving, and give some kind of reward for your ult timing out without dying. He's too safe if you don't feel like fighting, but also feels bad if you go in and get ignored
At this point we've just replaced the "stat check" (lol trundle is still a competitive pick) with "too high a skillcap to exist"