The New Aatrox, an obscene amount of mixed feelings :/

I know I haven’t been playing League for long, maybe 3 years at this point, so I know some might not classify me as an Aatrox main, I do heavily enjoy playing him. He is my most played champion, 369,469 mastery points (as of this moment I type this), and he became my favorite champ back before his blood well gave him the additional base ad hellbent attackspeed buff.

I know the older version, amongst the community, a vast majority called him the weakest champ in the game. I always enjoyed playing him, and I became decent with "the worst champ in the game". I ended up achieving M7 on him before the hellbent addition to his passive.

The current Aatrox, it never seemed like he needed another rework. After the hellbent update, it felt like he was in a good spot, he wasn't too strong, but also wasn't weak either.

This new rework, it does look cool, the effects look well done, but the kit, is way to much like Riven. His passive isn't good, the new debuff is interesting, but you always have to decide to lose out on farm, or get the max HP damage off on your laner. And since you end up losing it to farm, that a good chunk of damage you can use to win trades, his sustain is negligible, almost non existent, which is basically forcing you to build damage if you want to try to make use of it, doesn't have a strong engage, or anything to disengage, since the W area is so small towards the front the slow isn't relevant as they get out of it quickly,

and the big thing that's a problem, is he should be able to go against tanks and other juggernaut fairly well, but the other juggernauts out damage him so easily, and you can't make use of your E passive at all since you don't do damage to tanks. Nothing scales off his health, it feels very underwhelming to build any kind of a bruiser, since he can't make use of that health at all.

He has no health scalings at all, Darius is able to heal for a good chunk of his max health when he lands the blade of his Q, Garen has so much health regen to sustain him through lane, Illaoi can get a a good amount of health back from her tentacles even while building tank except a Black Cleaver or Steraks. His new ult isn't good at all.

This rework doesn't feel at all like the "combo juggernaut" he was supposed to be. I'm just so mixed about. He does look better, the abilities look great and they look and feel impactful when you use them, not to mention his voice lines I do enjoy, but it just feels like this shoulda been a new champion, and not a rework for Aatrox. The current one feels and looks fine, maybe some stat buffs here or there if people still felt he wasn't in a good spot, but not a total rework. I dunno, i'm so mixed because I can see some of the good changes with the new changes, all the mini knock ups on his Q and all. It just, feels wrong, like this isn't who Aatrox is.

He is supposed to be a great dualist, and now it just doesn't feel that way at all. Especially since he has no sustain at all to get him through laning phase. I'm sorry, i'm just so mixed about it :/