@Riot Balancing Team, what about Aatrox?

zork824·Jul 26, 2014·3 votes·1,525 views

Now that his Mecha Skin got released ( and it's awesome, I bought it instantly :D ) people are starting to play Aatrox and it seems that is a common opinion that he's quite in a bad spot now. His base stats are poor and he's very squishy even if he's supposed to be a "tank", you are good early then you start to fall off faster than Zilean. I'm not saying I want him to be an unkillable tank, but I'd like to stay alive for more than 3 seconds in teamfight...even when built tanky, he melts so hard. What are your opinions on this?

9 Comments

ShokenJul 26, 20144 votes

I think he's fine. Buffing him would result in him being FoTM and overpowered.

Sire HippingtonJul 26, 20141 votes

The problem with AAtrox is that u can't plain buff him, as his laneing and splitpush would become way to strong. The probem is that he's balanced around his stron W selfheal, but a AA bound self heal on a melee doesn't work 2 well in clashes, as u usually get cced and kited 24/7 and thus u never get those 3 AAs of for the heal. The other problem is that the heal scales with ad and as, so u need to built rather squishy to realy get alot out of it, makeing him extremly vulnerable to burst as he got bad base stats and most of all takes away 15% of his current health with his combo, wich reduces the effeckt of tank items on him by ~15% or more.

zork824Jul 26, 20141 votes

So you're suggesting to rework him?

Sire HippingtonJul 26, 20141 votes

i would rework not only him, but most fighters. Pretty much all fighters have the problem that they are realy strong 1v1 but suck in teamfights. Not sure how we can totally fix that, but giving melees better ways to deal with slows would certainly help. They also need defens scaling with the number of nearby enemys to not be insanly tanky 1v1 while still dieing fast in a 5v5, and i think carrys could use a small nerf on theri lategame dps, it'S just sick how u can destroy a 6item mundo within 5sec as 6item tris.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/live-gameplay/2Y4oBzcl-melee-cant-melee-anymore-hashinshin in this thread is a more detailed post from me about melee champs in general Alot could already be done with items+masteries imo

SilverclawJul 26, 20141 votes

I actually think he's in a pretty solid spot - he can win lane pretty hard in many matchups and follow up by being relatively tanky (with 3 lives), all the while doig a ton of damage - and he is seeing competitive play, so he's can't be in that bad of a spot.

zork824Jul 26, 20141 votes

He's seeing competitive play because he's not played as an initiator, but Aatrox is rather a melee carry, that's why it doesn't look bad. If he was playde as a melee carry in LCS, everyone would see how UP he is

12talesJul 26, 20141 votes

Why is a bad build path relevant to a champion's overall balance? Of course melee carry Aatrox is UP, melee carries in general are pretty awful.

Dragon Fang ShotJul 26, 20141 votes

He does a a pretty squishy early game, but he shouldn't be too squishy late game. I think the problem behind the tank build is that there's no lifesteal. Lifesteal is a very important stat on Aatrox, as it's what makes him so unkillable. If you only build tank on him and have your W toggled on, you'll melt instantly. However, if you switch out two of those tank items for a BotRK (which everyone should be getting on him) and another offensive item (BT, Maw of Malmortius, etc) then you should be fine. Aatrox is a brawler, not a tank.

WorgslargJul 26, 20141 votes

I think he's in a fine spot, but his w has a problem outside of laning. I feel that it would be more balanced restoring 30% of the current heal on the first and second hits, and 40% of the current heal on the third hit, without a change to the damaging portion This would keep the overall healing the same, but allow him the luxury of healing on each hit