Aatrox, the Darkin Blade rework. Make it feel like a real Massacre.
In my opinion, Aatrox's 3 biggest weaknesses are his poor scaling , his susceptibility to CC, and his inability to effectively retaliate after his passive triggers because of his drained bloodwell. The main points I've chosen to address with this rework is his susceptibility to CC, which renders him useless in teamfights after Qing in and after he revives only to be locked down; and his bloodwell interaction -- specifically, the speed at which he can fill it. I feel like the changes I've made to his kit make him much more effective at wreaking havoc in a fight because he would be too dangerous to ignore and also harder to lock down, but only inside certain windows of power.
Base Stats: Attack Speed: 0.651 >>> 0.679 Health per level: 85 >>> 90 AD per level: 3.2 >>> 3.4
I decided to give Aatrox a slight boost in the scaling department in order to make his damage builds more satisfying. I didn't want to touch his defensive stats too much because I feel like he's in a good spot where he feels really squishy when he can't reach his target (unless he builds tanky). The attack speed change in particular makes him capable of nearly hitting the 2.5 cap with nothing but a Botrk and his abilities when the late game arrives.
Bloodwell (P): Exactly the same.
Instead of changing how his revive or attack speed steroid work to compliment his kit, I decided to change his kit to compliment his passive. Thematically, his passive succeeds in depicting him as an immortal bloodlusty fighter, but in-game it currently feels lackluster because he isn't given the proper opportunity to feel like a god of war.
**Dark Flight (Q): Cost: 10% current HP (same) Cooldown: 16/15/14/13/12 seconds >>> 18 seconds ** **For 2 seconds, Aatrox becomes immune to disables, can move through units and gains 30/35/40/45/50% bonus movement speed that decays over the duration. The cooldown of Dark Flight is reduced by 1 second each time Aatrox triggers Bloodthirst or Blood Price. **
This ability will still serve as Aatrox's primary engage/escape tool, but forgoes his ability to wall hop (defensive) in order to accentuate the offensive capabilities. Similar to Olaf, when Aatrox decides he wants to engage on you, your option to altogether prevent it disappears. This blood god has chosen you as his target, and the way to best him in combat is to strategically time your CC at the end of Dark Flight's duration, or run like a coward. In order to emphasize Aatrox's obsession with blood, Dark Flight's cooldown can be reduced drastically if he can consistently find targets to hit. This ability is excellent for dueling, team fighting and ganking, but is no longer particularly useful when clearing jungle camps.
**Bloodthirst/Blood Price (W): Cost: 15/23.75/32.5/41.25/50 (+25% bonus AD) HP >>> 10/20/30/40/50 (+25% bonus AD) HP Cooldown: 0.5 seconds (same) **
Toggle Off (Bloodthirst): Every third attack heals him for 20/25/30/35/40 (+25% bonus AD), increased by 2% for each 1% health Aatrox is missing.
Toggle On (Blood Price): Same effect.
The main change I made here is the way his healing works. In lane, the massive increase upon reaching low health was frustrating because it was hard to keep him down. I've made it so that his heal is stronger when he's above 50%, and only gradually reaches it's current strength in-game as he falls lower in health. This basically means it's harder to trade with him when he's winning lane, but easier to keep him down when he's losing. Combine that with a marginally reduced health cost to Blood Price and this also makes his first clear as a jungler slightly easier because the first camp or two won't leave him so wounded.
Blades of Torment (E): Cost: 5% currently health (same) Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/8 (same)
Same initial effect, but now marks enemies hit with Torment for 3 seconds. Aatrox deals 10% bonus damage against Tormented enemies, and fills his bloodwell by an amount equal to the bonus damage (only the 10% increase, not the entirety).
This is a straight buff, and a big one at that. To compensate for taking away all of the damage his Q used to have, I gave him a tool that rewards sticking to his target by amplifying his on-hit items and Blood Price, and also accelerating his Bloodwell generation. Now this ability is more than just a poke tool because it unlocks his full dueling potential if he chooses to follow up on it. This also makes his jungling easier, especially early game, because he can ramp up his attack speed without sacrificing so much health with Blood Price.
Massacre (R): Cost: None (same) Cooldown: 100/85/70 (same)
Passive: Aatrox's Bloodwell generation is amplified by 20/35/50% for 5 seconds after reviving with his passive.
Active: Aatrox draws in the blood of his foes, filling his bloodwell by 10/15/20% for each nearby enemy champion. For the next 12 seconds he gains 175 attack range, doubled attack speed bonuses from his Bloodwell, and his Bloodthirst and Blood Price trigger after 2 hits instead of 3. Massacre's duration persists through his passive revive.
Big list of changes here. First I added the passive that really makes his revive feel incredibly powerful. Combine that with the persisting duration through his first death and Aatrox can remain a huge threat to the enemy team for far longer than you'd think. Second, I took away the initial burst damage and nerfed the initial bloodwell generation (is currently 20% at all ranks in-game), and also changed the attack speed steroid from 40/50/60% to be based on his bloodwell. I wanted to remove his front-loaded power in exhange for really emphasizing his sustained damage, while gating it behind a ramp-up period to keep it balanced. The most notable change is the massively increased strength of his W during Massacre's duration, which also artifically reduces the cooldown of Dark Flight because he'll be triggering W more often. If Aatrox has sated devourer with Massacre active, he is capable of actually massacring the entire enemy team. With sated and ult his W trigger pattern looks like this: oOOO, oOOO, oOOO. This change alone is enough to increase his late game power, giving him more freedom with his item builds than he currently has.
Changelog: Increased Q cooldown from 16 to 18 seconds. Reduced R passive from 25/50/75% amplification to 20/35/50% amplification. Removed attack-counter persist through death on his W.
All in all, I've removed a ton of Aatrox's frontloaded damage in exchange for increasing his sustained damage. I've reduced some of his early game strength and increased his late game strength. I've also improved the reliability of his revive and made him harder to lock down in a fight, accentuating his theme as an immortal, instatiable blood god.
