Aatrox – Assessment and Potential Update and Ability Ideas

(Warning - This post contains much Aatrox )

When I first started playing this game, I believe it was Aatrox’s glorious figure that beckoned me to enter my username into the client. Then in-game, his fluid movements and vicious attacks, augmented by an ancient and impassive voiceover, all reinforce a being who can simply be described as badass.

Though we’d like to know more about who Aatrox is in terms of lore, this isn’t what’s wrong with him. My brother and I have played a fair amount of him Top, Jungle and ARAM, and while we definitely have fun playing the champ; we, like quite a few other players and rioters, feel that his play pattern is rather flat and almost outdated.

Here’s my assessment of what Aatrox is right now, incarnate in the glorious ‘Midseason Mage’ format:

Things to like / that are meritable to retain:

• Aatrox is an auto-attack reliant bruiser with powerful mobility – Similar to Shyvana, Xin Zhao and Jarvan, distinct from non-mobile juggernauts (like Trundle, Volibear and Mundo) and ‘bursters’ (like Vi, Hecarim and Pantheon). (I recall that Aatrox was originally intended as a ‘light fighter’ akin to Fiora, though given the lack of means for him to avoid damage players would have more success with off-tank builds: only 1-2 offensive items, sometimes none at all, where it’s quite rare to see Aatrox's committing more than that).
• In-game model, animations, effects, sounds etc. are all up-to-date, cohesive, original and give a strong image of ‘ancient mysterious battle-zealous war badass’.
• Existing abilities are (arguably) cohesive enough (no inconsistencies) and aesthetically fit with Aatrox’s persona.
• Choosing whether to remain in Blood Price / Thirst is a distinctive, constant decision for the Aatrox player. Aatrox’s healing sacrifices his damage and vice versa, rather than doing both all the time (as is the case with most other combat healers )
• Blood-well resource concept is unique to Aatrox, as is its interaction with reviving passive. State of resource does have large impact on Aatrox’s combat strength.
• Having offensive steroid attached to ult solidifies him as an ‘committed all-inning’ champion, which grants a decent cooldown window for counterplay, sets him apart from other ‘Diving Fighters’ (atm Shyvana ult is effectively ‘always up’ and doesn’t contribute all that much to her play pattern).
• Aatrox otherwise is quite weak at pretty much all stages of the game (relative to the others) without his ult and Blood Well – this can be retained if more of his power budget is displayed through his ult.
• Power of Q and details of R means Aatrox does have an incentive to teamfight rather than splitpush – another aspect that sets him apart, and has a lot of room to be built upon.

Areas to improve in:

• Aatrox’s playstyle is very similar to other ‘diving fighters’ (gap-close to squishies, right click them and hopefully kill them before you die yourself). Apart from his Q and revive passive there is little that distinguishes him from his contempories, and ‘the passing of the seasons’ has proven that it is simply more efficient to pick whoever is strongest at the time.

> That's Aatrox's big gameplay issue - he doesn't have a distinct enough gameplay identity, so the only major gameplay reason to pick him is if he's the strongest option in his class (diving fighters). Other divers have more unique things they bring to a team, so there's reason to pick them even if they're not numerically the strongest … The solution, following that logic, then is to find something special Aatrox can offer and put a significant part of his power budget there.

~ Meddler

• Aatrox does suffer somewhat from the ‘feast or famine’ effect – Aatrox does not have high base damage or health (especially without his Blood Well), and struggles to offer much to a team if he gets behind. Conversely, his attack speed and ad-scaling (why?) heal scales almost multiplicatively with offensive items (Definitely the case with live Devourer), and a fed / farmed Aatrox can prove frustratingly difficult to deal with if the opposing team lacks coordination.
• Aatrox’s Blood Thirst, like many self-healing abilities, is by nature rather frustrating to deal with if overtuned, and underwhelming if undertuned. There are already a number of champions with ‘in-combat healing’ as a core part of their kit (Mundo, Volibear, Trundle, Darius, Swain, Vladimir, Fiddlesticks, Warwick, Xin Zhao, and Kindred are the biggest offenders from the top of my head) – may I suggest that Aatrox doesn’t necessarily need to have ‘OP lifesteal’ at the core of his gameplay identity?
• The theme of ‘turning the tide of battle’ does seem a fraction dissonant with his in-game reality – a winning Aatrox can outright ‘out-stat’ a mosh-pit fight from start to finish, while a losing Aatrox often has little to offer save for soaking up some enemy cooldowns before and after he revives.
• Having a steroid as an ult is alright to have (and is by no means poor design) – given they are gated by a respectable cooldown that can be played around, these are just as capable as casted abilities of leading to high moments (in Vayne’s case, even some mediocre plays). At the moment however, its AOE damage on cast is nearly negligible, and it does nothing else other than giving attack speed, more attack speed and attack range. While this bonus is stat-wise very powerful, its effect is quite binary and it can feel a tad underwhelming for the player who expected more from a fricken war god.
• In practice the means by which his Blood Well charges is very similar to ‘Fury’ (where Aatrox afk ‘Blood Prices’ creeps just like a Tryndamere would – though as this costs quite a bit of health it does lead to what I’d say is an awkward interaction), and separated from his revive it simply ‘grants x stat’. The means by which it is obtained could be more engaging than ‘right-click creeps’, and/or it could have changes to make actual effect on Aatrox’s play pattern more interesting.

Possible Update Direction:

Rather than staying a ‘selfish’ champion (as this particular class is known for being), there is room for him to be expand on his role as a teamfighter who truly ‘Turns the Tide’ through presence, mini-initiations and altruistic interactions.

• This may mean that less of his ‘power budget’ is allocated toward his Skirmishing (namely his 1v1 self-healing and ‘free’ attack speed), and more toward his R and any new effects that get implemented.
• In concordance with his ‘army berserking’ in his lore, interactions with his allies may grant offensive or movement buffs (in ways his allies can appreciate, and ones that don't give exploitable stats that 'break the game' - I know the Champ Balance team has had issues with this), though briefly.
• Full effectiveness of kit (thinking of Blood Well and Blood Price/Thirst in particular) can be optimal in / directly proportional to environments involving one or more nearby allies / enemies.
• Aatrox’s revive passive doesn’t really fit with this direction, this may need to be tweaked or removed if he becomes too overloaded.

This is kind of the ‘landing pad’ my brother and I decided on – to us it just seems right for this champion’s direction. From here we have churned out a few ideas that support the above ‘specifications’.

Conceptual Ability Ideas:

> Dying Zeal: Whenever nearby ally champions die, Aatrox (and nearby allies?) gains short-term (stacking?) combat power.

Going off the theme of ‘Turning the Tide of Battle’, an ‘inverse Katarina passive’ may grant Aatrox a means to turn losing fights. Such a condition will (1) innately favour a losing Aatrox much more than a winning one, in a way that shouldn’t form a ‘Catch-22’ for the opposing team to play against (will depend on how that power is displayed and tuned, as well as how tanky the Aatrox builds), and (2) incentivizes Aatrox to participate in team-fights with allies in his vicinity. This ‘power’ may be something like Attack speed or filling his Blood Well – something that grants Aatrox respectable, immediate combat power. This shouldn’t be thematically interpreted as a ‘revenge’ tool, and it might be an idea for Aatrox to translate some of this power to his allies as well?

> Path of the Warmonger: Aatrox (upon activating Massacre?) leaves a trail behind him that grants Movement Speed (offensive conditional?) to allied champions that walk upon it. > * Landing Dark Flight and activating Massacre forms a circular area of ‘sacred ground’ around Aatrox, while Blades of Torment extends the trail along and beyond the path of the projectile.

This would serve to further cement Aatrox’s role as a teamfighter and gives a means to demonstrate any altruistic power he ends up having. Functionally, leaving a trail behind him will incentivize his team to ‘follow in his wake’ (which if anything makes the Aatrox feel special ;~; ). If Aatrox were always to benefit from his own effect, conditional movespeed would be a nice QOL buff that reduces how he gets kited in between Q cooldowns – diving fighters already tend to be harder to peel away than Juggernauts). Compared to Sivir’s Ult, this effect should be weaker, briefer and far more conditional: thematically befitting his aggressive, all-in nature, this should be limited to / most optimally used to initiate fights rather than as a disengage or out-of-combat team reposition. Given the other ‘trails’ in the game, which include (which facilitates ally re-positioning), ’s ‘Dusk Trail’ (which facilitates chasing),’s Gas (which facilitates being chased) and Dragon Form ’s ‘Burnout’ (which does nothing), this is a space that may have a fair amount of room to explore.

> Blood Well: Aatrox’s Blood Well fills as Aatrox and nearby ally and enemy champions take damage. > * This includes the self-inflicted health costs from his abilities (reduced effect compared to live) > * The ‘Cap’ for this resource should be reduced (should fluctuate in fights rather than built out-of-combat as a ‘pool’), and should diminish faster in and out of combat.

This iteration is functionally quite similar to the current version in many respects – Aatrox Jungle will generate it by taking a pounding from jungle monsters, and a laning Aatrox would mainly build it through skirmishing with / getting rekt by his lane opponent. However, Blood Well would favour Aatrox the most when allies are in his vicinity – his Blood Well would fill twice as fast in a 2v2 (mechanic for the next melee duo-bot laner? ), and fastest in teamfights (probably filling almost instantly when an assassin blows their cooldowns, I’d imagine). This change would weaken Aatrox’s extending 1v1 duelling power, at the benefit of his power in teamfights. Could be visually displayed with a spoopy red ‘cord’ that spans between Aatrox and the bleeding champion (like in his splash art!!!), though admittedly 9 of them at once might be visually cluttering.

> Blood Price / Thirst: Upon reaching a threshold of his Blood Well, attacking an enemy champion with his W will consume a fixed amount in order to augment its effect: > * Blood Price: Deals (more) bonus AOE damage to all enemies around/in front of Aatrox, including a portion based of their max hp. > * Blood Thirst: Deals bonus AOE damage to all enemies around/in front of Aatrox, then heals for a portion of his missing health based on the number of enemies hit.

The idea behind the attack affecting an area is to increase Aatrox’s presence in teamfights. When the Darkin Blade descends, he won’t be content with the blood of one guy – just like in his lore, he will be cleaving everyone close to him, scattering and massacring with that great big sword of his.

Depending on the exact geometry of this area, this could be a unique way for an Aatrox to express mastery – a great Aatrox player will hold onto his Q for opportune moments and then position his strikes to continuously hit multiple targets. Choosing to stay in Thirst or Price will still be a distinctive, constant decision, however like this individual procs could have larger potential for effect, and opponents have more ways to play against him (again, dependent on geometries).

This change should overall make the power of Blood Price/Thirst hinge less on Aatrox’s raw stats, and more on his positioning and timing against multiple foes – hopefully this could help address the current ‘feast-or-famine’ nature and give opponents a clear means to play against him. However, if Aatrox’s Blood Well were to fluctuate as it is built and consumed, his revive passive would most likely need to be separated from it, or removed entirely.

Dark Flight: I think someone on the boards suggested that Aatrox could become invulnerable during his Q. This would have the potential to lead to some neat out-plays where he dodges one or more key spells – given his right-click centric playstyle this could lead to another interesting means for Aatrox players to display skill. I’m personally not sold on this – The current version has a delay that can be interrupted with knee-jerk Crowd Control, which is an aspect that I’d argue is necessary for Aatrox to retain. Given Aatrox’s power as a generalist, in my opinion his Q shouldn’t have the pure initiating power of a tank like Malphite or Maokai; instead it should be a gapcloser / reposition that the player uses multiple times in a fight. That said, I’m not entirely opposed to it – perhaps if it were attached to certain conditions (Blood Well or Ult gated?) it could open up a range of possibilities.

Blades of Torment: While somewhat lacklustre, there isn’t much that’s wrong with this ability – its converging shape is well suited for a melee champion, plus it looks and sounds damn cool. Furthermore, it’s functional in a variety of situations: to lead a Dark flight on a moving target, deter an enemy from following him, or simply to pick up CS in lane while zoned by a 1/0 Riven (feelsbadman). Perhaps killing a minion with his E could refund the ability’s health cost, like with Mundo’s Cleavers? This would be a neat Quality-of-Life feature that would take out some of the awkwardness (and outright peril) from this interaction. Otherwise (other than being wider or being able to be casted more frequently?) I think this spell can remain untouched, unless one wanted to further reward immediate aggressing against the slowed target.

As you can see, these ideas are all up in the air, so I haven’t nailed down any numbers (and I don’t plan to). Obviously a hypothetical Aatrox with all these abilities would be DOTA-level overloaded, so some of the existing non-essential stuff would have be replaced (looking at the free AS from his Blood Well and his Revive). I realise that this iteration is a far leap from his initial intended identity of a ‘Lifestealing Carry’, and perhaps this ‘Diving Altruistic Teamfighter’ direction doesn’t strike you as ‘Aatrox’ even remotely. Even so, ‘Diving Altruistic Teamfighter’ is an area that could have potential to be explored: if not here, then in other reworks and champions in the future.

Aatrox has largely been left alone for a good 3 seasons, and given how his assets are all up to date it’s something of a shame to see his in-game reality not really delivering. (I’d also reckon we’re overdue for some story-related updates: we’d like to know more about what his intentions are, the true extent of his power, whether there are other winged beings like him, and if he was always the way he is now?)

Then again, he’s most definitely not the only champion in who could use some love, and there are a fair number of toxin champerinos who are in far more dire need of a rework.

Is there anything in the assessment that I overlooked or got wrong? Anything of those abilities strike you as ‘stupid’? Suggestions of your own?

Maybe you can convince me that live Aatrox is in fact absolutely perfect?