Some Ideas for Aatrox
Hi there, as an Aatrox player with close to 80k mastery I'd like to suggest a few changes for him. Currently Aatrox is held back so much by his innate sustain and revive passive that his base tankiness and damage is really made to suffer. Here are my ideas for removing some of his kit's unhealthy mechanics and giving him a better identity as the pinnacle sustaining fighter of League.
Base Stats: Almost everything could be buffed honestly. Damage, attack speed, resists, regen, all of these both flat and scaling could be increased.
Passive: Bloodwell Removed. Aatrox no longer would gain passive attack speed by spending health. In addition, none of Aatrox's abilities would cost health. He would also not have his revive any more.
New Passive: Battlemaster Aatrox passively gains bonus attack damage equal to his percentage of lifesteal. In addition, units killed by Aatrox grant him additional benefits: Small minions and monsters: Aatrox permanently gains .025% lifesteal. Large minions and monsters: Aatrox permanently gains 0.1% lifesteal. Champion kills and assists: Aatrox permanently gains 0.5% lifesteal. Additionally, enemies that die near Aatrox restore 5/10/15% of his missing health. 20 second cooldown. This bonus lifesteal is capped at 10%. (This would require something like 150 minions plus 10 kills/assists, which I think is reasonable).
I think this passive would do a lot for Aatrox, first it encourages him to build lifesteal which definitely fits his theme, and secondly, even if he doesn't build any form of lifesteal, he can still obtain a small amount simply through farming well and getting kills/assists. This would allow for more versatile builds, as Aatrox is supposed to be a somewhat tanky diver, yet cannot reasonably build tank items without sacrificing all of his damage. It's also worth noting that Warlord's Bloodlust should not grant him bonus AD based on its lifesteal, that would be too OP.
Q: Dark Flight Not many changes are appropriate here I feel, other than potentially doing one or two of these things: Giving Aatrox bonus resists when he manages to knock someone up for a few seconds, Increasing the speed of the ability, Increasing the range/hitbox of the knockup, or Making it non-interruptible.
Doing a couple of these would make the ability a lot better, because as of today almost every champion in the game has hard CC that can stop Aatrox's only initiation tool/escape ability.
W: Blood Thirst Removed. This may be Aatrox's most iconic ability, but having so much innate healing really holds him back from a balance standpoint. If he gets ahead he is unstoppable, but if he falls behind he can't do anything with the ability because it is so reliant on attack speed or AD to proc it many times or give it a better heal ratio. Often an Aatrox that has fallen behind dies before he can even get 3 auto attacks in.
W: Blood Price Servant
Another aspect of Aatrox's empowered W is the crazy damage that he can do on his third hit. This is somewhat problematic too, as, while it annihilates squishies, it is not very effective in the late game vs tanks and even other fighters. Again, Aatrox was meant to be a diver, someone who gets into the back line and disrupts enemies, but with his W as it stands it feels like he's really only good at assassinating ADC's and mages, and even then only when he's built full damage.
Instead of a flat amount of damage, I think that Aatrox could benefit from some sort of "gimmick" damage type if you will, i.e. true damage, % max health damage, or % current health damage as a part of the ability. Almost every fighter has something like this now, and Aatrox not having it causes him to really struggle to keep up. Obviously the flat damage would have to be lowered significantly, but in its place Aatrox could actually be useful outside of laning and splitpushing by having some more tools to deal with enemies of all shapes and sizes, not just frail ADC's. Keep in mind that this would still only work on every third hit.
E: Blades of Torment Removed. This ability is bland and could be so much more. Also, why does Aatrox, a blood spilling war demon, fire energy beams out of his sword? It just doesn't fit thematically.
New E: Sweeping Blade Aatrox sweeps his blade in an arc, dealing damage to all enemies in front of him and applying a slow.
This would be Aatrox's main AOE ability and farming tool. It wouldn't have the same range as his old E, but it would cover a wider area in front of him and potentially lower his reliance on poke to do well in lane (believe it or not, almost half of Aatrox's damage is magical, simply due to how much he harasses with his E in lane) and give him more focused strength. He shouldn't have to have poke to function, it feels like it was simply added in to allow Aatrox to not get completely wrecked in lane phase.
R: Massacre Many people think that this ability is lackluster for an ultimate, and while it does seem that way at first glance, it really does help Aatrox excel at what he's supposed to do (fight people and sustain a lot). Giving attack speed and range allows him to hit faster and stick on people longer. I honestly don't think it needs any real changes, outside of potentially some buffs to attack speed while in the form (no more Bloodwell to fill to get extra AS from hitting people with the initial cast) or even adding movespeed to it.
TL;DR Better base stats. Bloodwell gone. No health costs. New passive that gives bonus AD based on total lifesteal and stacks based on units killed. Q quality of life changes. W healing gone. W damage converted into a lower damage true damage or %HP damage attack to help late game scaling. E is now an arc with his sword to do damage and slow instead of magical energy beams. R quality of life changes.
With no innate healing (outside of passive stacking), and an overall more focused kit, I feel that Aatrox could become viable again if he's given appropriate changes similar to these. Obviously I'm not a balance expert, these are just my ideas, but I would love to see something like this on Aatrox when they get around to updating him.
