Aatrox Gameplay Update
After reading what was written here about the future of Aatrox being "in heavy design iteration" I thought this might be a chance to bring my own thoughts to the table on his coming rework. Aatrox has some really good lore and a decent explaination for coming to Summoner's Rift and thankfully those aren't changing, only his in game abilities are so I will only be discussing those. (Keep in mind, I have not spent countless hours playing Aatrox or over a desk with a calculator trying numbers out, but have merely just come up with some unique idea's that haven't been mentioned yet, from the mind of someone who finds Aatrox one of the coolest champions in the game, and if he were any better, would play him constantly.
The following writtings assume you are familiar on an intimate level with Aatrox's abilites so to read up on his abilities' current workings or compare them to what I have written, go here.
Passive: Bloodwell - I think we can all agree that Aatrox's passive is one of the most unique passives in League of Legends as a "free" Guardian's Angel. I believe this is core to his kit and to a certain extent the lore of his character. His refusal to fall in battle or rather his undying will is a perfect portrayal of The Darkin Blade of War. I would suggest a change to Aatrox's passive to be a two part passive. The first part is his Bloodwell, auto-attacking grants 15-20 points fill of his Bloodwell, that has a total of 100 points needed to fill, which decays rapidly when out of combat. Aatrox then gains bonus AD based on what percent filled his Bloodwell is (much like who Tryndamere gains Crit chance). The second part of his new passive is his Undying Strength, if at full stacks upon taking fatal damage, Aatrox's Bloodwell will empty and he will revive over 3 seconds healing 33% of his maximum health. Bloodwell's point total then increases by 33. Once Aatrox is killed, Bloodwell's point total returns to 100. Takedowns reduce the point total by 15 to a minimum of 100. Aatrox cannot but Guardian's Angel.
- I based this passive off a few different champion's combined with his on current passive now; gaining Attack much like Tryndamere gains Crit chance, having the point gain be not guarenteed to be 20 every time much like Kled regains courage but not at such a drastically large number difference (Kled gains either 15 or 5 courage for attacking a champion.. killing a minion or hitting a tower gives 5.. that math doesn't make sense to me).
- In addition to those, I removed his passive being able to go on Cooldown and just have it always being available. This maintains Aatrox's main subclass as being an excellent Diver. With this removed cooldown though, Aatrox becomes arguably the strongest late game champion on the rift. Needing only 5-7 auto attacks in before getting bursted all the way back to 0. Therefore, I added the point increase each time Aatrox "should have died". I feel like this perfectly walks the line of being not super snowball-y but also not over powered. Being too careless with this passive and getting nothing out of it will build it extremely high and make his revive and bonus AD unreachable.
Q: Dark Flight - Not a whole lot to say or change on this one, increase the range by 50 to a total of 700 (equivalent to Kha'zix unevolved E), get rid of the "miniature Galio effect" and instead of knocking up what is hit, give it a small knock-back (similar to Ornn auto on Brittle targets). I feel this needs the least explaination. Keep the terrain scaling, don't have him shoot straight up first making it an effective channel. Just make it a leap like Tristana's Rocket Jump or Kha'zix E. He is a Warrior, not an Actor. He isn't Rakan, trying to make a big flourish before he delivers a finishing blow. He is a beast looking for blood.
W: Blood Thirst/Blood Price - I actually like this ability the way it is now. If you build enough Attack Speed, it works out well. I don't really see it being reworked in such a way that Cho'gath's E did so I actually think this passive should remain.
E: Blades of Torment - I think the biggest issue with this ability used to be that it had no scaling slow. Since the rework in patch 7.5 gave that to him, there is only one final issue remaining with this ability. The hit box. If Morgana's Bind and Lux's Root can hit you when there's a space the size of Gragas's belly between your champ and the skill-shot I think Blades of Torment should be a little more forgiving (and Warwick's Ult if anyone is reading this, it's really too thin for his champ model, his arms stretch out wide enough to pass through his targets, thanks).
R: Massacre - This ability shouldn't scale off of AP. Plain and simple. There's no AP anywhere else in his kit. It makes no sense to then have a champion's premier move, be useless because you can't use anything you've purchased for him up to this point when using it. My thought, make the effect radius at 600, not increase his Bloodwell on cast per champ hit, make it scale with AD and make the initial burst look like how Rhaast takes over Kayn's body. a big burst of red energy shows everyone "oh snap, Aatrox is here." With his increased auto-range and attack speed, this makes it a playable ability.
Those are my thoughts, will edit this as time goes on.
