I'm not saying new Aatrox doesn't look like a cool *NEW CHAMPION*. But his ult is inherently broken.
I'll get to WHY his ultimate will need hotfixing IMMEDIATELY at the bottom of the post. Ignore the rant in between if you only care about that.
First of all - Seriously? Aatrox has always been a Xin Zhao, and then you rework him into a Riven? Why? His old W was his most iconic ability. Xin Zhao no longer occupied that Niche after his W was moved to his passive and gutted into the ground.
I don't recognize Aatrox anymore. I mean he looks amazing, but like new Urgot he just seems like an entirely new champion rather than a re-build of my favourite. This new Aatrox just looks like you copy pasted Riven as your template, slapped a Kled Q on him and gave him Swain's ult.
Sigh well, i guess i shouldnt complain. We've been alienated for so long, i guess we should be happy you did SOMETHING with our champion rather than pretend we dont exist.
I'll try to get used to it, but becoming a Riven player really doesn't sit right with me. And now i will no doubt have to compete with them for the champion. Great.
BUT! There's one HUGE issue here, where you are designing his kit to WORK AGAINST ITSELF.
So; his blood well is now tied to his ult. This is cruel to Aatrox players, but that is besides the point.
Aatrox is still built around being a sustain-heavy skirmisher. He will no doubt enjoy building items like Death's dance now.
His guardian angel is now tied to his active ult. So what does this mean for Aatrox's playstyle?
That depends on two possible outcomes of his ult;
1: Enemies can wait his ult out to circumvent his iconic revive.
2: Aatrox will ACTIVELY BE SABOTAGING HIMSELF by using his IN-BUILT, PLAYSTYLE DEFINING SUSTAIN to keep himself alive during fights - the longer you stay alive, the less chance of you getting to actually utilize your revive! In other words, his revive essentially encourages him to mess up and get himself killed to be able to utilize his ultimate optimally - other than that it only operates as a "burst shield" or "mistake compensation" that you activate AFTER you already messed up.
3: His new ultimate is permanent after activation (implied by his flight movement speed being described as activating out of combat) which seems fun for sure, but considering it also grants increased damage it might be unfair in terms of counterplay as well as making a quite severe performance upset depending on him being able to maintain his ult or not.
Personally, i welcome any learning curve differences - Aatrox has always been known as a champion that is EXTREMELY HARD to succeed with due to his flawed design leading to a wonky learning curve at best.
But he does not look difficult to play. In fact, the amount of damage he can deal and cc he can apply compared to how difficult it is to apply it seems extremely unbalanced - He now looks like a champion you can easily button mash your way to victory with.
