Talk:Aatrox/@comment-44862725-20200114221207/@comment-44862725-20200205024107

To be fair, most people are just reminiscing the time when Aatrox (The Old One) was busted in the game with the Rageblade + Titanic Hydra build to basically 1v1 or even 1v5 anyone in the game. Before then, he was pretty bad with all of his abilities being a random assortment of special quirks. Not to mention his Revive Mechanic which was a reward system which rarely was triggered even then. If you did congratulations, now you had to wait for it to come off cooldown and you were immobile while regaining HP, meaning the moment you come out of it, you have a split second to react unless you get bombarded with CC or Burst, or a combination of both

When he first came out, he was an absolute mess. His Q was incredibly small to land, and if you did the reward for the knockup wasn't worth it. You'd manage to get in his E which had a really weird hitbox design to it which only gave a small slow that also dealt Magic Damage and possibly one auto after that. If your Ult was up yes you'd gain the bonus stats and charge up the Bloodwell. His E and Ult scaled with AP and dealt Magic Damage, while his Q and W scaled with Attack Damage, meaning the way you were to prioritize his abilities would always leave you with half of what was intended. Either you go AD or AP, for DPS or Burst and that was really about it.

Just a nitpick, but Aatrox before the rework had a somewhat questionable design. Yes the Darkin were just a name during his release and Kayn was never released so Rhaast was never included either. But when you looked at Aatrox and his splash art, what you saw, was a tiny human sized Darkin who spouted poetry of war and eternal conquest. Don't get me wrong his quotes were very good, I actually wish they added that into his new design rather than his madness of immortality version. But to me both representations of Aatrox, new and old are good, it's just that the new one seems to give the appeal that Aatrox is a Darkin to be feared. His giant greatsword, as simple as it is, is strong and reliable. Compared to his weird spiked blade which wouldn't ever work in combat for how many strikes you could be disarmed or lose it out of your own hands, but that was just to make him feel unique.

To also add, the playstyles of both are vastly different. To me, I prefer the new one better, even for how garbage his gameplay is. The casting of abilities has Aatrox whirl his sword around like a true blademaster, rather than just auto attacking. But yes old Aatrox with his steroid Attack Speed and insane Lifesteal made him a fun gamble of a Champion when facing all in duels or teamfights. The unique style of the new Aatrox with his Q animations gives the feel that he is a swordsman that has perfected his own style of fighting, elegance and power behind his twirling and slashing. The old Aatrox had a more savage yet dominating appeal to him, standing in front of your enemy drain tanking away with each attack as they desperately tried to fight back. Old Aatrox was more of a Diver, the New Aatrox has become a Juggernaut.

Sadly Aatrox is in a pretty bad spot. Buff him too much, he'll be competitively viable yet still garbage in Solo Queue. Nerf him too much, he becomes unplayable to end up forgotten just like Kalista. I just miss the days when Aatrox was actually good during the hot fix patches. Patch 9.12 before his gutting nerfs Aatrox was in a good spot. Good players who knew how to use him understood when they could all in their opponents and correctly use the Ult. Bad players mainly used the Ult to dive under turrets to force a dive or a kill to only end up dying and feeding. Good players timed E Q's and chained W's right after to apply heavy pressure and knew when and when not to cast them. Bad players just continued to spam Q's after missing the enemy even with their E to dash in, losing their pressure and being an open target because of Cooldown.

To me, I can't help but think that all those people who say that Old Aatrox was good are not really Aatrox Mains. They just abused him when Rageblade + Titanic Hydra was overpowered. Seriously though, if he wasn't changed with the Rework, Aatrox would've faced hard nerfs to his already garbage kit that would drive him back into his tombstone, because we all know that Riot's Balance Team never considers the items they make for us to buy in the shop to be overpowered that gives certain champions massive buffs to compensate for their weaknesses.