Talk:Aatrox/@comment-31139956-20170125012131

As an Aatrox main I really never understood why so many people think he is weak or is unviable. They usually assume this because somewhere in bronze-silver they got some horrible Aatroxes that went the good ol' full lifesteal n00btrap build and were deleted post 15 minutes. Since I mostly build bruiser on him (2 dmg items, rest tank), I really think he starts to kick in late game, when u have enough resist to make a difference in your on-hit heals. And the champ is really nice for baiting the enemy team into focusing you down, 'cause they see how low you drop after the initial burst. What they don't know is that if they fail to apply enough sustained damage on you, you just heal back up to half. :) For runes AS, scaling mr and armor are best, because higher resists equal more effective healing.

For this guy to actually be a little more forgiving to play, he should only require some minor qualitiy of life tweaks. Ofc this won't solve lack of gameknowledge with him so people that don't understand when and how to trade with the opponent will continue to suck.

For buffs I would suggest:

- Higher Base Stats: especially HP early, and maybe some AD because his AAs feel very weak in laning phase compared to other melee. To justify, other autoattackers have bruiser-like HP and Aatrox passive does not imply that they should lower his base HP, cuz unlike others (say Trynd for example) he has HP costs on abilites, and pretty big ones mind you.

- Make his kit less clunky: we all know the Riven fanboys who brag about their animation canceling skills, but some champs just don't have this, such as Aatrox. Most of his abilites have an annoying wind up time, enough to allow missplays in clutch situations (chasing, running from gank). His Q is the main problem for most people (me included) and it should get somekind of buff to it, in the form of either a faster animation, a Kha-like "arc" jump or just plain cd refund if it gets interrupted during wind up. Others are okayish, though his R could use some work also, like not stoping movement. The Passive regen should also be quicker, ideally 1-1,5s less, hell Voli has a similar passive on a much shorter cd and no movement restriction.

- Adding some utility on Q or R: arguably the weakest skills in the kit. For Q I'd be happy to see form of cd reduction based on something like whenever hitting his 3rd proc on enemy champ or something similar. And R needs to have a secondary persistent effect, I mean look at Rek'sai she gets the AS bonus as a passive component plus the global. A minor amount of nuke that doesnt scale with your normal build path (be it bruiser or dps) and some AS is not really a gamechanger. Sure it feels good and lasts pretty long but I think it needs something more. Like maybe apply a slow on the targets in range, or give Aatrox movement speed towards enemies during the ult. I dunno, but it needs a little more to be a defining skill.

This is basically all that comes to mind for me and I do play the champ a lot (currently top 200 based on lolking ranking but that don't mean shit cuz there are so few Aatrox mains XD). I really don't feel he is underpowered right now, and he does scale pretty good into late game if built right. The large number of bad matchups in lane are mainly an issue of his very shitty base stats, and if rito at least buffed those it would allow for more interesting lanes. Cuz right now it's just get zoned and poke or all in at right moment and that is bipolar to say the least.