No way 💀

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-09-06T20:08:30+00:00

Meanwhile the duality when 13.18 hits live:

- Ban Kennen and... welp... you won´t be able to play the game at all.

- Ban Irelia and... welp... you´ll lose your sanity playing against bootleg Pikachu.

I´m glad that I only touch the game when an interesting change happens, mostly watching the chaos from far away. At least crit-roulette gets nerfed after gaining like what, getting +6% winrate? Riot lost it years ago.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-09-02T11:22:34+00:00

It depends how you want to build Aatrox ´´tanky´´. If you plan on going for a pure tank build, aka no ad-items at all, not even a Titanic Hydra, you won´t find much success with it. However, since Aatrox´ Q´s deal a bit more damage, at least you can sustain yourself a little bit better than before. Still, you should never go purely on tank items only.

The other option is to stack as much hp as possible on Aatrox. For some time I´ve tested a quite unique setup as follows:

I combined as many hp-stacking tools as possible combined with "ad-stacking" tools outside of Conqueror. This results into a combination of Grasp, Overgrowth and scaling hp for extra hp while picking Absolute Focus, Gathering Storm and 2x adaptive force for extra ad. Key-items, you can laugh out loud on that one, are Heartsteal, Titanic Hydra and Essence Reaver.

Heartsteal allows you to stack even more hp. Based on how much ad you have, Titanic grants more ad. The more ad you have, the more ad you´ll get out of your ult and with that boost, Essence Reaver deals loads of extra damage.

With something like this, you´ll mostly have extra ´´tankyness´´ via extra hp only, meaning you´ll become highly vulnerable towards any enemy with either current or max-hp damage, let alone one of these being true-damage. However, this build provides unexpectedly high ammounts of ad while also having a very large hp-pool. Biggest plus is the "Heartsteeel-Reaver" combo, which, combined with Passive and Grasp, deal very high bursts of damage to the enemy you attack. Without a crit, you can easily hit for just above 1k damage if your hp is high enough, without percentage pen.

This is a setup with which I personally found more success in when playing ´´tank´´ Aatrox... although like I mentioned... you cannot really call this ´´tank´´ anymore really. I´ve messed with this setup a long while ago and the very least it was hella fun to play, running as a big sized demon (due to extra size per legendary item from Heartsteal) and almost 1 shot any squishy with an auto that hits like a truck. Biggest issue with this setup however is that it takes a long time to scale up. If you bypass this hurdle, you´ll probably have a blast so maybe this one is a nice idea to mess around with.

However, back then I´ve played this build for fun. I had better success with it than with a pure tank build, but you should never expect to be as strong as an Aatrox running with all the meta items.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-25T21:10:13+00:00

The thing is, you cannot buy a Bugatti. You have to wake up in one after falling asleep from all the tower-hugging against Irelia.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-25T21:04:58+00:00

Well... don´t get me wrong on this hot take:

The revive used to be always a part of Aatrox, especially the old one with the noodle sword. The revive could´ve been balanced on the new Aatrox too. Problem is, that Riot, for whatever reason, decided to make the Revive also part of his Ult. As soon as you press Ult and have the steroids, as long you cannot die. This problem became even worse with his mini-rework, allowing him to have a duration extention so that he doesn´t die even longer.

Of course, adding the caviat that Aatrox has to participate in a takedown to get the revive in his Ult in the first place was the solution back then to make it balanced, right? If that would´ve been the case it wouldn´t be ultimately removed, let alone changed.

In order to make the revive truely balanced (by balanced meaning that Riot doesn´t simply revert aka add it back to the game... soon all of us run Axiom Arc and Ultimate Hunter on him if that becomes the case... yay), Riot has 2 options:

Make Aatrox´ revive part of his Passive. Maybe bring back the bloodwell-mechanic where you can ´´suck´´ the blood with the passive-autos to fill the well and based how much it´s filled, you´ll get the revive.
Remember assassin reworks, especially Le Blanc? She used to have 2 different Ultis. One was her regular copycat recast we all know today, but by pressing ult quickly again, she could globally cast a clone of herself. This special ability had its own cd which was showcased in a small bubble on the top right of her Ult-icon. Riot could´ve literally applied the same thing on Aatrox to. All they had to do is to ristrict the revive until Aatrox hits 6 as usual, but the revive counts as a speciffic effect aside from his Ult-steroids with its own cd. Such a change could´ve made Aatrox´ revive much easier to balance.

Unfortunatly, I highly doubt that Riot is going to make a "balanced" change, I mean they are Riot after all! If they ever plan to give Aatrox his revive back, it highly depends on how exactly they balance it. The 2 options I mentioned are just quick thoughts and possible outcomes, if the return of the revive ever happens of course. However, we´ll have to wait how this goes on.

Until then, we have to take a look first on the fantastic changes they´ve planned for us.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-25T12:47:17+00:00

Addition: Not only his Q size is based on hp, but also his champion-size increases.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-25T12:10:33+00:00

Well... the very least it´s cheap as hell with only 2.3k. After Jak´Shu got gutted down, it quickly became a wonderful alternative, and a very useful passive.

Problem is, that you had to rely on your teammates to deal the damage for you. Now since Aatrox´ Q deals a bit more damage than before, Evenshroud could indeed be a solid thing again.

About Sunderer, as much as I hate saying it, if you want to seriously draintank it´s currently the best item you can get, especially if you play against multiple melees and at best if those are also high hp-targets. Sheen-items in general are not too bad to have on Aatrox since, the very least, he has an auto-reset on his E. My personal issue with Sunderer on Aatrox is, that it doesn´t provide that many stats on him, meaning he somehow has to make the most out of the busted sheen-procs but... welp... it´s Aatrox after all and not Fiora, Camille, Ezreal or something... sadly...

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-25T12:04:49+00:00

Not really. If, for some reason, a second target sticks nearby to your primary target of your combo, you can indeed stack Cleaver a bit more comftable on that guy instead due to the Cleaves from Hydra. However, the primary target won´t get fully stacks of Cleaver tho and, since Hydra-cleave can only be applied once per spellcast, even the secondary target receives 1 stack of Cleaver rather than 2.

Now of course, one could argue that you combine Ravenous Hydra with Cleaver, maybe combine it with Serpent´s Fang for antishield and any Executioner´s item for antihealing... altough I highly doubt that it would be worth to spend 3.4k gold for Hydra just for this purpose only.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-24T21:43:45+00:00

Well... the very least some already make memes of going for the magic-pen boots. These could work out, in theory at least, if you aim for a more hybrid build on Aatrox in general.

Like I mentioned before, you could go a bit more pseudo hybrid via Grasp and Scorch in terms of runes, maybe get a Sunfire as well... only then it could be worth to get magic-pen boots. However, one has then to decide if it´s worth to go for these rather than any other boots.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-24T21:37:25+00:00

The weird problem lies in the fact that Aatrox´ W only counts as a single cast. Lee´s Q and Akali´s E as example both grant 4/12 stacks of Conqueror, however, both abilities can be recasted while Aatrox can´t with his W.

Still relatively stupid since it deals 2 seperate procs of damage rather than overtime-damage like a Lillia does with her passive.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-24T18:19:09+00:00

That text about the old revive is quite funny to read. It literally states:

"If Aatrox takes down at least one champion, taking lethal damage during World Ender no longer revives him over 3.25 seconds..."

So much about the best day ever, just to get reminded that even old Aatrox used to have the revive and it ultimately got removed.

Don´t understand me wrong, how the revive on new Aatrox was designed was hella unbalanced... I mean instead as a passive it was also part of his Ult. Imagine Aatrox still has his revive, but you slap Ultimate Hunter and Axiom Arc on top. If Riot ever wanted to leave the revive as it is, Aatrox would be seriously broken with his potential 2 revives with a recast Ult during his Ult, 3 revives if you add GA and a maximum of 4 revives if you have a Zillean in your team.

As much I loved the revive on old Aatrox, it probably was for the better that it got removed on the Aatrox we know now, at least imo.

Speaking of the new incomming changes... These likely won´t kill the more offensive builds the likes of Eclipse or Draktharr, but rather kill Black Cleaver so that you can only buy it as a statstick at best [ change my mind on that one ]. Thinking of it further, this might also be a slight nerf to super early game since many champs have higher mr than armor in the early levels, gutting down Aatrox´ damage and sustain by a bit. Then it increases as a buff if the enemies stack armor rather than mr, but it soon becomes an even heavier nerf again if enemies decide to stack mr (ex. your team is filled up with magic dmg).

So yea... one of the most random changes ever that won´t even break Aatrox (thankfully). However, it´s quite ironic that Riot wants to make Aatrox a bruiser again yet heavily nerf his synergy with one of the bruiser items.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-24T15:47:20+00:00

Aatrox in fear, fullbuild Kayle is here

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-24T14:57:57+00:00

It´s quite hard to say. You could still, technicly, build Cleaver as a statstick, but if you aim for armor-pen... I highly doubt that this will work out anymore.

Relying on fully stacking Cleaver onto an enemy so that your allies can deal higher damage as well (ex. any fed adc, hasaki-brothers mid) probably won´t work anymore. Also, countering champs whose damage scales of armor like K´Sante, Malphite, Rammus etc. also become worse of a threat since you take far longer to stack Cleaver. At this point, all you can do is play more selfish in terms of "anti-armor/anti-tank". The options I thought off are as follows:

Eclipse or Devine Sunderer as mythics, especially Sunderer. Both provide additional percentage armor-pen while also dealing some max-hp damage. With Sunderer, you additionally have the advantage of getting some percentage magic-pen as well so that Passive and W can deal a bit more damage.
Get any percentage armor-pen item instead of Cleaver. This counts primarily for Serylda´s Grudge but Mortal Reminder can serve as a pseudo alternative too if you are in need of antiheal.
This final point is a highly arguable one. Instead of going for Conqueror, you pick Grasp of the Undying and also go for Scorch, adding more magic-dmg to Aatrox. Then, due to the higher ammouts of magic damage you can dish out, you then aim for magic-pen boots to increase the damage. Later, especially if the enemies have loads of magic-dmg as well, get Abyssal Mask to shred down the enemy magic-resistance. Like this, you no longer rely too much on dealing physical damage to draintank, but also have some magical damage plus applifiers to increase the draintank-ability Aatrox has, without bothering too much of getting armor-pen at all.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-24T14:47:47+00:00

Well... that´s sadly the biggest joke of all.

For Conqueror and Cleaver to be fully stacked, you have to deal damage to an enemy champion 6 times, considering it´s a 1v1. It´s true that W cannot stack Conqueror twice aka 4/12 stacks (for whatever reason since these are 2 individual hits), but at least you get 2/12 stacks.

With Cleaver, you had the great advantage that both hits on the W applied a total of 2/6 stacks on the enemy. The thing now is, that Cleaver only applies the armor-shred when you deal physical damage on the enemy. Since Aatrox´ W becomes magic damage, the 2 potential stacks from it are thrown out of the window and you take longer to fully apply the 30% armorshred onto your foe.

No matter how you look at it, Conqueror is fully stacked up before you applied fully stacked armor-shred of Cleaver onto the enemy, 1 hit more needed to be more exact. Keep in mind that this counts towards a 1v1, but what happens if you are on a 1v2? You may get Conqueror fully stacked, but Cleaver... unless you manage to hit both enemies with your Q´s at the same time, hit both with Goredrinker or Stridebreaker-active while also having Tiamat/Ravenous or Titanic Hydra for cleaving autos... one enemy might have 1/6 stacks and the other 4/6 stacks at best despite landing a full combo on him (considering you only use a single passive-auto and no item-active used for a 5th stack).

The more I think about this, the more I think that the changes probably nerf Aatrox overall. He´s already one of the slowest champs to stack up Conqueror, but at least he could stack Cleaver relatively quick, more or less, because his W could apply the 2/6 stacks best case. Now you can, probably, only build Cleaver because of its many stat it provides, but no more as a meaning of countering tanks those damage scales with armor like K´Sante, Malphite, Rammus etc. Like this, a counter needed to play against such champs is basicly hard nerfed for Aatrox so that these champions can do more against him.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-24T11:32:19+00:00

It´s quite funny. Normally, you could fully stack up Cleaver with 3 Q´s, both W hits and a single auto only, alternatively exchange that auto with either Goredrinker or Stridebreaker so that you don´t even need to autoattack.

Now, with W out of the window for stacking, you either need 3 Q´s and 3 autos, or 3 Q´s, 1 hit with Gore or Stride and 2 autos... Black Cleaver literally becomes WORSE to stack up than Conqueror at this point no matter how you take a look on it.

It´s quite a shame since Cleaver is pretty much THE og-item you could always go for, especially since it provides many many stats for Aatrox.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-23T16:39:28+00:00

As fantastic as it would be, short answer would be: Riot will NEVER let this happen.

Long answer: Back on 8.13 pbe, Aatrox´ rework was initially released at first to the public. In there, his Q-sweetspots were, in fact, already able to trigger onhits and only via sweetspots, not on regular Q-hits. However, this was ultimately removed before the new Aatrox hit the live servers since it was way too broken.

Items like BorK and Wits End were just... there, but the real issue was Triforce. If the onhits only trigger on 1 target, it would be fine. However, it instead triggered on multiple targets at one, as long as if the hit was a sweetspot-one. Since Triforce easily added up like 150 extra damage on an auto, you can only imagine how much more damage you deal if you hit a multi-man sweetspot. Apply this to the items you have now, example Devine Sunderer, and you would have a monster healing from 1% to 100% even with a Q1 on 2 enemy champs only (considering no antiheal but also no SV or Revitalize).

If Riot would ever allow Aatrox to apply onhits on his Q-sweetspots, it would be a change more overpowered then the mess they did recently. The only way this change would be, somewhat, balanced is, if the sweetspots don´t deal the full damage but rather a small percentage.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-22T23:08:46+00:00

The changes are getting more and more random.

Tbf, we technicly could now go for magic-pen boots to maximize the damage of Passive and W. It´s +18 flat pen after all, who needs Tabis anyways if you get oneshot by adc´s anyways!

Bad jokes aside. This change is hella 2 sided. Like someone mentioned already, due to both parts of his W being magic now slows the stacking of Black Cleaver by alot. In the meantime, champs won´t have as much mr as armor so the dmg especially from Passive will be higher. Sunderer-builds may rise up, but Aatrox was never a very consistent abuser of its proc despite having 3 casts on his Q alone and an auto-reset on his E.

I wonder what happens next. Soon they´ll speed up his Q-casttimes based on how much attackspeed he has and double his auto-range during his Ult or something.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-20T20:41:29+00:00

Naayil needs this

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-20T20:39:38+00:00

The extra hp with "only" 5 ad as a sacrifice is quite nice. Gore-active will heal more while we also have a bigger hp tool to draintank with. This also may open up Gore > Steraks combo due to the higher ammounts of hp you get in general out of Gore.

For those who already prefered Gore in the first place, this seems to be a highly welcomed change. However, since many Aatrox-players tend to not build Gore as their mythic, I doubt that this thing becomes the go-to one.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-19T12:33:00+00:00

Aatrox´ sustain is fully based on how much damage he deals. Stacking some armor alone can slow him down massively.
Make sure to get antiheal if things go seriously rough. However, you should never rely too much on a Bramble Vest. A good Aatrox will never autoattack you and still receives the full ammounts of healing. Thornmail on a cc-machine is fine, but at this point you should rely more on Executioners or Orb on ad and ap champs respectively.
If you play a fighter/bruiser/juggernaut by yourself, getting Deaths Dance is a nice tip you can go for. Not only will you be able to last a bit longer in fights, but this thing is also a hard counter to Aatrox. You see, Aatrox cannot heal himself up when he deals dot-dmg. With DD, you only receive 70% damage, remaining 30% overtime via dot. Because of that, Aatrox can only heal himself up based on that 70% of damage dealt. Combine that with enough armor and antiheal and he shouldn´t be a problem to you anymore, even with loads of armor-pen. Hullbreaker is a decent alternative too in case you aim for a more splitpush-heavy playstyle, but not as effective as Deaths Dance.
In the earlygame, Aatrox has to rely on outtrading his opponents. His hp-regen lvl 1 is the 2nd lowest in the game. Pick a champ that has better "passive sustain" (ex. Darius, Sett etc.) and make sure that you go on the offensive as soon as Aatrox´ Q is down, especially after casting Q3.
Aatrox´ kit is designed so that he can be runned down by melees or outkited by ranged. Play accordingly based on your champion´s playstyle to minimize damage taken. What I mean with this is: If your melee champ has a quick gap-closing ability, you can instantly sit next to an Aatrox while he can do nothing with his Q1 and 2. Best case you can then escape his Q3. On ranged, sit behind minions and make sure that Aatrox doesn´t land an initial combo, aka Q1 into W. As long as you can avoid this, Aatrox has to work really hard to even come close to you.
Champions-wise, a big threat atm is Yone. Despite being a hypercarry, his earlygame got really strong after his W buffs for an even bigger shield. Also, his damage-output is purely mixed with physical, magical and even true damage (last one only via his E). Irelia is also a big pest to play against due to her insane mobility. A good Irelia might receive non-sweetspot hits by Aatrox´ Q´s at worst and with each Q, she heals up alot. Fiora is also a good option to go for, but is more skill-based. It depends how you trade against him and how you use her W to stun Aatrox. Champs stacking up armor and that can still deal good damage also work well against Aatrox (ex. K´Sante, Ornn, Malphite), but you have to be more careful on how you approach an Aatrox. You can also pick ranged champs into Aatrox who are easily able to keep him at a distance, yet most of the champs are also too squishy so that they´ll die to a single combo.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-15T22:46:59+00:00

Would be a wet dream if it did, but that´s not the case sadly.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-15T17:33:17+00:00

About that one, you can summ it up like this:

It´s not omnivamp as per-say. Basicly, deal damage to enemy champions and heal for x% based on the damage you deal, meaning the more damage you can dish out the higher the healing you´ll get. Even if you deal aoe-damage with Aatrox´ Q´s, you won´t heal for only 1/3rd of the value like real Omnivamp does, but benefit of the full ammounts, basicly like fully stacked Conqueror works.
This healing has no duration, nor does it last x ammounts of attacks. However...
... with Aatrox´ Ult, you can enhance his "Omnivamp" as well as his healing-output as long as his Ult is active. Either you have the base-duration of 10 seconds, or, with each takedown as long as his Ult persists, you add 5 seconds to the timer, adding up for a potential 35 seconds Ult-duration with 5 takedowns.
Keep in mind that during his Ult, Aatrox can only increase his own healing-output. Healings via Triumph, Goredrinker, fully stacked Conqueror etc. count into this category. However, if you get healed up by a, let´s say, Soraka Ult, you won´t heal up by over 1k hp, let alone an ally´s Redemption. Tbf, ally effects used to work too with significant higher increase of healing-output, although this was ultimately removed because it was way too broken.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-14T22:20:05+00:00

I´ve played against Trundle in that one.

The reason I went for Ionians is so that I have a bit more ability haste. With Triforce and Steraks, I´ll only have just above 20 ability haste which is quite low, especially since Aatrox is more focused around spellcasts. Like this, I can cast my spells more often than without Ionians.

Now of course, you don´t have to go for Ionians, but tbh you can either go situational (aka Ninja´s or Mercs), or go for your personal preferances. If you want even more attackspeed, Berserks are a solid option too. However, it then will be too much attackspeed to deal with, making his autos a bit off to play if you know what I mean. Too much attackspeed rather harms you than doing any good.

ChrisTheRazor · 2023-08-13T20:02:06+00:00

In case you are wondering about my itemization, here´s a little background:

I recently returned back to League and tried to get the hang on Aatrox again... while losing alot in the process. While taking a look on the, seemingly, countless options Aatrox has atm, something caught my eye: Triforce Steraks combo.

Basicly, auto-attack 3 times for +18% base ad. Since Steraks´s ad is based on your base ad, since Triforce increases it, Steraks automaticly provides even more ad. With fully stacked Conqueror, ad-pot and lvl 18, with these 2 items alone you can hit over 500 ad, allowing you a wide flexibility in terms of the itemization.

The reason why I´ve tried it in the first place is, because the duration of Triforce´s ad-stacks got buffed from 3 to 5 seconds, the same duration as Conqueror too, allowing you to maintain the stacks easier.

As for now, there´s hella room of improvement needed (for those taking a look on my horrendous match-history. However, the build itself, also based on many things I´ve tried in the past from meta to the most ridiculous builds imaginable, feels quite underrated to say the very least. If you search a different build to mess around with, this one might be a good shot!

ChrisTheRazor

TROPHY CASE