REFORGING THE DARKIN BLADE

An Aatrox rework
Introduction :
At the moment, Aatrox is definitely in a tough spot. He can't put out enough damage when built as a
bruiser, he can't really tank for long as a tank, and as a melee carry he simply explodes (though you
rarely see a full damage Aatrox unless ridiculously fed). One of his problems lie in that he's your
typical fighter champion. Gap Closer, CC, Steroid abilities, and AA modifiers. What can he do that
something like Irelia or Nasus can't do any better? Additionally when he is strong (or ahead in a
game) he is usually problematic because of his obscene sustain that requires little to no interaction,
making it very difficult to kill him. Much like Vladimir he becomes nearly impossible to kill in this
scenario.
Other issues lie in his current play patterns. This usually involves maxing his E, using it to poke his
lane opponent and waveclear. At the same time, he tops his health off by farming with Blood Thirst
active. Once he is ready to all in he bursts an opponent with E -> W -> R. Aside from dodging most
of his E's, there is little in the way of counter-play. On the other hand, If an opponent can either
poke Aatrox hard (Jayce, Vladimir, Lissandra) or hard engage on him early (Wukong, Renekton,
Irelia, Hecarim) there is little Aatrox can do. Lastly, there are some champions that simply out-scale
Aatrox, making it pointless to even pick Aatrox in these types of match-ups (Jax, Nasus, Sion,
Maokai).
Come teamfights, unless Aatrox is massively ahead he becomes much less useful. He can dive in
but if the enemy team has proper peel he just kind of dies. Aatrox is ideally a sustained damage
fighter. He just can't last long enough to put out the DPS he needs to do. His sustain in fights is tied
to his damage, so when he gets CC'd he usually is not tanky enough to survive.
So to sum it up, at the moment he's just bland and unused because other fighter champions are
better numerically. What he needs to become viable and not outclassed ? Probably better numbers
and stats(obviously), but if you just buff him numerically as his kit is right now he'll just end up
being obnoxious to play against and then nerfed back down. The proper way to fix Aatrox would be
reworking him, taking what currently fits his character and thematic while trying to further
emphasize a niche he should fill.
Thus, I came up with this change-list.
NUMBERS ARE NOT DEFINITIVE. I'M FULLY AWARE THAT THIS REWORK MIGHT BE
TOO WEAK OR TOO STRONG. THEY ARE ONLY HERE TO GIVE YOU AN IDEA OF HOW
HIS ABILITIES WORK.

Change-list :
Base stats :
Health increased to 570.8.
Attack speed increased to .679.

Abilities :
Passive Blood Well :
Attack speed sterod removed from Blood Well (moved to his E).
Q Dark Flight :
Cooldown reduced to 14/13/12/11/10 (down from 16/15/14/13/12).
Ennemies hit by Dark Flight are now briefly stun. Aatrox still knock up ennemies in the epicenter.
Faster animation (+25%).
W Blood Thirst (COMPLETELY REWORKED) :
Whenever Aatrox deals physical damage to an ennemy, he applies a stack of Cursed Blood for 4
seconds. An ennemy can have up to 5 stacks of Cursed Blood on them at once. Upon activation,
Aatrox draws in the blood of nearby ennemies afflected with Cursed Blood, dealing physical
damage, healing Aatrox and stealing ennemy champions movement speed for 2.5 seconds. Each
stack of Cursed Blood on a target increases the physical damage it receives and the heal Aatrox
receives from them. Healing from minions and monsters is reduced by 50%.
Physical damage : 60/90/120/150/180 (+10% bonus AD) [+15% bonus damage per stack].
Heal per target : 10/20/30/40/50 (+1% per Aatrox's missing health) [+25% bonus heal per stack].
Movement speed steal : 20/25/30/35/40%.
Range : 800.
Cooldown : 14/13/12/11/10 seconds.
E Blood Price / Impalement (COMPLETELY REWORKED) :
This ability has a passive and an active.
Blood Price is passive. Blood Price no longer has an HP cost on hit.
Bonus damages and AD bonus ratio unchanged.

Active Impalement :
Aatrox's next basic attack grants bonus attack speed for 4 seconds and pierces through the primary
target, dealing physical damage to the target and opponents behind it in a line. This attack can apply
Blood Price's bonus physical damage to all ennemies struck. This attack procs On-Hit effects.
Physical damage : 80/85/90/95/100% of Aatrox's total AD.
Bonus attack speed : 40/55/70/85/100%.
Cost : 5% current HP.
Range : 150/600.
Cooldown : 8/7.5/7/6.5/6 seconds.
IMPORTANT NOTES : Impalement is an auto-attack modifier which resets Aatrox's attack timer
on cast and procs On-Hit effects (BOTRK, Tiamat/Hydra, Wit's End etc).
Impalement has 2 range values because it works the exact same way as Lucian's Piercing Light
ability.
Spellblade items (Lich Bane, Runeglaive, Trinity Force, Sheen and Iceborn Gauntlet) will only do
bonus damages to the primary target.
Aatrox's ultimate, Massacre, increases his attack range. It fully works with Impalement. During
Massacre, Impalement range is changed to 325/775.
R Massacre (PARTIAL REWORK) :
Aatrox draws in the blood of his foes, dealing magic damages to all nearby ennemies. Aatrox also
inspires bloodlust in his allies, causing Aatrox and nearby allied champions to gain bonus lifesteal
and spell vamp. Additionally, Aatrox gains bonus attack range and his basic attacks deal 66% of
their physical damage to enemies surrounding his target.
Magic damage : 150/200/275.
Bonus lifesteal : 10%.
Bonus spellvamp : 10%.
Bonus attack range : 175.

Context behind changes :

Base Stats : Aatrox's base HP is on the low end and with his permanent sustain that required no
interaction, his HP can be higher early (his HP Growth is 85, same as Wukong and Jax's which
would make sense). Additionally, now that he has only one attack speed steroid, a higher base attack
speed would allow him to get more out of it.
Passive : It felt odd having your attack speed tied to your passive. Also made him very weak after
exiting his revive. Would feel better to just move it elsewhere.
Dark Flight : His knock-up works a bit like a combination of Quinn's Vault and Rek'sai Unburrow
abilities. It will always disrupt the ennemy, and it will still apply the knock up to ennemies near the
epicenter. This makes Dark Flight more reliable in it's use. Speeding up the animation would also
help to reduce the window in which you can knock him out of his dash.
Blood Thirst : So this spell was completely reworked. This spell has changed from the toggle of
stances to Aatrox's sustain and sticking power. It is also his only major form of burst damage. With
this spell, he can sustain his health costs but it requires either interaction with his lane opponent, or
a large minion wave. He applies stacks to any enemy and does so with any source of physical
damage (including the splash damage on his Ult, his E's line damage, his Q's AOE damage,
autoattacks, and Tiamat/Hydra). With the built in movement speed steal, Aatrox would hopefully
have enough bonus movement speed (and the minor slow on opponents) to stick to targets and
apply his damage.
Blood Price / Impalement : This ability was also reworked completely. Aatrox's Blood Price
moves here and no longer costs HP when procced (due to the fact he cannot permanently sustain by
toggling anymore). It is a big source of his sustained damage. For the active, I thought he should
still have access to a form of poke. It is more limited than the current Blades of Torment but that's
not to say it still can't act as powerful harass (keep in mind if he hits the enemy champion, he can W
after to deal more damage). His attack speed steroid moves here since having it attached to a spell
instead of his passive just felt better (also allows for it to be stronger, and provide a window in
which Aatrox's DPS is weaker).
Massacre : Finally, his Ultimate. I deliberately nerfed Massacre's damage to discourage Aatrox as a
burst damage champion, and it also gives him a huge sustained AOE damage presence in
teamfights. The bonus lifesteal and spellvamp is inspired from his lore, in which he inspired blood
lust in the soldiers and they won a battle that would have been a crushing defeat otherwise. This
could prove Aatrox to work fantastic in combination with at least one other heavy AOE damage
champion (stuff like Annie, Orianna, Graves, or Wukong would be fantastic with him).
Together, this kit should give Aatrox clear purpose in what he wants to do. Assuming that his
numbers are set correctly on all of his abilities (concerning damage, healing, the movement speed
steal on his W, and the attack speed steroid on his E).