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wreckedregent7 · 1 year

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Regent’s Ramblings - Aatrox’s VGU

Another day, another pointed thought-spill, this time about something I have in the back of my brain about 90% of the time. Riot has a reasonably good track record with VGUs - Sion, Warwick, Dr. Mundo, Udyr, etc. - oftentimes when they take the time to hash out and reinforce the core identity of a Champion, they manage to nail it pretty consistently.

However, there’s one Champion that wound up in a particularly poor state of balance following his VGU, and that state has been kept in constant flux ever since, with him very frequently crossing the line of dominance and needing to be pushed back down, and with his core fantasy being poorly expressed in gameplay. And man, do I have a love/hate relationship with Aatrox.

Before I talk about his VGU, I need to talk about what Aatrox was before it. In appearance, he was strikingly alien - tall, slender, with ragged banner-like wings, prominent horns, a jagged, segmented sword, and a posture of unusual refinement despite his trademark being unbridled violence. He made for an impressive character as one of a rare species known as Darkin, and his lithe form helped sell the aggression of his Diver playstyle.

His passive allowed him to store up energy in his Blood Well, and when it was full, he was given a revive a la Guardian Angel, being temporarily put in stasis as his health regenerated from the well. His Q fired two converging blades of energy to slow opponents at a range, his E allowed him to dive in, knocking opponents airborne if he landed on them, and his W allowed him to toggle his weapon between Blood Thirst - giving him minor burst heals every third hit - or Blood Price - sacrificing his health to boost the damage of every third hit.

And his Ultimate, Massacre, had him siphon the health from enemies nearby, giving him boosted movement speed and attack speed, making him a living single-target blender who could either sustain himself in combat or go full HAM to murder someone at great risk to himself.

When Riot planned their VGU for him, they initially wanted to keep him as a Diver - a Fighter who has strong engage tools and high consistent damage output with modest durability. They wanted to keep his drain-tanking mechanics, but reinforce his thematic identity as a warlord and war-deity.

And then when his VGU arrived, he became a Juggernaut - having lower average mobility, being easily kited, but having staggeringly high damage and durability to compensate - with some drain-tanking mechanics. His gameplay went from aggressive, risky plays to crowd control and masterful positioning, which, while not a bad thing in and of itself, but coupled with his other mechanics, does make for a bad combination.

So, covering his current kit real quick; His passive has him periodically empower his next basic attack to deal extra damage based on the target’s %max health, and heal him based on the post-mitigation damage, reduced against minions. Hitting enemies reduces the cooldown, and landing his Q sweet spots reduces it even more.

His Q is a three-part ability, where he slams his sword in three unique patterns, each with a sweet spot that deals extra damage and knocks the target airborne for a moment. The first is a narrow line with the sweet spot at the end, the second being a broad cone with the sweet spot at the outer edge, and then the last being a point-blank circle area with the center of the circle being the sweet spot.

His W launches a projectile that damages the first enemy hit, and if it’s a large jungle monster or a champion, it creates a trapezoidal field with the narrower section closer to Aatrox, with a chain linking the Champion to the center; if they remain in the area for a few seconds, they take additional damage and are dragged back to the center.

His E passively heals him for post-mitigation damage dealt to Champions, and also allows him a short dash, which he can use to adjust his positioning mid-Q. And finally his Ultimate fears nearby minions, grants him bonus Attack Damage, Movement Speed, and self-healing, with its duration resetting on Champion takedown.

His Ultimate used to grant him a one-off revive like Blood Well where he could move around while reviving, but they removed it some time after the VGU went live.

Now, you may notice that, despite having a kit that encourages drain-tanking and consistent damage output, Aatrox gets no attack speed steroids or anything like that. Meaning that the bulk of his healing is going to come from landing his Q, and especially the sweet spots. They don’t have too awful long of a cooldown, but the problem becomes much more apparent in practice.

Remember how I said his gameplay went from risky aggression to masterful positioning? Yeah, I meant it. Surviving as Aatrox means that you need to land your Q sweet spots; the 60% bonus damage matters, and on top of that the momentary knockup helps stall your opponent from landing hits in the trade - but Aatrox’s Q has windup, and the pattern is set, and thus becomes predictable.

Your enemy will start to dodge your Qs better, and then it becomes even more imperative that you get better positioning, catch your opponent with W, read their movements, feint, readjust, etc., just to get reasonable sustainability from a Champion whose mechanical identity is “drain tank”.

Comparing him to another drain tank for a second; Vladimir has a similar means of sustain - it’s all in his abilities, namely his Transfusion and Hemoplague. But he doesn’t rely so much on positioning; he can heal consistently off of minions since it’s a flat heal per rank, and he only gets a more effective boost during his Crimson Rush - it’s not tied to his damage, it’s tied to his ability rank and AP scaling, and a small reward for aggressive positioning and timing.

His Hemoplague, similarly, heals for a flat amount per Champion, with a reduction for subsequent Champions after the first. There’s no finnicky damage math - just “did I hit an enemy”. Sanguine Pool heals him as well, but notably for pre-mitigation damage; meaning, once again; your healing is not dictated by the enemy’s defenses, but rather your ability to stay aggressive and leech off of them.

Meanwhile Aatrox is a drain tank who can’t do his job well without a significant investment in items - and since his healing is tied to post-mitigation damage, he winds up being extremely janky as a Juggernaut whose first item is Lethality - Eclipse. Without the effective flat armor penetration provided by Eclipse, Aatrox doesn’t do any actual draining, despite being, again, a “drain tank.”

And I’m sure someone out there’s wondering; “why all this fuss over sustain?” - and the simplest answer is, because sustain is Aatrox’s identity, and it doesn’t mesh with his current mechanics. It makes him highly intensive to play, and also somehow manages to tie his ability to perform not just to player skill, but also specific, rigid itemization that runs counter to his mechanical design.

The standard Juggernaut fare as far as Mythics go are items that blend durability with damage - Goredrinker, Stridebreaker, Divine Sunderer, Riftmaker, etc. - and here we have a Juggernaut who has extreme difficulty functioning if his first item isn’t a Skirmisher Mythic. It lacks in effective durability (no, the shield doesn’t mean shit) which only increases the pressure to perform and exhibit the aforementioned masterful positioning.

And with Aatrox’s success so inextricably tied to specific itemization, he winds up being nerfed when his core gameplay becomes too effective; as seen with his semi-recent nerfs towards his sustain.

I’m gonna close this one out by saying, something I would love to see for Aatrox is to get his Deathbringer Stance changed; instead of periodically making his next basic attack give him a small burst heal, make it crush a portion of the target’s armor. Sacrifice one of his healing sources in exchange for giving him the power to make his healing actually function without needing high damage, low-durability itemization to come online.

It would bring back some of his risk/reward gameplay and still encourage skillful trades, as an enemy who gets their armor crunched is going to be far more wary of Aatrox’s predictable attack patterns.

I’d also love to see his revive effect come back, but I’ve given up hope on that one, no matter how many limitations could be put on it.

#Regent's Ramblings #League of Legends #Aatrox #The Darkin Blade

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