Only my second guide so hiccups here and there. Aatrox is still waiting for his role to be defined better so there's not much right now.
Constructive criticism and whatnot always welcome

Cheers!
-snorlax
IGN: Majestica Magio (Gold IV)

Pros:

• Strong lane dominance
• Can force anyone out of lane, including Cho'Gath and Darius
• High burst damage of an assassin while having superior sustain
• Passive acts as a free Guardian Angel
• A.O.E skill set that contains 2 CC's
• That b to the s sustain when under 50%

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Cons:

• Squishy early-mid game
• Blood Well has a 225 second CD and doesn't heal you for a lot
• Lacks a definite role in a team
• Very hard to make a comeback
• Blood Thirst and Blood Price can be tricky to balance
• Get CC'd and you can't do jack.

Blood Well:

Whenever Aatrox uses an ability that costs health, he stores 100% of the health cost into his Blood Well. The maximum amount of health the Blood Well can store is equal to 30 + (45 × level). If Aatrox has not dealt or received damage in the last 5 seconds, his Blood Well will deplete at a rate of 2% per second.

Upon taking fatal damage, Blood Well activates and places Aatrox in stasis for 3 seconds. Over the stasis duration the Blood Well is emptied and Aatrox restores health equal to its contents plus 10.5 + (15.75 × level). Blood Well's activation has a static cooldown and is unaffected by cooldown reduction.

Also, Aatrox passively increases his attack speed by 1% for every 2% in the Blood Well.

So this is pretty useful all game, it allows you to tower dive for kills since the tower will reset after it kicks in. It also allows for more escape options and allows you to initiate if your tank isn't up to the job. The passive attack speed is something you should keep stacked up to around 75% at all times otherwise you're pretty useless.

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Dark Flight:

FlightRANGE: 650 COOLDOWN: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 COST: 10% of current health

Aatrox takes flight and slams down at a targeted area, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies upon landing. Enemies in the center of the area are also knocked up for 1 second.
PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+ 60% bonus AD)

This is your escape early game and initiation for all fights in the entire game. Many people find it hard to land because of the flight animation, imagine it like a cho'gath Rupture. You must learn to land this as it is the only reliable gap closer and reliable cc you have as Aatrox.

Blood thirst/Price:

TOGGLE OFF: Aatrox heals himself on every third attack. If Aatrox is below 50% health he will heal for three times as much.
HEAL: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+25% bonus AD)
ENHANCED HEAL: 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 / 120 (+75% bonus AD)

Blood PriceCOOLDOWN: 0.5

TOGGLE ON: Aatrox deals bonus physical damage on every third attack at the cost of health.
BONUS PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+100% bonus AD)
HEALTH COST ON THIRD ATTACK: 15 / 23.75 / 32.5 / 41.25 / 50 (+25% bonus AD)

This is your bread OR butter. The thing that separates a good Aatrox from a godly Aatrox is his ability to swap between thirst and price. In lane you would want to keep it 90% on Blood Thirst so you can sustain or survive a gank. A common tactic is to use Blood Price until you're under 50%hp then swapping to Blood Thirst for the enhanced heal.

Blades of Torment

Blades of Torment RANGE: 1000 COOLDOWN: 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 COST: 5% of current health

ACTIVE: Aatrox unleashes and sends forward the power of his blade, dealing magic damage to enemies in a line and slowing them by 40% for a few seconds.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 120 / 165 / 210 / 255 (+ 60% AP) (+ 60% bonus AD)
SLOW DURATION: 1.75 / 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 / 2.75

Put this and Dark Flight together and you are now a chasing/kiting/escaping machine. It's the only skillshot in league that converges and can be tricky to aim at times.

Massacre:

MassacreCOOLDOWN: 100 / 85 / 70COST: No cost

ACTIVE: Aatrox draws in the blood of his foes, dealing magic damage to nearby enemy champions.
For the next 12 seconds, Aatrox gains bonus attack speed and 175 bonus attack range (325 total range). His attacks are still considered melee.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 200 / 300 / 400 (+ 100% AP)
ATTACK SPEED: 40 / 50 / 60%

Ah yes, although his ultimate seems a little lacklustre at the start and is viewed by many as an AOE nuke, it's actually a lot better than it looks. The attack speed fits well with thirst and price and although you gain range you're still considered melee, meaning ravenouse hydra will not be negatively effected.

Ability Sequence

Blades of Torment max first.
Consistent damage, lowers cooldown. Max Dark Flight second as the mid game 10% health cost is not efficient with only level1 and will screw you over in skirmishes. Get a second level of Blood Thirst to scale into the mid game and max it last since you'll need Dark Flight over it. Grab Massacre when you can as with all Ultis.

A typical early game combo from levels 3-6 is to prime athirst and then Dark Flight while swapping to price in the flying animation then throwing a point blank Blades of Torment at them. This usually is enough damage to force them to chug their pots or just recall since 3 of these combos usually spell a death for them (early game).

In fights you just want to dive on their carries. Simple as that since Aatrox right now has no exact role but he can disrupt and deal damage decently. Enough to force the other team to peel at least.

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Runes

For Marks the Greater Mark of Attack Damage can be subbed out for Greater mark of armor penetration instead but I would recommend staying with the flat AD as Aatrox's abilities have high flat damage and scale well with AD so you can bully them out of lane. The Greater Seal of Armor and Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist are pretty set in stone since you need them to build some tankiness onto Aatrox. Life steal and attack speed quints can be used but flat damage is much more useful.

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Masteries

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Items

This is a build I have used for the last few ranked Aatrox games I have played. It is a mix of dps and tankiness. If left alone you can deal tonnes of damage to them all and if focused you'll just keep sustaining.

Core item
Blade of the Ruined King is a must on Aatrox, it gives him life steal so he can choose to keep Blood Price toggled on instead and also the attack speed and active greatly increases his fight potential.

Situational items on Aatrox: : mercurial scimiatar can help Aatrox break free of pesky hard cc to make use of his ultimate in a team fight.

: if their team is very magic damage heavy you may want to invest in a maw. Maw's passive damage gain will also sync well with Aatrox's attackspeed. Oh and a 300 magic damage shield never hurts.

I haven't been able to play Aatrox long enough to do more and he's definitely going to get tweaked so I will be updating this guide as they come. Thanks for reading!

18 June 2013- published