1.) Aatrox has some amazing initiation potential and some nice CC once he gets into a fight, this is ideal for a support, similar to Leona's abilities.

2.) A lot of Aatrox's damage is in his kit, which makes him a champion that can still be viable without a lot of kills or creeps.

3.) Aatrox's passive makes him able to get focused down and still come back, which is great for early trades.

5.) Aatrox is a high-sustain champion which makes him very hard to force out of lane.

6.) Aatrox is very good at stopping a champion or group of champions from ambushing or focusing on a carry with his heavy disruption kit. With it's good range as well, the enemy team will find it very hard to gank your carry without some aggravation from Aatrox.

I chose to go heavy into the utility tree for the extra starting gold, CDR for , pickpocket, general CDR, starting items, experience, extra GP10, and move speed, while keeping some points in the defense tree for the added armor and health regeneration, since we're going to want to become a tank as the game progresses.

I brought attack speed reds with no added damage because I don't really want to accidentally be grabbing creeps from my carry, however I did add a lone crit rune so that even at level 1, my attacks have a chance to critically strike. I did this so I could get as many attacks off on the enemy as harassment as I possibly can and so that my and are the most effective they can be.

I took armor yellows and magic resist blues because we do plan on being a tank as the game goes on. For quintessences, I brought one life steal and two GP10's, again to maximize the usefulness of my W as well as get my equipment a bit faster.

Generally in the laning phase your combo will go something like Dark Flight, switch Blood Thirst to Blood Price, auto attack until they fall out of range, Blades of Torment, get back in range, auto attack until they get away, Exhaust, auto attack until you have tower aggro. Aatrox is REALLY sticky.

Always remember to switch Blood Price back to Blood Thirst unless you're attacking something you really need dead. Don't be afraid to go whack some jungle creeps a few times to get your health back. Might as well drop a sight ward while you're there too.

Keep in mind that Dark Flight is one of your only real escapes, aside from slowing and running away with Blades of Torment. So let's say instead that Dark Flight is your only RELIABLE escape. Keep that in mind when you're laning, if you're below half heath, you may want to conserve it for an emergency.

Blood Thirst's effectiveness is doubled when you're below half health. What does this mean? You should NEVER be below half health for very long. If you're worked down below half health, go beat on a jungle creep. Don't kill it, just beat on it as needed and then run away and let it reset. Or a siege minion. Basically anything you won't kill out from under the carry.

BE CAREFUL when activating Massacre. It does a large amount of damage INSTANTLY. You NEVER want to steal kills from your carry if you can help it!

Popping an [elixir of brilliance] right before initiating a teamfight will add 100% of that bonus AP to Massacre and decrease Aatrox's cooldowns for the duration, allowing more frequent use of Blades of Torment and Dark Flight. Might be worth the gold here and there.



Aatrox is great at stealing baron and dragon. With a flat instant damage of 400 on Massacre and the ability to hop over walls, stealing a baron should be pretty easy to calculate. Have your team ready to go in and bail you out though if you can't flash back over the wall. As the enemy blows everything they have on you out of spite for a steal, they may forget that you have a built-in Chronoshift



Imagine the frustration of an enemy when they have to kill Aatrox 3 times. Once for his passive, once for Guardian Angel and once to finally put the bastard down for good. If you feel like it, grab this instead of Randuin's Omen. I only grab Randuin's Omen for the AOE slow for initiation. This item is definitely a wonderful substitution.

You are AATROX.

A high sustain deceptive duelist champion who specializes in disruption. Other champions like aatrox when built tanky are Leona, Sejuani, and Nautilus. So your job is to PEEL FOR YOUR CARRY.

Definiton: Peel (verb); To interrupt incoming damage on a high-worth allied target by placing one's self in the way and/or employing crowd control effects to ensure the healthy escape of the allied target.

You. Are. A. Peeler. If you are not peeling as Aatrox support, you aren't doing it correctly. You are failing. You do all your Aatroxy things so that your carry can grow up big and strong and make a real difference in the game. THAT is your job. If you get a kill, it better have been an accident or you're doing something wrong. If you die saving your carry, you done good son. If you feed saving your carry (die many times), you're now officially playing support for the enemy team.

That about covers the laning phase.

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Later in the game

In the end game, you are an initiator, and a damn good one at that. Your job is to ward and watch for enemy players caught out of position. You should have at least 3 wards on the map at ALL times, preferably outside dragon and baron pit and one buried somewhere in the enemy jungle. Preferably you'd have 5 wards on the map at all times (baron pit, dragon pit, their red, their blue, your red or blue depending on their jungler), but sometimes that just doesn't happen.

When you see that your forces outnumber the enemy's, for instance you have 4 champions moving as a group and they have only 3, or 4 with a few low health bars... you immediately go man mode on them. You are essentially watching for advantages and capitalizing on them.

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Disengaging

Disengaging with a champion who is meant to be ENGAGING is sort of tricky. If your team gets caught in a teamfight you don't want to fight, you have two options.


IS UP

[*] Dark Flight into the enemy team

[*]Use Randuin's Omen, activate Massacre, activate Youmuu's Ghostblade, spam Blades of Torment, pop a Elixir of Brilliance if you have one, beat on the enemy as much as you possibly can to try and turn it around. They will probably blow everything on you, activating your passive and leaving them wide open for your team to turn on them when they're low.

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IS DOWN

[*]Use Blades of Torment as you run away to try and keep them off your team.

[*]Use Dark Flight on any enemy which uses a gap closer to close the distance on your team or carry, then continue running.

[*]Use Exhaust if the enemy APC or ADC get too close.

[*]Use Randuin's Omen in an emergency if a large portion of the enemy team gets too close, but save/conserve it if you can.