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I'm Pants are Dragon, an ex-CHALLENGER solo queue player and substitute jungler for team Reality Check Gaming in the MOBAFire Challenger Series. I've been playing since the release of Nocturne, my first champion was Teemo and I grew in love with his champion select quote ("Captain Teemo on duty!") and ultimately the game. I actually didn't make my name, it was given to me by Riot! My old name was jlzzdragon and then Riot changed my name to this and I feel like I was trolled to oblivion, but at the same time I grew with great power, and from that day I knew I would be one of the best!

For those interested, here's my summoner profile:


Aatrox is one of the deadliest carry junglers out there, his damage output early game is extremely high and is really difficult jungler to manage since he has to roam around the map with < 60% HP all the time.

12/7/2013 - updated to S4

11/21/2013 - ITEMS AND MASTERIES UPDATED only cheatsheet. WILL HAVE TO DO A BIG UPDATE ON THIS GUY CURRENTLY REALLY CONFUSED WITH HIM. might have to add life steal quints?

Pros Blood Thirst can make you an unkillable machine if the enemy has no damage MANALESS! Ganks are very, very strong High damage Has revive passive

Cons Has to play smart when passive is down Jungles around 50% HP average early Falls off late game

9x 9x 9x 3x

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Greater Mark of Attack Damage Greater Seal of Armor Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed

Why attack damage? Why not attack speed? Aatrox already has 2 attack speed steroids (passive and ultimate) and his AD ratios are pretty decent. So since his passive gives him 50% more attack speed and his ultimate can give him up to 110% attack speed.
NOTE: Passive has been nerfed a bit early game and increase late.

Armor is essential on a jungler to survive throughout the jungle and also everything that is an NPC does physical damage, so this is an essential.

Magic resist to negate some damage from enemies with magic damage so you can survive longer in fights.

This mastery page is the best for any jungler who does a ton of damage, use this as you'll want to be bursting people and killing them faster. The longer they are alive the more chance of incoming reinforcements and survival potential. Aatrox brings a lot of damage to the place and either should take this for early game dominance or 9/21/0 for that Second Wind mastery.

Aatrox can handle this item since he has infinite sustain when under 50% health with his Blood Thirst.

This item also gives more early game presence and you don't have to suffice on buying Hunter's Machete since Aatrox doesn't really need it.

Once we achieve Boots and Bilgewater Cutlass we won't be under 50% most of the time in the jungle anymore and probably be around 70% or more before a gank. You should also try to chain slow with your Blades of Torment + Bilgewater Cutlass active when you gank. But at this point you should be a big threat when ganking lanes.


So now you have some HP and resists, although it's a bit weird to put HP on Aatrox since his skills cost HP but we'll need HP anyways to survive. Also Aatrox's Blood Thirst will just sustain me in team fights so I CAN LIVE. You should be real hard to kill though with these items and we need tenacity as if we're stunned for whatever reason then we can't life steal with Blood Thirst.

Spirit visage scales really well with Aatrox as it gives him CDR, and his Blood Thirst synergizes with it along with his Blood Well passive which you can see restores more when you have Spirit Visage

If your feeling that your a team player though you should consider getting Locket of the Iron Solari instead of Spirit Visage.

NOTE: Do not get Spirit Visage or Locket of the Iron Solari if the enemy team is all AD, get a Randuin's Omen instead of Spirit Visage or Locket of the Iron Solari



Now your 6 item build is complete, once you get Randuin's Omen you lessen the enemy ADC's DPS if he focuses you, and of course it gives a lot more HP. After we can get Guardian Angel and this increases Aatrox's team fight potential immensely with him having 2 revives. This will make him a real nuisance and will be highly tanky and can survive long with his Blood Thirst.


Buying notes:
Complete Blade of the Ruined King when you think your team needs damage.

Spirit Visage is a core item on Aatrox IMO.

Guardian Angel makes Aatrox annoying to take down, get if you want to win 1 team fight.

If you get to very very late game, replace boots with Zephyr.

This item is pretty good on Aatrox, making him a better exceptional duelist and can let him chase hard onto enemies. Also gives us more attack speed and the active on it has synergy with Spirit Visage. But the reason I don't get it on Aatrox is because I know I can rely on my team for damage and the only thing I need from this item is the slow from Bilgewater Cutlass for the utility it brings.

If you really want more damage and some life steal, sure you can get this item. It's a pretty decent item on Aatrox since all he does is auto attack so why not improve his auto attacks? Remember to use the active in-between auto attacks so that you DPS efficiently.

Last Whisperer

I've seen some Aatrox's get this item and have seen good results. But remember getting too much damage items could be bad depending on your team's situation (need a tank). I actually haven't tested this item whether I like it better than ravenous hydra or blade of the ruined king but I can see it working since Aatrox has pretty high skill base damage.

Pick this up if you don't feel like getting Randuin's Omen and they have a lot of auto attackers and they want to focus you (ex: tryndamere).

This item seems to scale decently with Aatrox, AP is not wasted and you get a lot of burst and more movement speed from the phage procs. Although you won't be sheen proc'ing a lot since you don't have a lot of skills to activate every second, still decent item. I only like to get it when I want to have some fun or am really ahead but I feel there are better items than this.

Max W, then E, and then Q and always put a point into ultimate whenever you can.

So we max Blood Thirst since the base damage of it goes up by 35 each level and since all Aatrox does is auto, this will be our bread and butter and also the healing is nice when were below 50%. But yeah this skill gives a lot of power to Aatrox and what makes him really good in small fights.

Why do we max Blades of Torment over Dark Flight? I have tried both skill orders and even though Dark Flight is physical damage, Blades of Torment provides more utility as it's ranged and it slows people and also you can use it when you need to get out of melee range (low HP or something). Also I notice that usually I use Dark Flight once or twice per team fight as I might get nuked down when I go in.

Blood Well (Passive) A passive that gives 30-55% attack speed when capped out, and the way it works is when you lose life from using a skill you gain HP for when you ressurect. This passive is what can make you do ballsy things with Aatrox when you want to gank or dive or soemthing. Usually you'll win in a 2v2 situation if you gank or counter gank since they can't really target you as you will just revive and you do a ton of damage. Also when you revive it synergizes with Spirit Visage.

Dark Flight A great crowd control skill that gap closes and knocks up whoever is in the center of it, sort of like Jarvan IV's E-Q combo. It costs 10% of your current health but you shouldn't think about that a lot. This skill is used to initiate fights and to get out of sticky situations.

Blood Thirst This skill is what makes the enemy team need damage to kill Aatrox and live below 50% HP and if they don't focus him fast he'll just restore it back up since it gives 3x of what it says when below 50%, the AD ratio on this is pretty useless and this skill is usually used to heal up HP in the jungle or in team fights when your below 50% HP to restore HP. My mindset is only to use it when I'm below 50% or preparing to gank a lane, otherwise Blood Price.

Blood Price This skill is super powerful and what makes Aatrox's ganks strong, when it proc's on an enemy it will hurt and since you'll have a lot of attack speed you'll be proc'ing it much more than once and add on your ultimate to give even more procs. You'll want to have this on always when ganking an enemy even when your below 50% health and in the jungle you'll want to use it to farm creeps faster but once your below 50% switch to Blood Thirst.

Blades of Torment Aatrox's only ranged skill, the reason we level it up 2nd is because of the base damage per point in it, which increases by 45 damage and also the slow duration increase per level is just a bonus. But also the cooldown on it can be decreased to 8 seconds. Even though its magic damage and we don't have any magic penetration it's still a better skill to level up than Dark Flight from my experience.

Massacre An ultimate that gives attack speed, increases Aatrox's attack range and a flat magic damage AoE. It's a decent ultimate considering Aatrox's kit where he's an auto attack champion who relies on Blood Price & Blood Thirst and the damage just adds to his burst damage. The range increase is decent but nothing too special.

I feel that Aatrox is one of the best carry junglers who excel at snow balling a game easily, with his high base damages and crowd control he should be ganking often. He also has infinite sustain in the jungle with his Blood Thirst.

Jungling with Aatrox is very unique, as his kit is very weird in a way that you have to take some considerations. Alright so my mindset as Aatrox is when I'm killing creeps in the jungle I will use Blood Price until I'm below 50% health, that's when I can get the 3x bonus healing from Blood Thirst and then it works with efficiency. You'll want your passive to always be full while in the jungle as it gives you more attack speed which is needed to have fast clears in the jungle. Right before I'm about to gank a lane I will switch to Blood Thirst and have about 60-70% HP before I gank a lane.

Aatrox is definitely a great skirmisher as the sustain damage and heal he gets from his Blood Price/ Blood Thirst but he is definitely vulnerable to burst damage as he's always somewhat lower HP when going into a fight.

In a 2v2 situation Aatrox most of the time will come up on top as if they focus you, then you'll just revive with your passive and come back to kill them a bit. But if they don't focus you then you'll just beat them up.

When your passive is down though, you should be more cautious about making plays and fighting, since you'll be lower health than most junglers from doing your jungle. So make sure that you don't go in a situation where you have to die as this will set you back a bit.

Just remember that Aatrox's damage, burst, and sustained damage is high. And without his passive he's really fragile.

Always keep tabs on your blue buff/red buff and do them immediately or have some ward coverage so the enemy jungler doesn't steal it, he will steal your red buff (blue side) if you're ganking top and he notices you started there and it's 7:15 minutes and he's good. Some Junglers out there will not keep tabs on their buff, and at 7:15 if you know he started blue on purple side and you see him ganking top, that's a free blue for you. Little notes like these will make you a better counter jungler and player.

Ganking with Aatrox is pretty simple, you go in a lane and then try and get in range for Dark Flight. Knock him up and always have Blood Price on in a gank so you can kill him faster, Blood Thirst is better in team fights. You don't have to knock him up but it helps a lot, even if you miss you still have your Blades of Torment to slow him and catch up with him, once you get 1 auto attack and you have a red buff he'll have to blow an escape or you'll just end up destroying him. Once you get your ultimate it just adds more burst and damage to your ganks.

A counter gank from Aatrox is probably the scariest since he has burst and it allows him to get an easy knock up (since your ally should be baiting into you) and you'll just have the upper hand since they didn't focus you first and you got da damages.

Aatrox is a very good duelist, as he starts Doran blade and has an upper advantage from that. The only thing that can probably duel him and win I think is Lee Sin since he has a attack speed slow and has a lot of burst damage but other than that Aatrox should be able to duel most people.

1. Bot Lane is dead/back. Reason: When doing dragon, it would be a 4v2 if they try to contest it.
2. You see bot lane recall and your mid and bot lane help do dragon.
3. Mid laner down. Reason: Mid is basically worth 1.5x of an ADC early game, because of the level advantage. So you have a clear advantage at dragon.
4. You feel confident on doing it. You feel that the enemy team won't contest, feeling more powerful, etc.
   

Aatrox can sure tank the dragon real nicely, but he can't kill it because of the attack speed debuff and can actually die to it if he tries to solo it since thats also where his damage comes from. Make sure to have some DPS to take it down.

Mid game you should have either Spirit Visage or Locket of the Iron Solari. Unless the enemy team has high physical damage you should of built up to a Randuin's Omen.

Time for you to lead your team to push towers, maintain control over dragon/baron and win. So always have a Vision Ward on dragon. And if you feel real confident, do it on baron and try to secure it and estimate whether you should do baron or not (some of enemy team is around bot side, your grouped 5) etc.

Aatrox can literally tank the baron forever as long as he has the full attack speed bonus from his passive (which isn't hard to get) and having Blood Thirst on, he can't solo it since baron reduces your damage by 50% so you'll need some help from your team mates to take it down. Also I think you need a bit of armor maybe around 80 armor.

This is where also the best team fights come alive, since everyone is around level 13 and multiple variables happen instead of late game where it's peel for carries.




Do this when your carries are behind their carries in items.

Assassinating the enemy's backline is easily, but assassin is a vague term so I'd like to use the term diver. Aatrox is pretty strong at killing squishies if he can get a few auto attacks in on them, but let's use Caitlyn as an example. So you go in on her with Dark Flight and use Massacre + Blades of Torment and maybe 1-3 auto attacks before she uses her 90 Caliber Net. Now she has created some distance from you and you both have your flashes up so flashing after her will not kill her as she can kite you. Unless you have another champion on her your not going to kill her by yourself, but you have zoned her from the fight for a bit so since your gap closers are down you should attack the nearest person near you and use Blood Thirst / Blood Price depending on the situation (need to get some health / need to kill).




Do this when your carries are ahead of enemy carries.

Anyone who is on your carry, use all necessary cooldowns to assist in killing the anti-carry. So usually this happens when the enemy is initiating on you, so say that Jax just used his Leap Strike to your carry. Using Dark Flight to knock him up and Blades of Torment to peel for your carry to slow and so that she can kite him easier to take him down for getting in your backline while you are using Blood Price on him or Blood Thirst depending if your below 50% HP or not.

You should have a Randuin's Omen at this time as the enemy ADC should have a Bloodthirster/ Infinity Edge + Phantom Dancer and will do tons of damage. Attack Speed reduction will cut a ADC's DPS massively, although once he gets that Last Whisper, he'll still be doing tons of damage. Just remember when you're chunked to disengage/retreat to an ally and let them switch focus off you to someone else, at least you can sustain yourself through there sustained damage with your Blood Thirst and you can disengage if you have to by burning a flash or a Dark Flight

Aatrox's late game is pretty weak, as he doesn't bring much crowd control or have a shield and as the game goes on late, the enemies AP and AD carries will have a lot of damage for you to not even sustain with Blood Thirst. The only thing that I like about Aatrox's late game is that he can literally win 1 team fight if he has a Guardian Angel. Since the enemy team has to kill him twice he basically is suited up for the tank role in this position for one team fight, so make that team fight count or wait until your Blood Well / Guardian Angel is up, just don't get caught and you use it's passive before a 5v5 starts or your investment on it was a big waste.

Basically, how to creep with Aatrox is fairly easy.

The first few levels as Aatrox seems like your going to die and you'll be around 25% health until you get rid of the big buffs.

The optimal route is:


After I get my double buffs, I want to look for a gank with these 2 buffs on as this is where Aatrox is most powerful (mostly because of red) and his high damage. So when I have these 2 buffs try looking for ganks and only do your jungle when you have smite up or if you can't find a gank.

Always get a leash, and no smite. This means you save your smite for the 2nd buff holder, why? Because it's the most reliant way to get the most experience in the short amount of time.




Level 1 : Blood Price until below 50% HP then switch to Blood Thirst.

Level 2 : Dark Flight + Blood Price until below 50% HP then switch to Blood Thirst

Level 3 : Dark Flight + Blades of Torment + Blood Price until yeah you know.




1. Red(smite)
2. Wraiths
3. Blue(smite)
4. Gank

When ganking:

1. If he flashes and has no other escapes, it's best to flash with him and go for blood as long as you have the distance to kill him (half a lane maybe?) as you have red buff.
2. Usual Combo: Knock up with Dark Flight + auto attack ( Blood Price) + Blades of Torment then just keep close to him and auto attack him.
3. Use your ultimate to add to your combo when you land your Dark Flight.
4. Use your Bilgewater Cutlass active when you see the enemy getting out of range of your melee attacks.

1. Blue(smite)
2. Wolves
3. Red(smite)
4. Gank




Aatrox ganking this lane is actually pretty powerful, since he has a knock up and burst damage. Doing your full combo and add-on some Blood Price + the burst damage coming from your mid laner you should have no problem killing the enemy before he gets to his tower.

If Aatrox counter ganks this lane, he's going to kill everyone as they have blown all their **** on your mid-laner and then guess what, you come in with your combo and burst and a lot of attack speed beating them to a pulp and they probably can't get away since they just used there skills on your mid-laner. So you're just going to be auto attacking them with that high attack speed and since they didn't focus you, you're going to be dishing out a lot of damage.

But you also have to think if you can actually get a kill, like say you were trying to gank a Zed. Think if his Living Shadow is down or up and if he's going to use it to avoid your Dark Flight. So wait until he burns his shadow so that you can get an easy knock up or force him to use a flash, a way to make him burn his escape is to pressure him to use it (slow him, your mid forces him to use it somehow (ex: to dodge Ahri's Charm)). Then you can use your dark flight, but it's also not the end of the world if you miss the dark flight since you have 2 slows to catch up to him.




The hardest lane to gank, this lane is probably the trickiest to pull off as everything is warded most of the time. I will be talking about this from blue side perspective.

Ganking this lane although with Aatrox can most of the time become successful, their are many ways to gank this lane but the best way and probably most successful way is coming in from lane (lane bush) and just waiting until you can land a Dark Flight knocking someone up and then just hitting the target with all your spells. You've got a lot of burst and I'm pretty sure your ADC and support can help you lock down / take down your target.

Of course the best way to gank this lane is to actually know the wards of where the enemy bot lane put them, with that knowledge you can know if you can pick up a kill or two by going down. Or you can just follow the road of pink wards your bot lane put down and hope that it covers a path for you.

Or after 5 minutes if your on blue side most of the time you can walk down river / tri-bush if their bot lane stayed since bot lane usually wards when they get to lane.




Start with Dark Flight as it's crowd control, a gap closer and pretty decent base damage and instantly gives your Blood Well 75% full for attack speed.




Knowing when to dragon is key, remember its every 6 minutes and you need to have some sort of advantage most of the time when doing it.

Here is a checklist of when to dragon.

1. Bot Lane went back?
2. Enemy Jungler is top?
3. Killed enemy ADC
4. Killed Mid?
5. Vision ward on dragon, and pressure on bot/mid.

Dragon is fairly easy for Aatrox to tank as he can use Blood Thirst to soak up all the damage. Although it is fairly hard for him to take it down himself since most of his damage comes from his auto attacks and you probably don't have Spirit Stone yet so make sure to bring some allies to help you take it down unless your like level 10+.




Aatrox can tank this worm so good it's unnatural, although since Baron reduces your damage by 50% when you're taking damage from it he can't solo it unless he built pure damage, but since he can tank it like forever all he needs is someone with sustained damage to take it down (like an ADC, Jax, Ryze) and can 2 man it as long as your tanking it.

Here's a checklist of tips when to do baron

1. The enemy team does not know
2. Enemy team is distracted by something else (chasing singed?)
3. Won a team fight.
4. A lot of the enemies are far away from Baron
5. Your team has the damage to take it down
   
   
   
   
   Counter Jungling
   
   Aatrox is a decent clearer, has the mobility to get out of sticky situations and also a great dueler, he can counter jungle pretty good. Also if he gets caught in there jungle by the enemy team he can just Dark Flight over a wall and get out, he's also really scary at level 3 than most junglers because of his high burst and sustained damage and crowd control and can kill / harass the other jungler if he catches him out, also he started a Doran's Blade so that's an advantage.
   
   A good way to go in there jungle is when you have vision of the enemy jungler, having that gives you an idea of what to do in a jungle for example, say he's ganking bot lane at 7:15 when he should be getting his buffs is like saying free buffs for Aatrox or if he's about to do his red then you can go and kill him while he's doing it or just take it.
   
   
   
   
   Counter Ganking:
   
   Find your enemy jungler, then set up in a place where he will come to gank a lane and you can come kill the enemy jungler or whoever is squishier with your allied laner, make sure to pick a target that you can burst and your ally knows it, or else the disperse damage could cause you to die or lose a kill.
   
   Aatrox in counter ganks = OP, especially with his passive up since they can't focus you or else you just revive and kill them and if they focus your ally, your going to rip them apart with your auto attacks with Aatrox. High burst, high sustained damage.
   
   
   
   
   How to Spike Objectives
   
   The best way to probably to do the most damage to an objective in 1 second is probably a Blood Price proc + Blades of Torment + Smite
   
   
   How to dive with Aatrox
   
   Aatrox has a lot of dive potential with his revive passive and can do a lot of cheesy ganks early game, this is one of his strengths and not even Zac can pull this off because the tower still shoots his blobs after he dies.
   
   So the way the dive should go is that you go in first with your skills and auto attacks, make sure to take tower aggression first before your ally since you can revive off it. Early game you should take around 2-3 tower shots before dying and using your passive. You should have about 4 seconds of living when diving before using your passive but by that time the enemy laner should be dead and then your ally would tank a few hits before getting out / flashing out and it should of been a successful dive if played right. Remember to only think about diving with your passive up.
   
   This could go wrong if the enemy jungler shows up so beware of the enemy jungler.

The tank, is the one who soaks in all the damage and still survives it all.

The bruiser, is the one who can deal constant great damage.




Dark Flight - This skill is used to initiate fights or to get out of a fight, not the best initiate but you can still catch people off-guard and it knock's them up for 1 second.

Blood Thirst - This skill in a team fight is used when your under half HP or when you are being focused.

Blood Price - This skill is used to try and take down a target, use when your going in for the kill and over 50% HP.

Blades of Torment - This skill is used to poke, and right after you go in and use Dark Flight to slow your target so that you can auto attack him if he tries to run. Also this is used to peel off those nasty assassin's on your carry like Jax.

Massacre - This skill is used when you go in with Dark Flight and combo it for burst and just go ham on your target with autos. I usually think of it more as an attack speed buff and don't really notice the increase on attack range and magic damage. I've also seen people use it after their passive has been popped but I haven't tested this yet but I can see how it would work in a team fight since you will have 0% attack speed and usually in the beginning of the team fight since your going in first you might get CC'd and not even auto.




Once you have dove in with Dark Flight and landed and used all your other skills, you should be concentrating on attacking anything that is near you and your mindset should be to constantly keep auto attacking for the Blood Thirst proc to restore health or Blood Price to take someone down. Any nearby target will do it can be a tank or a squishy as long as you keep auto attacking and restoring health / dealing damage.

Most of the time once I've used my Dark Flight someone will blow a flash or use an escape move and I have no choice but to attack the tanks, but I'm fine with that I'll just restore HP and be that front line tank for my team and since I'll be focused most of the time I'll just have Blood Thirst on and against tanks it's best to have this on since you won't be doing a lot of damage to them.

Once the team fight has settled down and it's just a bunch of people running around trying to kill people this is where Aatrox can shine, as he excels in fights where he doesn't take burst damage and the longer a team fight goes the stronger he gets.

Once your HP is low, you should only attack someone when your cooldowns are up using Blades of Torment to hit people from a range and to use Dark Flight to stun someone so your team can catch him.

Here's a team fight tip, if you are going into a team fight and you have your passive up and your about to die, do not flash. Wait until your revive is used, then use flash to get behind your team mates. This is exactly like using Zhonya's Hourglass and if they really want to chase you down behind your team then they'll just get pummeled by your team.

Aatrox is a very high burst high sustained damage jungler with some crazy ganks and a somewhat advanced jungler since you have to manage your HP in the jungle, although he has received some nerfs I still think he'll be a strong champion and you'll still be seeing him.

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