Hello everyone, my name is Wawza, welcome to my Aatrox guide on ending worlds! I've been loving the new Aatrox and have been playing him almost non-stop since he was reworked. So I decided to make a guide to show people who are new to him the Ins and Outs of our beloved Darkin.

PROS + Good waveclear + Great laning phase + Solid built-in sustain + Amazing during the early to mid-game + Great at dishing out damage + If ahead can potentially 1v5 + Great at exerting lane pressure + Amazing teamfighting with World Ender Aatrox does decently enough against his harder matchups to pull a lead over them even when he is behind if in the right hands, and can snowball into a unstoppable mosnter in the mid-game with a early lead.

CONS - Falls of late-game - Very telegraphed abilities - Easily crippled by Grievous Wounds - Very susceptible to CC - Heavily item dependant - Long early-game cooldowns - Teamfighting without World Ender is not efficent While Aatrox shines in the early to mid-game he really suffers if the game continues to late-game, his damage gets negated by armor and his enemies can burst him down before he can start healing.

Conqueror

Conqueror is going to be your go to rune in 99% of your matchups with that one exception cough Fiora cough. The healing and adaptive force from it just synergises with Aatrox so much that it's too good to pass up for any other keystone. Even with the recent changes to it, it still is the most viable keystone on Aatrox due to the way it that it fits with his style of play. Although due to these recent changes to Conqueror you will have less healing and more adaptive force, tanks are still going to be a hard target for Aatrox since the removal of its true damage aspect.

Triumph what can you say about it? It's a good rune in fact it's the best rune for Aatrox since it fits so well with his World Ender reset mechanic, being you not only prolong it's duration but also get a big heal on enemy takedowns and some gold to top it off. I've had this rune save me a bunch of times of keep me just healthy enough to keep going in a teamfight.

So starting it off with Legend: Tenacity it's the rune you will most likely take into any matchup, since Aatrox's kryptonite is CC and it will shut you down in teamfights or just a plain duel this rune combined with the fact that in some of you matchups you are going to go Mercury's Treads will give you a lot of leeway in terms of being caught out by CC, and flat out ignoring some of it in teamfights.

Off to to next viable option in the "Legend" set it's Legend: Alacrity. Not much to say about it other than it help with duels a bit more than Legend: Tenacity in some cases, and gives you smoother auto attacks, other than that its not really the best option for teamfighting but it is viable in some matchups nonetheless, where you dont need tenacity and can try to weave in as many auto attacks as you can.

Now most poeple prefer Last Stand to Coup de Grace but it still has it's innate use which people sometimes ignore. With Aatrox's huge damage output means that the threat mainly comes from squishies that can dish out more and bring the pain to him, but get popped like a baloon, and this rune does wonders to help a lot with that and it will help more consistenly than Last Stand due to Aatrox's health constantly fluctuating.

In most matchups I end up picking Coup de Grace over Last Stand due to in being more consistent but even with Aatrox's constantly fluctiating this rune is still very powerful especially in teamfights where the enemy team will try to focus you down, which in turn will make you dish out more damage and heal more, untill you eventually outheal and kill them or get low again and make the cycle continue. It gives Aatrox huge power when he is low and can get him back in the fight with the increased damage and 30% health, which is where you will be mostly in teamfights.

Domination Secondary

I end up taking Sudden Impact always over Taste of Blood, due to the constant damage increase that it is on Aatrox and help a lot in early game trades and duels. At the mid-game your Umbral Dash is on such a low cooldown that Sudden Impact never expires, and is a constant damage amplifier, even if it doesnt make a huge difference late-game, then again, neither does Aatrox.

If lane sustain is the game then this is the ideal rune for you! The main reason why I avoid it and go Sudden Impact is that I almost never have lane sustain problems with Aatrox and value the damage of Sudden Impact more than the sustain of Taste of Blood .But despite all that it comes down to playstyle if it suits a more passive type of playstyle than an aggressive one, and it is completely viable to choose one or the other.

Ravenous Hunter it's amazing on Aatrox now looking at the "Healing reduced to one third on AoE abilities" you might think that it's not that much of a difference on Aatrox since his main damage output ability is AoE, and you would be completely right, the healing increase isnt that much especially if not stacked, BUT it benefits from heal increases so Spirit Visage and World Ender greatly amplify the healing you recieve from this rune, you get a lot out of Ravenous Huntera lot more than any other of the "Hunter" set of runes.

Resolve Secondary

This rune is the reason you would pick Resolve over Domination as a secondary tree, Bone Plating greatly increases your survivability and in burst matchups helps you duel. This is more for machups like Renekton or Jax who can burst you down really fast before you can even react to them. Also help farming under turret when against a ranged matchup such as Quinn or Teemo who will harass a lot before you hit your powerspikes to duel them.

This rune is the best alternative to Ravenous Hunter it's what makes the Resolve tree worth it since you dont lose that much of your sustain when you have to get Bone Plating to not get bursted down and the additional 10% increase when below 40% health synergises really well with Last Stand.

So you got your runes ready, you know your build, saw the pros and cons and have seen the matchups, now lets get onto the gameplay aspect of playing Aatrox to his full potential.

Early GameYour level 1 as Aatrox isn't going to be the most pleasant, with your only tool to trade being The Darkin Blade and it having a very long cooldown untill you put some points into it you have to focus on farming up and getting to level 2, preferably without trading with the enemy but if it is necessary try to land your Q edges and lower the cooldown of you passive, if the enemy disengages before you can land a 3rd Q and know it wont hit them, don't bother wasting it on the minions with the reduced damage to minions its not worth it since if you dont use it your Q will be on a lower cooldown, since it tracks each Q individually. Now this is where it gets fun at level 2 taking E Umbral Dash you can trade a lot more effectively with your opponent since your healing is tied to Umbral Dash as a passive, you can now also poke you lane oppponent with a sime Q The Darkin Blade > E Umbral Dash combo. When you hit level 3 is when you get kill pressure as Aatrox with your Infernal Chains W, you can now do your most reliable and effective combo. Opening with your W Infernal Chains, following in up with a hit from The Darkin Blade knockup edge, landing Q2 and waiting for them to be dragged in the middle by your W for a Q3 sweet spot for massive damage early game and maybe even force a summoner spell from the enemy since you can chase them down after a full combo landed. This is the most basic of combos and you should learn to do it and harass your opponent with it everytime you can pull a full combo off, capitalizing on enemy overextending for farm is key to winning your lane as Aatrox,Before your first back you should focus on getting enough gold to purchase a Caulfield's Warhammer as your first item or Kindlegem as a alternate in matchups which you need more health than AD, they best part in both these items is the 10 Ability Haste they bring, for Aatrox the best stat you can get isnt AD early game it's CDR since his early cooldown are too long untill you get points into the abilities this will help Aatrox trade effectively and duel with more than 1 set of Q's at a time. At level 7 is where Aatrox hits a major powerspike. You got your ultimate World Ender at 6 and at 7 you can put another point into Q allowing you to dish out Q's efficently and not having to sit there auto attacking your opponent or kiting them.

Mid/Late GameThis is where you start utilizing Aatrox's pressure on the map.

By now you should have both your core items or atleast one in the form of Black Cleaver which increases your DPS tremendously and Goredrinker which gives you enough sustain to be able to survive and finish your combo. Combined these items give a tremendous boost to Aatrox and his teamfighting potencial, when you have both these items you can look to 2v1 enemies like your laner and the enemy jungler. You should however start to exert your lane pressure at this point in the game, either by roaming down to mid, using Teleport to help bot or just pushing in top lane. When teamfighting occurs you should ideally wait for your frontliner to go in first so you can focus the enemy carries, if you are the teams frontliner make sure your team will follow up and engage with World Ender and try to make your way to the enemy carry through their team. Start counterjungling the enemy by taking their camps and try to take as many objectives as you can to further your lead as much as you can in an attempt to close out the game before late-game hits.

Late Game
When you hit late game around the 30 minute mark you should just focus on fighting with your team or flanking the enemy team to force a fight, since you can get taken out in duels by champions like Jax or Nasus easily. Teamfighting is where you will have any sort of impact this far into the game. The most efficent way to win as Aatrox even if the game got stalled to late game is the new dragon system in the newest patch. If your team manages to secure a dragon soul and then get the elder dragon, your team will steamroll the other even if you were outmatched in fights before due to the sheer power the new elder dragon gives. Or you can try to make a Baron play with your team for sieging the enemy base.

And so we have reached the end of my guide.
Thank you for reading this far. Any feedback is appreciated.



Now you are familiar with the Ins and Outs of Aatrox go out there and...


SUNDER THE FILTH OF THEIR FORMS