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Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Smite
Items
Ability Order
Deathbringer Stance (PASSIVE)
Aatrox Passive Ability
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Table of Contents |
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Quick Guide |
Preface |
Basic Information |
Advanced Tactics |
Wrapping Up |
Starting ItemsCore Build
Early Game
Mid Game Late Game BootsOffensive ItemsDefensive ItemsSynergies and CountersSummoner Spells
As a jungler you will always need to take Smite for securing buffs, Dragon and Baron. For your second spell, Flash is always the safest choice for offensive or defensive plays. Ghost can also be useful against teams that will kite you hard, as Aatrox has poor mobility outside of his Dark Flight. Runes
MasteriesAatrox tend to transition into more of a tank later in the game than a damage dealer, so 9/21 masteries are your best option. He's also very reliant on healing sources, making Second Wind even better for him. You can use a 21/9 setup, but I don't feel like he benefits from much beyond 9 points in Offense. |
About the AuthorGrandmasterD coded the entirety of this guides' format and Hogopogo created the amazing intro banner and dividers!
IntroductionIn this guide I will showcase a mixed farming and ganking path to playing Aatrox. My build order is very aggressive in the early to mid game when Aatrox is at his strongest, and then transitions into a tank for the late game. I focus on early ganks to snowball myself or lanes into intensive farming of the all-mighty Feral Flare. Aatrox excels in solo queue because his ganks are quick, devastating, he clears the jungle quickly and he snowballs insanely hard. However, caution is advised. A reckless Aatrox simply dies twice. A skilled Aatrox lives forever. Just some Aatrox mood music; Listen while reading the guide!
Who's Aatrox?
Aatrox's Skillset
Skilling OrderBlades of Torment is maxed first for ganking purposes, as it increases the slow duration and most Top Laners and many supports will be buying a lot of armor, meaning this ability will deal more damage in a gank. You may want to max Blood Thirst/ Blood Price for straight jungle farming if you don't plan on ganking, but Aatrox clears extremely fast even with rank 1 in Blood Price. Additionally, maxing W first makes you extremely reliant on it to deal damage, and as Aatrox tends to get kited easily, is unreliable in a fight with champions. Dark Flight could also be maxed early for the burst damage and lowering it's cooldown, but I generally feel like maxing the other abilities before it is more useful.
ItemizationCurrently, most junglers, including Aatrox are rushing Wriggle's Lantern to get Feral Flare as fast as possible. Farming this item should be your top priority, and now you can gank and assist allies to stack it as well (a much welcome change)! To compliment the AS and on-hit effects of Feral Flare, Blade of the Ruined King is a great second item, so pick up an early Bilgewater Cutlass. The active can also help you in your ganks. Once you have Feral Flare, you have the freedom to keep farming it if your team is doing well enough, or to assist wherever needed. Assists and champion kills help stack the item, so showing your face and winning fights helps your cause just as much as farming. If you're feeling a bit too squishy mid game, you can skip Blade of the Ruined King in favor of Randuin's Omen. I personally like Blade of the Ruined King second for the immense power it gives Aatrox when combined with Feral Flare with their attack speed, AD and on-hit effects. The active also helps Aatrox stick to priority targets. Mercury's Treads can be finished as you need them. Come Late Game, Aatrox functions more like a tank, meaning you'll need to bulk up with items. Randuin's Omen is a generally amazing and cost effective defensive buy, and Dark Flight will get you in good places to hit multiple enemies with the active. Spirit Visage greatly improves all your healing sources and is by far your best MR purchase available. It's even good to buy when you aren't fighting many AP enemies for this reason. Finally, Thornmail nicely meshes with your class of "Drain Tank". Let the enemy AD champions hurt themselves for hitting you while you heal back up with your Blood Thirst! Ravenous Hydra is an alternative item to Blade of the Ruined King when you're going to spend most of your time split pushing rather than team fighting. It offers you more burst damage but lower DPS than BoRK. When enemy magical damage is your biggest threat, the Hexdrinker can be your best friend early on in the game with it's life saving shield. It can be upgraded later, and Maw of Malmortius works very well on Aatrox due to his low-health baiting scenarios. Wit's End has risen in popularity with Feral Flare builds due to it's synergy with it. Aatrox's Blades of Torment and Massacre also deal magical damage, so having an MR shred with more on-hit damage can make Aatrox a very mixed damage threat. Sometimes, it's simply not feasible in Solo Queue to farm Feral Flare. You can usually tell if you're going to need to help your team a lot more than you'd want before your first back. If this is the case, pick up Spirit of the Ancient Golem instead and start your tank build early. Gank like crazy and try to get your team back up to speed. Banshee's Veil is to be used against specific poke champions like Nidalee who will mess you up with one single amazing ability. Lastly Guardian Angel is a super obnoxious purchase on a fed Aatrox. Killing him twice can be hard enough when he's fed as hell. But killing him 3 times? Oh dear.
JunglingAfter securing your initial buff, you'll want to farm either wolf or wraith camp and then do your other buff with your smite, which should be up by this point. You'll reach level 3 witht his buff and you can take this time to acess the map. Are the enemies pushing up/being aggressive? Aatrox's early ganks are extremely deadly due to his Dark Flight and Blood Price. If you can come into a gank with your Blood Price ready, it goes a long way for instant burst. Alternatively, if your lanes are all pushing, resort to farming. Try to stick around in positions to counter gank enemy junglers while you are farming. Aatrox can easily win most 2v2 scenarios when his passive is up. You should back as soon as you get enough gold for Madred's Razors, as this dramatically increases your jungling speed. The same rule applies to getting your Wriggle's Lantern. Aatrox has a massive power spike with Feral Flare if he gets it before 20 minutes, so try to farm quickly and efficiently. Try to make every gank count to get further stacks on your Wriggle's Lantern. This guide is about playing Aatrox, and not how to jungle in general, however. If you wish to learn more about advanced jungling routes and tips, I'd search for another guide.
Warding and GankingAatrox's innate beefiness through his passive allows him to do some aggressive ganks by diving the tower, but be aware that his lack of mobility can easily get him killed this way if you missed your CC. Additionally, Dark Flight opens very interesting gank paths in certain lanes. Some examples are from wraiths or wolves at mid lane when the enemy is sitting at their turret or from Tri-Brush at bot lane.
TeamfightingAatrox suffers when being chain CC'd however. One should try not to be the first on in the fight if seeking to kill carries. If you find yourself being CC'd too hard to reach anyone important, at least try to keep swinging with Blood Thirst up on any target you can to stay alive longer. Remember, if they are focusing you through your sustain, they aren't killing your carries either. If this scenario happens, it's really up to which team can clean up better. Sometimes "tanking" is the best thing you can do as Aatrox. Even when building full tank items, Aatrox deals enough damage to kills carries, and this warrants him being focused and CC'd. If your team is far ahead, Aatrox makes a great aggro-tank. Aside from diving carries and being bait for the enemy team. Aatrox is also a great peeler for Marksman and Mage characters alike. His high burst damage and knockup can save a carries' life and make enemy assassins think twice about their engagement. Finally, in a good full on fight, never stop fighting! Running is the worst thing you can do in most team fights, especially when your passive is up. In small scale skirmishes, it's less of an issue to try to escape with your Blood Well, but don't leave your team mates hanging if you can turn a fight!
Strategy and TacticsProper Drain-TankingMany new Aatrox players play far too passively and do not correctly play up to his Drain Tanking abilities. They are often afraid of Blood Price being on "because I'm taking too much damage!" but this is all part of Aatrox's combat flow. Especially if at full health, don't be afraid to have Blood Price turned on until you are at around 50% health. You can't be a wuss with Aatrox or any other health sacrificing champion.BaitingAlways look for opportunities to bait. If you catch a person out, knowing that their allies are coming, you can bait them into your enetire team by pro longing the fight if you have to. Just be sure that your allies are in fact coming to aid you. In a 1v1 scenario, Aatrox is insanely hard to kill and he can even survive some fights of up to 1v3 with his passive, so you'll generally have a long time to hold for your team to assist you and clean up.Dark FlightDark Flight has a small quirk that most dashes don't have in that it can be interrupted mid flight. You have to be aware of this and be careful not to get tagged by stuns and immobilization when attempting to dive or escape with Dark Flight.Brutal Massacre of ObjectivesAatrox' ultimate can be used to easily secure objectives early on. It's short cooldown combined with the massive attack speed steroid with Aatrox's Blood Price can make short work of Dragons and Barons. Massacre even helps to topple towers, though Blood Price will not proc on them. Just makes sure you won't need your ultimate to team fight in the next couple seconds.
SynergiesAny champion that increases Aatrox's attack speed like Nidalee or Warwick are also welcome allies.
CountersAatrox is also very easy to CC lock and kite, meaning hardcore kiters like Lucian are harder for you to catch. When it comes to jungle duels with other junglers Aatrox tends to suffer against champions with higher single target DPS (Rare) or extreme burst. Udyr, Xin Zhao and Kha'Zix all out damage Aatrox in a straight out brawl, and generally stick to targets better than he does. Fighting any of these champions 1v1 is not fun.
EpilogueOTGBionicArm
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