Aatrox Build Guide by KST Midnight

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Aatrox - The Darkin Blade [UPDATED - Patch 4.5]

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Build Guide Discussion (14) More Aatrox Guides

Cheat Sheet

Top Lane

Aatrox Build

Hide item names

Starting Items

Boots of Choice

Core Items - Offensive

Core Items - Defensive

Viable Offensive Items

Viable Defensive Items

Sample Full Build

Ability Sequence

Not Updated For Current Season

The masteries shown here are not yet updated for the current season, the guide author needs to set up the new masteries. As such, they will be different than the masteries you see in-game.

Masteries

Offense: 21

Defense: 9

Hey guys! This is Midnight and welcome to my guide. It took me some time to make this guide so I would appreciate if you guys would read this completely and give me some decent feedback!

is a really interesting champion to play. His passive allows him to towerdive safely + He gains AS if he has more blood in his ! He has an EXTREMELY INSANE amount of sustain with . Great engage and disengage with his . A free harass/poke with his despite it's long cooldown. Don't forget, becomes a MONSTER with his active.

Pros

+ Extremely high sustain with
+ Deals high damage
+ has a lower cooldown compared to other revive passives.
+ Manaless
+ is extremely useful for the whole game.

His is just so good in most parts of the game. Makes him almost undying with that amount of sustain. The sustain even increases more while your health drops so is like a "High Risk - High Reward" champion. His damage is really great especially with and active. His is just extremely good. Especially for tower diving.

Cons

- He gets weaker at late game
- Harder to engage without
- Long Cooldowns
- is hard to land at a far range
- or any other source of Grievous Wounds, hurt.

Early and Mid Game, is extremely good. However, he gets potentially weaker on late game. Of course this changes depending on the flow of the game but that's usually the case. It's harder to engage without because you have no guarantee of living in a teamfight or something else. With active, can be a really good "High Risk - High Reward" champion as stated before.

Masteries

is just really good since you are a "High Risk - High Reward" Champion. isn't really a big mastery but it does provide a few attack speed that would definitely increase his potential. is one of the most useful masteries for S4. That free 5% CDR is too good to be a Tier I mastery, why miss that out? is a really good mastery if you can't really last hit minions that good or just want to last hit them easier. provides AD per level which is kinda good. grants a flat AD bonus. ? Hands down. It is a really good offensive mastery for securing kills or turning tables with duels or teamfights. allows you to deal more damage with a little bit of armor/magic penetration. , as always, is a good Tier VI Mastery for it increases your damage by 3%. The defense tree is pretty much the standard 9 points setup for S4, and pretty straightforward if you ask me.

Runes

Greater Mark of Attack Damage: A free +9 AD for Marks is more worth it than a 15% Attack Speed, in my opinion. Since you have both Blood Well and Massacre to increase your Attack Speed anyway.
Greater Seal of Armor: Gives off a free +12-13 armor which can be good for early game defenses against physical damage.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Gives off a free +12 magic resist to increase your survivability by reducing some of the magic damage received.
Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: A free +7 AD with the same reason that I stated in the marks.

: A really good summoner spell for a lot of reasons. Mainly for kill securing but it can also help shut down those nasty healing/regenerating maniacs. (e.g. , , , etc.)

: Probably the mostly used spell in the game for high leveled summoners. This is probably because it can help in chasing/escaping or even to combo it up with .

Blood Well: This passive is really great for a lot of reasons, let's check them all out. First of all, passively increases his attack speed every 2% in the Blood Well. Also, when your HP goes to 0, you'll revive after a few seconds of statis. This way, Aatrox can just hammer down on opponents during a gank or a towerdive, etc.

TIP: You can use Spirit Visage to enhance the health restored while you are reviving.
Dark Flight (Q): A really good gap closer skill. It also provides crowd control when the enemies gets hit in the center. This skill is mainly used for initiating and escaping.

TIP: You can use Dark Flight to jump through walls, which is good for chasing/escaping. Keep that in mind.
Blood Thirst (W): This skill would forcibly make the enemy team focus down Aatrox with a lot of damage before he recovers all the health lost. You're mainly gonna use this when you are under 50% HP to use it's full potential.

TIP: You can still use Blood Thirst at any %% HP you currently have but you recover THRICE as fast when under 50% HP. Keep that in mind.
Blood Price (W): This skill is what makes Aatrox extremely strong. Building attack speed, damage and using Massacre would definitely boost this skill. This can be a very risky skill so don't hesitate to switch to Blood Thirst when needed.

TIP: The safest time to use this is when you are above 50% HP so that you wouldn't risk that much health.
Blades of Torment (E): This skill is really important for poking/harassing an enemy champion. Despite it's weird way of being cast, the damage is pretty neat. In addition, it also has this decent slow and cooldown values.

TIP: This skill can be used to clear minions faster. Especially with the use of Dark Flight.
Massacre (R): Let's start simple. Gives off 40-60% bonus attack speed, increases his attack range by 175. Upon activation, it deals 200-400+ magic damage to nearby enemies. This makes it a neat special for Aatrox it would buff a lot of stuff during fights such as his Blood Price and Blood Thirst.

TIP: Don't be afraid of using this skill more than usual. It would help secure kills because of your bonus attack range and it would sometimes turn the tables of a duel/teamfight.

Starting Items

Allows you to have slightly more damage with extra sustain from its HP and passive.

A must take even though gives you insane sustain. This should be bought AFTER buying a until your gold runs out.

Take this trinket because... why not?

Boots of Choice

The core boots for . You would be able to tank and soak a lot of physical damage especially from those AD Carries.

I don't usually go for this but I advise you only take this if the enemy team has tons of Hard CC.

Core Items - Offensive

First of all, Attack Speed. It is one of the most important factors that you'll probably need for . I know you already have some skills that boosts your Attack Speed but, having a few more would be better. The rest is kinda simple and obvious enough.

Gives G-G-GREAT damage and lifesteal. Helps your farming speed because of it's AoE damage. I prefer this one over . Although BT is a really good item too, so you can swap it Hydra with BT if you want.

Core Items - Defensive

One of the worst nightmares of physical damage dealers. Not only does it reduce the attacker's attack speed and movement speed by a %%, it also has an active which slows their movement speed AGAIN! In addition, the stats that it gives are really good.

This is an item that really works great with . Gives him a decent amount of CDR and improves the health regained from and .

Viable Offensive items

A great item that gives AS, MS and Tenacity. With a little bit of damage too. combined with something like or will make you a chasing-destructive-machine.

It is just very cost effective. Decent armor penetration + damage for late game dominance.

There's a lot of situations that Zerk Greaves is viable -- very fed, not getting focused, they don't have that much CC, they don't deal that much damage, etc. -- Regardless, AS is an important factor for .

This item has an INSANE passive. As your HP gets lower, the more destructive will be. It will also grant a shield when you're low on health which is pretty good.

Gives 70-100 Bonus AD and 12%-18% Life Steal. A really cost-efficient item in my opinion when you have farmed it up. Life Steal stacks with meaning you can get a lot of health back.

Viable Defensive Items

This item is just so great. It synergizes with so it's a good defensive item. Now the enemy team will be having a harder time killing you or perhaps they might focus someone else because they might find this synergy annoying.

Real good for countering the enemy AD Top Laner because of the bonus armor. Gives decent health for survivability and melee attackers will suffer from that DPS. This also synergizes with your . While you are reviving, the passive will still work.

A great item when getting focused by an AD Carry or to simply put, if their AD Carry is too fed -- Don't hesitate to buy this item.

Decent HP and MR. The thing I personally like, is the passive spell shield. It would help you against incoming CC. Which might save your life. The refresh rate is actually fast (25 seconds).

Provides a GODLY amount of HP. Because of that, your will be much better. Also, since you have , this item's passive will be increased!

21/09/00

Masteries

R>E>W>Q

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Special Thanks to jhoijhoi for the guide on how to make a guide, which you can find here.

12/14/13 - Guide Created
12/15/13 - Added Changelog Chapter
12/15/13 - Completed Introduction Chapter
12/16/13 - Completed Pros / Cons Chapter
12/17/13 - Completed Abilities Chapter
12/18/13 - Completed Masteries Chapter
12/18/13 - Completed Runes Chapter
12/18/13 - Completed Summoner Spells Chapter
12/18/13 - Added Items Chapter
12/18/13 - Completed Summary Chapter
12/18/13 - Guide Published
12/19/13 - Updated the Pros / Cons Chapter
12/19/13 - Updated the Summoner Spells Chapter
12/21/13 - Updated the Items Chapter
12/22/13 - Selected the "Sample Full Build" as Core Items
12/22/13 - Completed the Items Chapter
03/18/14 - Re-worked entire guide for Patch 4.4
04/10/14 - Slightly adjusted to guide for Patch 4.5

Guide Discussion (14)

Aatrox Build Guide by KST Midnight

This build has been archived and is for historical display only.

Not Updated For Current Season

Aatrox - The Darkin Blade [UPDATED - Patch 4.5]