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Aatrox Build Guide by

Aatrox wants your BLOOD!

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3 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author OkLarian

Aatrox Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (3) More Aatrox Guides

Choose Champion Build:

Aatrox

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Ability Order

Aatrox Passive Ability

Introduction

Welcome to my very first guide.

My name is OkLarian. I play on the EU west server. Ranked in Silver division V.
I may not be the best player out there, but i decided to give it my own spin on the new champion: Aatrox.

Here are some of my games as Aatrox:

This guide is solely for helping other people out, and I would appreciate constructive feedback. Anyways let's get on with it

Pros/Cons

Pros
-High Sustain through
-Great Attack speed steroid build into
-Revive, that can't be stopped
- is a great initiator or escape tool
-Is almost unbeatable in 1v1
-Great Attack speed bonus from and range increase

Cons
-Hard laning phase against ranged Champions
-Relies on constantly attacking during fights
-Losses great amounts of attack speed after reviving
-Is going to get nerfed

Runes

I take these since scales from AD. The extra damage early on will make you able to force an early skirmish with your enemy.

I Always take these unless i am supporting. The extra armor is sweet early on.

or The magic resist is nice early on. I take the flat ones for AP lane enemies. In jungle, AD top or Mid i take the scaling ones.

or I personally take Attack Damage, for laying out more damage. If you however are in a really narrow situation, you can take the life steal ones, to make sure you have more sustain through basic attacks and not only

Masteries

Summoner spells

is always a nice spell. Dealing true damage over 5 seconds, and decreasing healing effects. Great for picking up a kill for someone that staggers out of the team fight, allowing you to focus on the other enemies.

Close the gap, or get over that wall while is on cooldown. Flash is always an useful summoner spell, that almost every single player uses. Great spell.

A no-brainer. If you are jungling, smite is a must. Steal that Baron or dragon from the enemy. Not to mention it speeds up your jungle clearing early on.

Other reliable spells:

Also great for dueling. Decreases the enemies attack speed and slows them, to make sure they don't run off.

You can replace flash with teleport, if you are comfortable with it. It allows you great map presence. And can bring you back to your lane fast.

I personally never use this unless i play as an ADC. But this could potentially save you from an ignite, or buy you extra time in a fight to let your proc and heal you.

Skills

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

Blood Well

Passive

This passive not only serves as a great Attack Speed steroid. But grants a revive every 3 minutes and 45 seconds. The blood well is red when he can revive, and grays out if he can't. He still gains Attack Speed.

Dark Flight

Q

This ability allows you to close the gap or leap over a wall to escape. Enemies in the center of Dark Flight are also knocked airborne. However certain CC spells can interupt the cast animation and, stop his escape. Spells like , , and interupts Dark Flight, while stuns and slows do not.
Take this at level 3 if jungling, or if your jungler is coming to gank to allow you to quickly jump into the fight and deal out free damage if you land your Knock-up.

Blood Thirst/Blood Price

W

The key to playing Aatrox is changing between Blood Price and Blood Thirst accordingly during a teamfight, to perfectly balance sustain and damage.

When jungling i use Blood Price to build up , and gain more attack speed, as well as clearing faster. Once Aatrox drops below half of his health, the heal from Blood Thirst is increased by 200 %. at level 1, this is around 100 health. Change your stance from Blood Price to Blood thirst when you are below half health, and once you are above half health, switch back to Blood Price.

When jungling take this ability at level 1. If you are laning, postponing it to level 2 for allows you to build up Blood Well without Blood Price, allowing you to focus on healing from Blood Thirst instead.

Blades of Torment

E

In lane, this serves as your main damage tool. This allowys you to keep at distance form your enemy and deal damage. It also slows enemies hit by the blades.

In lane i take this ability first. And when jungling i take it at level 2.

Massacre

R

The Burst from the ultimate isn't that spectacular. The Attack speed boost is great, and the range increase is great as well. This leaves Aatrox with more time to attack his targets, rather than moving into range of his enemies.

As all other ultimates, put a point into this at level 6, 11 and 16

Items

Start:

This start works both for Laning and Jungling. The attack damage early on helps his to keep him alive in the jungle. And it works great for harrasing in lane

If you are feeling confident enough and are willing to risk it. The health and attack damage is great. And the mini sustain isn't too bad either.

Core Items:

Combined gol cost: 9700
has everything you need when building Aatrox: Life steal, attack damage & attack speed. The active also makes it easier for him to take care of tanks way easier

And since is the item that grants the most AD in the game, it is an absolute must for Aatrox.

Increases his damage greatly, his clearing speed and gives him even more presence during a teamfight. Plus his ultimate doesn't change his attacks to ranged, meaning it's passive still works.

Now let's move on to the 3 builds i have included. All three build have the core items, boots and 2 other items. Here I explain why i think they work for Aatrox:

Build #1 Melee ADC

This build emphasizes on and . The Phantom Dancer & Infinity Edge focus on adding critical damage to Aatrox, allowing him to potentially deal more damage. If you are capable of carrying your team. This build isn't that bad. But if you are underfed in kills and CS. Chances are this build won't be finished in time for you to punch through, since this is the most expensive of the 3 builds.

Gold cost: 6600
Total gold: 16300

Build #2 Tanky DPS

This build focuses on making aatrox more tanky. This grants him armor, magic resist and extra sustain through the Spirit Visage. Combined with Guardian Angel, this makes him a really annoying enemy to face, as he now has to be killed 3 times, before he is over and out of the fight. Meanwhile he still deals a lot of damage in teamfights.

This is the cheapest build for him. And if you find yourself dying a lot. Take these 2 items to bring you back as a pain in the butt for your enemies.

Gold cost: 4800
Total gold cost: 14500

Build #3 Armor Shred

This build allows you to shred through your enemies armor. And if you have a good ADC on your team, this will allow you to shred through enemies in no time. The reason why i don't add another phantom dancer is because i personally feel like Zephyr works better in this setup. Zephyr gives more movement speed and even grants tenacity (meaning you don't have to buy mercury threads for tenacity). Remember that The Black Cleaver's passive works for everyone on your team, meaning that you reduce the targes armor by 25%. Allowing your ADC to deal more damage. If you are not carrying, and don't find yourself dying a lot, this build isn't a bad idea. But you can still use the first build.

Gold cost: 5850
Total gold cost: 15550

Boots

The choice of boots are up to you. But i find these 3 to be most effective.

Makes him deal more damage.

Makes him more durable

helps you get rid of the CC faster.

Observe your enemy team, and take what benefits the most. Ninja tabi for AD based teams, Mercury's treads for AP based teams. Or if you want more damage output, take Berserker's Greaves.

Other Items

Aatrox does of not benefit from AP or mana. Only 2 of his abilities scale with AP. And he is a manaless champion. But let's look at other items that could benefit Aatrox:

Maw is not a bad item. It makes you more tanky, gives a good amount of AD and the Magic resist can be useful against a heavy AP based team. While I still think the shield isn't that helpful, i will have to say the passive AD bonus is great, as it gives you extra AD on low health, perfect for after you come out of blood well

I am thinking 50/50 on this item. The slow allows Aatrox to stick to his target. But he doesn't benefit from increased health, more from Armor and Magic Resist. I don't recommend this item, as i find and better.

This could be a good item for Aatrox. But I still think the stats are too low to benefit, but it does help, if you are fighting an Aatrox.

If you want to, you can replace with this item. The AD is lower, but if another team member already has a Black Cleaver, take this instead, or use Build #1.

I never use this item myself. But you can replace the Zephyr with this to give you an instant free card from CC.

It gives good AD, deals true damage on attack (a rare case, and not wasted), while the mana regen isn't beneficial at all, it works just find for some extra power, although i usually sell it in late game to replace it

Phantom dancer is better, don't even bother with this one

An item i haven't really seenbeing used and for good reason. I don't feel like it benefits you

I can see why people would want this. If you want to give it a go, replace it with your Infinity Edge. Although the mana is a waste, and the AP kind of is too, but the spellblade allows you to deal even more damage.

Now that we are done with the items, let's move on.

Jungling

When jungling, Take the red buff. As mentioned earlier, Aatrox is not in need of Hunter's machete when he is jungling, but he is dependant on recieving a leash or else he will end up taking too much damage without building up your blood well.

When jungling you also need to build up your blood well. As mentioned in the skill explanation. Use to build up blood well, and dish out damage, and heal with when you are under half health.

If all lanes are pushed, keep farming in the jungle. If your lanes need ganks, pick at level 3, and help out your lanes.

Laning

Early Game
When laning use to harass your enemy in lane. Last hit with to heal. Remember that in lane, chances are you have the highest sustain. You can force early skirmishes, to wither down the enemies health, while healing from minions, while they have to heal from potions or even go back. Push this advantage, and force you enemy out of lane. Sight wards will help you too, so you know when the enemy's jungler comes to gank. A succesful gank can drain your blood well prematurely, and leave you short of health and attack speed.

Mid Game
In mid game you should be building your core items, or decided what build to follow. Either way, Aatrox is more than capable of soloing the dragon. If your support has a vision ward placed there. Use this to your advantage and take the dragon, while your enemies are distracted in other lanes.

You can also take down the enemy turret, or head to another lane to help them pick up some kills.

Late Game
In late game when team fights are about to start. Remember one important thing:
Aatrox is NOT! a tank. This means diving heads first into a fight with even if it is a perfect landing. chances are you'll be focused before you team can come in and help you, this pops your and you just lost a 50 % attack speed steroid.
Aatrox works better as the secondary initiator. So jump in after the tank, pop and keep slashing your enemies apart.

Depending on your builds you have 2 roles: Offtank and Carry.
If you are the offtank, your job is to protect the ADC while dealing out damage to the enemy trying to get to your ADC.

If you are the carry, your jobs is to lay out consistent sustained damage throughout the entire battle. So just hack and slash at anyone close to you. Because unlike an ADC, you have the sustain to stay alive. But remember, if the Enemy ADC comes too close. Kill them, they asked for it

Counters

All champions have their counters. And so Aatrox is no exception.

Oh boy is this guy a pain in the ***. Jayce has the range to harass you and keep you away from your minions. Like an ADC you are not the biggest thread damage wise in the early game. But you are still realiant on famring early on. Jayce has a good range from the start and you can't out damage him early on.

This guy can be a *****. Like Tryndamere, Fiora and champions alike you are a "Duelist". You are reliant on dealing damage with your autoattcks whilst obtaining a secondary effect. Tryndamere builds rage for example and we build our blood well and heal, and So the blind from teemo is not fun to meet. Plus he got a strong poke with his poison so he can easily negate the heal you get from trying to farm.

Another champion you wanna avoid. The range makes her capable of farming safely, whilst harasing you with her exploding babies, and a stun to finish you off whatever she is alone or getting assistance from the jungler. And in her spider form it is not better when she can outdamage you and escape with her .

A shield every 10 seconds. Increased armor. A slow and Aoe damage. Malphite is not a fun enemy to fight against, and if he is building tanky he can be extremely difficult to kill. As AP he is not that hard to defeat, but his damage can easily punch through you

That's all folks

Thanks for reading my guide. I hope you enjoyed it.

This is my first guide, so some changes will be made as time passes by.

You are more than welcome to correct me, if you find something unusual or not right in the guide. And i'd appreciate if it was constructive and not just something that flat out says i am ******.

Again thanks for reading, and may your journey as Aatrox, let you take flight.