Hello everyone and welcome to one of my guides! This guide contains useful information and general knowledge based on my own game experience + open source info about the champ 💡📚📈🔍

My name is Max, but you can call me Dixon as well. I'm from Ukraine so English is not my native language and I can do some mistakes (I'm sorry for that). However, you can also write me comments and I'm able to answer you in English, German, Russian and Ukrainian languages since I understand all of them, but in different levels of knowledge. 😄

I started to play League of Legends in 2016. My highest ELO at the moment is Platinum 2 (soloQ) and 💎Diamond 4 (flexQ) on EU-West server (top 5% best players at the server).

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PROS:
1. Aatrox is a lane bully who can snowball quite quickly. If you can get an early lead, try to abuse it to get more kills in the lane to increase your chances of winning the game.

2. You’re a very mobile champion thanks to your Umbral Dash. It can be used in multiple ways and is a good way of turning around exchanges with the enemy.

3. You have tons of sustain thanks to your Passive and Ultimate World Ender. This will increase your survivability in team fights and skirmishes.


CONS:
1. Make sure you’re only using your abilities when you have to, especially your Umbral Dash. Aatrox suffers from long cooldowns and is easily abusable when they’re on cooldown.

2. You’ll fall off in the later stages of the game. Try and end the game as quickly as you can or snowball your lead so you’ll be a huge threat in team fights.

3. Aatrox is not an easy champion to learn. He has a unique mechanic on his The Darkin Blade which does take some time getting used to. You’ll need to put in a lot of practice to master this champion.

First of all, it is worth noting that his abilities don’t need mana or any other resources like energy or something. It means that his abilities are only limited by their cooldown time.



Aatrox passive Deathbringer Stance is a fairly useful ability. His attacks become stronger and he gets some health back that allows him to trade more successfully and to stay longer at his lane. Of course the recharging is quite big, but you need to remember that it can be reduced through the use of basic skills and in those moments when you hit an enemy with the ability The Darkin Blade. Buying items which reduce cooldown time and levelling up his abilities lead to more frequent usage of Aatrox passive. Play Video


THE DARKIN BLADE is the main combat skill of Aatrox, around which the entire game of the champion is actually built. The ability allows you to deliver 3 powerful strikes with AOE damage and the ability to throw enemies into the air. It is worth saying that it is not necessary to use all three hits at once. After the first hit 4 more seconds are given to you to make other 2 hits. This time is enough to use the ability more competently. You need to understand that each subsequent strike does more damage, so it is extremely important to hit the second and third strikes. In addition, you need to learn how to get exactly the edge of the blade, since the damage in this case will be very significant and the enemy will be thrown into the air. Actually, this is the most difficult thing in this champion, but this is what you should learn first. If you do not hit the enemies with the edge of the blade, then there will be little sense from such an Aatrox player in the game. I recommend you to carefully study the affected area of each strike. On the first levels, the ability will not do as much damage as we would like to see and the cooldown will be huge. So do not hope that you will out trade all your enemies. The ability has also a very important role in team fights, since you have the opportunity to throw enemies into the air several times, and AOE control in battles is extremely useful. Play Video


INFERNAL CHAINS on the one hand, the ability allows you to inflict good damage and control the enemy, pulling him to the center, but unfortunately it’s quite difficult to do. The reason is that after using the ability, the enemy should be in the zone during 1.5 seconds, and this is actually a lot of time. It’s good to use this ability in combination with some other control skills of your teammates. Firstly your ally uses something like stun and right after that you apply Infernal Chains. After the moment when enemy gets to the center of this zone, you should hit him by your Q – The Darkin Blade. It is especially hard to use the ability against mobile champions. That’s why Aatrox is more favourable champion against opponents with low mobility. Play Video


Umbral Dash increases the mobility of the champion and allows him to hit his Q The Darkin Blade more accurately. The range of the dash is quite low though. Yes, we can jump over thin walls, but for example, this will not save us from the gang of the enemy jungler. You can use his first Q+E combo to strike range champions or to land the last and the strongest Q into heads of your melee opponent. In conclusion, it is worth pointing out that the passive part of the ability gives us vampirism significantly increases the champion's survivability in battle. The most important thing is to try to constantly do damage. Play Video


World Ender is the ultimate ability of Aatrox. It was changed so many times that many players have already forgotten how it worked at the beginning. Some time ago, the ultimate allowed the champion to be resurrected during the battle, but this feature was removed and now it only increases the combat characteristics of Aatrox. Now the ability works as simple and clear as possible. After the activation, you get a bonus to movement speed, a bonus to damage and self-healing. Moreover, if during the battle you kill or help to kill an enemy champion, then the duration will last longer.

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Trade normally with Q then E mid animation to line up your sweet spot.


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Extend your trade by using Q three times then E to land your third Q.


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All in at level 3 with W and instantly E Q to help keep them in place, follow it up with AA Q2 into AA Q3.


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After level 6 R to get into Q range then instantly Q W E AA, Q2 to keep them in your W then AA Q3 for an easy dunk.


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With more Ability Haste you can combo smoother and use E again. W E Q instantly one after another then AA Q2 followed by AA Q3 and using E mid air to guarantee the sweet spot landing.


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With more Ability Haste and Flash you can chase opponents much easier. W E Q instantly one after another then AA Q2 followed by AA Q3 and using E and Flash mid air to guarantee the sweet spot landing.


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Flash can be used to secure your Q3 damage. W E Q instantly one after another then AA Q2 followed by AA Q3 and using Flash mid air to guarantee the sweet spot landing.

provides your champion by decent amount of damage and sustain. Due-to its omnivamp and healing effect, your champion will be able to stay on the lane much longer.

The unique passive's usage is best realized when looking at a simplified situation where an enemy inflicts instant burst damage onto you. As a result, your opponent has to overkill you to actually finish you off within this time span, which slightly increases your time to react and deploy counter measures like shields or healing. At the same time it also slightly improves your time window for retaliation, and is as such most powerful in a fight between two champions.

helps attack damage-based champions against enemy teams with high amounts of magic damage. LIFELINE can absorb most of the initial burst of magic damage from an enemy champion and give the owner an opportunity to attack or retreat. It is very useful against ability power champions with burst damage like Annie or Evelynn.

this item gives your champion extra slow effect and damage, especially on targets with heavy armor. This is the attack damage counterpart of Rylai's Crystal Scepter for bruisers.

is generally good for fighters and bruisers to deal damage to enemies and protect your champion by additional HP and shield.

is usually used on bruisers like Illaoi, Darius, Garen because they can easily apply stacks and survive long enough to benefit from the penetration. Armor reduction and penetration effects stack, allowing an attacking character to benefit simultaneously from Black Cleaver's shred, penetration runes, other items such as Last Whisper, and champion abilities that circumvent armor. This is a strong item against teams with lots of tanks or heavy bruisers who stacks a lot of armor.

this item is very good to be bought as 5th and 6th item since it will protect your champion from hostile bursting physical damage and most important it allows to ressurect after being killed which is super important in the late game, when the respawning timer is the longest. Sometimes it also makes sense to sell the item after the REBIRTH being used since it has very long cooldown time.

is a particularly effective defensive option when facing down opponents whose damage is dealt primarily through basic attacks, or against opponents that utilize healing from attacks to survive fights (such as life steal). It's very useful against such champions like Aatrox, Warwick, Nasus, Darius etc.

is most commonly used by champions to protect against magical damage and to enhance healing effects. These effects include normal healing or some form of health regeneration. In other words, you will be healed more by your allies and you will heal yourself much more effectively. Also the effects of life steal will restore more health. Its passive works well with any champion that has self-healing, self-shield, omnivamp, or life steal built into their kit.

is a strong counter against basic auto-attackers that stack well on critical strike chance, like Yasuo, Tryndamere, Yone and most of marksmen. You should consider to buy this item if the enemy team 2 or more champions who rely on critical strike damage.

buy this item if you want to have nice movement speed to roam across the map or to split push. The item provides also some HP and magic resistance that makes it a good choice for tanks and bruisers who lack mobility. It's also a good option against teams with lots of champions with magical type of damage.




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Here is a gameplay review of two Master tier players Aatrox vs Kennen where you can see how to play Aatrox against ranged champions on the TOP lane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOi3qJSz5Ms



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Here is a gameplay review of two Master tier players Aatrox vs Sett where you can see how to play Aatrox against strong melee champions on the TOP lane:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2h7B_W0BEY

This rune gives your champion good amount of damage and some sustain, especially in extended fights. The rune fits better for melee champions since it's twice faster to stack it up and it scales well into the late game.


This rune is perfect in team fights since you can get a lot of extra healing and also to earn some additional amount of money that can help your champion to take a slight gold lead and to enable you to be one step ahead in items. This rune saves champions quite often in situations when they would be rather be dead after the last hit by enemy tower.


The rune can help you against teams with lots of crowd control abilities like stuns, slows, roots etc. Thats why its going to be harder for them to disable your champion for long period of time.


The rune increases your damage when the amount of HP of your champion is low. The rune is better than alternatives Coup de Grace and Cut Down if you buy some items for HP and your champion is able to survive long enough with low HP rather than reducing HP of enemies.


This rune can be a good choice against teams or champions with lots of burst damage like Renekton, Riven or Rengar. However, it doesn't scale as good into the late game as Conditioning or Second Wind. This rune is better option for squishy champions so they would be better protected from a threat to be one shot by some enemy combo.


The shields and healing by your or to your champion are 5% to 10% stronger due-to this rune.

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Flash is the most frequent choice of all players in League of Legends. Such popularity of the spell is caused by the fact that Flash is able to instantly teleport you on a short distance. This distance is enough to dodge some hostile abilities or to jump back and avoid an unexpected gank. With the help of Flash, you can overcome various obstacles like walls, pillars and other different obstacles. Flash is equally good to use for both attack and defense. This gives the spell some versatility. The summoner spell cannot be used if you have been silenced (you cannot use skills for some time). Also, Flash cannot be used under the effect of hard control abilities such as stun or fear.

Teleport is mainly used to minimize laning downtime after Recall or respawning, to prevent enemy laners from gaining an advantage. Teleport is also used to quickly switch lanes to defend an unguarded turret. Unleashed Teleport is great for ganking if the enemy commits to a fight and is around friendly minions, turrets, or wards. Another use for Unleashed Teleport is a backdoor maneuver where a high damage per second champion places a ward inside or near the enemy base and teleports himself to that ward. From there that champion will attempt to bring down as many turrets and inhibitors as possible. Unleashed Teleport can be used to prolong or save the life of an allied Zac by making one of Zac's Passive's drops ( Cell Division) invulnerable for the Teleport duration.


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Ignite provides players an offensive utility and damage spell that scales with level. A well-placed healing reduction debuff from Ignite can severely limit the effectiveness of enemy healing items, as well as healing abilities from champions like Soraka, Aatrox, Vladimir, Volibear, and Warwick. It is considered a direct counter to Dr. Mundo, Soraka, Aatrox and Swain because they are reliant on their healing-based abilities. The healing reduction debuff also applies to life steal, omnivamp, etc.

EARLY GAME (strong)
Aatrox’s first significant spike is at level 3 when he has access to all his basic abilities. This will allow him to go for favourable trades. Once Aatrox gets his first component item, he will be able to go for favourable trades. Look to play more aggressive once you get your first component item. When Aatrox has obtained his Ultimate World Ender; his kill pressure increases dramatically. The extra damage and healing he gets from this ability can help him start a snowball.

Avoid committing to extended trades with the enemy in the very early game. Wait until you have a few levels under your belt before looking to fight. Play around your The Darkin Blade hotspots in the lane, and avoid using them unless you’re able to trade. When your The Darkin Blade is on cooldown; you’re pretty vulnerable and will lose 1v1 fights. Make sure you make use of your Passive empowered auto. If you’re able to use it periodically on the enemy laner, your chances of winning the lane increases.


MID GAME (strong)
Once Aatrox hits level 9, his The Darkin Blade will be maxed. The reduced cooldown and additional haste will mean this ability is on a very short cooldown. During the mid-game, Aatrox will have brought items that will reduce his abilities cooldown. Through levels 9-13, his abilities will be on a very short cooldown. When Aatrox hits level 11 and puts two points in his Ultimate World Ender, he will be a severe threat to the enemy in team fights. Fight around your Ultimate World Ender to deal a ton of damage and survive the team fight.

When your team isn’t looking to fight, split push and apply pressure elsewhere on the map. Avoid team fighting during the mid-game unless you have your Ultimate World Ender up. When it’s on cooldown, you’ll miss out on a lot of sustain and damage, so you must play around with this abilities cooldown. In mid-game team fights, look for picks by flanking the enemy backline. If you can get on to an enemy carry, you will increase your chances of winning a fight.


LATE GAME (average)
Aatrox tends to fall off later in the game as the enemy will buy items that counter him. They will also be grouping which makes it harder for Aatrox to secure kills. If he can get on to them, you will still be able to take down carries in late game team fights. Suppose you’re able to land Infernal Chains on high priority target- go in and try to take them down. You must play around with your Ultimate World Ender in the late game. Fighting while it’s on cooldown could be the difference between winning a fight and losing it. When you have 3 points in your Ultimate World Ender, your sustain is very difficult to deal with.

In the later parts of the game, stick with your team and look for picks. Avoid splitting up or being too far apart from them as the enemy may force a fight while you’re nowhere nearby. Play around your Ultimate World Ender and avoid committing to fights while it is on cooldown. If you fight while it’s on cooldown, you’ll miss out on a lot of healing and extra damage, which can make the difference in a late-game team fight. In team fights, flank the enemy to make it easier for yourself to get onto the enemy backline. Positioning away from your team but close enough to join the fight could give the enemy a false sense of security, making the enemy think the fight is 4v5: forcing them to overextend.

Deny Garen’s Passive by auto-attacking him whenever possible. This will reduce his sustain in lane and make killing him easier. Garen’s Judgment deals extra damage to lone targets. You can mitigate the damage by fighting beside your minions. They will also start focusing him if he auto-attacks you. Try and stay at max distance at all times against Garen. This will reduce his all-in potential. Additionally, by standing at the maximum distance possible, he will have to waste his Decisive Strike to get in range of you to trade. You can capitalise on this and look to trade with him while it’s on cooldown.

Garen’s build path can be very different from game to game. Keep an eye on his itemisation and play accordingly depending on what he is buying. If he is going full damage, you probably won’t be able to fight him alone. It will be difficult for Garen to engage or get on to carries in a team fight as he lacks hard CC. This means that he will try to flank in team fights with his Decisive Strike. Make sure you ward to the side of you at all times and kite backwards as soon as he appears. Avoid wasting valuable resources like Summoner Spells or the Ultimate on Garen unless you’re certain you’re able to kill him. Garen can quickly top up his health bar back to full thanks to his Passive which will result in your team losing out on key spells for the remaining of the fight.

Garen’s kill pressure in the early game can be difficult to handle if you’re playing as a tank. Respect his all-in and try and avoid trading with him unless his Decisive Strike is down. At level 6, Garen will gain access to his Ultimate Demacian Justice which can be used to execute enemies. Do not fight him when low, and definitely recall if you’re below 50% health as he might look for a trade. It’s better to be safe rather than try and fight and give him a kill. Once Garen has completed his first item, he will be more obnoxious and looking to trade more and more. Keep this in mind and do not commit to fights with him alone.





Avoid trading with Irelia when she has her Passive stacked as she will out trade you. Keep an eye on the little bar under her health. When trading with Irelia, keep an eye on low health minions in your lane. Irelia may use her Bladesurge on the minion to escape the trade or run you down after a skirmish. Irelia benefits from extended trades. Try and avoid going for extended trades with her as she will always win them.

Try and lock Irelia down at the start of the fight. This will make it much harder for her to jump around your team and get resets on her Bladesurge. Avoid fighting too close together as it will allow Irelia to use her Ultimate Vanguard's Edge on multiple people and allow her Bladesurge to reset. Stand together but not super close together. Try and fight after Irelia uses her Flawless Duet as it is one of her best tools to start a fight. Ideally, try and also fight around her Ultimate Vanguard's Edge as it will reduce her chances of getting resets.

Irelia is very strong whenever she has her Passive fully stacked. Avoid fighting with her at this time. When Irelia hits level 6, her kill pressure intensifies as her Ultimate Vanguard's Edge is a very good duelling tool. Irelia benefits from extended trades, so try and avoid going for them whenever you can. Keep them short and sweet.





Be cautious around the minion wave as Yasuo will often use his Sweeping Blade to dash through the minion wave to get on to you. Stand outside and away from the minion wave at all times. If you’re playing as a ranged champion, try to use your range advantage to harass and poke him down. Do not over-commit to doing this though as he could look to turn the exchange around. Playing around Yasuo’s Wind Wall will make killing him a lot easier. If you can, try to bait this ability out before committing to the all-in.

Avoid grouping too closely if the enemy has multiple knock-ups as it will allow Yasuo to get a really good Ultimate Last Breath off. Grouping but not standing on top of each other will reduce the effectiveness of his Ultimate Last Breath. Do not fight inside the jungle as it will make it easier for Yasuo to land his Tornado Steel Tempest knock up and follow it up with his Ultimate Last Breath. Fighting in the open will make team fighting more effective for your team. CC is your best friend in team fights. Locking him down with CC will make it very difficult for him to stack his Steel Tempest, dash with Sweeping Blade and inevitably use his Ultimate Last Breath. Try to CC him as quickly as possible and take him down.

Yasuo is really strong once he has 100% crit chance. Thanks to his Passive, he can get to this stage quite quickly. Once Yasuo is level 6 and unlocks his Ultimate Last Breath, his kill pressure increases. You should play respectfully whenever his Ultimate Last Breath is up as he can quite easily kill you. Yasuo is really good in team fights if he is picked in a team with multiple knock-ups. Avoid grouping too closely otherwise, he could get a 5 person Ultimate Last Breath off.

Use the minion wave to block Aatrox from landing his Infernal Chains and going for the all-in. Always ensure that there is at least one minion between you and him at all times. Both his The Darkin Blade and Umbral Dash have rather long cooldowns in the early game. If he uses them, try to abuse the cooldowns and trade with him while they’re down. Aatrox benefits from bursty trades with his The Darkin Blade. Try and keep your distance at all times and be prepared to sacrifice a little bit of CS, so he doesn’t burst you down.

In team fights, as soon as Aatrox runs in, try to CC him and burst him down first. He is pretty vulnerable to CC, and if you can kill him before he gets his combo off, the enemy will lose out on a lot of damage. Try to look for fights when Aatrox doesn’t have his Ultimate World Ender or Flash. He will have a much harder time at impacting fights when either of these are on cooldown. Aatrox likes to split push after the laning phase has ended. When he shows in a side lane alone, you could start a team fight with his teammates. Have wards on that side of the map, though, if he makes his way to join the battle.

Aatrox is strong from levels 2-6. Make sure you keep your distance to make it harder for him to land his The Darkin Blade and poke you down. Aatrox spikes when he gets his first item (as well as both component items). Respect his all in potential when he’s completed the recipe as his damage output will heavily increase. Aatrox is strong no matter what if you cannot dodge all instances of his The Darkin Blade. Practice makes perfect, but do try and dodge them whenever you’re able to.

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Whether mistaken for a demon or god, many tales have been told of the Darkin Blade... but few know his real name, or the story of his fall.

In ancient times, long before desert sands swallowed the empire, a mighty champion of Shurima was brought before the Sun Disc to become the avatar for a now forgotten celestial ideal. Remade as one of the Ascended, his wings were the golden light of dawn, and his armor sparkled like a constellation of hope from beyond the great veil.

Aatrox was his name. He was at the vanguard of every noble conflict. So true and just was his conduct that other god-warriors would always gather at his side, and ten thousand mortals of Shurima marched behind him. When Setaka, the Ascended warrior-queen, called for his help against the rebellion of Icathia, Aatrox answered without hesitation.

But no one predicted the extent of the horrors that the rebels would unleash—the Void quickly overwhelmed its Icathian masters, and began the grinding annihilation of all life it encountered.

After many years of desperate battle, Aatrox and his brethren finally halted the Void’s perverse advance, and seared the largest rifts shut. But the surviving Ascended, the self-described Sunborn, had been forever changed by what they had encountered. Though Shurima had triumphed, they all had lost something in their victory... even noble Aatrox.

And in time, Shurima fell, as all empires must.

Without any monarch to defend, or the existential threat of the Void to test them, Aatrox and the Sunborn began to clash with one another, and eventually this became a war for the ruins of their world. Mortals fleeing the conflict came to know them instead by a new and scornful name: the darkin.

Fearing that these fallen Ascended were as dangerous to Runeterra’s survival as the Void incursions had been, the Targonians intervened. It is said that the Aspect of Twilight gave mortals the knowledge to trap the darkin, and the newly reborn Aspect of War united many in fighting back against them. Never fearing any foe, Aatrox and his armies were ready, and he realized only too late that they had been deceived. A force greater than a thousand dead suns pulled him inside the sword he had carried into battle countless times, and forever bound his immortal essence to it.

The weapon was a prison, sealing his consciousness in suffocating, eternal darkness, robbing him even of the ability to die. For centuries, he strained against this hellish confinement... until some nameless mortal was foolish enough to try and wield the blade once more. Aatrox seized upon this opportunity, forcing his will and an imitation of his original form onto his bearer, though the process quickly drained all life from the new body.

In the years that followed, Aatrox groomed many more hosts—men and women of exceptional vitality or fortitude. Though his grasp of such magics had been limited in life, he learned to take control of a mortal in the span of single breath, and in battle he discovered he could feast on his victims to build himself ever larger and stronger.

Aatrox traveled the land, searching desperately, endlessly, for a way return to his previous Ascended form… but the riddle of the blade proved unsolvable, and in time he realized he would never be free of it. The flesh he stole and crudely shaped began to feel like a mockery of his former glory—a cage only slightly larger than the sword. Despair and loathing grew in his heart. The heavenly powers that Aatrox had once embodied had been wiped from the world, and all memory.

Raging against this injustice, he arrived at a solution that could only be born of a prisoner’s desperation. If he could not destroy the blade or free himself, then he would embrace oblivion instead.

Now, Aatrox marches toward this merciless goal, bringing war and death wherever he goes. He clings to a blind hope: if he can drive all of creation into a final, apocalyptic battle—where everything, everything else is destroyed—then maybe he and the blade will also cease to exist.