Hi guys, I'm Sheathblade. I have played Aatrox since Season 3, and have been jungling on him since the Feral Flare and Enchantment: Devourer days. I am currently low/mid platinum, and I'm aiming for Diamond this season.

With over 2 million mastery points, and five seasons' worth of jungle Aatrox, I thought I would share some of my insight, some of my knowledge, to aspiring Aatrox junglers.

My OP.GG

World Ender Aatrox is an entirely different champion from old Aatrox. He works similarly to Rhaast, Kayn's Darkin form, in that Aatrox now doesn't rely on auto attacks, but rather abilities. That's not to say it's a downgrade though. In fact, World Ender Aatrox actually clears much faster than old Aatrox, using the same exact jungle path. If you don't feel confident top, Aatrox jungle is definitely a great alternative.

With the updates to the new item shop, there are way more options available to Aatrox, giving him more flexibility in what to build.

Note that the items that I build in this guide are merely suggestions. Perhaps the enemy team is an early/mid-game comp, and they want to end early. In order to counter that, you might want to build tank items early, and save the damage items until later. Aatrox is a flexible champion in that he can optimize his build to certain situations.

While many of us Aatrox mains will want to feel at home with old Aatrox, the rework had to happen, one way or the other. With this in mind, let's keep going forward with the Aatrox we have now.

Pros

+ A great alternative to top lane.
+ You clear camps insanely fast with The Darkin Blade
+ Passive healing is insane early on, helps with sustaining in the jungle.
+ Your ganking tools are very effective with Infernal Chains and the constant knockups from The Darkin Blade. Most likely will burn a flash (worst case scenario) if everything lands.
+ Very low ult cooldown

Cons

- Predictable ganking patterns
- May need a little practice with landing The Darkin Blade
- Very telegraphed ganks
- No on-command revive. This means you have to plan tower dives very carefully.

Let's talk abilities, shall we?

Passive: Deathbringer Stance

Aatrox's passive is very simple and straightforward. He will deal bonus percent max health damage on his next auto attack, and heal off of that amount of damage. On large monsters, the damage is reduced to 100 HP. The passive cooldown can be reduced if Aatrox damages an enemy champion or a large monster with a spell or auto attack, and if he lands the sweet spot of The Darkin Blade.

Q: The Darkin Blade

Aatrox's Q is an AOE ability with 3 casts, similar to Riven's Broken Wings. This is his bread and butter ability. The hitbox consists of two parts, the normal hitbox, and an inner hitbox I'd like to call the sweet spot. If any enemy gets hit at the sweet spot, they get knocked up and are dealt additional damage. The cooldown of this ability starts after your most recent Q cast. For example, if you cast Q1 and wait, you get the shorter cooldown, but you will reset that cooldown once casting Q2.

With each cast of his Q the sweet spot hitbox gets closer to Aatrox. This incentivizes you to get closer to the enemy, and position yourself into the right spot in order to land it. The Darkin Blade, which each cast, also roots you when casting, like Renekton's Ruthless Predator. However, his other abilities synergizes with his Q, which we will get to later.

W: Infernal Chains

Aatrox's W sends a projectile that, when it hits a champion or a large jungle monster, it creates a Viktor Gravity Field. If such a target is hit by Infernal Chains, they are slowed, and Infernal Chains creates a zone. If the target fails to leave the zone in a certain amount of time, they will be pulled back to the place of impact, or where Infernal Chains hit the target.

As you might tell, this ability is a great ganking tool. It allows to you cast your Q at the impact zone when you know the target isn't going to escape, guaranteeing a knockup. If the target has no movement abilities, they will have to burn Flash for their survival. It's also a good way to position yourself so that you can block out any exits that the target may have. However, do note that if his W hits a minion or a small monster, it will only damage the target, and will not activate the pulling part.

E: Umbral Dash

There are two parts to this ability. The passive portion is that he heals for a percentage of all damage he deals to champions, excluding damage-over-time damage, the only example being Ignite. This healing passive is increased when Aatrox is in his ultimate form.

The active portion of it allows him to dash a short distance.

This is a very important ability for Aatrox. He can use Umbral Dash to reposition himself when casting The Darkin Blade, since it can be used in tandem.

R: World Ender

Aatrox's ultimate gives him increased size, bonus AD, bonus decaying movement speed on cast, and increased self-healing for 10 seconds. Additionally, he fears all enemy minions around him.

For the duration of World Ender, you slowly lose that extra movement speed. Getting a kill or an assist on an enemy champion will extend that duration by 5 seconds (up to a cap of 10 seconds), fearing enemy minions again and refreshing the movement speed.

With this ult, you rely on having your team open up access for kills or assists in teamfights. Once you cast your ult, you have already committed to killing everything that's in front of you.
Regarding the basic abilities, you want to put all your points into your The Darkin Blade, as it's your only damaging ability. The Darkin Blade has insane damage, allowing to clear camps at a faster rate than old Aatrox.

I got Umbral Dash as my second ability and the ability to max second. Maxing E reduces cooldown, increases the healing you get. Also, at max rank, your E is on a 3 second cooldown, which is really useful for landing your Q.

Smite

I hope you realize that Smite is an essential tool for any jungler. Not taking Smite means that you are trolling or you aren't paying attention to your role.

Flash

Flash is an essential tool for any champion, save a few ( Shaco). It's more important on Aatrox solely because you can guarantee a knockup from your Q, and close gaps, as Aatrox is somewhat immobile.

Keystone:

There are two keystones you can take for Aatrox jungle. More than likely, you will default to Conqueror as your keystone, simply because it provides the dueling capabilities he will need when getting into skirmishes. Electrocute is the other option, and should really only be taken when you are confident that you can snowball or if the enemy team is composed of all squishy champions.

Domination Runes:

Sudden Impact works all too well with your Umbral Dash, giving you more lethality when you gank. This is very useful in the early game. Cheap Shot is also a viable rune given that you can land your CC, but the lethality from Sudden Impact is too good to pass up.

If you are taking the Domination primary route, take Eyeball Collection. It allows you to take advantage of the kills you have. Aatrox needs damage in order to be relevant, so this is a necessary pick.

I have taken Ravenous Hunter because it helps with your healing in the jungle, as well as dueling other junglers for objectives. Ultimate Hunter is alright, but not necessary because your ult will come back up in no time between teamfights.

Precision Runes:

If taking the Precision primary route, you should definitely take Triumph. The other options in the row are very lackluster in comparison.

In the second row, I take Legend: Alacrity. Personally, it helps me clear camps faster by auto attacking and getting that passive proc even faster. In addition, if you do run out of abilities to use, your auto attacks deal a decent amount of damage.

In the third row, I take Last Stand for the fact that it ups your damage output the lower health you have, which synergizes well with his kit (more damage == more healing).
As for the Stat Shards, I go the attack speed rune, the damage rune, and an armor rune. The attack speed rune is helpful in that it helps to reduce your passive cooldown by auto attacking. In this way, your passive has a lot of uptime, allowing you to top off your health bar easily. I take the armor rune because it reduces damage from the jungle monsters, allowing you to stay healthy in the jungle.

Starting Items:

Hailblade

Since the removal of Hunter's Machete and Talisman, there are now two options for starter jungle items: Hailblade and Emberknife, both corresponding to the two different smites ( Chilling Smite and Challenging Smite). Aatrox heavily prefers Chilling Smite because it allows him to catch up to the enemy. It also removes itself upon smiting five times, so we have an extra item slot to build whatever we want.

Refillable Potion

Pretty much set in stone to get this.

Items after the Jungle Item:

I don't think we need to talk about boot options here. Boots are self-explanatory.

Mythic Items:

Goredrinker

Goredrinker is the default item on Aatrox. It gives AD, health, ability haste, and more base health regeneration. It also has a passive that gives you more AD based on how low on health you are, which means you will heal more on Aatrox when you are low on health. It has an active that deals AOE damage around you based on 110% total AD, and will heal you based on your AD and missing health per champion.

Stridebreaker

Stridebreaker is a Mythic that I personally run. The main feature is that it gives you an extra dash that slows and damages enemies in range. For Aatrox, you have to cast Stridebreaker and then use Q if you want to mix up how you are casting Q. This is an item that requires more mechanical skill than the rest of the other Mythics, but it will allow you to cover some distance (it can act as your second charge of Umbral Dash).

Eclipse

Eclipse is more for Assassin Aatrox using the Electrocute rune page. This is a "win more" item so to speak, so this purchase is only if you are snowballing. This item provides AD, lethality, and omnivamp as its base stats. If you hit 2 separate attacks or abilities within 1.5 seconds, you deal the target's % Max HP damage and grants you movement speed and a shield, as well as giving 5% armor pen per Legendary item. This item does not give ability haste, however, so after building this item, spec into high ability haste items such as Ravenous Hydra.

Offensive Items:

As Aatrox, you will primarily be visiting the Offensive items portion of this guide. You absolutely want to capitalize on the fact that more damage equals more healing. As such, here are the recommended items below:

Ravenous Hydra

Ravenous Hydra is the new Death's Dance. For Aatrox, this item provides omnivamp, AD, and cooldown reduction. The unique passive "Cleave" will now also apply on abilities. This means your Q casts will apply Tiamat procs passively, which means more damage and healing. This is undoubtedly core on Aatrox.

Sterak's Gage

It gives you a ton of health and AD. Taking damage or dealing damage form an enemy champion will heal you for a certain amount. This passive stacks 5 times, one per champion. Once you lose a certain amount of health, you gain a big shield based off of your max health. This is a great bulk item on Aatrox.

Death's Dance

Death's Dance is a situational item. It allows you to distribute the damage you receive from the enemy champion into Bleed damage. This item is useful for dueling and not getting one-shot by an assassin. However, note that this is an armor item, and as such, should not be built against magic users.

Black Cleaver

Black Cleaver is great against tanks, who will undoubtedly build Bramble Vest, Plated Steelcaps, and Frozen Heart in order to counter you. Black Cleaver shreds the armor that tanks will build, allowing you to deal more damage. Black Cleaver also does % Max HP damage once you stack it fully, so this will shred through all tanks.

Guardian Angel

Guardian Angel gives you armor, AD, and a revive to boot. This is helpful if you want to compensate for the lack of revive until you get a kill or an assist.

Defensive Items:

Spirit Visage

Spirit Visage is a nice defense item for Aatrox. It gives you health, magic resistance, cooldown reduction, more base health regeneration. It also increases your healing by 25%, which is nice. The only caveat here is that you waste the increased shielding.

Randuin's Omen

Randuin's Omen is a great all-around armor defense item. Great against ADC's like Tristana and Jhin, and it's great against other auto-attackers like Shyvana, Master Yi, and Jax. In addition, its active slows down people around you, reducing their AD by 10% and crit damage by 20%, allowing you to catch up to the enemy and keep landing The Darkin Blade.

Thornmail

If you can't beat them, join them! Thornmail is especially good against auto-attackers, since Thornmail will reduce their attack speed, and champions who heal and do physical damage, such as Warwick. In addition, if you immobilize an enemy champion (such as hitting your W or Q), the enemy gets a 60% reduction in healing instead of the normal 40%, so this brings more versatility where you can fight against healing mages as well.

With new Aatrox, clearing camps has never been easier. With the three Q casts, you deal a significant amount of damage, provided you hit the sweet spots. The path I take for Aatrox is Buff > Raptors/Wolves > Wolves/Raptors > Buff > Scuttle, and look for ganks afterwards. This is by far the safest, fastest, and healthiest clear, as it will take you to 3:15 optimally, which is when Scuttle spawns. With this clear, the scuttle will just spawn as soon as you are done with the second buff. If possible, prioritize the Scuttle over your last camp to net your team some vision.

I will update the video soon! Stay tuned!
Here's a video of one of the optimal paths for jungle Aatrox. I did this without a leash, but you get the point. Play Video
With World Ender Aatrox, you are incredibly slow and telegraphed. With this in mind, one option is to make sure to take note of where laners might have warded, either through constant observation of asking your teammate if it's warded. The other option is to predict the enemy jungler's movements, and play the counter-ganker. His W is a great tool for locking down champions, as if hit right, they either get pulled in, or burn a Flash. Hitting your Q's are essential to Aatrox's damage and relevance, as they are great sources of CC (knockups).

All the other stuff about jungling in general can be found under Virkayu's YouTube channel, in which he explains, in great detail, what a jungler must and must not do. The link to his channel is in the Helpful Links section.

If you have any questions about this guide, Aatrox, or me, you can comment or you can visit the Aatrox Mains Discord and Reddit!

The Aatrox Mains Reddit, but it's mostly on mourning the death of Old Aatrox.
It's a more focused group of New Aatrox players.

The Aatrox Mains Discord Link

In addition, you may find these jungling guides helpful:

Virkayu, a guy who knows his stuff about jungling

foxdrop, a Diamond Jungler in EUW, with old, but still relevant videos on jungling

I hope this guide has benefited you in some way, whether it be learning to play Aatrox in the jungle, or giving a guideline to being successful on Aatrox. Whatever it may be, I hope you win your games as Aatrox, or on the flipside, win your games against Aatrox jungle. Like war, only one side lives to tell the tale.

Don't hesitate, or it will mean death.