Guide: How to Win With Aatrox – Builds, Runes, Weaknesses and Strengths of the Most Popular Top-Laner of Patch 12.23.

Aatrox is one of the most popular and efficient champions of League of Legends. The character has been very popular for several consecutive seasons and does not think to lose the position in the rating of the most popular pick among the League of Legends champions.

Patch 12.20 был was to somehow weaken the life-threatening darkin. Riot Games pacified Aatrox, turning down his in-built vampirism but it was not enough for the dramatic reshuffle of the meta: Top-3 of the most commonly picked character for the upper line from patch 12.21 till 12.23, and it was replaced by K`Sante in the first place only in patch 12.21.

Where is Aatrox’s strength hidden? Why is the character good at all Elo? WHat builds and runes shall we choose to win and who can counter darkin?

Answers to the questions are in our guide.

Aatrox’s abilities

• Deathbringer Stance – Passive

Periodically the next auto-attack of Aatrox damages depending on the maximum reserve of health and cures him.

• The Darkin Blade – [Q]

Aatrox hits with the sword from the top down damaging the opponent physically. He can hit three times and each time the damage area will be different.

• Infernal Chains – [W]

Aatrox hits the ground damaging the first affected enemy. If the champions or large monsters do not leave the field of operation, they will be drawn to the center and will get damaged again.

• Umbral Dash – [E]

Aatrox restores his health passively while damaging the enemy champions. When activated, he can take a leap in a chosen direction.

• World Ender (ultimate) – [R]

Aatrox gets a demonic shape frightening the closest enemy minions and also increasing the power of the attack, healing type and movement speed. If he earns a kill or an assist, the duration of the effect grows.

Runes for Aatrox

The first thing we should pay attention to while reviewing Aatrox в in Patch 7.23 is runes for the character. As the champion is Brusier in the broad sense of the word, in a battle he relies on the taken damage and constant damage.

A good choice for the mentioned tasks for Aatrox will be the orange line also known as Precision. The lanants of the precision line will give Aatrox a chance to cause further damage that is Aatrox’s favorite, and will also amplify the in-built vampirism.

Main line

Precision

• Conqueror – give one shot of the conqueror for each auto-attack on an enemy champion and two shots for getting to the aim with the skill. Each conqueror shot gives from 1.2 to 2.4. of additional power of the attack.
• Triumph – a second after defeating the enemy championship restores the carrier of the talent 10% of the missing health and increases the reward for a kill in 20 golds.
• Last Stand – damages from 5 to 11% additionally depending on the health bar of the carrier. From 60% to 30% of the remaining health is scaled.

Additional line

Resolve

• Bone Plating – after being damaged by the enemy champion, it decreases the damage of the following 3 auto-attacks or skills in 30-60 units (depending on the level).
• Revitalize – gives 5% healing and a level of shield. Healing and shields that are given to a champion are 10% stronger when the health indicator is 40% or lower.

Stats runes

• Offense – gives 9 adaptive strength
• Offense – gives 9 adaptive strength
• Flex – gives 6 armor

The build through Precision is used in an absolutely dominant position. The rank is Platinum + in South Korea, the standard bearer in League of Legends, he is picked in 98% of cases and the win rate is 49,45% in 170,000 games.

However, there is an alternative build with Sorcery. It is based on Comete with Nimbus Cloak, Transcendence and Scorch, however, we will not recommend it. The pick rate of the sorcery setup is only 2% from the total number of games and does not match with the build of items.

Skillbuid for Aatrox

Having looked at the pre-match components and chosen the runes for the game, you need to pay attention to the upgrades of the character. In case of Aatrox тут все просто everything is simple here.

You should start the upgrade with the Darkin Blade – [Q] to help you to destroy the minions and offer the opponent a disadvantaged exchange. He usually loses because of Aatrox having the Conqueror rune with an in-built passive.

Then we should analyze the situation: either the Umbral Dash – [E] for vampirism and an ability to avoid unnecessary damage or control, or Infernal Chains – [W], if you have a chance to punish the opponent with the help of a completed combo of the Darkin Blade [Q].

The game starts with the Darkin Blade – [Q], then it continues with the Umbral Dash – [E], and later it moves to Infernal Chains – [W].

Item Builds of Aatrox

Aatrox cannot brag about the variety of his builds, and it could be explained with their universality and efficiency. Why change if it works?

The start item in the majority of cases will be Doran's Shield with Health Potion. Then we switch to core items.

All builds are based on Eclipse. And this is despite nerfing items in Patch 12.19.

Eclipse

• +60 damage
• +12 mortality
• +7 omnivamp

Ever Rising Moon (activated ability): damaging the champion with two attacks or skills in 1.5 seconds and getting extra damage to increase the speed of movements and shields.

• Fee: 3100 (750 per a recipe)

Initially, Eclipse was created for assassins – fragile but capable of damaging with explosions, and even getting additional survivability. No wonder the item was later used by fighters like Aatrox. The item enables him to damage even more with a Q-combo which will turn the champion into a kill machine thanks to his passive ability.

Almost in each build for Eclipse, it comes with Death's Dance (+55 damage, +45 armor, +15 movement speed) and Black Cleaver that decreases the opposition of the enemy champions (+45 damage, 350 health, 30 ability speed).

The alternative of the items is Maw of Malmortius that effectively works on a low level of health (+55 damage, +50 magic opposition, +20 ability speed) or Serylda`s Grudge with the passive Bitter Cold, that helps to slow down the opponents with an attack (+45 damage, +30 armor penetration, +20 ability speed).

However, Patch 12.23 has another variation that is especially relevant to almost all characters like Aatrox. It is built around the broken Ravenous Hydra in the patch.

Ravenous Hydra

• +65 attack power
• +20 skill acceleration
• +10 all-type omnivamp
  

The last point is essential for selecting the item for Aatrox, and for other champions of Patch 12.23. Abilities to restore health and damage opponents are a perfect pick for darkin: it comes to the passive skill of Deathbringer Stance and a small cool-down for the Darkin Blade [Q].

The build with Ravenous Hydra goes with Death's Dance that adds survivability, but the second slot should be given to Jak`Sho, The Protean (+400 health, +30 armor, +30 magic opposition, +20 ability speed). The item will let you grow stacks of armor and magic opposition with each second of the battle.

To put it simply, the build is designed for sustaining and the longer Aatrox lives, the harder it is to fight with him (the passive combination of Deathbringer Stance and Ravenous Hydra provide an advantage in lengthy battles).

Counterpicks for Aatrox

No matter how strong Aatrox is, there are always matchups that are due to be lost from the very beginning. Darkin does not have many of this kind but to be able to oppose a superior opponent, you have to encounter them.

Top-5 Aatrox’s counterpicks

• Fiora
• Darius
• Camile
• Irelia
• Jax

The enlisted characters are strong due to the fact that they can break the sequence of combinations with the Darkin Blade [Q], depriving Aatrox pfizer one of his trumps. Besides, all counterpicks of Aatrox are original duellists, so they are NOT casters (Aatrox doesn’t always get along with the same Bruiser as he is) and the meeting with them does not usually end up with good news for darkin.

While playing against these characters, it is preferable to focus on farming minions till Eclipse of Ravenous Hydra appears with an improvement in the best case.

However, in League of Legends, as in any other competitive PvP games, the final word word belongs to the personal performance. No one is in the way of punishing Ireli or Fior. It’s crucial to control your resources and manage the combo with the Darkin Blade [Q].

How to win with Aatrox

Aggressive play style in a game with Aatrox is likely to fend successfully. The champion was designed for constant battles and forcing opponents to enter a battle that tends to be unfair very often.

Thanks to abilities of Conquer and the passive Deathbringer Stance, Aatrox gets a big reserve of effective health that can be exchanged for damage easily. Besides, an insolent play style implies that the character doesn’t have mana. The only thing that stops the character is the cool-down of his abilities.

As the character levels up, spell charge decreases and it means that Aatrox must become more ubiquitous and he must be more enthusiastic about fighting. This could work with the help of the key item Eclipse with a way-out to the Black Cleaver.

Hint: if you play Aatrox, we recommend working on a combination Umbral Dash – [E] + Darkin Blade – [Q]. Abilities are stacked which lets Aatrox choose unpredictable trajectories for attack and make combos.

We hope the article is useful for you and you will be able to reveal a champion for yourself if you didn’t pay attention to them before or learn something new, if one of your main has been a deadly darkin for a long time.