I played him a couple times but I honestly don't know what to purchase.

A good Aatrox build is go Xin Zhao instead.

20percent self heal reduction destroys him.

Spirit Visage + AD/Crit?

Its his first week out (and not even to the 5 day mark yet) so people are still playing with him. SV seems mandatory, and Randuin's would likely be good as well. Early AD seems to actually be a bad idea as the health you take from the offensive W scales with your AD. I'd suggest going really tanky early and relying on an early max on W for the majority of your damage. Sanguine/Lightbringer and Last whisper for offense.

Here, I'll give this a wack:

Yomuu's Ghostblade, Spirit Visage, Ravenous Hydra, Last Whisper, Guardian Angel, Merc Treads/Zerker Greaves (depending on your needs ofc).

'Course we don't get 6 item builds on most champions in Dominion (exceptions to every rule, blah blah blah), so take this for what it is, and improvise per situation, IMO.

I was excited about Aatrox's release. Now I've pretty much lost faith in Riot. Aatrox sucks. They know MADCs suck, so they made one that sucks possibly the most out of all of them. Just no way around it. No matter what I build or what I do I'm just useless. Every other MADC and bruiser is 1000 times better than Aatrox in every way. I know "pick Xin instead" isn't the answer you want, but he is better in every single way while sharing some of the same mechanics and not being as squishy as a piece of paper.

I'm really hoping someone takes him into a DD match and proves me wrong, but I don't expect it to happen.

i think he's built for SR and just doesn't work that well on Dom.