Darius/Strategy

Skill Usage

 * is generally a strong solo top champion due to his durability and harassment ability, and he can easily gain lane control against most other melee tank/bruiser opponents.
 * is Darius' harassment ability. Strike enemy champions from maximum range for the greatest effect.
 * Liberally apply whenever the opponent is in range. This works better when some armor is obtained to negate minion retaliation.
 * Against careless opponents, a surprise followed by  can force an enemy to tank some turret shots.
 * Darius relies largely on  to deal effective damage in lane, without this ability he is fairly vulnerable to other champions. Hence, use this ability sparingly as many champions can all-in on you when you do not have your  up.
 * resets your autoattack timer, so use it right after a basic attack to add some extra damage. This can be used for pushing towers.
 * decreases attack speed, making a one-versus-one more favorable if the enemy relies on attacks and attack speed. Take into consideration which champion you are facing, and properly utilizing this skill can help shut down the enemy. In addition, this makes you fairly deadly to any Ranged Attack-Damage Carries, as you reduce their damage output by a large margin.
 * deals more damage based on additional stacks. Try to activate it on targets with max stacks to deal the full damage of the ability.
 * You can combo ->  -> basic attack ->  to quickly apply 3 stacks of  in a very short time. The slow will also allow you to land further attacks to maximize  damage.
 * Try to avoid pulling enemies in with and then using, as this deals less damage. If possible  first to deal the bonus damage.
 * However, if you activate to initiate, you can then use  when the enemy tries to run out of your range in order to utilise the bonus damage of . This is especially useful in the laning phase for harass.
 * is a strong crowd control ability in teamfights, but be careful who you pull. Pulling tanks such as or  might backfire.
 * can pull people and minions over walls. It is useful for separating enemies from their team or grabbing blue/red buff from a safer location.
 * is a strong initiation skill, but is much better at keeping people in the fight.
 * If you kill an enemy with Noxian Guillotine the cooldown resets allowing you to use the ability again. This makes it good to save it for the killing blow in team fights so you could potentially use Noxian Guillotine on the entire enemy team.

Build Usage

 * has strong bonus attack damage scaling, so building accordingly would be prudent.
 * Against an armor-heavy team, getting is great. It gives more attack damage that scales with your abilities and armor reduction to soften your targets up.
 * Since the passive from already gives  armor penetration, building a  will turn  into a potent armor penetrator.
 * is a potent, if expensive way to solve lack of sustain, and benefit his high AD scaling. Purchase the  early to help  in the laning phase.
 * However, keep in mind that is usually a prime target during teamfights due to the threat of, and will die quickly if not built with at least some health and defensive stats. A high threat glass cannon in melee range will die most of the time.
 * has trouble sticking to targets without and  up, so an early  would be helpful. The combination of the slow from  and  bonus movement speed combined with the movement speed from  will allow you to stick to almost any target.
 * An alternative to and  is, which synergizes well with ' AD scaling and his need for health items due to being melee. The double slow on  will bring most enemies to a crawl.
 * An early will greatly help  against magic damage-dealing champions who can oppose his solo top lane control, such as.
 * The resulting upgrade is a great way for  to get much-needed magic resistance, while still improving his damage.
 * gives some early sustain and the upper hand against AD-champions, since fighting back will make their escape even harder. It can later upgrade to a   for cooldown reduction for his skills and even more armor, making him tough to kill and increasing damage output through skills.
 * has no movement abilities or other escapes, so getting a will help against teams that try to lock you down with crowd control.
 * can be used to great effect on despite the ability power waste, due to his low cooldowns and short range ability combos, it becomes easy to proc  multiple times in a matter of seconds, and also provides some relief on his low mana problems.
 * is sometimes picked up on for the immense DPS it grants. When combined with, it's possible to hit for 450% of your attack damage in a single strike.  is a very big investment for a bruiser and should only be picked up if you're doing well.
 * and later on a can give some good lane sustain, and can turn Darius from a good farmer into an excellent one due to the cleave and respectably the crescent activated ability; stand in the middle of a group of minions, use cleave/crescent and then  to instantly clear a wave.

Countering

 * Building armor to negate ' damage is not as recommended as against other physical damage dealers, since his ultimate deals true damage, his passive deals magic damage and he has passive precentile armor penetration. As such, building health is a more suitable counter.
 * Even though the damage of is initially negligible, do not let  stack it. This will cause  to deal double damage (if you have 5 stacks), and the cooldown of his  will be lower.
 * Thus, from there, Darius can also build fairly tanky more so compared to other off-tanks of similar caliber, due to his naturally high damage stacks; be very wary if a tanky Darius plans to initiate for his team.


 * is an absolute counter to Darius throughout the game. In lane, Kayle can kite Darius with, , and . This allows her to farm from a distance, win trades, harass safely, and out-sustain Darius. Should an extended fight occur which leads to Darius attempting to use , can be used to block the damage from the skill, and force  on cooldown. At all ranks, Intervention has a lower cooldown than Noxian Guillotine, so it should always be available to stop Darius' Ultimate.  can also be used on allies in teamfights to save them from , allowing Kayle to stop Darius cold even past the lane phase.


 * has a high damage output, but he lacks any form of escape mechanism. This makes very prone to crowd control spells.
 * Remember that has poor sustain. Try to harass him whenever you can to counter him from zoning you.
 * Darius relies on his  to deal effective damage in lane, it also has a moderately high cooldown early game. Punish him if he misses his  .
 * Remember that towers will automatically target any enemy champion who damages an allied champion within their range. This is important for countering as it means he cannot approach a tower while  is applied to a champion within it's range. Use this to escape  by moving near enough to the tower to deny him a kill, or use it to attack  via tossing or pulling him to the tower.
 * not only removes hard disables, but also clears a wide variety of debuffs. Once applies five stacks of  and activates, you can activate  while he's mid-cast to greatly reduce the incoming damage from the ultimate. This can potentially turn the fight in your favor and deny  the ultimate refresh he needs to continue a rampage.
 * Shields, especially high-health shields like those from can be used to deny  a finishing blow, setting it on full cooldown and drastically reducing Darius's presence in team fights
 * Keep a close eye on low-health allies and/or allies with lots of stacks, since those are likely to be the targets of.
 * Shields/heals can be cast during the start up animation of, since the casting time is long enough, and activating a shield too early can result in Darius simply waiting for the bonus health to expire.
 * A well timed and  can nullify Darius' Ultimate.
 * is exceptionally vulnerable to being kited, due to the cooldown and short range of (the range is shorter in practice than the attack range of every ranged champion with the marksman tag), and his lack of other gap closers.
 * Any sort of champion that can close the gap almost instantly on (for example  or ) is also acceptable because of the fact  deals less damage inside its range.
 * can't hit stealthed units. If you use an instant stealth spell while he is channeling his ult, Darius will stop his ultimate mid air, due to not having a target. However, it will not go on cooldown, like all targeted spells that lose their targets.
 * Remember that his range is short, so every ability with long range can be used to harass him.