Board Thread:Game discussion/@comment-218.186.15.10-20130322103639/@comment-218.186.15.10-20130323171252

However, like what I said earlier, Darius will initially do less damage than most conventional solo tops. The only reason he's ever feared is due to his ult. It's his ult that gives the opponent a threshold. Take his ult away and his kit becomes really 1-dimentional and mediocre (even weaker than some solos who have better utility than him) - not to mention that all incentive to not duel Darius is gone. A Darius without his ult lacks the power, both in terms of utility and damage, compared to others. I'm not saying he's useless without his ult - after all, he still has some damage output - but his lack of utility and range makes him raelly abusable by other champions.

Furthermore, if you know that you have a threshold, then simply do not enter extended slugfests with him in the first place. Make use of poke, or like what I mentioned earlier, call for ganks (League is a team game after all) to wither him down before fighting him. It is impossible for a game to have as much depth as League has if every champion or unit had the same 1v1 damage potential if they stood next to each other and exchanged attacks. Certain champions will have different capabilities and deficiencies. Just because you may lose in lane (if the two of you decided to have slugfests) doesn't mean that your champion is underpowered or vice versa, it means that your strengths lie in different areas. And no, while I don't main Darius, I have played a considerable amount of games as and against Darius. Yes, he may be able to snowball hard (which many champions do with enough gold/experience advantage), but he can be shut down really hard by smart play as well.