Darius/Strategy

Gameplay
By NeeksNaman

''If you're fond of cutting a swath through your enemies on the way to scoring that epic killing blow, look no further than, the Hand of Noxus. This focused and deadly warrior specializes in focused attacks and attrition damage, closing out his assault with heavy damage nukes. At the heart of Darius' kit is his passive ability:. Darius' basic attacks and damaging abilities all cause the target to bleed for additional damage over time. This effect can stack up to five times, also giving Darius some bonus Movement Speed for each enemy champion currently afflicted and granting his other abilities additional effects.''

''In team fights, Darius can start off by using to quickly apply his bleed on a number of enemies. These debuffs will not only give him a hefty Movement Speed bonus, but also interact with his other abilities for added effect. To pursue a fleeing enemy, the added speed from his passive combines with, an attack that slows the opponent and refunds part of the cooldown for each stack of currently affecting the target. Even in the event an adversary should start to slip away, Darius can use to pull them back within reach.''

''Finally, to close out this relentless assault in an appropriately brutal manner, Darius can employ his ultimate ability. Leaping forward, Additionally, if Darius scores a killing blow in the process, the cooldown on  is immediately refunded. This allows him to redouble and continue his bloody work on an additional opponent (or opponents, as the case may be). Watching this vicious champion dart through the fray, decapitating foe after foe in rapid succession can be a truly terrifying and epic sight!''

Skill Usage

 * is generally a strong solo lane champion due to his durability and harassment ability, and he can easily gain lane control against most other melee tank/bruiser opponents. However he can struggle versus champions with ranged attacks and abilities, as he only has to bring them into his zone of control.
 * This makes Darius an exceedingly binary champion, able to destroy most opponents who don't counter him while being almost completely helpless against champions that do, with very little middle ground. It is generally not a good idea to choose Darius until you know (or at least have a good idea of) who your lane opponent is going to be.
 * is Darius' harassment and sustain ability. For each enemy hit, heals 12%, up to maximum of 36%, of Darius' missing health. Strike enemy champions from maximum range for the greatest damage potential.
 * 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.
 * refunds its mana cost and half of its cooldown if used to kill a unit. You can use this to effectively last hit without using up any mana.
 * 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. It should be noted that Hemorrhage is only applied when Darius does physical damage, making Apprehend not apply a stack.
 * 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 utilize 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.
 * can be used to pull the enemy from under his tower (while minions take hits), this will not pull aggro of the turret. You can then step back a little and hit them with your Decimate as you move out of turret range.
 * If you kill an enemy with you can use the ability again within the next 20 seconds. This makes it good to save it for the killing blow in team fights so you could potentially use  on the entire enemy team to get a pentakill. Due to your pentakill potential you will often be focused first or second in a teamfight.

Item Usage

 * has strong bonus attack damage scalings, 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. Its passive allows you to do much more sustained damage, which Darius does rather well.
 * is also a great choice to help prevent being kited, as it will give you bonus movement speed upon dealing physical damage. Your passive deals physical damage over 5 seconds, effectively giving you 20 bonus movement speed for its entire duration.
 * is a potent, if expensive way to solve inferior sustain, and benefit his high AD scaling. Purchase the  early to help  in the laning phase. Typically a  is a better item than  due to the active allowing you to stack your passive faster.
 * 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 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.
 * Darius has extreme amounts of damage, but lack ways to close the gap or stick to his targets. is a perfect item to solve this problem. Its active allows Darius to avoid being kited, as well as increasing his DPS, and giving him more armor penetration. The only downside to Youmuu's Ghostblade is not giving any defensive stats. Keep that in mind if your team needs a solid tanky champion. Unless you find yourself being kited often a Black Cleaver is generally a better item.
 * If Darius has to focus on defense instead of damage, is a great alternative to Youmuu's Ghostblade. If makes him better at teamfighting, but Darius' damage will become noticeably lower.
 * 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 290% 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.
 * It's recommended to buy other critical chance items if you are going to build Infinity Edge, as while this item has enormous damage potential, it's very unreliable alone, due to its low cricital strike chance.
 * 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. The Hydra's active can help you quickly apply stacks of Hemorrhage by using Decimate, Apprehend, auto attack, crippling strike, Hydra, and if this is done in rapid succession it stack your passive very quickly.
 * Another defensive option for Darius is as it gives him health to help him defensively and health regeneration to give him much needed sustain. But keep track of enemies that can do damage based on a percentage of Darius' health, such as, , or champions with.
 * If you buy Ravenous Hydra or another lifesteal item, consider using . This will increase Darius' lifesteal and give him more cooldown reduction. When combined with Ravenous Hydra, it will boost his health renegeration by a lot. This item is considered a good choice simply because it will enhance his healing from upon hitting an enemy champion, and the cooldown reduction it provides is always useful on.
 * boosts Darius' DPS, and synergizes well with his bleeding passive. It is recommended when you are building Darius as a full tank, as it will make up for the lack of damage items.
 * is a better overall option when compared to Sunfire Cape. It is better for chasing, teamfighting, and synergizes with Darius' . When combined with, Randuin's Omen makes very difficult for enemies to run away from Darius.
 * is a situtional option that is a good option against some champions such as and . It can be used if Darius is having a hard time surviving against high attack speed enemies, but  gives better overall stats.
 * Darius does not need to buy attack speed items, as most of his damage come from his abilities, thus it is generally better to invest on cooldown reduction instead.
 * However, attack speed allows Darius to stack his passive faster.
 * Thus, can be used. Apart from the attack speed, this item provides lifesteal (albeit not nearly as much as  or ). The active can be used to prevent enemies from escaping, which is good since Darius lacks mobility. However, the best part of this item is its passive. Generally, enemies will want to stack health against Darius, due to his combination of true damage, armor penetration, and magic damage scaling with AD. However, since Blade of the Ruined King does damage based on a percentage of the target's current health, enemies will have to think twice before stacking health without resistances.
 * Other than Blade of the Ruined King, there are not many other attack speed items that are good on Darius. is the only other good option. Avoid using items such as  or . They don't increase the damage from Darius' abilities, and don't give any tanky stats at all.

Countering

 * Building armor to negate ' damage is not as recommended as against other physical damage dealers, since his ultimate deals true damage and he has passive percentile 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 Noxian Might  will turn him into a huge threat for your team.
 * 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.
 * 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 its 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 startup 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 and doesn't heal him.
 * can't hit stealthed units. If you use an instant stealth spell while he is channeling his ult, Darius will stop his ultimate midair, 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.
 * While Darius does exceptionally well against most melee opponents he struggles against range due to a lack of gap closers and poke.