My names DatSerratusBrah on the NA servers, and this is my first guide on mobafire.

Like many others, I found Darius' kit very appealing for a champion and bought him as soon as he was available for purchase.
Played him for a while, fell in love.

I've seen this guy do everything since, (except support of course).

I have seen him mid and being supported bot lane in a 2k+ elo game.

Please note that this guide is not 100% complete, but the general jist of the build is visible.

Things I will be adding soon:
- Jungle route
- General aesthetics of the guide
- More situational guides
- A solo top build and explanation
- More in depth explanations in each chapter
- Pictures to go along with the items/abilities
- A generally better guide.

For runes I take fairly standard bruiser runes, I prefer marks of strength over desolation as his abilities (and true damage ult) scale with AD, and he also has a passive armour pen anyway.

For quints I also use quints of strength, although I can see swiftness or fortitude's being very viable on him.

I take a somewhat standard brusier jungle build, being sure to go full in offence as that 6% extra on his ult as well as passive definitely helps.

Pros

- Decent base defensive and offensive stats (tanky damage dealer)
- Devastating through all stages of the game
- Has a passive bleed that lasts 5 seconds and stacks up to 5 times
- Has an execution style move
- Has an almost spammable (if used right) movement + attack speed slow
- His pull is very useful
- Decimates carries in seconds
- AoE damage
- Can clean up a fight very easily if ult is used properly.

Cons

- Hard to catch up if fallen behind on cs/kills
- Ult costs 100 mana (considering you have a base mana pool of 875 and are constantly using other abilities, this can get a bit annoying and put you off)
- Considered a 'broken' or OP champ
- Team may get mad because you WILL steal (secure) alot of kills.
- You think you're invincible if you get a little fed early on and make stupid mistakes here and there

As this is a jungle build, i start off with cloth armour and 5 pots.
You can start with boots and 3 pots with a really good leash, but I prefer the sustainability.

I then build ninja tabi/merc treads according to the enemy teams composition.

I then get wriggles for more sustain as well as faster clear times, allowing me to freely gank/invade.

I think trinity force is almost essential on him. The real reason we are getting it is for the sheen proc, but the mana, attack speed, movement speed, health, slow and crit chance are all perfect for him. The only thing that does not benefit him is the ability power.
With the recent nerf to infinity edge, you should also be at the same speed if not faster than the majority of carries with just this item and boots, allowing you to chase them down.

I then rush a brutalizer/heart of gold in no specific order, brutalizer for the CD reduction as well as armour pen - both great stats.
The extra gp5 is also really good on heart of gold and we can also build it into randuins later on.

I then get a youmuu's ghostblade, which I personally believe is a great item on darius. Why?
Lets have a quick look:

- It has damage, crit chance, passive armour penetration, passive CDR and a sweet active, letting you chase down and e that teemo that thought he could get away with his move quick.

If you do not use items actives (which i highly advise you get used to) then it may be a better idea to perhaps replace this item with perhaps an Atma's impaler, frozen mallet, or phantom dancer,

If AP is giving you some trouble, rush a maw of malmortius, ignoring the BF sword.

If their AP carry isn't a major threat, just grab a hexdrinker and a BF sword into bloodthirster and then grab a maw. Sell your wriggles and replace it with a bloodthirster.

The final item, randuins omen, will put you at over 200 armour and 2700 HP. Perfect for a bruiser/offtank.

It also gives you nice health, hp/5, some CDR and a nice passive as well as active if you remember to use it.

Some of you may be asking why i get w first.
The reason being is that it just allows for you to do a quicker blue buff.

I like to start at wolves then move straight to blue, making sure i get 5 stacks before i use it initially, then spam it in time with my attack counter to quickly bring down that pesky golem.

Your passive is a bleed which stacks up to five times and lasts 5 seconds.
5 seconds is an extremely long time for a DoT and has picked me up numerous kills. It also does decent damage mid-late game with 5 stacks, doing around 130 ish per tick with 5 stacks.

Thats 650 damage from a passive.

Your Q (Decimate) Is an amazing early-mid game damage dealer if used right, even if not used correctly it will still take a hefty chunk out of the enemies health.

Your W (Crippling Strike) Is a great ability to use to prevent runners, as well as slowing down the attack speed of your foes.

Your E (Apprehend) Is your only form of a gap closer, which is more of a 'GET OVER HERE' type of move. Use it to interrupt spells, such as nunu's absolute zero, or katarina's death lotus.
Try to save it for when the enemy has uses flash, as the range of it is very close to the range of flash.
Even if you use it, and they flash away, still consider it a success, as they have wasted what was probably their most vital summoner spell.

Your ultimate 'Noxian Guillotine' - This is the big one, the AD scaling true damage ultimate that can do 200% of its damage with 5 stacks of your passive is simply incredible. This ability will give you various mutli-kills and will allow you to clean up nicely through a team fight.
Try to use it to finish your enemy, as it refreshes its cooldown, allowing you to move on to your next victim.

I find these a must.
The surprise element of flash -> Apprehend is amazing.

Smite is just standard for a jungler, but please, use it properly - that is, finishing off a monster with it, rather than starting with it.

Please give me some feed back on this guide, regardless of your vote, as it will help me improve it.
Please also keep in mind that I am aware that it is not the most visually pleasing guide or in depth guide either, but as I said earlier, I aimed to get the basics out, and will, over time, go more and more in depth.

Thank you for reading it and tell me how you go.