Darius is a powerful top laner who has massive 1 V 1 capabilities, crazy damage output, and gives you that satisfying feeling of dunking your opponents for a penta kill. He was once banned in almost every game because of his powerful kit in worlds. Though he was tweaked a little bit, it doesn't change the fact that Darius is a dominant lane bully. While there are many good things about Darius, he still has his weaknesses as a bruiser with no gap closer or hard crowd control which makes it easy for people to kite him. Nonetheless, you probably already knew that and came to this guide for some knowledge on how to improve your Darius play or maybe you're just interested in taking a dip into the world of dunks.

The movement speed quints are very important. In the current meta, MOBILITY is the most important stat in the map for early game. It allows you to maneuver around the enemy jungle, support your own jungle, invade the enemy's jungle, roam to mid lane and apply pressure, and as well help you dominate lane. A lot of top laners currently will be focusing on mobility as well. As you already know, Boots of Swiftness is generally the first or second item bought because of its cheap price and resourceful utility. Mobilty on Darius allows you to harass your lane opponent while not losing any ground doing so. Your kit naturally synchronizes with a lot of movement speed, so use it your advantage.

Forget Thunderlords on Darius. Grasp of the Undying is your best friend. For one, you aren't going to be building that much attack damage (and hopefully not AP) on Darius. So the mastery is sort of wasted on you. You will most likely be building tons of health items and that scales well wtih Grasp. 3% of your maximmum health for, let's say around 3.5k, is a 105 hp stolen every 4 seconds. That's a lot of health stolen and can easily turn the tide in a battle. 0/12/18 is generally the optimal mastery for Darius as you are able to last hit better and recover missing health from the Cunning tree and become more durable from the Resolve tree.

For the most part, the items are pretty self explanatory. Just look at the notes I posted. If you have any questions though, just comment.

Now, the only unique thing you should know about Darius's' spells is his E ability, Apprehend. Apprehend, if timed right, can stop enemy dashes (SUCH AS SHEN'S TAUNT, SHY'S ULT, WUKONG'S E, RIVEN'S THIRD Q, LEE SIN'S SECOND Q, ETC) and prevents them from completing their animation, thus avoiding anything dangerous and giving you the upper hand. This requires a lot of practice and timing, but will often turn the tides in battle.