Introduction
Hello all Darius players, this is my first build that I have created on mobafire. I wanted to make a build for
Darius because while I was testing him on bots, I tried various items, builds, and other strategies to see what his strenths and weaknesses are. So I made this build to try to make up for his faults. I've tried PvP with this build and I always went positive, didn't always win, but went positive.
Darius excels at one on one close encounters and dealing large amounts of damage instantly. I felt that he always fell behind other champs while they were excaping and if you missed with apprehend then they would get away. I also feel that he doesn't stack the
Hemorrhage fast enough so I also added more attack speed so that your
Darius can stack it fastr allowing for more damage and a quick kill from
Noxian Guillotine. I'll cover the pros/cons, runes, masteries, items, skills and sequences, and summoners spells. I may add more helpful tips and theories on
Darius but only if it's of any note. I didn't include the lore for
Darius because it's the game.
I do hope that you use and like this guide. It works for me, I hope it will work for you.
Items
My starting items consist of boots of speed and 3 health potions. A good start for any champion. Darius doesn't have the speed to keep up or get away from champs so the boots are probably needed.
Early Game
Berserker's Greaves: This contributes to the attack speed and movement speed of darius. Allows him to stack hemorrage faster while keeping up with his opponent.
Doran's Blade: Adds small amount of health, attack damage, and life steal, will help with encounters at early game but will become obsolete as the game progresses.
Zeal: Adds a little extra to darius overall movement and attack speed, making him fomiddable early game. Building the Zeal will (if you're following this build) put you over 400 movement which tends to be above average for most champs.
Vampiric Scepter: By this time you're probably out of health potions and need other means of restoring health, the doran's blade isn't really cutting it so this will. Plus, you'll use this later to build the Bloodthirster.
B.F sword: The earlier you get this the better, this sword builds into some of the best items in the game. Adds a solid attack boost while giving you the choice of what to build later with it.
Mid-game
Giant's Belt: like the B.F sword, the giants belt builds into some really great items while giving a great HP boost. This is the first item that makes you remotely tanky but later it will be used to an even greater extent.
Phantom Dancer: This is a champion favorite with a great movement, critical chance, and attack speed bonus. When darius get his hands on this it spells doom for the opposition. hemorrage will stack faster and champs will not get away unless they use ghost or flash.
The Bloodthirster: Now that you have considerable attack and movement speed, it's time to finish the bloodthirster. You already have the components so there isn't much reason to delay it any further. This will give you a reason to kill minions (creeps is you perfer) to gain extra attack damage and life steal. Capping at 100 attack damage, and 20% life steal.
Frozen Mallet: This is probably one of darius best items. Each hit will slow the target by 40%, keeping them near darius. Now that darius has the permanant upperhand when it comes to speed, he'll be unstoppable at one on one combat.
Late Game
Warmog's Armor: I buy this just because I feel darius is always targeted in team fights. I never know why but whenever I play him I'm always the target. A maxed out warmog's armor gives over 1200 health and about 40 health regen ever 5 seconds. This will keep darius healthy and able to participate in all team fights.
Atma's Impaler: This beast will add to
Darius's awesome attack power. With the extra help from the
Warmog's Aromr and
Frozen Mallet this will add a massive amount of attack damage.
Other Items
Infinity Edge: Powerful, adds criticals, whats not to like about it? It doesn't have life steal. For this build I feel life steal is a must for early and mid game encounters. The infinity edge does give a huge percent to criticals but it's still not enough to entice me into buying it.
Hextech Gunblade: Definitely a favorite when playing darius but it's so hard to chose what to get rid of when I've already completed my recommended build. The Hextech Gunblade will give a huge life steal and spell vamp bonus. (spell vamp is nice cause hemorrage is magic damage. Team fights you'll be very hard to kill) Then it's active slows the opponent when you're already behind and ghost is on cooldown.
Last Whisper: I found this item to become useless if you use the greater marks of desolation, and max out apprehend. Those almost give as much armor penatration as the last whisper when added together. I wouldn't substitute anything for the last whisper, maybe the manamune if I constantly had blue buff.
Skills and Sequence
Hemorrhage This is
Darius's passive, it cause the target to bleed dealing magic damage over time. It stacks up to 5 times. The damage increases every few levels. This stacks well with
Ignite especially if the opponent has health potions.
Decimate [Q] Taken at levels 1,4,5,7,9: This skill has
Darius swing his axe, dealing more damage to those farther away from him.
Decimate adds a Hemorrage stack to each person or minion it touches. I tend to use this skill to initiate or to attack the enemy as I'm running away because you don't lose movement speed while using this ability.
Crippling Strike [W] Taken at levels 2,10,12,13,14: This skill gives
Darius's next attack to deal 200% damage (When maxed), and slowing the target by different amounts depending on level. This skill also resets the hit counter so if it's timed right you can hit an opponent right after a basic attack dealing more damage instantly.
Crippling Strike adds a Hemorrage if it hits, and it's cooldown is reduced depending on how many Hemorrage stack the target has.
Apprehend [E] Taken at levels 3,8,15,17,18: This skill drags the opponent towards
Darius. This skill is to insure the opponent doesn't escape or so they can't hide under their turret.
Apprehend can be used to kill oppenents as well, use the skill while near your own turret so it will attack them. If you want to be really mean then you can
Apprehend the enemies into your nexus and kill them instantly.
Apprehend is also able to go through walls so if you see a champ visible on the other side of the wall or they flash you may be able to capture and kill them.
Apprehend is not stopped by minions it just draggs them along too. Most common use for
Apprehend besides catching enemies is stealing blue buff. You can actually
Apprehend the golem through the thinner tree lines.
Noxian Guillotine [R] Taken at levels 6,11,16: This is
Darius's ultimate. This skill lets
Darius deal true damage to one opponent at a somewhat close range. If the target is slain by
Noxian Guillotine the cooldown is refreshed. This does not work on minions so you can't just spam the skill, nor does it work on clones and decoys such as
Wukong's
Decoy. This skill gains 20% extra damage for each
Hemorrhage stack on the target. I've never tried this but a friend of mine has said you can
Noxian Guillotine over/through the thinnest of walls and tree lines. If you try it and it works leave a comment and I'll update this guide.
Summoner Spells
Recommended Summoner Spells
Ghost: Allows
Darius to keep up with his opponents and deal as much damage to them as possible before they get away. Mostly get the kill because
Ghost adds so much speed.
Exhaust: This slows down the enemies so they can't getaway as easily. Will be able to stack multiple
Hemorrhages before target gets away or dies.
Ignite: Works wonders with
Hemorrhage. Most the time
Hemorrhage can be canceled out by potions or
Heal but
Ignite reduces all healing effects by half.
Flash: Since
Darius has no means of escaping conflicts
Flash is almost a must. I never really use
Flash but it wouldn't hurt to take it with you.
Flash is also a means of initiating a fight if the opponent is out of range of
Apprehend or
Decimate
Viable Summoner Spells
Clarity:
Darius is very mana hungry early game, it's very common that I find myself running low on mana while in battle for more than a few moments.
Heal: With
Darius not able to escape,
Heal will give him that extra boost to continue to fight or run and survive.
Teleport: Will get
Darius in the fight quicker but it isn't really necessary. I rarely use this spell.
Teleports best use is getting across map fast, or back to your lane.
Other Summoner Spells
I don't care for them at all.
Summary
This build is mostly to make up for
Darius's weaknesses, and to increase his strengths. Please feel free to leave a comment or message me if you have questions about ths build. This is my first as I have said so go easy on it and me. If you think their is something I should add or get rid of tell me and I might consider it.