Darius Build Guide by xiJoseph

Introduction

Hi, and a very warm welcome to my guide on the newest champion of the League and everyones favourite Noxian, Darius-"They will regret opposing me.". This is my first guide on Mobafire and I would appreciate any constructive criticism you could provide.

Darius is a great champion capable of massive, sustained burst damage and still provides massive damage even when built with tanky items like Warmog's Armor and Frozen Mallet thus allowing him to dominate all game taking hardly a scratch while doing it. This guide will be focusing on the later, a tanky domination. Yet again, please leave your constructive criticism in the comments!

If you are wanting to start up a guide of your own, check out Jhoijhoi's awesome guide here, Making A Guide By Jhoijhoi...

Pros / Cons

Pros:

• Passive stacks Bleed dealing damage over time.
• A tonne of potential for team fights and ganking.
• His Crippling Strike slows enemies allowing for him to stack his bleed on them empowering his other abilities.
• His ultimate ability, Noxian Guillotine deals true damage meaning it bypasses armour.
• Plenty of damage even if built tanky.

Cons:

• Quite weak against ranged harass if not dominated early.
• Only gap closers are Ghost and Apprehend.
• Naturally quite slow.
• Heavy crowd control effects can make him deprived of levels and items.
• One of the first to be targeted in a team fight because of people hating his ultimate.

Masteries

Getting on to the masteries,

I used these masteries for my AgainstAD Heavy Team because of that extra point in Hardiness giving an extra two armour and not much changed in my Against AP Heavy Team with just that extra point going into Resistance for the extra two magic resist resulting in this set-up. With my masteries, I didn't feel I needed to change anything but that one point because the masteries already provide for great health and damage reduction while allowing for optimal damage output.

Runes

Against AD Heavy Team

These are my pick of runes for against an AD Heavy Team because of the Greater Mark of Desolation being able to get through their armour, if the armour penetration is not needed, you'd be better off with Greater Mark of Attack Damage for that extra damage boost helping greatly early game. Having Greater Seal of Attack Speed's helping with his painfully slow, start game attack speed, Greater Glyph of Attack Damage giving you that nice little Attack Damage bonus at start game and combined with the Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage, it gives a nifty ten Attack Damage bonus at start game.

Against AP Heavy Team

These are my pick of runes for against an AP Heavy Team. Because of being an AP Heavy Team, you won't need Armour Penetration so there goes the Greater Mark of Desolation's and in come the Greater Mark of Attack Damage giving you that significant bonus to your Attack Damage allowing you to take down those more tanky casters like Vladimir. For seals, I got the same seals as before, Greater Seal of Attack Speed for the same reason above as well as maximising damage output. For quintessences, I went the same as before with Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage because when stacked with your Marks, it provides you with a nice 17 Attack Damage at start.

Why these runes? Why not use the Standard AD Carry Rune Set?

These rune sets are more useful for maximising damage output then the AD Carry Rune Set and since we're getting a 9/21/0 mastery build and because the Defence Tree already accounts for the bonuses that would be obtained from using Greater Seal of Armor and Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, we can afford to focus our runes on maximising out damage output.

Summoner Spells

Mandatory:

Flash is definitely a must for when you're playing Darius as it is extremely useful. Whether it's being used to get in range for your Apprehend, or for getting out of a tricky situation when you've accidentally overextended in lane, this spell is a must.

Preferred:

Ignite is a great all round spell to have on any champion, whether it's to shut off someone when they're escaping and you can't reach them with any abilities, or you're reducing someone's Heal while in a one-on-one situation, Ignite is definitely a great spell to take.

Teleport can be an extremely useful Summoner Spell on Darius whether your team mates aren't doing too well in a different lane and need to Teleport to help them out or a turret's getting pushed and you need to defend it. If you're just going to be using Teleport to return to your lane when you respawn after dying, this is a massive waste of a Summoner Spell for you.

Cleanse can also be another great spell on Darius, getting bombarded with heavy crowd control effects and need to get away? Cleanse and Ghost your way out of there! Been stunned, snared or slowed by those pesky casters while they get away on 20hp? Cleanse and Apprehend them. Either way, Cleanse can be a great spell on Darius.

Viable Spells:

Ghost is a great Summoner Spell but one that I find goes to waste on Darius. Ghost can be extremely useful for catching someone that a Ghost wouldn't allow for, or for escaping a chase. Either way, this is a viable Summoner Spell choice, but one I wouldn't make.

Heal can be extremely useful Summoner Spell choice if you're going to be the designated tank for your team and one that I commonly take for that extra sustainability in lane. Taking a point out of Tough Skin and putting it into Summoner's Resolve can maximise it's effectiveness.

Exhaust is another viable choice for a Summoner Spell for the same reason as we'd take Ignite, to secure the kill. Whether your Apprehend is on cooldown or they're just out of your reach, exhaust them and you can slow them enough to pick up a nice easy kill. I put Exhaust in the viable choices section because Exhaust tends to drop off on effectiveness late game.

Smite can be quite useful on Darius as he is one of the fastest junglers I've seen in the game. Whether you intend on being the teams jungler and primary ganker or you just want to be able to combine Smite with Flash and steal your enemies Baron, this Summoner Spell should only be chosen if you intend on being the team jungler as mentioned above.

Just don't pick these, please don't pick these

Skills

Darius has a whole arsenal of damaging skills at his disposal and here's an explanation of each and what they do.

Passive: Hemorrhage Darius' basic attacks and damaging abilities cause enemies to bleed for 12 / 15 / 18 / 21 / 24 / 27 / 30 / 33 / 36 (+0.4 per bonus attack damage) magic damage over 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. For each enemy champion afflicted, Darius gains 5% movement speed.

Q: Decimate Darius' swings his axe around, dealing 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+0.7 per bonus attack damage) and applying a stack of Hemorrhage. If you hit something on the outer edge of the axe, you deal extra damage: 105 / 157.5 / 210 / 262.5 / 315 (+1.05 per bonus attack damage).

W: Crippling Stike Darius' next basic attack will deal 120 / 140 / 160 / 180 / 200% physical damage and will apply a 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% slow for 2 seconds on the target. The base cooldown is reduced by 1 second per stack of Hemorrhage on the target.

E:Apprehend This ability lets you pull enemies in a small cone in front of you towards you.Furthermore, this ability adds a nice 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25% armor penetration passive.

R:Noxian Guillotine Darius' leaps onto his target, and cleaves his axe into their skull dealing 160 / 250 / 340 (+0.75 per bonus attack damage) true damage. Plus, for every stack of Hemorrhage, this true damage is increased by 20%, adding up to a 320 / 500 / 680 (+1.5 per bonus attack damage) true damage. If you kill the enemy, the cooldown refreshes immediately.

Tips for using these skills

• Decimate can be used as a great harassing tool and in the right hands, it can even be deadly as hitting an enemy champion with the blade of the axe deals 50% increased damage as well as applying a stack of Hemorrhage.
• Using Crippling Strike after harassing an enemy champion to low heath with Decimate will should slow them long enough for you to get the kill.
• Using Apprehend on a fleeing enemy is a great way to secure skills without having to using your ultimate costing you precious mana early game.
• Darius' ultimate, Noxian Guillotine should only be used on an enemy champion if you know you can secure the kill with it because Darius is quite vulnerable without it.

Skill Sequence

Darius's skill sequence is pretty straight forward with having one of each ability by level 3 and maxing his main damage output, Decimate by level 9 followed by Crippling Strike by level 13 and Apprehend maxed out last at level 18. The sequence in which you get your first three skills, Apprehend can interchangeably replace Crippling Strike at level 2 if you're finding you're dishing out damage but the enemies are escaping on low health before you and your laning partner can kill them.

Items

Starting Items:

To start off with, I always get Boots of Speed and three Health Potion's as I find Doran's Blade and Doran's Shield to be a waste of money when it could be better spent on sub-items that will go towards your final build. The potions are there to provide sustain because if they are used right, by the time you need to recall, you'll have enough for your Brutaliser dramatically increasing your attack damage and providing more lane dominance.

Core Items:

These items are what you get everytime, without fail. Mercury's Treads help counter crowd control based champions like Lux and Morgana with their snares, Veigar with his stuns, and Alistar with his knockups. It also helps with its magic resist and is therefore, one of my core items.

Warmog's Armor provides valuable health and health regen allowing him to be more readily present in team fights with Frozen Mallet providing the same benefits as well as a valuable slow for when your Crippling Strike is on cooldown.

The Black Cleaver is a nice source of damage and armour penetration when combined with the passive armour penetration from Apprehend gives you some pretty nice damage even on targets with high armour.

Situational Items:

Having a Maw of Malmortius allows Darius to escape unharmed if an enemy Karthus or Ziggs decide to use their ultimate's on you while you happen to be on low health.

The Bloodthirster is a great item but doesn't always make it onto the Core Build.

Another great item if you're going to be the teams tank or being focused by the opposite team in team fights and you want to be able to return some of that damage towards them to help out your team is a Thornmail. The armour also helps quite alot.

Wriggle's Lantern can also be a great item because of giving a nice bit of armour and damage with a free sight ward as it's passive which can be used so you know when a gank is coming, how great is that?

Last Whisper is another good item for demolishing high armour targets with ease.

Ravenous Hydra is a nice addition to Darius if the enemy team is bunched up.

Mercurial Scimitar is great if the enemy team has some heavy AP or very heavy on crowd control effects.

Last but not least, Atma's Impaler. Atma's Impaler is quite an attractive, cost-effective item that can provide damage from the amount of health provided by the core build, as well as some nice armour.

Screenshot Examples

Thanks to Bobby Light for this image, the score outlined in red is his first game with my build.

Change Log

27th May- Changed Boots of Mobility to Mercury's Treads, replaced Last Whisper with Wriggle's Lantern in Situational Item Build. Also added Screenshot Section and Soon to come! sections. Removed Clarity from Viable Summoner Spells and added Greater Mark of Attack Damage to possible runes for AD Heavy Team build. Also added Atma's Impaler into situational item build for people who prefer to use this item as a cost-effective item rather than Madred's Bloodrazor. Also fixed up minor grammatical mistakes and bad coding.

26th May- Guide made, added Pros/Cons, Masteries, Runes, Summoner Spells, Skills, Skill Sequence and Items.

Soon to come!

-Should be putting in a Creeping/Jungling section soon.
-Tips to team fighting with Darius.
-More in-depth explanations of item selections and masteries, I NEED YOUR OPINIONS!
-Possibly Ranked Play at a later date.

Summary

Following the trend of the other recently released champions, Darius is quite fun to play and I would recommend him for any Solo Top player who loves to be aggressive with great damage while being able to survive the consequences due to his remarkable tanking abilities.

Please leave your comments about my guide below and if you liked my guide, please vote it +1 and send me an email at jputt2@hotmail.com if you get a nice score and want me to put it in an upcoming proof section. Thanks again and have fun with Darius, the newest addition to the League.