Darius Build Guide by Alastiir Shel Thar

Intriguing Introduction

Hello everyone ! I'm an avid player of all kinds of champions and love change, known on all different games as Alastiir, or on LoL Alastiir Sheal !
After seeing Darius for free during a rotation, I instantly tried him, and adored the champion. But as I looked at the builds on mobafire I was perplexed, they were all very tanky, focusing on resistances, etc. So I decided to try out some builds for playing Darius as a brutal melee champ, and came to make this, which I am presenting to you in this guide !!

*REMEMBER* This guide is NOT your bible ! Everything and anything can be exchanged to correspond better upon your precise situation, ESPECIALLY the final item. Please read the guide and try it out for yourself before downvoting ! Thank you !

P.S. I will try to answer all your comments as fast as I can ! Don't hesitate to ask questions !

Powerful Pros / Constricting Cons

Pros Amazing Damage Ult allows for incredible chain kills Easy to master very useful grip Built in anty-tank passive

SPACE

Cons Cons ? What cons ? No escape mechanism from ganks Obvious melee/caster disadvantage.

Reinforcing Runes

My runes are very classic :

Greater Mark of Desolation for the extra ArPen
Greater Seal of Armor and Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist for those little sustainability and resistance boosts.
Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage For a little damage boost to scare your enemies early game, and damage never gets bad.


Now you might say : but why straight damage with your quints ? Surely you want more ArPen ?
Well, not really. With the 15% of the Marks and the 25% of the Apprehend passive, you're already hitting a very nice 40% ArPen, which is quite enough for the entire game. And if someone if building INSANE armor, hey, throw an extra little Last Whisper in and BAM ! Nothing left ;)

Malevolent Masteries

Now, Masteries I based myself off of most other melee AD champs, while changing one thing : replacing the 3 points in Havoc by 3 points in Vampirism . Why ? This is a purely personal choice, I enjoy lifesteal, and following the nerf of Vampiric Scepter from 15% to 12% I enjoy these 3 little points to give me my old feeling back, and keep a good sustain and laning game up all the time without depending solely on potions and back-trips.

Interesting Items

Now this is the important part : Change these as is required !!

I will however present each item shortly and my personal choice as to why they will aid YOU in severe pwnage. I will make a more precise in-game time/order description later on, but for now I am trying to get this build out !


Mercury's Treads I take these boots as they seem to be a universal pleaser. I could have taken Berserker's Graves, but really the extra attack speed is not necessary, and the magic resist and tenacity will help in pickly situations.


Zeke's Herald I enjoy Zeke's Herald for multiple reasons. First of all, it's an aura, and I love giving my allies the boos they deserve. Second of all, the small cooldown reduction and life bonus it gives helps you resist longer while dealing more damage early game, because just that one extra Decimate could have gotten you that kill of the dude that ran away.

Phantom Dancer Now this item, I like for the crits it gives you which combine extremely well with Infinity Edge, but I really enjoy the extra attack speed and increased mobility it gives you. You won't be left in the back of the battle alone, or just get caught up by tanks, and you can get in and out of a fight much easier with this.

Infinity Edge As I stated, this just goes so well with your Phantom Dancer While offering you a nice damage boost output to your spells and auto-attacks.

The Bloodthirster Simply the 2nd ranked item in most damage it gives you when all its stacks are up, with 100 full attack points, it being beat only by the Sword of the Occult which stacks are much harder to keep. On top of that you get some sweet life-steal, which is amazing for your long fights against tanks or simply sustain in general.

Warmog's Armor THIS HERE IS PURELY SITUATIONAL. I can not emphasise this enough. The 6th item of your build MUST DEPEND on the game you are playing. Need a little life boost ? I love Warmog's Armor for that incredible life it gives you which you keep on regaining with The Bloodthirster. Annie or type giving you a hard time ? Screw this, go get a Banshee's Veil. Hardcore AP distance enemies eating you up ? Frozen Heart their *** !
Seriously, get whatever the game dictates, at this point really the game should be decided, if not, use your incredibly insane intelligence :D

Sadistic Skill Sequence

Noxian Guillotine > Decimate > Crippling Strike > Apprehend

All your main harass will come from your "q". This spell is spammable with its low CD and insane damage, especially early game. Always kick it in, but be careful to use the extra 50% damage by staying at a certain distance. Once you've leveled up Crippling Strike though, its CD will be very low as well, so always combine the two.

Aprehend is meant to be used as a chase tool, if someone is running away, you catch them, or if you want to startle their group or even pick out a single enemy for a fight. I'm going to upload a video of how you can use this skill pretty nicely soon.

Noxian Guillotine is an insane spell, if you know how to use it. Always use it as a fight ender, not only to keep its CD up, but essentially because you are nearly TRIPLING its damage !! It also allows for insane kill combo's if all your mana is up, I'll show some in some future videos coming up soon ! :D

The use of these skills in combat should therefore go more or else as follows :

Launch Crippling Strike, rush in with a +50% hit from Decimate, hit him with your extra damage attack FAST, and slow him down, bash him a couple times, another Decimate and Apprehend if need be, and when his life is reaching the end, Noxian Guillotine his sorry *ss and go on to the next fella' !!

Superb Summoner Spells

Now these summoner spells are purely a personal choice.

I enjoy Ignite for that extra 5 AD at the beginning of the game, but especially to secure that kill early and enjoy a good lane advantage.

My preference comes from good experiences with Teleport. Either join in late team-fights, pop up from behind to gank unexpecting ennemies or simply TP to some minions and push their last lane tower and their inhibitor, this has proven itself to be very useful in so many situations.

Of course, feel free to go with the more usual spells for these kind of champs such as Ghost or Flash, but I wouldn't recommend the others as he is neither a support nor a tank, at least not in this guide.

Simple Summary

I hope you enjoy trying out this guide, and don't hesitate to give some feedback, please comment or at least try it out a couple times before voting, everyone has bad luck and it would suck for my first work to be trolled into oblivion !

Thanks for everything, for your reading this, for your awesomness and stuff :D

Thanks to Jhoijhoi, I used your "make a guide" to learn a lot of stuff, you're simply put awesome !

I'll update this guide regularly if its a success, adding other videos and gameplay tricks ! Enjoy :)
P.S. Also send me some pics if you get some sexy results, such as these :