Darius Top Lane Guide By Rhark

Because the option to create a guide for Darius is not up yet, I've chosen to write this into Forums instead. This is my first guide, but I have been playing Darius and doing fairly well with him since, so I feel I am able to write a decent guide for him.


Runes

The Runes are pretty basic, I use the 6 armor pen runes to give him an additional 10% armor pen, which stacking with his passive E ability, makes for 5% short of Last Whisper end game.

x3 Mark of Strength (Flat Attack Damage)
x6 Mark of Desolation (Armor Pen)

x9 Seal of Resistance (Flat Armor)

x9 Seal of Warding (Flat Magic Resist)

x3 Quint of Strength (Flat Attack Damage)


Summoner Spells

Ghost
(Flash is the crowd favorite usually, but gives darius no chasing power, you are going at 385 movement speed without a boost, so even if u flash onto an enemy, ur not gunna keep up with them if they breka outta ur cc)

Ignite
(I find Exhaust Redundant with this guy's skill set, but love the extra DPS that ignite brings early game)


Masteries

Masteries are the classic 21 offense 9 defense for bruiser build. If you don't know what that is, check an offensive Garen Guide.

Skill leveling Priority's are as follows

1st R Noxian Guillotine (obviously you can't level this first, but I am placing the order via priority.

2nd Q Decimate (gets .7 ad return and can do 150% more than its stated bonus if u clip them)

3rd W Crippling Strike (super spammable in a long term fight, Usable on towers)

4th E Apprehend (super long cool down, use after they start running from the fight, not as an innitiate unless some one with u has CC)


Item Build

Explanation

I found attack speed Darius to be far to squishy to survive the team fights, and ultimately rendered his Ultimate Pointless. Tank Darius was pointless, other champs do that much better. Darius is meant to be a Bruiser, much like his Demacian twin Garen. His damage returns are amazing to the point that his Ultimate needs a limiter installed. But his defense... He lacks in this where his spinnier brother succeeds, he has no passive MR and armor build up, no built in ghost. When you enter combat as Darius, only one of you is walking away, and using my build I can promise you a very good chance of that.

Darius is best known for his repeatable ultimate, and using this guide will give you the combination of offense and defense needed to survive long enough to make us of it while still dealing insane damage. (You seriously will not even notice not having a BF Sword.

Item Build

Boots + x3 Health Pots is what I suggest, but every one has their favourites

x3 Doran's Blade (it seems excessive but they give you exactly what Darius needs and synergizes well with your next few items

x1 Brutalizer (Thats 25% armor pen Son, along with the dorans blades u have 55 bonus attack damage, good armor pen and some handy cool down reduction for your Q and W.)

Finish your boots, Usually I go with Mercurial Treads for Magic Resist and Tenacity, but if the team your Fighting doesn't have alot of CC or your not worried about their damage go Ninja Tabi.

x1 Frost Mallet (If your kicking *** and not taking alot of damage, start with Phage, if your feeling vulnerable go Giants Belt.

x1 Atma's Impaler (Handy Armor and Makes use of all the extra health you should have around 220 attack power now, which aint shabby for not having a B.F. Sword)

Finish Youmuu's Ghostblade (The ghost helps for chasing guys down and when your on CD, which won't be long with its 25% CD reduction)

I suggest at this point either Gaurdian Armor (My choice) Sunfire Cape (for Heavy AD) or Maw of Malmordus for AP heavy Team.

I finish with Warmogs armor (or bloodthirster if I am feeling stupid cocky and am on a roll)


Let me know what you guys think of my guide, if you like it My summoner name is also Rhark. Good Luck and Enjoy.

This is wrong.

If you're getting the armor pen mastery,combined with his passive, you sit at 32.5% armor pen because of how it stacks. If you get last whisper as well, you sit at 59.5% armor pen.

Unless you're not going for a lot of early game control, I'd be taking full AD runes in marks and quints.

Ghost+Ignite are fine. I take ignite+exhaust simply because I go for kills top lane and this allows so much more kill potential when they have less armor and MR.

The items are ugly though. Brutalizer isn't that great unless you already have a lot of flat armor pen for true damage.
Full damage is best and in fights, you should be cleanup.

Personally I use a similar rune setup with fortitude quints. My item build starts with a doran's blade. From there he goes: Boots of Speed, Vampiric Sceptre, Mercury Treads, Phage, Bloodthirster, Giants Belt, Warmogs, Hexdrinker, Maw, Trinity Force, and finish with Atma's or Guardian Angel.