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Recommended Items
Runes: STANDARD SETUP
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Precision
Resolve
+10% Attack Speed
+10-180 Bonus Health
+10-180 Bonus Health
Spells:
1
2
STANDARD SETUP
Flash
Ghost
Items
Ability Order STANDARD SKILL ORDER
Hemorrhage (PASSIVE)
Darius Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Extreme
Major
Even
Minor
Tiny
None
Low
Ok
Strong
Ideal
Akali
Zilean
One of the best champions to pair with Darius, his speedup alone makes him amazing.
Ideal
Strong
Ok
Low
None
Zilean
One of the best champions to pair with Darius, his speedup alone makes him amazing.
Champion Build Guide
ABOUT ME/ FUTURE GUIDES
ABOUT ME
On League I go by Federals1, and since 2018 I have hit challenger with at least 900 lp every single season.

I have also hit Challenger on EUW

I was also the number 1


Over the years have gotten top 10/5 on








I will be livestreaming at https://www.twitch.tv/federals123 , so if you want to check it out and see how it's going be sure to tune in! I will be answering any questions and trying to give my thought process while playing, giving general tips and such. I hope if you end up checking it you will enjoy your time.
FUTURE GUIDES
I will be making more guides in the future, some already being in the works. My goal is to make a guide for every single champion I am extremely confident with, and ones I've been playing for a very long time where I have unique insights to share.
I am currently working on multiple guides but I cannot give an exact date when they will be out. I will post them gradually as I finish them, so if you want to see when they are out for a new champion you can follow and be up to date. To make sure they are done quicker not all of them will them will have a matchup spreadsheet at the start, that alone takes me a week by itself, it's massive.
TIP BEFORE LANE STARTS
While you wait in the loading screen, or even before minions spawn, go on an external website and check what runes your opponent has. I use op. gg or u. gg, but any website that show runes in full works. You will be able to see exactly what your opponent's runes are, and it can play a big part in your very first trade and knowing exactly how you might want to play out the first few waves. Here's an example: you see the enemy has
Resolve secondary. It's extremely important to see what he has in
Resolve. You can check and let's say they have
Bone Plating and
Overgrowth. Now you know you should play out your first trade a bit differently, trying to proc down
Bone Plating first, or knowing that if you go for a trade he has that extra block power. This is something you should look to do every single game to gain an advantage.





ANOTHER DARIUS SPECIALIST
This section is specifically made for someone else I know who is a
Darius main and who is playing in Masters+. I have put his social links here in case you wanna follow him:
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mariussmecherul
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MariusSmecherul

MariusSmecherul
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mariussmecherul
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MariusSmecherul
MATCHUP SPREADSHEET
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f_9snkmaBSLGNe8YvcmUc02-_5DaPmcDUlHMBj6LiS0/edit?usp=sharing
Here you will find every single champion matchup in the entire game and the way I tend to play them most often.
Here you will find every single champion matchup in the entire game and the way I tend to play them most often.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
xMid Game xLate Game
xAbility Tips and Tricks xCombos |
xAll Possible Runes xConqueror VS Phase Rush
xPros xCons |
EARLY GAME
Early on
Darius is a pretty massive lane bully in a lot of melee matchups. He usually wins out a lot of 1v1s because of his passive
that gives him a lot of AD when stacked, on top of the massive bleed damage.
Ghost also helps you a ton to keep up with enemies and chase them down for a kill, it's why if
Darius freezes on his side of the map it can be extremely hard to break it alone, as you can be under threat of just getting ran down by him if he pops
Ghost.
That being said, he's not impossible to fight. There are a lot of champions in the early game that, though they might not be able to outright fight him from full health, have the tools to get him low enough to where they can burst him down before he can stack up and become strong.
Riven has a ton of ways to do slow chip damage and then go for a full all in when he is low enough. He also struggles to his his q
consistently against champions with dashes, such as
Wukong,
Jax,
Riven, etc., and then there's the champions that can anihilate in melee range if he isn't careful, such as
Olaf once he gets his ultimate
, or
Illaoi that can do the same with her ult
Apprehend in a matchup like
Sett, you cannot kite out of his E
range and you could possibly die just from that. Your E is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT IN THE EARLY GAME so understanding that you need to hold off from using it into certain champions can mean the difference between hard winning a lane, or getting absolutely obliterated.
Depending on what your enemy top laner is the enemy jungler will just straight up ignore you, as there are a lot of lanes where you can just 2v1 them if he tries to gank you. That being said, there are a lot of top+jungle combos that can explode you within their combo rotation and make it impossible for you to outplay it, so don't get cocky.
If you are playing into a ranged matchup, you are going to suffer, big time.
Darius struggles most against ranged opponents and you need to play around your
Ghost timing as well as using brushes to at least stay in experience range. One way you can make sure you are safe in brushes is by starting
Oracle Lens, making it impossible for them use their
Stealth Ward in a brush for vision as you can kill it that way. You can't ward up either, but you don't care about that in a ranged matchup.
You can also look to get priority for Voidgrubs
and get them early with your jungler. Another thing you can do is heal up on jungle camps when you are low.
Darius Q
heals him when he hits the outer edge on large jungle monsters, so if Gromp
, Krugs
or Voidgrubs
are up, you can walk to one of those camps, ideally the closest one to you, and get some extra healing.





That being said, he's not impossible to fight. There are a lot of champions in the early game that, though they might not be able to outright fight him from full health, have the tools to get him low enough to where they can burst him down before he can stack up and become strong.









DO NOT START MOST FIGHTS WITH YOUR PULL!
This applies at all stages of the game, but it's most important during the early game. A lot of your matchups can be beaten because you can use your pull to turn the tides in the middle of a fight. If you start with your


Depending on what your enemy top laner is the enemy jungler will just straight up ignore you, as there are a lot of lanes where you can just 2v1 them if he tries to gank you. That being said, there are a lot of top+jungle combos that can explode you within their combo rotation and make it impossible for you to outplay it, so don't get cocky.
If you are playing into a ranged matchup, you are going to suffer, big time.




You can also look to get priority for Voidgrubs






MID GAME
This is going to be your strongest point in the entire game. Your biggest spike in terms of power will be between levels 11 and 13. At level 11 you get your rank 2 ultimate
and the damage spikes up heavily, and at level 13 you get your
Apprehend fully maxed, meaning your
armor penetration is at the maximum value. Your dueling power is massive at this point, and depending on how the lane went, you can force out 2 or 3 people to have to permanently deal with you on side lane, or go to teamfight and run through the enemy comp. If you get that one reset you can probably go off and kill everyone. That being said, there are still a few things to keep in mind when playing the mid game:
Darius is horrible in teamfights without his summoner spells up. If you want to go into a teamfight, unless the enemy comp has 3 melee champions with no mobility, and little cc, you're probably going to get kited into oblivion. If you are fighting just
Hwei and you have no
Flash and no
Ghost, you're basically just a much tankier minion that eats damage for your team, as you're probably not gonna get to anyone, like ever.
Darius has to play around his summoner spell cooldowns
, to the point that even if you see someone overextending on side lane you might not want to burn a single summoner spell for them unless they have a massive bounty, as it can mean it won't be up for a big fight later on, like a Dragon
fight or a Baron
contest.
If your summoner spells are down it's actually better to go on side lane and pressure them up, forcing the enemies to come to you and diverting attention until they are up.
Another thing to remember is that
Darius does not want to be the main engager. Obviously you can start fights with your
Flash+E
combo, but most of the time you'd rather not. You are actually a great follow up champion, letting your
Rammus,
Zac,
Nautilus, etc. start the fight first, lock down someone, and THEN you want to go in. Being the first one to go in means you risk losing a ton of health before you even get to your second or third passive stack
, and that can be very bad. You can also wait out a bit out of vision, waiting for the opponents to burn a crucial lockdown/escape tool and then looking for a pick angle, if you really need to be the first one to engage.
Keep in mind that you don't need to kill the first person you attack, if you can just get 5 stacks
off of that person and then jump onto the squishies you're good to go, like getting 5 stacks
on an
Alistar who is in the frontline tanking, and then ignoring him after to go into the backline.











If your summoner spells are down it's actually better to go on side lane and pressure them up, forcing the enemies to come to you and diverting attention until they are up.
Another thing to remember is that







Keep in mind that you don't need to kill the first person you attack, if you can just get 5 stacks



LATE GAME
It's not as horrible as you'd think, but it's not amazing either. With
Darius teamfights usually go one of 2 ways: you either instantly get burst down, or you wipe them out with a single reset. Your rank 3 ultimate
is extremely high, but the issue is that at this point in the game there's a lot of things that can deny you the reset, such as getting hyper cc locked down or last second shielding/healing.
Going on side lane can actually be very risky as you can get collapsed on and die. At this point there's also a lot of champions who you would bully in lane but that can actually just match you on side lane. One of the best examples here would have to be
Sion. You can beat him out in lane really hard, but if you get to 5/6 items, unless you have
Blade of the Ruined King it will take you up to a literal minute of constantly hitting him to actually get him down. He won't be able to win the 1v1, but you're gonna sit there and hit him for a solid 25 seconds and he would barely lose half his health, which is just not worth it for you, and if you don't constantly go in front of him he can just ult
away, wasting that entire time for you. Having no
Teleport also hurts a lot here, as if the enemy does they can match you on side lane then appear at a teamfight long before you.
This is the time when
Darius has to have his summoner spells up to fight, it's no longer ever an option. You absolutely need them to get access to the high priority targets and squishy champions quickly, or else you will find it really hard to do anything meaningful in fights.
Death's Dance is also quite important during this time to have in a lot of situations, same goes for Sterak's
. Because burst is so insanely high and the game can be ended by a single teamfight it is important to be able to ensure you have the highest chance of getting your reset before you explode, and those two are very good at delaying your death.
Kaenic Rookern is also extremely valuable at this point if the enemy has a ton of magic damage as the shield becomes massive.
You mostly try to do what you do in the mid game, looking for someone else to engage for you and then following up. It's also at this point where if you are fighting champions that can hyper teamfight and outvalue you, like
Kennen or
Ornn it could be best to sit on side lane and force them to match you, the only issue is that usually they run
Teleport and can just clear waves until they are needed and can almost instantly join up a fight.


Going on side lane can actually be very risky as you can get collapsed on and die. At this point there's also a lot of champions who you would bully in lane but that can actually just match you on side lane. One of the best examples here would have to be




This is the time when




You mostly try to do what you do in the mid game, looking for someone else to engage for you and then following up. It's also at this point where if you are fighting champions that can hyper teamfight and outvalue you, like



SUMMONER SPELL BREAKDOWN
In my opinion, you absolutely need your summoner spells up in the mid to late game as
Darius. Any fight past 16/17 minutes you will most likely need at least one out of your 2 summoner spells, that being either
Flash, or
Ghost, and if you end up taking
Ignite then you must get kills in lane or get a massive advantage, or because your teamfights will always suffer. I will break down each of these summoner spells and their purpose so you can get a better understand of exactly why they are so important:
Flash:
Darius has absolutely zero mobility. He gets kited extremely easily, which is why most builds have some sort of extra speed items for him, such as
Dead Man's Plate or
Force of Nature, and even
Boots of Swiftness for the extra speed
and slow resist. The only reliable way he could get close to other champs if he had insane speed, from something like
Zilean speedup
or a way to close the gap quickly with a dash or blink, and here is where
Flash comes in.
This is the way for him to ensure that he can get on top of someone fast and that he can actually deal damage and be able to become a threat in teamfights. The champ doesn't have the highest range ability wise, so he literally has to walk towards you. Almost every other bruiser has some type of speedup or way to close the gap quickly.
Garen has his Q
to cleanse slows and speed up,
Olaf becomes fully immune to cc in his ult
,
Sett has his ult
, even
Trundle has his Frozen Domain
, and so on. You are almost always forced to have your
Flash up to reliably close the gap. This is why I think taking
Cosmic Insight is so good, as it will allow you to have it up sooner so you can possibly look for more plays.
Ghost: Much like
Flash this summoner spell will allow you to get to your targets quicker, but it's also a very good summoner spell for lane kill pressure. The reason
Darius is actually really hard to deal with if he freezes on his side of the map, is because he can pop his
Ghost and kill you before you get to your turret. There are a lot of matchups where
Ghost is used to chase down people on lane, or to kite out certain abilities. For example, you can use your
Ghost to get out of
Garen's spin
, avoiding a lot of damage and making sure he cannot get you into lethal range. Another example would be to force
Riven to use more of her dashes, either from her Q
or her E
if she wants to chase you down hard, after which you can use the extra speed to turn on her.
Ignite: If you take this then you have to get a very good lead, because if not you will go into the mid and late game being much weaker without
Ghost. Your passive
combined with it will actually bleed out people insanely hard, but you need to take fights and force plays, because if not missing the speed of
Ghost makes it so that you are forced to always have
Flash up for teamfights, as opposed to having either
Ghost or
Flash.













This is the way for him to ensure that he can get on top of someone fast and that he can actually deal damage and be able to become a threat in teamfights. The champ doesn't have the highest range ability wise, so he literally has to walk towards you. Almost every other bruiser has some type of speedup or way to close the gap quickly.




























ABILITY TIPS AND TRICKS
HEMORRHAGE (P)

You don't always need to have your passive in fights to win them, but it gives you a massive advantage if you get it. The AD means almost no champion should be able to 1v1. There are a few exceptions, like how



DECIMATE (Q)

This is your main ability when it comes to trading in lane. It gives you very good damage and it is your primary source of waveclear. It is very important you hit the outer edge of the ability, the issue is there are a ton of champions who have multiple dashes and can make it to where it's basically never possible to hit your Q. Champions like





The best way to make sure you hit your ability on these type of champions is to wait until they burn the dashes and then use it. Sometimes it's easier said than done, like with






Another way to hit your Q










CRIPPLING STRIKE (W)

It acts as an auto attack reset and it fully refunds the









APPREHEND (E)

In my opinion this is the








His E also allows him to almost always hit his Q right after. Sometimes your E+Q will be faster/slower and that is bugged. E+Q is actually meant to give the opponents room to use a dash or Flash out of it, so whenever you get off an undodgable quick E+Q it's actually a bug.
NOXIAN GUILLOTINE (R)

This is the spell that allows Darius to carry games extremely well. The damage on this is massive, and if you combine it with the fact that if he kills an enemy it resets and allows him to use it again, you can quickly see why this can swing a teamfight by itself. Giving


When using your ultimate









COMBOS
LANE TRADING COMBOS:







These are the very basic combos you can do on










OTHER COMBOS:



Pretty situational ability combo, but it does have it's uses. One example is if you are in the range of an ability that would kill you and you can




In lane this can happen a lot where both players









This one is the combo that gives you the highest damage output in the shortest amount of time from one combo rotation. However it will not give you the highest possible damage as you are going to use your ultimate

If you actually have









ALL FINAL ITEMS EXPLAINED










































































































Tier 2 boot upgrades:









Tier 3 boot upgrades:










ALL POSSIBLE RUNES
KEYSTONE RUNES:
Conqueror: This is the most consistent rune to take on
Darius. It stacks up very nicely with his passive
, only one extra auto attack to get it to full. The healing is rly good, the damage feels nice, and it gives him very good dueling power.
Phase Rush: Very underrated rune for Darius. It allows
Darius to play out a lot more lanes, especially ranged ones. Stuff like
Quinn,
Vayne,
Kennen etc. you need
Phase Rush to get close to them, and you can basically never stack
Conqueror into them. It's also insane in mid to late game teamfights, I think the speed outvalues the healing and damage
Conqueror gives. I go into more detail between the two keystone in it's specific guide chapter.
Lethal Tempo: Matchup specific rune that can work quite well. You don't really care about the on-hit damage it provides once fully stacked, you just really want the attack speed out of it as there are matchups where it's close to impossible to stack up quickly when you basically can never hit your Q
, such as
Olaf or
Riven. Your W
also gives you an extra stack
quickly and if you have
Titanic Hydra you can get 3
Lethal Tempo stacks really quickly
Fleet Footwork: Extremely specific rune where you need both the sustain and the extra speed
. Usually you will only ever take this if you are also running
Absorb Life and
Second Wind for maximum sustain during lane. The matchup I run this most into is
Heimerdinger.
RUNE SLOTS:
Triumph: Very consistent rune. It can really help you to clutch out fights with barely any health remaning.
Absorb Life: Generally taken into some specific matchups where you get extra healing not just from minions, but also enemy spawned units. Some matchup examples where you can take it are
Yorick and
Heimerdinger.
Legend: Alacrity: Almost always you go for this one, sometimes you can do
Legend: Haste.
Legend: Haste: Personally I like this one more on
Darius because I like getting more rotations off in fights, but generally speaking
Legend: Alacrity is much more reliable.
Last Stand: The best one out of the 3 from its respective space.
Taste of Blood: You can proc it decently well and almost always on cooldown due to your bleed. On top of that
Darius gains a lot of extra ad from his passive so mid game the heal isn't super bad.
Deep Ward: Best one from its respective space generally.
Treasure Hunter: Out of all the hunter runes this is the best one for Darius. You can also run
Ultimate Hunter but in the late game it's useless as you get a full cooldown
refund on your ult.
Manaflow Band: Very good rune for mana sustain. I use it a lot in specific matchups, such as
Akali and a few other ones, you need to get used to the overall setup though.
Axiom Arcanist: Great rune for
Darius. Considering the fact that you can keep chaining kills with his ultimate
over and over again you can get the damage amplification on a lot of different targets. Take this over
Nimbus Cloak in melee matchups if you wish. You can also combine it with
Spear of Shojin to deal much greater damage to catch people off guard.
Nimbus Cloak: Usually you take this with
Darius. The speedup feels very nice after using a summoner spell.
Transcendence: I take this into some specific matchups with
Spear of Shojin. Most of the time though
Celerity is the best one.
Celerity: Great rune for
Darius, most of the time you pair this one up with
Nimbus Cloak to get a ton of speed out of it. It also boosts the speed other items give, like
Stridebreaker or runes like
Phase Rush.
Gathering Storm: The only real option
Darius has on the last rune slot here. Once the game hits 30 minutes the damage it gives will equal that of
Conqueror, so you have the AD permanently on you after that point, and then anything past that will give you more.
Demolish: Solid rune if you want to take early tower plates or split push a lot.
Conditioning: More scaling as you get into the mid game.
Second Wind: Best rune in its respective space for sustaining in the lane.
Bone Plating: Works best against combo champions like
Sett,
Riven,
Renekton etc.
Revitalize: Decent rune for
Darius. It amps up your Q
heal, but most of the time I tend to run
Overgrowth.
Overgrowth: Usually this is the one I end up taking most on
Darius, combining it with
Conditioning for very good mid to late game scaling.
Magical Footwear: Sometimes I will take this on my secondary. usually though I like to rush boots on
Darius so it's not that amazing.
Cash Back: I take this when I am running my unique setup. One matchup that I do it in is
Garen, I will also do it into
Kayle.
Triple Tonic: Decent rune for
Darius. It does scale kinda poorly, once you hit level 13 putting points in your W
does basically nothing, but it's good before that. It also gives you a stronger level 6.
Biscuit Delivery: This rune is used in some very specific matchups for early game sustain. If you pop it while you are low you can actually get up to 100 or more extra
health regen in a very short amount of time, possibly swinging a fight in your favor.
Cosmic Insight: Very good rune for
Darius, I love to take it in both the unique setup and the standard one. Having your summoner spells come off cooldown sooner is extremely important for
Darius, so much so I have made a specific section detailing why they are so important.
























RUNE SLOTS:




































































CONQUEROR VS PHASE RUSH
I have made this section specifically to outline the differences between Conqueror and Phase Rush on Darius playstyle wise. In my opinion there are enough changes in your overall gameplan and play pattern that it needs a specific chapter guide for it. With that said, let's begin.
TL;DR for the entire thing:
-
Conqueror is usually better early to mid game and in 1v1s
-
Phase Rush gives you much better teamfighting in the mid to late game
-
Conqueror gives you more damage and extra healing, but at 30 minutes you get the same ad and once you are past 40 you straight up get more always (
Gathering Storm), but still no healing
-
Conqueror allows you to take extended trades in lane much better than
Phase Rush does
-
Phase Rush allows
Darius to be able to short trade very well by speeding away after his rotation
-
Phase Rush allows you to play out some very tough matchups, especially ranged ones
-
Phase Rush can act as a mini
Ghost in some specific cases
Almost every single Darius runs this
Conqueror. It's very easy to stack for Darius, it's like stacking your passive 6 times instead of 5, but Q inner edge hits also stack it. On top of that, the precision page is very good for Darius. You have
Triumph, which is a very good rune for him, he can turn around fights at low health with it, then there's
Legend: Alacrity, solid choice to just take for more auto attacks, and then there's
Last Stand, which works very well with Darius as he usually fights at lower health. So it's not just the keystone rune but also the precision tree itself. That being said, the
Sorcery tree is also great for Darius.
Nimbus Cloak is always good, as well as the option of
Manaflow Band in some specific lanes for more spell rotations.
Celerity is always good, and
Gathering Storm is very underrated.
At level 18
Conqueror will give you 28.8 damage when fully stacked. Gathering storm will always give you exactly 28.8 damage as well starting from 30 minutes. So if you get to 30 minutes you always have the Conqueror damage, still no healing, but you match the damage, and anything past 30 minutes is straight up more damage. On top of that, the 20 minute amount, which is 15 damage, is still decent and almost fully makes up for not having the
Conqueror damage.
There are also matchups where you cannot fully proc
Conqueror, like a ton of ranged matchups, or where the mobility of Phase Rush vastly outvalues the damage and healing of
Conqueror. In matchups such as
Vayne,
Quinn,
Heimerdinger, etc. you cannot really proc up
Conqueror, you don't have the time for it. You actually want to do short trades into most ranged matchups, but the issue is that you usually need to start with your E
in those matchups, as they will never let you get close enough to just slow them with W
.
With Conqueror if you do your E
+auto+W
+Q
combo and then try to run away, there is a very good chance they will just auto attack you a ton as you run away, and you will end up losing the trade, or straight up kill you.
Vayne can just hard chase you down and space you really hard,
Quinn can do the same,
Kennen can just stun you up in melee range after your combo and do his rotation, even some matchups like can use dashes to chase you down and do their side of the combo. But if you have
Phase Rush, you can do your side and then speed away.
It won't mean you won't take any damage back, but someone like
Kennen would have to chase you down really hard to get his E
mark on you and then stun you up, or
Riven would have to use more of her Q
dashes just to get into your melee range, or
Vayne would need to commit to an even longer chase just to be able to poke you down, and so on. So now you can start the short trades with E
and not get punished as hard.
Another very good thing about
Phase Rush is that it's kinda like a mini
Ghost.
You can proc it up with an auto+W
+Q
and then keep chasing the person down, which can allow you do save your E
for when your
Phase Rush goes out. For example into
Nasus if he uses his slow
you almost always need to pull him back because he will outrun you, but with
Phase Rush you can tank through most of the slow and keep up with him, possibly getting in an extra auto attack or 2, and then using your E
.
TL;DR for the entire thing:
-

-

-


-


-


-

-


Explanation:
Almost every single Darius runs this









At level 18


There are also matchups where you cannot fully proc








With Conqueror if you do your E







It won't mean you won't take any damage back, but someone like






Another very good thing about


You can proc it up with an auto+W








EXPLAINING MY UNIQUE SETUP
Currently I am doing a rather strange build for
Darius, and it usually looks something like this:

What I am going to do in this section is try to explain why I am trying this setup and what I like about it.
As I specified in the mid and late game chapter guides,
Darius cannot play teamfights during that time if his summoner spells aren't up, so I came up with this combo:
Your
Flash and
Ghost will both be up 1 minute sooner than usual, which doesn't seem that massive, but there are a lot of times when having summoner spells be up just 30 seconds sooner can make a difference, and this is absolutely massive for your all in timers in the early game. If you are playing vs
Vayne for example, and she takes
Flash and
Ghost, she can just always trade the summoner spell you use to run away and kite. For example, you
Ghost to chase her down and she does the same. You need your summoner spell to get close to her but she doesn't, and can just chase you down without it. If you have this combo it would mean there would be a full minute where she wouldn't actually have it up, and you can abuse that window to get a kill. It might not seem that massive, but there are matchups where this window is literally your only window to ever get a lead.
Another example, this one being in the mid game:
You see an opponent overextending on the side lane, no real bounty, but you can still get 300 gold for killing them. Dragon is up in 3 minutes. If you use
Ghost now it would mean it won't be up for Dragon and it could be really bad for you, but with the less cooldown you would have it up in time. Obviously this is a pretty specific case, but my point is you can find more kill angles and outplay moments because you would have your summoner spells up sooner.
In a 25 minute game you would probably use your
Ghost around 5 times, and even that can be a little much. If you had the combo you could use it 7 times in almost the same time as the 5, just 1 extra minute. Again, doesn't seem like that much, but those 2 extra times can mean you get an early kill where the opponent wasn't expecting you to have summoner spells back up, or allowing you to punish someone greedy in the mid to late game when you normally wouldn't be able to.
One issue
Darius has is that in the early game it's actually pretty easy to go out of mana if you use your
Apprehend more than 3 times. You can only do it a select few times, and if the champion you are playing against is someone like
Jax or
Riven, who can just jump onto you a lot, you know that you can't always use your pull because you would run out of
mana. Having
Manaflow Band instead of
Celerity can help out to fix up this issue well. It makes it to where you can even "poke" opponents more. Into quite a few matchups you could actually just use E
to deal your full combo and you would be fine, for example
Illaoi, the issue is that if you do it too much and it doesn't result in a kill or forcing them to recall you will run out of
mana and then they can beat you. However, due to the extra
mana of that rune you don't really need to worry about it.
You don't actually need to do this exact setup every time, and a lot of times you can change up small runes depending on the matchup, same for items. For example, you can take
Triple Tonic instead of
Cash Back if you want the extra AD at your level 6 and the extra kill point at 9, making you use a little less
mana as your E
loses a bit of its cost when you put a point in it.
Nimbus Cloak can be changed to
Manaflow Band to have some insane
mana sustain for lane, or changing
Celerity for
Transcendence. You might not need the speed
Dead Man's Plate provides due to your
Phase Rush, so you can take
Death's Dance instead, which is an insane item for teamfighting as it gives an extra reward for getting your reset, and it's a pretty massive reward. On the same note, you can take
Kaenic Rookern instead of
Force of Nature, and if you combine it with your
Sterak's Gage, you will be an absolute MONSTER and it will take them a lot to take you down.
This one isn't factual, but I just wanted to place it here either way. This is a setup that I've found that I have a lot of fun with. I have been enjoying the general playstyle of it, and there will be people who play
Darius and they might not enjoy it personally, but I really like it a lot, again PERSONALLY!


What I am going to do in this section is try to explain why I am trying this setup and what I like about it.
The reduction of summoner spell cooldowns
As I specified in the mid and late game chapter guides,

Cosmic Insight +
Ionian Boots of Lucidity
Your






Another example, this one being in the mid game:
You see an opponent overextending on the side lane, no real bounty, but you can still get 300 gold for killing them. Dragon is up in 3 minutes. If you use

In a 25 minute game you would probably use your

Extra mana during laning phase
One issue











Diversity in both small runes and items
You don't actually need to do this exact setup every time, and a lot of times you can change up small runes depending on the matchup, same for items. For example, you can take















I PERSONALLY FIND IT REALLY FUN
This one isn't factual, but I just wanted to place it here either way. This is a setup that I've found that I have a lot of fun with. I have been enjoying the general playstyle of it, and there will be people who play

PROS
+Massive lane bully in a ton of melee matchups, most tanks will despise you
+Incredibly high carry power, a single reset in a teamfight can ace the entire enemy team
+Can build differently for a lot of matchups, typically buying a specific component item can win you out the lane big time and Darius doesn't really mind delaying his spike item
+Need to be shut down early on or he can run over the game very fast
+Soaks up a ton of pressure in the side lane
+Can 2v1, 3v1 and even 4v1 enemies when ahead, after the first kill the others follow shortly after
+His high armor pen ensures his late game damage doesn't fall off super hard vs tanks who just stack a lot of armor
+Incredibly high carry power, a single reset in a teamfight can ace the entire enemy team
+Can build differently for a lot of matchups, typically buying a specific component item can win you out the lane big time and Darius doesn't really mind delaying his spike item
+Need to be shut down early on or he can run over the game very fast
+Soaks up a ton of pressure in the side lane
+Can 2v1, 3v1 and even 4v1 enemies when ahead, after the first kill the others follow shortly after
+His high armor pen ensures his late game damage doesn't fall off super hard vs tanks who just stack a lot of armor
CONS
-Low mobility, he can get kited extremely easily
-If the enemy team comp has mostly ranged champs you're basically a cannon minion
-Extremely summoner spell reliant, the later the game goes the more he needs his summs
-Can have decent mana issues early on and that can be abused
-Has some absolutely disgusting matchups to play into
-Overall low ability ranges, he actually need to be decently close to you to get his pull off
-If the enemy team comp has mostly ranged champs you're basically a cannon minion
-Extremely summoner spell reliant, the later the game goes the more he needs his summs
-Can have decent mana issues early on and that can be abused
-Has some absolutely disgusting matchups to play into
-Overall low ability ranges, he actually need to be decently close to you to get his pull off
OTHER GUIDES
If you liked this guide, perhaps you would like to check out some of my other ones as well. As I make more guides for more champions this list will be updated to contain all of them. Simply click on the words below the champion portrait and it will take you to the respective guide.

Volibear Top Guide

Garen Top Guide

Olaf Top Guide

Dr. Mundo Top Guide

Mordekaiser Top Guide

Udyr Top Guide
UPDATE LOG
Here there will be a list of all the significant changes I am going to make going forward on the guide, so you can look here to see what the newest updates are, or old ones:
11th January 2025:
- added tier 3 boots to the items section
- added tier 2 and tier 3 boots to the all final items explained guide chapter after all the legendary items
-
Eyeball Collection has been removed, so the new rune
Deep Ward has been placed in its place as a possible rune you can take
- added
Axiom Arcanist as a possible rune to take
7th December 2024:
- added
Udyr to the other guides chapter
4th December 2024:
- removed
Berserker's Greaves and
Symbiotic Soles as possible boots options
Patch 14.22
9th November 2024:
- added a new build called "heavy split pushing"
- added
Biscuit Delivery as a rune choice
- added the link to the matchup spreadsheet as it has been completed
Patch 14.20
9th October 2024:
- added
Mordekaiser to the other guides chapter
- added
Fleet Footwork as a possible keystone rune to take as well as a new rune page called "Hyper Lane Sustain"
- added
Absorb Life as a possible rune to take
Patch 14.19
5th October 2024:
- added other guides chapter
25th September 2024:
- added
Lethal Tempo back on the possible keystone runes and a
Lethal Tempo rune page
- updated the unique setup chapter
- removed
Biscuit Delivery as a rune choice
Update Log
Season 15
Patch 25.S1.111th January 2025:
- added tier 3 boots to the items section
- added tier 2 and tier 3 boots to the all final items explained guide chapter after all the legendary items
-


- added

Season 14
Patch 14.237th December 2024:
- added

4th December 2024:
- removed


Patch 14.22
9th November 2024:
- added a new build called "heavy split pushing"
- added

- added the link to the matchup spreadsheet as it has been completed
Patch 14.20
9th October 2024:
- added

- added

- added

Patch 14.19
5th October 2024:
- added other guides chapter
25th September 2024:
- added


- updated the unique setup chapter
- removed

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