Hello my friends, and welcome to my Darius guide. Personally, I really like Darius and I consider him to be my main, Darius carried my way to Gold ELO. I hope you will learn a lot about Darius in this guide and that you will continue to go on maniacal rampages decapitating people with Darius.

Pros:
- High damage without items
- Very hard to be countered
- Damage is easily applied
- True damage nuke
- Great counterjungling
- Difficult to disengage from
- Extremely low mana costs


Cons:


- No natural tankiness
- Easily focused
- Easily ganked
- Easily kited
- No gap closers
- Can put own team behind
- Picked on by the ranged

Personally I think Darius should have runes that maximize his damage output while giving him early tankiness for easier trades.

9x Greater Mark of Desolation
9x Greater Seal of Resilience
9x Greater Glyph of Warding
3x Greater Quintessence of Desolation

Hemorrhage

Darius aims his attacks strategically, causing his target to bleed for 12 / 15 / 18 / 21 / 24 / 27 / 30 / 33 / 36 (+0.3 per bonus attack damage) magic damage over 5 seconds. This effect stacks up to five times.

Darius gains 5% movement speed for each bleeding enemy champion.

This is a great passive that is extremely damaging and will often drop your targets unnoticeably quickly. This is the heart of Darius' kit. It will help Crippling Strike and Noxian Guillotine (which I will explain later) while also making Darius harder to itemize against due to it dealing magic damage. Abuse this passive in the laning phase, it wins lanes by a huge amount. It's also a 5 second DoT, so you can actually kill someone even if they escaped.

Also, the movespeed will make you harder to kite. Try to get 1 stack of Hemorrhage on each target when teamfighting.



Decimate

Darius swings his axe in a wide circle. Enemies struck by the shaft take 70 / 105 / 140 / 175 / 210 (+0.7 per bonus attack damage) physical damage. Champions struck by the blade take 105 / 157.5 / 210 / 262.5 / 315 (+1.05 per bonus attack damage) physical damage.

I really like this skill due to the fact that it deals such a high amount of damage with a decent range. Getting a feel for the "danger zone" will be one thing you should do as it deals a high amount of burst damage. Use this skill to quickly apply Hemorrhage to all enemies in teamfights for the increased movespeed, or to quickly harass the enemy laner and back off. When the enemy is low, combo a Decimate > Noxian Guillotine for a stylish finisher with high burst damage.



Crippling Strike

Darius's next attack severs a crucial artery, dealing 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 % additional physical damage. As the target bleeds out, their movement and attack speeds are slowed by 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 % for 2 seconds. Crippling Strike's cooldown is reduced by 1 second for each stack of Hemorrhage on the target.

I really like this ability as it makes dueling Darius a nightmare and you can permaslow people with the cooldown reduction passive. A quick Apprehend into Crippling Strike is a good way to get people into your comfort zone and unload on them, or to make them tank tower shots. In teamfights, try to land this on the enemy diver when they dive onto your AD carry, Crippling Strike will reduce their damage by a high amount.

Remember, the ability resets your autoattack timer so use it right after you hit someone with a basic attack to maximize damage output.




Apprehend

Darius hones his axe, granting him 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 % passive armor penetration. When activated, Darius sweeps up his enemies with his axe's hook and pulls them to him.

A fairly simple spell that grabs all enemies in front of Darius. One thing to note is that you can grab people regardless of whether there are minions blocking you or not. When you engage on an enemy, don't use Apprehend first. Use Crippling Strike and Apprehend them if they start getting away.

The armor penetration is also a useful factor for Darius it means he won't have to itemize for armor penetration that much.




Noxian Guillotine

Darius leaps to an enemy Champion and strikes a lethal blow, dealing 160 / 250 / 340 (+0.75 per bonus attack damage) true damage. This damage increases by 20% for each stack of Hemorrhage on the target up to a maximum of 320 / 500 / 680 (+1.5 per bonus attack damage) true damage. If Noxian Guillotine deals a killing blow, its cooldown is refreshed.

One of the best ultimates out there. A true damage execute with 680 base damage which refreshes on kill? Yes! This skill is what makes Darius so lethal, the snowballing and power packed within this skill is enormous. Abuse it often to get kills as you will be extremely ahead. Make sure to get some killing blows as the cooldown refreshes on each kill, enabling you to nuke your enemies extremely hard.

Keep track of the opponents health, as the earlier you execute the faster you can attack other enemies or retreat. One thing to note is that 1 bar of health = 100 health.

Sometimes, if an opponent is too tanky but needs to die, you won't have to execute them with Noxian Guillotine. Simply apply 5 stacks of Hemorrhage and drop them low with Noxian Guillotine. You can use this tactic in a desperate attempt to immediately drop someone to low health.

I take Flash and Ignite

Flash is VERY IMPORTANT! I can't stress how much Flash has helped me in game. You can do a Flash / Apprehend or escape easily. Darius loves this spell.

Ignite because it stacks with Hemorrhage, and you can kill people easily.