My name is ItHurtsToBeYou and I'm currently a Gold (II) player maining Darius.
Darius was the champ that got me from Bronze and Silver to Gold and I had a lot of fun climbing. At the moment I'm trying to climb to Plat with mediocre sucess but I'm sure I will get it this season :)

Why play Darius?

- FUN

- nearly unbeatable melee lane

- great at killing any champ due to natural armorpen

- DUNKMASTER

- can comeback easily

- Struggles against ranged

- falls off late game

- gets banned a lot

For maxing spells: Most people max W second but thats just wrong. Maxing W only reduces it's cooldown while maxing E gives you up to 25% armor pen AND more pulls.

As for how to use the skills:
Always start with Apprehend to get them close and slow them for 40%, then give them a smack with Crippling Strike so they are slowed 90% and you have an easy time landing your Decimate
You can also just use Decimate to poke
The importance when using Decimate lies within the fact that you need the blade to hit so position good.
You win most trades by giving your enemy five stacks of Hemorrhage and then disengaging since they will not take five times bleed dmg + the additional bleed you get by gaining 40-200 bonus AD from Hemorrhage
For when to ult:
You need to get a feeling for when to ult. I ult when I know for sure they will die (e.g. ult on four Hemorrhage stacks to get the fifth stack and let them bleed to death (that's the time to show your mastery icon if you have one :D)
Also try to chain ults. As you probably know Darius gets a fresh cast with NO mana cost of Noxian Guillotine for the next 20 seconds and after executing someone or giving five stacks of Hemorrhage to someone every next hit (basic attack or ability) will add five stacks to ANY target (refreshes on champions). That means DUNK > hit > DUNK > hit > DUNK etc... (that's the fun part)

My favorite Item on Darius is Titanic Hydra just because it adds a nice burst in the early game that ýou keep until the game ends. You could go for a Black Cleaver first but I prefer the Titanic start.
After getting Titanic and Cleaver you basically just need Armor and Magic Resistance.
For that Dead Man's Plate, Randuin's Omen, Spirit Visage and Thornmail are perfect. I usually get two of these and then get Warmog's Armor to get that nice regen going especially with Spirit Visage

When farming use your Q for poking AND farming at the same time and use your W for last hits because it's fast and you get 100% mana and 50% CD back.
Zone your enemy and get a huge CS lead.

I hope you all learned a bit about Darius and if you decide to play him
HAVE FUN :D



This was my first guide so please be gentle :O