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+ Does a lot of damage even if built as a pure tank. + High crowd control. + Auto attack reset with W. + Built-in Armor penetration from his Apprehend

- Small mana pool. - Countered by CC and ranged champions. - No natural sustain. - No built-in excapes. - Kinda slow.

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Some Damage The first mastery tree gives us quite a bit of tankiness, plus a bit of damage. Main masteries, we are going for are Weapon Expertise , because it nicely stacks with out Apprehend and Summoner's Wrath , because we will probably get both or at least one of Ignite and Ghost. Of corse, we take Relentless and Tenacious , because of Darius' slope to get caught. A

Purely Tanky A This Mastery tree is made to give us a decent amount of tankiness for an early game (in defensive tree) and a bit of movement speed (in utility tree). Instead of Fury , Deadliness and Weapon Expertise , we take Juggernaut , Defender and Wanderer . You can also change Defender for Summoner's Wrath , to get the bonus from summoner spells. A A

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Those are two rune pages that you might use as a Darius player:

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As i surely said already in this guide and if not, i will say it again: Darius NEEDS movement speed to be useful! Without movement speed, he will never catch an opponent that has at least some Crowd Control. That is main reason, why we take Quintessence of Movement Speed instead of more damage or defense. I highly recommend this Rune page against any champion.

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If you are in lane against a champion, you can easily catch and kill (unlike Singed or Dr. Mundo), you can go for this Rune Page, this offers you quite high early game damage. Again, use it only of you know, your enemy won't flee you in a split second. Rest of runes is the same as in the first Rune page, just to get the much needed defense, that every toplaner usualy has.

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Since Darius has no natural gap closers nor excapes, you should get at least one summoners spell that will give him what he needs. With Ghost, you can make your enemy pee his pants right before killing him. All you need to do is to move, attack, move, attack, and your enemy won't be able to stop you because you always got your Apprehend and Crippling Strike ready to go.
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You should take Flash for the same reason as Ghost. Altho Ghost is a very good spell, it can always be countered by slows and stuns and since Flash is an instant gap closer that makes you blink from one place to another, you will always feel the joy of getting your first blood.
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Ignite works as a finishing touch to your hard work. It is there if everything else fails and it is worth getting even through the long cooldown. You should take this spell either if your lane opponent has heal of some sort, so you can reduce it or if you are planning on getting some early kills. Either way, it works great and is worth gettng.
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Usually, you will only farm and farm minions or champions up high in your lane, until mid/late game or till you kill an enemy tower. But with Teleport, you become an immense global threat. With Teleport, you can finally secure kills from far away or get back to farming in an instance.
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+ A Great combination for securing early kills and getting out of unhealthy situations. Good for starting players or the ones that want to get early dominance (wich is always the goal) by getting kills.

+ A Even though it might look wierd, it actually works. This combination will make all kills possible and every enemy available in a moment. But it doesn't give you the damage potential from Ignite.

+ A As i said when i was describing Teleport up above, you became a huge global threat if you pick this summoner spell. Your lane opponent won't be as much scared of you, but enemy bot lane should be.

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Decimate deals 70/105/140/175/210 (+0.7) physical damage to all nearby enemies in a circle. Champions in the outer half of the ability are struck by the blade, taking 50% additional damage.
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Tips:

• Very good skill to lasthit minions or even champions from far away
• Don't forget, that it does more damage if an enemy is in the outer ring of this abaility!
• Nice spell if you want to apply your bleed.

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Crippling Strike - The next basic attack deals 120/140/160/180/200% damage and slows the target's movement and attack speed by 20/25/30/35/40% for 2 seconds.
Crippling Strike's base cooldown is reduced by 1 second for each stack of Hemorrhage on the target.
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Tips:

• This skill resets your attack timer, so use it right after you land an autoattack. Like this, you can get two autoattacks for the price of one :)
• Crippling Strike aplies slow, wich is very good for chasing enemies.

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Apprehend - Darius hones his axe, granting him passive armor penetration. When activated, Darius sweeps up his enemies with his axe's hook and pulls them to him.
Passive: Grants 5/10/15/20/25% armor penetration.
Active: Pulls in all enemies in front of Darius.
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Tips:

• If your enemy has flash up (and he runs away from you), then use Apprehend after he flashes! If he flashes and you don't have Apprehend up, he escapes with no problems.
• Its passive gives you some armor penetration, so you don't need to buy almost any armor pen. items lately.

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Noxian Guillotine - Darius leaps to target enemy champion and strikes a lethal blow, dealing 160/250/340 (+0.75) true damage.
For each stack of Hemorrhage on the target, Noxian Guillotine deals an additional 20% damage.
The cooldown is refreshed if Noxian Guillotine kills the target.
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Tips:

• Each unit on opponents health bar means 100 HP. With max rank on your Noxian Guillotine and our full build, you can do almost 800 damage, just using this ability. Have that in mind and don't use your ulti when it's too late!
• The cooldown of Noxian Guillotine is refreshed if it kills the target. Yea. That's pretty cool and it also can possibly score penta kill, but it doesn't mean that you have to use it right before your target is dead! If you are about to die, it's better to waste the cooldown than your live!
• For each stack of Hemorrhage on the target, Noxian Guillotine deals an additional 20% damage - Q (stack one), autoattack (stack two), W (stack three), autoattack (stack four), Q (stack five) and R for maximum damage!

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Hemorrhage - Darius aims his attacks strategically, causing his target to bleed. This effect stacks up to five times.
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Boots are the best starting item for Darius top in my opinion. U realy need that movement speed and sustain with 3 (or 4) Health Potions is amazing. There are more possible items to start with, but this one is my favorite.

A If you feel like, you need more armor (jayce or any other attack damage dealer is against you in lane), let's go and buy Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions. You have much more sustain, but no movement speed :/

A Doran's Blade is not really good starting item, but in laning phase, you need to buy it as quickly as possible. If you suck in lane, get just one and then imediately start to build towards Trinity Force. If you can buy two Doran's Blade, buy them! It's always good to have them!

A This is going to be your first item after Boots and Doran's Blades. Of course, you are going to build it towards Trinity Force. It is important to buy it before Sheen, because of that extra AD and HP.

A Next item after Phage is Sheen. It's also next part of our main damage dealer Trinity Force. Someone would say, that it's useless item for Darius, but don't forget about its passive!

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A or A Now it's time to buy our shoes! You have pretty much 2 choices: Mercury's Treads and Ninja Tabi. I prefer Mercury's treads because of that tenacity bonus, but you can buy ninja tabi for almost free armor. Also if you think, that you don't need tear 2 boots that "early", feel free to rush triforce before buying them (as i usually do), but it's much better to have that movement speed as quickly as you can.

A First "big" item, you are going to buy is Trinity Force as mentioned before. It's our main damage item, so you have to buy it as quickly as possible, because then we are going for almost pure tanky mode!

A After finishing this item, you can just go around and farm kills instead of minions, because the amount of HP and Health regen you get is just OP.

A Randuin's Omen is good item and gives you lots of armor and hp regen, wich is realy what we need. Also you can easily slow your targets by activating it, so you now have slows from: Trinity Force, Crippling Strike, Randuin's Omen and exceptional red buff.

A Guardian Angel is one of the best items in the game and can be used on many diferent roles in team. Not just because it gives you tons of armor and magic resist. It has great unique passive, that revives you upon death!

A This item gives you even more AD and sustain. It's passive is, that it gives you 1,5% of HP as AD, wich is pretty good when we have around 4000 HP with this build already. Also you have some nice amount of armor. You have to have this item everytime you play Darius!

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A A Good midgame item if enemy team has a lot of magic damage, but it really sucks lategame, so it is not my choice number one. Also with the incoming Season 3, there are better late game Magic Resist items in my opinion ( Mercurial Scimitar).

A A Bloodthirster can be very useful if you think, you still don't have enough damage. It is very powerful item and gives you lots of ad, but it takes place of tanky items. Also to utilize full power of this item, you have to farm a lot of minions wich means, that you are gonna be late to every teamfight. A

A A Mercurial Scimitar is a new item, added in Preseaon 3 Update and i think it's just great! It gives you nice amount of magic resist and attack damage as well as very nice passive, that removes all debuffs and gives you +50% movement speed for 1 second. Cooldown of its passive is fairly long and the advantage over your enemies, you get is huge!

A A This item i great for Darius. It gives you HP, slow and tons of damage if using with Atma's Impaler, so if you want it, go for it (replace Trinity Force). I like to use trinity force more, because it does more damage, but if you want to be very tanky and you think, you don't need that passive from Sheen, it is a good choice.

A A Thornmail is one of the most unfair items in league of legends. Every ad carry that tries to attack you arranges suicidal mission. And trust me, you are going to be focused by ad carries. You are Darius. Despite everything, it's more late game item, so you are usually not gonna get to the point in the game when you really need it.

A A Ravenous Hydra is a new item built from Tiamat. It's great especially, if you use it with Bloodthirster that gives us tons of lifesteal. Passive of Ravenous Hydra deals 20-60% to all enemies near to your target. This passive benefits from lifesteal, so if you buy Bloodthirster and Ravenous Hydra in one build, you are invincible!

A Farming is the most important thing for every champion in League. If you don't farm, you don't have enough money for any items, so you can't be good help for your team. Here are some tips, how to farm efficiently:

• If you are too far from dying creep, just use your Decimate to kill it.
• Killing minions with Crippling Strike gives you bigger chance to hit lasthit, but you can eat trough your mana very quickly!
• If your enemy pushes your lane and creeps didn't arrive to tower, just tank their damage while killing them and wait for your minions to come. Tower can't steal you any lasthits and you have more gold!
• Don't use Apprehend on minions! It's freakin waste!

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A AP Teemo has very big harass potencial and if you are not careful enough, you are probably gonna die very soon. Best tips if laning against Teemo are: Always keep your distance and if you can poke him with Decimate, do it! Try to farm far away from him otherwise, he will shoot you with his Blinding Dart and Toxic Shot Try to harass him early, because you have much more damage and hp than him at the begining of game! When he comes too close, just Apprehend, autoattack, Crippling Strike, Decimate and go to base with free kill like a boss! If you step in his shroom, you are dead almost instantly, so the best counter item against teemo is Oracle's Elixir or Vision Ward.

A Yorick is also very good counter to Darius. He has a lot of cc with his spammable Omen of Pestilence skill. His Omen of Pestilence does a lot of damage and slow, so be careful about that. Yorick has very great sustain with Omen of Famine! If he uses this spell, just run away or wait until it goes on cooldown so he can't lifesteal from you. He can't spam his spells to much otherwise he will eat trough all of his mana really quickly. After he uses an ability, just wait a second and then attack. His spells are gonna be on cooldown, so he can't do anything. Yorick also has great early game, so you have to be careful and just farm. You will pown him lately.

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A Wukong has very strong early game, but you too! Try to harass him early and deny him farm as much as possible. Everytime he tries to escape with his Warrior Trickster (he stops moving), use your Apprehend, so he can't move away. After he appears again, just use Crippling Strike, Decimate, some autoattacks and your ultimate. Dem free kills!

A Irelia is OP champion as all we know, but even the strongest have their weaknesses! Her weakness is very bad early game. If you harass her early in the game, she will go down quickly. Just be careful everytime she uses her Hiten Style. It means that she wants to do damage (and she WILL deal it if you come close). Also be careful about her stun ( Equilibrium Strike)! It has long cooldown, so after she use it, u can harass her all night long! (Double meaning :D)

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A Who isn't good with Blitzcrank? It's the best support in the game and can be also played as AP caster and jungler too (yep i saw one blitz jungling - it was op). If you fail to pull someone with your Apprehend, his Rocket Grab is here to save the day. Also, three of Blitzcranks abilities are CCs and one of them is movement speed buff, so if he appears in your lane to gank, everyone tries to fly away.

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Here i'll show you some very good warding spots, you can use when playing as any top laner.
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Ok guys! This was my build & guide to Darius! Hope you enjoyed and learned something! And by the way guys, I'm not very good in english, so please, be kind and maybe say me in comments what im doing wrong (some grammar fails included)! If you liked or disliked this build, please rate, so i can see if you liked it or not! It means a lot for me.
But anyway... Greetings from Czech republic!
Have a nice day :)

My other guides:
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Nami, the Tidycaller

Ashe, the Freljord Beauty

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Change log

(8/6/2013) Updated "Pros & Cons", "Masteries", "Runes" and Builds. Other things coming soon.
(12/28/2012) Edited skins, displaying with each build.
(12/26/2012) Corrected some grammar mYstakes, edit milestone section and so on... Just some small changes, but i hope i'm gonna have time to play lol soon and maybe improve this build/guide some more :)
(12/10/2012) Edited the first item build (There was 7 core items lol :D)
(12/09/2012) New items in item builds - Thornmail and Ravenous Hydra. Of course edited item section.
(12/08/2012) Finally corrected some stupid grammar mistakes. Also added links to my other guides and two "Useful links" to Links/Vids chapter. + edited the Pros/Cons chapter, just to look better.
(12/06/2012) Item build and Items section updated. New item: Mercurial Scimitar. Also new milestone added!
(12/05/2012) Updated to Preseason 3 Patch and some little changes in desing and some chapters. Also adding some new items soon. New chapter - My Milestones
(12/01/2012) Added tips to Darius' abilities.
(11/28/2012) New item added to possible build and some updated chapters (below). I also included 2 new builds with possible item choice.

• New chapters
  - Champion selection (counters/good against, with)
• Edited chapters
  - Farming
  - Items

(11/25/2012) New pictures of chapters (nothing special - just some pictures of new Darius skin, i own - but looks great in my opinion)
(11/24/2012) Updated change log (wrong dates) and some chapters + new name
(11/23/2012) Published