While Darius is still a new champion I have played him for a while and have come to realize he is one of the most strongest characters in L.o.L. to date. His passive D.O.T. ability coupled with his devastating ultimate which does true damage and resets on enemy champion kill. This coupled with apprehend to grip opponents to him and his slow make him a devastating opponent. This build is to highlight the items I chose when playing as Darius and hope that it can help you to better play Darius - The Hand of Noxus!

For Marks I chose to go with armor penetration. His passive armor pen coupled with the amount recieved from these runes allow you to need close to zero armor pen in your build and still allow you to have enough to wreck any opponent with armor.

For Glyphs I chose to go with the stacking magic resist glyphs. These are the most beneficial in my opinion as they give you the early defensive magic resist to go against the early magic damaging opponents, and scale nicely at end game to provide for some decent magic resist. Armor would work here as well with cooldown reduction, it depends on your style of play.

For Seals I chose to go with resilience, for the bonus armor. This allows you to better tank minions off the start, and deal with those pesky ranged AD toons on the bottom lane. This helps with the early game damage taken, yet they fall off mid game as they dont scale with levels. Straight up attack damage runes would be a great substitute for these as well.

For Quints I chose to go with 2 armor pen and 1 fortitude quints. The fortitude quint coupled with the talent for bonus health gives the early game advantage on health so boots can become the best choice to start off with. The armor pen quints, also with the armor pen runes give that extra armor pen that gives you the advantage on those especially armored tanky toons.

Defense Talents:

While at first a hybrid mastery tree seems unorthadox, the reasoning behind the talents are well thought out. The defensive armor and magic resist give you a tanky advantage without sacrificing the item slots. The scaling health talent and the reduced damage from minions talent allow for you to efficiently tank minions in your lane so you can be sure to get the last hits and keep your health pool growing to meet the challenge of your opponents. The bonus health at the start allows you to pick boots off the start and still keep suffiecient HP and be a force to reckon with right off the start. Finally the cooldown reduction allows for you keep your slow up on the eniemes more readliy and also allow you to apprehend them more often. This talent should be self explanitory.

Offense Talents:

The increased attack damage and increased summoner spell on ignite give a total bonus of 8 attack damage for the majority of the match, giving you an extreme advantage early game, and allow for a bit of extra damage late game. Also the attack speed is an issue of common sense, attacking faster stacks your passive quicker and makes you able to maximize your ultimates damage more easily. Finally polishing off with 10% more armor pen puts Daruis at the top of his game with no armor penetrattion items in his build.

Hemmorhage (Passive) - A devastating passive that places a stacking D.O.T. effect on the enemy champion up to five times. Auto attacks, as well as all of Darius's moves apply this (Exclusive of his ultimate). These stacks also increase the damage done by his ultimate - explained later in this section.

Decimate - Being the greatest source of damage, and the best way to farm waves of minions, I like to take decimate at level one and rank it up as quickly as possible, maxing it out at level 9.

Crippling Strike - Being his only way to efficiently chase down enemies over a large distance, crippling strikes utility is highly demanding, so I take it at level 2, increase it again at level 8, and max it by level 13.

Apprehend - Apprehend pulls enemies in front of Daruis to him, allowing him to deal damage, let the enemy get some distance from him, and he can pull them back to him. This and a bonus stacking 5% armor pen per level. For this reason I usually take it at level 3, and go for the kill on bottom lane around this time.

Noxian Guillotine - Darius's devastating ultimate is Noxian Guillotine! Dealing a set amount of TRUE DAMAGE, this ultimate cannot be mitigated in any form. This coupled with the fact that it scales by 20% per stack of hemmorage (his passive) and that its cooldown resets when this move kills another enemy champion makes this move one of the greatest ultimates in the game. Capping out at a specific damage at certain levels however, holds back the total damage a bit. Be sure to stack up your passive as quickly as possible and finish them off with this devastating move. Take this at 6, 11, and 16.

Exhaust - Daruis doesn't have a lot of good ways to chase down enemies, making it hard to wrap up early kills. To solve this I take exhaust, and use it to prevent enemies from escaping. Another option would be flash, or heal if you're not quite confident in your abilities just yet.

Ignite - Ignite when on cooldown, gives Darius 5 attack damage, and also 5 ability power. Also ignite is another D.O.T. effect Daruis can throw on enemies to deal that little damage needed to push early champion kills, and wrap up champion kills late game. Another option would be again heal or flash, depending on how comfortable you are with the champion.

Pros:

Darius does amazing damage
He is relatively easy to play, and very fun
His build is very adaptable, and can be altered based on team comp

Cons:

Very little escape mecanics
Easy to gank, and kill at low level
If you don't time his ultimate and set it on cooldown, your utility decreases immensely

Being my first guide on Mobafrie, I would love for you all to give this a try and let me know your feedback, as well as other options that work for this amazing powerhouse of a champion. Darius is a hard hitting melee champion with slows, and a grip, both coupled with an amazing and devastating ultimate that can finish off enemy champions one after the other. Things to keep in mind are his low abilities to escape, and low defensive abilities early game. Just remember that practice makes perfect, and in time and following this build, you too can someday wield this amazing character to perfection, Darius - The Hand of Noxus!