Darius Build Guide by Velediron

Introduction

Greetings, I'm Vel, and welcome to my guide to everyone's favourite Noxian, Darius, the Hand of Noxus. This guide will be focusing on a Darius capable of massive sustained and burst damage thorough the whole game, while remaining extremely tanky in the process. The item sequences and masteries in this guide are meant to be used ONLY in the jungle, but with minor changes (switching Wriggle's for an early Phage) you can excel at solotop aswell. Personally I would recommend you to try out jungle Darius, for as of now I haven't seen anyone else doing it, and he is ridiculously good at it. Nevertheless, enjoy your stay!

Darius - Champion Overview

Darius, the Hand of Noxus
Cost: 6300 IP or 975 RP
Release Date: May 24, 2012


Statistics

Health 426 (+93 per level, 2100 at 18)

Health regen. 8.25 (+0.95 per level, 25.35 at 18)

Attack damage 50 (+3.5 per level, 113 at 18)

Attack speed 0.679 (+2.60% per level)

Mana 200 (+37.5 per level, 875 at 18)

Mana regen. 6 (+0.35 per level, 12.3 at 18)

Armor 20 (+3.5 per level, 83 at 18)

Magic res. 30 (+1.25 per level, 52,5 at 18)

Range 125

Mov. speed 315

Pros / Cons

• Perhaps the strongest passive in the game, granting a DoT that scales with your AD and level, and increases your movement speed by 5% per affected enemy champion.
• Completely devours squishies.
• One of the top duelists in the game.
• One of the best grapple abilities in the game. ( Apprehend)
• Perhaps the most devastating ultimate in the game, dealing true damage that scales with your AD and refreshes if the enemy dies within 0.5 after using it. Noxian Guillotine
• Has everything a jungler needs, and is often underestimated. A Cleave with a short CD ( Decimate), A MS&AS Reduction debuff that deals additional damage ( Crippling Strike), a Grapple ability ( Apprehend) and a true damage finisher ( Noxian Guillotine)
• Armor is ineffective against Darius.
• One of the fastest junglers in the game.
• Able to dish out massive damage even if built full tank.

• Not very tanky earlygame.
• No hard CC.
• If succesfully kited, Darius will be completely useless.
• You might be (mistakenly) accused of killstealing.
• If you do well, you will often be focused.

Skills Overview

(Innate): Darius' basic attacks and damaging abilities cause enemies to bleed for 12 / 15 / 18 / 21 / 24 / 27 / 30 / 33 / 36 (+0.4 per bonus attack damage) magic damage over 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.
Darius gains 5% movement speed for each bleeding enemy champion.

One of the best passives in the game, the AD scaling bleed that deals magic damage that can easily finish runners. Also useful in the jungle where it'll make clearing faster. The 5% movement speed is a nice addition aswell. Do note, when your enemy has 5 stacks of Hemorrhage, a large, red icon will appear above their heads. During this time, executing them with Noxian Guillotine is advised if they have less than 50% health.


(Active): Darius deals physical damage to all nearby enemies in a circle around him. Champions in the outer half of the ability are struck by the blade, taking 50% additional damage.

Your bread 'n' butter skill. This does more than 100 damage at level 1 if you strike an enemy champion with the blade. It's also what makes your jungle clearing a LOT swifter. Striking enemy champions with the blade is not difficult, though at some points it is inevitable they take the hilt damage. This ability will not trigger on-hit effects or lifesteal, but it affects all targets with a single hemorrhage stack. This ability also has great scaling with AD, making it worthy to max first.


(Active): Darius' next basic attack deals additional damage and slows the target's movement and attack speed for 2 seconds.
Crippling strike's base cooldown is reduced by 1 second for each stack of Hemorrhage on the target.

A great slow and AS debuff. This ability will refresh your attack timer and proc on-hit effects such as Sheen and Trinity Force. At rank 5, this ability will do more than 500 damage with a Trinity proc. And if your target has 5 stacks of Hemorrhage, the CD of Crippling Strike will only be 3 seconds, allowing you to slam them with another 500+ strike. This ability will also proc on turrets and inhibitors, which means Darius is a very effective structure destroyer.


(Passive): Darius gains armor penetration. (Active): Darius pulls in all enemies in front of him.

The passive part of this ability is what makes Armor less effective against Darius. At Rank 5, you will have 25% armor penetration. The active effect of this ability has MANY uses. It's ridiculous in how many situations this can come in handy, whether it be initiating ganks, dragging back runners or even stealing blue/red buff, wraiths and mini golems. This ability is the only ability of Darius that will NOT proc Hemorrhage.


(Active): Darius leaps to target enemy champion and strikes a lethal blow, dealing 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, or if the target dies within 0.5 seconds after use.

This ability is simply immensely powerful right now. This is the second reason armor is ineffective against Darius. A true damage execution skill that refreshes every time it kills a champion. It also deals 20% additional damage for EACH stack of Hemorrhage on the target, which means that 5 stacks equals DOUBLE damage. This ability should be used as a finisher and only when you have Hemorrhage stacks upon your target. Opening with this ability makes it nigh useless.

Skill Sequence

Always pick Decimate at level 1. This makes your early jungling a lot faster than with Crippling Strike. Apprehend is completely useless when clearing your own jungle, hence why you should pick Crippling Strike at level 2. Remember that Crippling Strike refreshes your attack timer, so you should use it right after you land a basic attack when jungling. If you decide to gank at level 3 (which you should) pick Apprehend. Obviously, pick Noxian Guillotine whenever you can, at levels 6, 11 and 16.

Short story shorter:
Noxian Guillotine > Decimate > Crippling Strike > Apprehend

Runes

For jungling, I pick AS Marks, Flat Armor Seals and MR per level glyphes, being a good all-around rune build, with AS helping you clear jungle faster and stack Hemorrhage more swiftly, Armor helping you against carries, physical damage and jungle monsters, and Magic Resistance reducing the damage you would take from an AP carry.

For Quintessences you can pick flat health, armor penetration or movement speed. I myself have found MS Quintessences VERY useful thorough the whole game.

Marks: 9x Greater Mark of Attack Speed
Seals: 9x Greater Seal of Armor
Glyphes: 9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
Quintessences: 3x Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed

Masteries

For masteries, I pick a simple 21-9-0 build. This is my personal preference and I find it most effective, but whether you decide to use it or not is up to you. Going 9-21-0 might not be a bad idea if you prefer the earlygame defense.

The masteries should be self-explanatory, so I will not delve on them any more. If you have questions or suggestions about the masteries, please comment and I will reply gladly.

Jungling Route

An effective jungling route on Darius is:
Wolves > Blue Golem > Wraiths > Double Golems > Red Lizard > Gank

Items

I've been playing Darius since his release. During my games, if I've done well and earned a lot of money like you should, I've chosen my items to often be like the item sequence shows. However, items should always be situational, and you should build according to the team's needs.

Summoner Spells

For summoner spells, I've picked Smite and Flash. Smite is necessary if you're jungling, and Flash is just so good on every champion, being able to blink into range and Apprehend an enemy into your team. If you prefer a different spell than Flash though, there are some effective substitutes such as Ghost, Ignite and Exhaust. Again, it's up to you.

Tips and Tricks

• When ganking, try to flank your enemies. Try to open with Crippling Strike instead of Apprehend. It allows you to save Apprehend for when he runs or Flashes away, allowing you to drag them back. Remember, even if you don't succeed on killing, if they use flash it'll still help your lane.
  
• Darius excels at stealing buffs and counter-jungling, and that is an understatement. You are able to Apprehend the blue golem through the forest to the long bush at the side of river, allowing you to kill him in peace and often leaving an enemy confused. You're also able to pull the big wraith and the double golems to you through the forest, allowing you to quickly steal gold and exp from the enemy jungler.
  
• When jungling, attack the monsters in turns, keeping up the Hemorrhage stacks.
  
• Remember to look for the red, bleeding marker atop enemy champions. It means they have 5 stacks of Hemorrhage, and that they will take max damage from Noxian Guillotine
  
• There isn't such a thing as killstealing, as kills work for the favor of your team. However, if you're able to securely give your team's carry a kill, don't blast the enemy with Noxian Guillotine.

Match History

Screenshots of Matches with Jungle Darius. If you want your scores here, comment!

Changelog

26/05/2012: Guide Published!
27/05/2012: Added Mercury's Treads into the item sequence due people voting -1 just because they read it, and not the items section.

Summary

And so, my guide is finished, for now. I intend to update it with pictures, jungle and warding guides once I manage to create some. It's the second I've written, and english is not my native language, so bear with my typos and point them out!

Please do leave me a comment and vote the guide, it means alot. If you downvote, please do tell me why, and what should be improved. And before you do downvote, try the build out!

Criticism is always welcome, I don't expect the guide to be perfect, so do point out flaws if you believe they exist!

Thank you for staying.
- Vel.