Click to open network menu
Join or Log In
Mobafire logo

Join the leading League of Legends community. Create and share Champion Guides and Builds.

Create an MFN Account






Or

MOBAFire's first Mini Guide Contest of Season 14 is here! Create or update guides for the 30 featured champions and compete for up to $200 in prizes! 🏆
This build has been archived and is for historical display only

This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.

We recommend you take a look at this author's other builds.


x
Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page

x
Darius Build Guide by PandaWarrior

AD Offtank Daxus, The Hand of Norius

AD Offtank Daxus, The Hand of Norius

Updated on November 23, 2012
5.6
3
Votes
3
Vote Vote
League of Legends Build Guide Author PandaWarrior Build Guide By PandaWarrior 3 3 5,531 Views 9 Comments
3 3 5,531 Views 9 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author PandaWarrior Darius Build Guide By PandaWarrior Updated on November 23, 2012
x
Did this guide help you? If so please give them a vote or leave a comment. You can even win prizes by doing so!
Vote
Comment

You must be logged in to comment. Please login or register.

I liked this Guide
I didn't like this Guide
Commenting is required to vote!
Would you like to add a comment to your vote?

Your votes and comments encourage our guide authors to continue
creating helpful guides for the League of Legends community.

Introduction

Hello guys!
I am PandaWarrior and this is my build and guide to Darius, the hand of Noxus. I will show you my masteries, runes, items and other tips and tricks on how to play Darius, so hope u enjoy!
Back to Top

Pros/Cons

Pros


A
+He does a lost of damage even if built full tanky
+His Apprehend is great pull! If you get squishy with that ability, it's dead in 2 secs.
+ Crippling Strike - nice slow and tons of damage!
+Nice natural armor penetration from his E
+OP ultimate skill! 750 true damage + no cooldown = Pentakill!

Cons


A
-If you are spaming skills, your mana is wasted immediately
-Can be countered just by small ccs
-No natural sustain
-Ranged champions have won lane if playing against him top
Back to Top

Masteries

Back to Top

Runes

Runes

Precision
Fleet Footwork
Phase Rush
  • Marks:
    - Just for some earlygame dominance
  • Glyphs:
    - Really good rune to defend your strong right arm from ap casters and mages since we dont use almost any Magic Resistance items late game!
  • Seals:
    - This rune will make mad every ad bruiser in your lane! Really strong earlygame rune for every top laner!
  • Quins
    - Just some more ad for early dominance
You can also buy some HP seals and MPen marks, but i use these runes the most.
Back to Top

Summoner spells

Best Choice


This spell is one of the most used in the game and i know why. It is awesome and greatly stacks with Darius' passive!
Best summoner spell in the entire game! It's so unique and useful, that you have to have this spell up every 5v5!

Possible Spells


This spell is great and can be used in many diferent ways, but i never got used to it.
Very good spell, that stacks with your slow from Crippling Strike.
Back to Top

Skills and their sequence

Skills


A A
Decimate - Darius swings his axe in a wide circle. Enemies struck by the blade take more damage than those struck by the handle.
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.
Cost 40 mana
A A
Crippling Strike - Darius's next attack strikes a crucial artery. As they bleed out, their movement and attack speed is slowed. Crippling Strike's cooldown is lower the more bloodied its target.
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.
Cost 30/35/40/45/50 mana
A A
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.
Cost 45 mana
A A
Noxian Guillotine - Darius leaps to an enemy champion and strikes a lethal blow, dealing true damage. This damage is increased for each stack of Hemorrhage on the target. If Noxian Guillotine is a killing blow, its cooldown is refreshed.
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.
Maximum Damage: 0.0.

The cooldown is refreshed if Noxian Guillotine kills the target.
Cost 100 mana
A A
Hemorrhage - Darius aims his attacks strategically, causing his target to bleed. This effect stacks up to five times.
A

Skill sequence

Ability Sequence
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

R-Q-W-E

Yeah, someone can say: Why don't you max W first? Q has no slow!
It's because his Q ( Decimate) is awesome poking ability. It does the most damage at max range, so you can easily harass your enemies or farm minions from long distance. His Crippling Strike gives you slow and tons of damage, but you have to come very close to your target to apply the bleed (and slow).
Back to Top

Items

Starting Items


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

Also possible item, but with the nerf of doran's items in season 3 update, it is not going to be as powerful as it was in season 2. It's still valuable choice, but i prefer Boots as i said.

Laning Phase Items

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 your next item, wich is gonna be Trinity Force (starting with Phage to get hp and ad). If you can buy two Doran's Blade, buy them! It's always good to have them!
A

This is gonna 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!

If you feel like you really need tear 2 boots, then buy Ninja Tabi. You can then sell them and buy Mercury Threads.

Midgame and Lategame items

CORE ITEMS

A
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 item after boots, 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 actived Full Ballzy Darius mode, because the amount of HP and Health regen you get is just awesome!
A
or

Now, you can choose between more damage and more armor. Both items are very good for Darius, but in order to make this build complete, you have to buy only one of them.
A
or
These two late game items are very useful, both in other ways, so ask yourself: Do I need even more damage or more sustain?
A
A

OTHER POSSIBILITIES

A
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.
A
A
Randuin's Omen is an awesome item, so why didn't i put it to main build? It's because i can't use any item in the right moment :D. But if you are good at using item's actives , just buy it (replace Frozen Mallet or Frozen Heart with it).
Back to Top

Laning Guide & Counters

In this chapter, i am going to focus on laning phase of Darius. This chapter also includes some farming tips and Darius' counters.
A

Farming

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!

Counters

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
  • 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.
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.
Back to Top

Ward spots

Here i'll show you some very good warding spots, you can use when playing as any top laner.
A
A

Watch for ganks


A
A
A

Safe way to check the brush


A
A
A

Brush, golems and outside of camp vision


A
A
A

Dragon and enemy jungle vision


A
A
A

What pro players do


A
Back to Top

My stats with Darius

Here are some of my in game statistics with Darius:
A
A
A
I dont play ranked, because i think i'll suck, so no ranked stats - just normal blind pick :D
Back to Top

Useful links and Videos

Inspirating videos


A
Phreak's Champion Spotlight: A
A
Dyrus' Darius Gameplay/Commentary

Useful links


Coming soon

Back to Top

Summary & Change log

Ok guys! This was my build for Darius! Hope you enjoyed and learned something! Check new Change log below! I have also added tons of new chapters! And by the way guys, this is my first guide and im not very good at 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 :)
A

Change log


(12/22/2012) Updated item build, changed and added chapters
Added chapters:
  • Pros/Cons
  • Useful links and Videos
  • Laning Guide and Counters
  • Ward spots
Updated chapters:
  • Items
  • Skills and their sequence
  • Summoner spells
  • Introduction
Edited chapters and names:
  • Summary (& Change log)
(12/21/2012) Published
Download the Porofessor App for Windows

League of Legends Champions:

Teamfight Tactics Guide