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

• Offensive tree:

  
  In this mastery tree we need only 9 masteries, including Brute Force (dmg), Summoner's Wrath (very useful with ignite), Alacrity (only useful mast. in this line) and some Armor penetration ( Weapon Expertise )

• Defensive tree:

  
  First line is on your own decision. You will sometimes need to choose between Hardiness and Resistance ... Than get Durability , Veteran's Scars for that extra HP and some HPRegen ( Vigor ). Also you need Indomitable , Honor Guard for reduced enemy damage and Initiator for that nice movement speed bonus. Jugernaut is then the last mastery you are going to choose :)

• Utility tree:

  
  No masteries in utility tree

• 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.

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.

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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
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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
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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.
Cost 45 mana
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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
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Hemorrhage - Darius aims his attacks strategically, causing his target to bleed. This effect stacks up to five times.
A 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).

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.

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.
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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 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?

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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.

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).

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!

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.

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 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 :)
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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