Hello community!

My name is Giel and I bring you this Darius guide.
I have been playing League since season 1 and have been playing ranked since season 2.

I've been an Urgot main since half of season 8. And I am Champion mastery 7 for quite some time now.
I started playing Darius in my team I didn't want to play Urgot and started to really like the champion and the potential he has. After playing him quite much I can give you this guide based on personal experience with the champion

PROS - Strong early game damage with your passive - Tanky from 2 items forward - Killing squishy's in a véry short time space - Fast movement speed - Good mid game - Good late game - Your damage output always stays high - Great wave clear - Passive works very well in teamfights

CONS - Can't trade well with champions that have escapes - Needs his attack speed because he deals only real damage with 5 bloodstacks - Need to be able to trade for a extended period bc of the bloodstacks - Need to control his combo to even have a chance on getting stacks in teamfights - Very gank vurnerable early game - no teleport (often)

On Darius you want to run Ghost most of the time. This is because when you are going to go all in on a champion, you want to be able to run him down, even if he is faster or has an escape. Ghost makes sure you stick to your enemy and gives you the time you need to get five bloodstacks of Hemorrhage on him.

Teleport is a great spell when you face a hard match-up. When you think you won't be able to win lane or your up against a lane bully, you might take Teleport, so you have more options to go back to base without missing out on to much.

Ignite is not a spell I would recommend on Darius. You can take it for extra damage, or to make sure you can counter your own counters. (Usable when Tryndamere uses his ult and you can counter that with five stacks of Hemorrhage and Ignite to make sure he dies anyway.)

These runes are really the only runes that work very well on Darius and I would not recommend any other runes.

Conqueror is a must have spell on Darius. You need this to shred trough tanks and it gives you nice damage in laning fase.
Triumph is the best option on Darius because the other 2 stones don't really work on Darius. Overheal could be worth a try if you want to start Doran's Blade, but both of those things I wouldn't recommend.
Legend: Alacrity is a must have. You need to get the extra attack speed on Darius.
Coup de Grace is a must pick on Darius because of the extra damage it gets you.

Resolve as secondary tree is the only good option.
Demolish will help you snowball a lead by taking plates faster and creating more pressure all around the map in mid- to late game.
Bone Plating will help you survive early game pokes and trades. This is also a must have when using the Resolve tree.

If you want more damage and don't feel like being a bit tanky (which isn't recommendable, then you can try these runes.

Conqueror is a must have spell on Darius. You need this to shred trough tanks and it gives you nice damage in laning fase.
Triumph is the best option on Darius because the other 2 stones don't really work on Darius. Overheal could be worth a try if you want to start Doran's Blade, but both of those things I wouldn't recommend.
Legend: Alacrity is a must have. You need to get the extra attack speed on Darius.
Coup de Grace is a must pick on Darius because of the extra damage it gets you.

Domination is the tree with the most raw 'damage' in it. You use Domination with Taste of Blood and Ravenous Hunter to maximize the healing you get from spells and other damage output.

What you can also try with this rune page, is taking Overheal instead of Triumph because of the healing the Domination part gives you. On your regular runes, Overheal won't do much until you get a lifesteal item.

When the game begins you have a choice to make.
Usually I start of with Corrupting Potion because I like the sustain you get of that. You have a pretty expensive first back if you want to make it a good one, so the longer you can stay on lane the better.

Doran's Shield could be something you prefer in the toplane. This could be good when you don't get poked and when you know you can handle yourself in lane.

Doran's Blade is a possibility when you are 100% sure you will win your lane.

Ideally, your first back contains of two items. First one being Phage, second one being Boots.
This is a total amount of 1550 gold, which is a lot.

I would recommend if you have to back earlier than this, to buy at least the Boots. Movement speed on Darius is key. After this, you can choose either a Long Sword or a Ruby Crystal, this depends on the match up.
When you get poked out of lane all the time, or lose the trades hard, your best pick would be Ruby Crystal. If you got an early kill you can choose Long Sword to start snowballing your lead.

With Darius you want to start Trinity Force, because it works very well with your spells and pushing potential.
Start Black Cleaver when behind in lane, the reason for this will be explained in the gameplay section.

Sterak's Gage is a must have item on Darius. Not only is it very compatible with Trinity Force but also it works very well with Black Cleaver.

Ofcourse Ninja Tabi works well versus physical damage and Mercury's Treads work well versus CC and magical damage.

After these 2 items it is up to you, these things change per game.

All of these items work great on Darius. After you get your second core item Sterak's Gage it is really up to you what you want to build.
Of course this is dependant on the match up, given the enemy team has more magical of physical damage.
Few important things to notice: Spirit Visage is a great item on Darius because it gives you Q an empowered heal. Dead Man's Plate is very good because of how fast you get. Guardian Angel is a good item for fights, because once you get your stacks of they will be on for a while. This means with Guardian Angel you have a longer period of time to kill as much enemy's as possible.

This is the section were I really go in-depth about the laning fase of Darius.
When laning as Darius you need to understand that you are very strong in the early parts of the game.
If you enemy laner start walking in your melee range, you can almost always face him, your Hemorrhage stacks are very powerfull and the damage you put out if you get 5 stacks in level 1 is insane.
This means you can always fight your opponent in level 1, and most of the times you will walk out victorious. There are some exeptions, like a Tryndamere with Ignite. This could be stronger, when Tryndamere uses his Conqueror well, and has some luck in his critical strikes.

After the first levels, you get to level 3. This is when you unlock your go to combo. The combo on Darius should be something you start learning yourself from the first minute you start playing him.
The combo goes as followed = Apprehend - AA - Crippling Strike - AA - Decimate - AA.
If you get this combo off you'll get 5 stacks in the shortest amount of time.

When you are pulling ahead in lane, like with farm or kills, you want to snowball your lead, by taking as many tower plating as you can get. Make sure you ward up so you know where the enemy jungler is, as you don't want to grief for those plates.

When your falling behind it's all about making sure you farm well to create yourself enough gold. You go for Black Cleaver instead of Trinity Force. This has 2 main reasons. The first one being that Black Cleaver is cheaper than Trinity Force. This means you hit a power spike faster in the game what could be just what you need to get yourself back on the bord.
The second reason is that Trinity Force gives you enormous push power, you'll shred through towers like it is nothing. When your behind you probably won't be able to get yourself to their towers without being in a huge risk of dying. This means that Trinity Force won't be as gold efficient when losing as suppose to when winning.

In later stages of the laning fase you want to make sure you keep playing dominant and try to deny the enemy laner as much as possible. If the enemy walks up to farm you can grab him in and use your combo instantly, to make sure he gets low or even kill him, and you keep trying to Apprehend him in whenever you get the chance.

Make sure that when he is low and backed or is dead, to push in the wave with your spells, use your Decimate to kill the caster minions and make sure you try to get 1 plate every time the enemy has to back.

When losing make sure you use your skills to kill minions. To generate as much gold as you can. When you have an enemy with an easy engage, like Tryndamere with his Spinning Slash. You need to use your spells very defensively. Your Apprehend does not only pull an enemy in, but also knocks them up briefly. This means you can also use this to create a bigger gap, to which melee's can't attack you anymore. When you get outrunned, you can also use Crippling Strike to slow your enemy when he is chasing you and you can use Decimate to heal yourself when you have taken a big hit.

After the lane fase you have a few jobs to do as Darius. Because you have an easy wave clear you need to make sure you push up the side lanes, so that you always have the option to go split pushing after a pick or after a teamfight. About teamfights, you have two choices in a fight. If you have joined your team and you are gonna start a fight, you can choose to walk trough their front line and grab in the backline, try to get your full combo on the adc and kill him instantly, and then use your kill passive to start dunking their whole team.
What I like to do better, is to start hitting their frontline, this means their slow tank, like Sion. He will be a lot less slippery then an adc like Ezreal, who will also be supported by someone. when you get 5 stacks on their frontline, it is way easier to spred those stacks to other enemy's, because you will only need 1 hit for that.
This means you can get the adc death way faster then otherwise, and because you didn't just walk in you have took a lot less damage in the fight.

You also have the option to split push in the mid game. With Darius from the 15th minute you will probably have the ability to kill everyone in a 1 v 1. This means that if the enemy wants to react to your push the probably will have to send 2-3 people. This gives your team a huge advantage because they will have a lead to the remaining enemy's who didn't have to respond to your push.

What I have noticed in my games, is that splitting works the best when you have a substainable lead, and you can snowball it by pushing. Also splitting can work very will in certain situations, like when you picked of their most fed team member and you can make sure your team gets more objectives out of that pick, Or when you are going even with the enemy and you want to create a lead.

Joining your team can work as well in various occasions. By example, when you have a huge lead, and you can just fight their team without being afraid to lose. This is something that happens in lower ELO a lot and it can be good, as long as nobody goes to crazy. When you group up make sure you get the baron to help you push and give you the extra power needed to push when their whole team is defending.
Grouping is also necessary when losing the game, try to make sure you kill the minion waves and not let them attack your tower. Once a person in their team makes a mistake, make sure to commit and try to get your Hemorrhage stacks up.

Usually when you have a normal/good early game, You'll have a lead which enemy's can't deal with because you get very strong. Then splitting is almost always the best option, because they have to use way to much resources to stop you, and this gives your team the opportunity, to react and push. When you split make sure you have a horizontal area warded, so you know where the enemy is and you don't take to much risk of dying for no reason. This means, that when you are pushed up to the second turret you always need to make sure you have their jungle warded from mid lane to bot/top lane. This way when their team react with a lot of force, you can see them comming and make sure you are out of a bad position as soon as possible.

If you had a rough early game, some times grouping with your team is the best, because you can help picking kills up with Apprehend and also you can protect team members that had a better early game.

Darius has a few big weaknesses in League of Legends. He is very vulnerable to his counters, which sounds silly, but with Darius this is a serious problem. Usually and with most champions when you get countered, you will have a hard time in lane and won't be able to get fed and snowball, but when you play it well, you can still make the lane work.
With Darius this works a little different. When you get a match up like Teemo, there is not much you can do. Once he blinds you, you can't get stacks on him, you can't hit him with your W and you get just freely bursted down. After the blind goes away, you're to low to go in and get the stacks you need on him to kill him or even to trade. This means when a Teemo player is a little good with the champion, you won't stand a chance.
This means that when you play versus a champion like Teemo you will have a very, very hard game.
My advice for dealing with a Teemo, if you can, dodge the game in champion select.
If you get in game with Teemo, try to wait out his blind, and when he has used this, you can go in instantly to try and nuke him down. When your too far behind try to farm under the tower, even though Teemo will still blind you there so that will be though to.
Try to roam to mid whenever you get the chance and push up the wave under his tower so you buy yourself time to roam. Also you can help your jungler by invading the enemy jungle when you get the chance (If Teemo is backing or if he is dead). You can always take gromp when he is up.

This is my guide for Darius, please leave an upvote if you like it and want me to make more. You can always comment with tips and I will try to make my next guides and this one even better.