TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. CONQUEROR. IF UR GOING RESOLVE, TAKE SECOND WIND. IF UR GOING SORCERY, BE GOOD AT DODGING. DSHIELD. HIT YOUR QS. TRY TO DODGE HIS QS. DONT LET HIM LAND HIS LAST Q EVER. OR ELSE HE WINS THE FIGHT. STICK ON TO HIM. DON’T LET HIM POKE YOU DOWN. DON’T FIGHT WHEN UR BOTH LOW HP. HE OUTRANGES YOU.||
This is a very skill based lane. You should only be able to be hit by the first Aatrox Q, as the other 2 are completely outplayable. You want to pop ghost and just run around him when you do pull him in so that he has a very difficult time landing his Qs onto you. If he can land his Qs, he stands a chance. If you dodge them or he misses them, he is free food. Executioners is vital if he gets a kill in lane OR he farms evenly with you, because his healing in his ult will be unbeliavably high without it. If he ever Es into you, he leaves himself vulnerable as he no longer has his escape move. Dshield along with Second wind are great but Nimbus gives you a very powerful dodging ability that is great for this lane. Conqueror is the go to. TRY NOT TO GET HIT BY HIS W. If you do get hit by it, try to walk out of it as soon as possible as the repositioning can let Aatrox get ALL of his Qs off which basically means you just lose. Just flash out if necessary. As a last thing of note, try to make sure you hit your Qs on him. Aatrox’ healing means that he will have extra health for you to punch through. If he becomes a problem and you just died to him twice or so, you can get Plated Steelcaps and Bramble Vest but honestly at that point you won't be able to 1v1 him without your jungler unless he MASSIVELY messes up.
Akali
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN HER FAVOR. DON’T TAKE BAD TRADES. DON’T MISS YOUR OWN QS. DON’T EAT FREE EMPOWERED AUTOS. TRY TO CANCEL HER DASHES WITH YOUR E. DON’T FIGHT IN SMOKE UNLESS YOU KNOW YOU WILL KILL HER. CONQUEROR. START DSHIELD. SWEEPER IF SHE IS OUTPLAYING YOU IN HER SMOKE TOO OFTEN.
Akali is a problematic matchup for quite a few Darius players but if you understand the champion, it becomes easier. The key to winning an Akali matchup is not taking bad trades and not eating her empowered autoattacks for free. Don’t take trades level 1 that go beyond just a simple Q, as she can chunk you out to the point where you can’t even fight back anymore. Level 2 is where the tides turn, as you get access to one of your CC abilities that let you hold her in place. Akali only beats you in an all in if she is able to kite you so stick to her and kill her. Don’t miss your own Qs. If you have an idea of the Akali Q range, you can time it as she goes in so that you both get hit. And since your Q is stronger, you will win the trade. Unless you are aiming to all in and kill her, and KNOW that you can do so, don’t fight in or around her smoke. Make sure she has to walk out quite a bit if she wants to damage you further. This way you can trade back. Another plus of playing Darius is that your bleed ticks, show you where the Akali is when she is invisible. If you are on low ping and are good at predicting, you can effectively cancel all of Akali’s dashes with your E. You can even cancel her ultimate’s damage if you pull her before she reaches you. The easiest dash to cancel will be her shuriken jump. Doing that will immediately destroy her. Her level 6 powerspike is STAGGERING. She can straight up kill you from full HP with her ultimate. Try not to fuck around with her too much when you're low hp at this point. DO NOT lose lane to her, as a fed Akali is going to be a nightmare to face. She will be able to kill you with ease, even if you are under turret. If you do lose lane, try to pick up CS under turret without being poked down too much from her. Conqueror is my go to. Do not underestimate her when you have a few kills on her, as her damage is crazy high either way. If you are getting unbelievably stomped, then you should invest in some early MR options. Negatron Cloak is a VERY solid buy as its a lot of MR for very cheap and it builds into FoN later on.
Camille
TL;DR - EASY LANE. KEEP YOUR EYES OUT FOR THE JUNGLER. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HOW GOOD A CAMILLE CAN BE IN GANKS. TRY TO USE YOUR E TO CANCEL HER HOOKSHOT. TRY NOT TO EAT TOO MUCH POKE LEVEL 1.
Camille can be anything from a skill matchup in your favor, to a free lane for you to get fed off of, depending on whether or not you can use your E to grab her out of her hookshot and if you can understand how her champion works. There is NOTHING that a Camille can do to beat you in an all in. She is easy to land Qs against as long as you understand how to kite her. She is VERY weak in all ins. If you ever catch her when her E is on cooldown, she is just dead on the spot. The problem for inexperienced Darius players, comes from when they use their E to pull her in and combo her, which ends in the Camille taking a good trade and using her hookshot to get away. The Camille will just W poke you into oblivion and abuse the very broken rune setups currently available on her to out trade you and then all in oyu when ur too low to beat her. If you learn how to cancel her E, then this lane is mostly FREE. That and also not letting Camille poke you for free. Her heal thing outranges your Q a little bit so try to Q in return or stay out of its range. In order to cancel her E, what you want to do is to time your E to hit her AFTER her hook hits a wall. If you are able to do this regularly, this is a free lane. Just be a bit careful, as a Camille is crazy good at setting up ganks. And try not to lose lane against her. A fed Camille is a rare sight but a fed Camille can actually just 1v9. She is a bit of a threat at 2-3 items but as long as you are not inting and have ghost, you can kite her to her death. At level 6, you need to E->Q instantly because she can dodge Q with her R.
Cassiopeia
TL;DR - ONE OF THE HARDEST MATCHUPS PERSONALLY FOR ME. DON’T EAT TOO MUCH POKE. SHE STRAIGHT UP BEATS YOU PRE-3. TRIPLE BEAD IS MANDATORY IF YOU TAKE TOO MUCH POKE. DSHIELD IS FOR IF YOU ARE A BETTER PLAYER. PHASE RUSH WORKS INTO HER BUT SO DOES CONQUEROR RESOLVE + SECOND WIND + UNFLINCHING. IF TAKING PHASE RUSH, TAKE NIMBUS CLOAK. BAIT HER TO WALK TOWARDS YOU. TRY TO PULL HER WHEN SHE IS ATTEMPTING TO Q YOU. RUN AWAY IF SHE LANDS Q. TRY TO FORCE FIGHT IF SHE MISSES Q. TRY NOT TO FACE HER ULTIMATE. DON’T STAND IN HER MIASMA. SPECTRE’S COWL/NEGATRON CLOAK. MERC BOOTS. ALL GOOD ITEMS VS HER.
Cassiopeia is a nightmare to deal with. She has movespeed, she has annoying poke, she has a difficult to counterplay ultimate AND, thanks to new Conqueror, heals up a LOT in all ins AND has early AP. Not to mention how she can ground you which stops you from using your ultimate. I’d recommend taking Conqueror with Second Wind and Unflinching if you wanna be safe. Resolve seconary with Nimbus can potentially work but it is SO risky. She will try to use her Q to poison you and then run you down with her Es. If you get hit by her poison, back off IMMEDIATELY. You will NOT win the fight. If she MISSES her poison, you have an opening to all in her. Try to walk back and then run towards her as she walks towards you to hit her abilities. If she takes Phase Rush, she will be more difficult to stick to but on the other hand, you will actually be able to kill her in an all in. If she takes Conqueror, her missing her Q is your only hope. She is weaker pre-6 so try to get on. Let her push the wave and then run her down with ghost. Having a Jungler helps a lot. Lastly, Force of Nature helps a lot into Cassio so if you are getting your ass beat, get an early Negatron Cloak and then build it into a FoN after Merc boots + Stridebreaker. If she is bad and allows you to kill him then just build normally and snowball on her. Be sure to give up minions and play the ranged matchup properly. You are gonna need almost ALL of your HP to beat her. Stridebreaker is REALLY great vs Cassio so if you are losing, try to play safe until you can get it.
Cho'Gath
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DODGE KNOCK UPS. FREE AFTER LEVEL 3. CONQUEROR SORCERY. BE CAREFUL LOW HP.
Cho’Gath is a somewhat annoying champion to deal with. The only thing you have to know in this lane is how to dodge his knock up. His knock up ruins your all ins as it slows you after and it allows him to combo you and walk away since you will be silenced. His level 1 cheese might be surprising at times with his e if he has ignite as well. You also have to make sure to HARD win trades because he will be able to sustain back with CS. This is another lane where you have to use great wave control. Cho'Gath can oneshot you with 1 combo if you are low HP and it is post 6 so be careful when trading with im. ALWAYS LAND YOUR Qs. If you aren’t careful, you might keep trading with him and then he would just heal it all back up because of his passive, leaving you in a position where he can take you out before you can react. If he builds AP, his cheesing ability will be stronger as he just completely chunks you out at range when you let him knock you up. But this also means that you kill him with 1 combo so if you just dodge the knock up of an AP Cho'Gath, hes a free kill. If he is building tank, it is just a free lane. But he miiight get to a point where he is too tanky to kill quickly.
Just don’t die in stupid ways, don’t let him knock you up and most importantly, don’t let him farm. Taking ghost makes this lane so much easier as it lets you very easily dodge the knock up. Not to mention how Cho’Gath is very immobile so if he steps out of line, you can just Ghost and run him down. Just be careful when diving him as Cho’gath is great at defending dives. His gank set up is completely dependent on whether he lands his knock up or not. To be honest that is just his entire laning phase. If he can land those, he can go even with you. If he misses them, he is free food. It might be a good idea to ward up some of the brushes or at the very least stop him from going in them because if you have no vision of him, you cannot see him do the Rupture animation which makes dodging very difficult.
After level 3 or so, he should never be able to beat you. He does scale up to be a monster giga lategame in a sense that trying to kill him, is a massive waste of time as it takes too long. Just stack 5 off of him and then murder the enemy team.
Dr. Mundo
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T GET HIT BY FREE CLEAVERS. FREEZE LANE AND RUN HIM DOWN. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. EXECUTIONER’S CALLING IF HEALING BECOMES A PROBLEM.
Mundo can be somewhat annoying to deal with but he is an immobile tank. He actually has no way to outtrade you unless you get hit by every single one of his cleavers. And that is essentially the only trick you need to know in order to beat Mundo. Either dodge his cleavers or stand behind your minions. All he can do is throw his cleavers and farm from a distance. But doing this will actually lead to you being able to freeze better as he will be actively damaging the wave. Since he essentially has no escape from you, you can simply run him down if he walks up too far and tries to aa the wave. Ghost is more than enough movement speed but if you struggle to chase him through his cleaver slows, you can take Phase Rush. Conqueror is nevertheless, preferred though, as you need to punch through his health. Mundo will be stacking up his health quite a bit, which is why you need the extra damage. Another thing to remember is that his ultimate costs a decent chunk of health, which might leave him low enough for you to oneshot with your fully stacked ultimate for a splitsecond. If a Mundo gets fed, your team will hate you a lot, as a fed Mundo is actually impossible to kill. If his ultimate healing becomes a problem for you, which it shouldn’t, then a quick executioners calling will do the trick.
Ekko
TL;DR - EASY LANE/EVEN LANE HEAVILY IN YOUR FAVOUR DEPENDING ON HOW GOOD HE IS. DON’T LET HIM TOUCH MINIONS. DON’T GET STUNNED BY HIS W. READ WHAT IT DOES. DON’T STAND IN THE GHOST OF HIS ULTIMATE. CONQUEROR IS GREAT. PUNISH HIM FOR TOUCHING THE MINION WAVE.
Ekko is another skill based champion. The matchup can be easy gold to a boring farm lane depending on how good the Ekko is. Before he gets enough AP to oneshot the wave with one ability, the lane is essentially yours. You should be looking to completely zone him off of the wave. Ekko has terrible early and despite the fact that he is quite slippery, him being melee gives him a clear weakness that you are able to exploit. Do not let yourself be stunned by him and do not stand in his Ultimate ghost as that does a surprising amount of damage. Try to keep an eye out on his passive as Ekko is going to be looking to proc it and run away. Once he gets AP, there is absolutely no lane interaction as all he does is spam the wave with his Q. If he every trades with you, just avoid his stun and destroy him as he does not have the burst to take you down early on. Merc boots are not too good in my opinion against him unless you find yourself getting caught in his stuns often. Phase Rush is an okay pick as he tends to be quite slippery thanks to his slows but honestly, Conqueror works just fine. If an Ekko gets ahead, you are in for a bad game. Try not to feed him too much and ping like crazy when he is missing. He is a great ganker.
Fiora
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. DON’T FIGHT LEVELS 1 AND 2 IF FIORA IS GOOD. FREEZE -> RUN HER DOWN WITH GHOST AS USUAL. STAND AGAINST A WALL WHEN SHE ULTS. DON’T MISS YOUR QS. SIDESTEP HER RIPOSTE. ULT HER DURING YOUR E AS SHE CANNOT STOP IT. BRAMBLE VEST IF STRUGGLING. CONQUEROR IS RECOMMENDED.
This matchup heavily depends on how good the Fiora is. A great Fiora is somewhat difficult to face but all you have to know is that level 1, she is MUCH stronger than you. Do NOT trade her beyond a Q or two level 1. Any Fiora worth their salt will use the opportunity to hit all of your vitals and poke you low enough to the point where you can no longer all in her later on. Level 3 is where the lane becomes easier though. The only point where she beats you is if she Ripostes your E. At that point you are simply done as her stun is long enough for her to get a bunch of vitals off. If you are struggling, pick up a Bramble Vest but it is not always necessary. When she uses her ultimate on you, try to make sure to stand against a wall so that she cannot proc her last vital. She has very terrible waveclear so freezes work very well against her. She outscales you eventually so try to close out the game quick. Conqueror is a must in this lane. Plated Steelcaps are also a great buy. Pair up with bramble vest and you should win all ins even if you are behind.
Gangplank
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. TREAT HIM LIKE A RANGED LANER. DON’T EAT TOO MANY OF HIS QS. AUTO+W TO KILL BARRELS. GET STEELCAPS ASAP. DON’T EAT BARRELS FOR FREE. ITS OKAY TO GIVE UP MINIONS. YOU BEAT HIM IN ALL INS DONT TAKE UNNECESSARY DAMAGE. TAKE ATTACK SPEED SO YOU CAN AUTO THE BARRELS FASTER THAN HIM. HE IS VERY WEAK VS GANKS SO TRY TO WORK WITH YOUR JUNGLER. PHASE RUSH IS GOOD BUT CONQUEROR HELPS IN ALL INS IF YOU AREN’T HIGH HP. TRY TO PING YOUR TEAM WHEN GP HAS HIS ULTIMATE UP.
A good Gangplank with Grasp is going to be impossible to beat as you can’t do much vs his constant Q spam. Not to mention how he gets the movespeed to kite you with his passive+barrels. Grasp also makes him quite tanky which makes him difficult to kill in an all in when you don’t have full health which is how you are going to be in most poke matchups. Doran’s Shield + Second Wind is a GREAT idea. Sorcery is only good if you are gonna snowball and kill him early. Treat him as you would any other ranged matchup. Let him push up and then run him down with Ghost. It helps to have Phase Rush sometimes as it lets you to keep chasing him through his barrels but sometimes, Conqueror allows you to have the damage to actually beat him. Vs Gangplank, having high attack speed is mandatory as without it, you will not be able to reliably hit his barrels before he does. And doing this is very important as Barrels are his main source of damage once he gets his items. You can try to auto+W to kill a barrel instantly. Catching him this way is easier thanks to Stridebreaker but the difficult part is surviving until you get it. You can bait him into exploding a barrel for free by juking in and out of it sometimes. A good Gangplank won’t be allowing you to touch the wave so give up minions if you have to. Your HP is more important than CS. Ping your team like crazy when you hit level 6 as GP can use his ult anywhere on the map. You can try to fight him to make sure he uses it in lane or just keep pressuring. But this way, you will be leaving yourself open to a gank so make sure you have at the very least a general idea of where the enemy Jungler is. On the bright side, if you kill Gangplank once, you snowball super hard on him and can kill him over and over again as long as you don’t play like an idiot. The worst part about playing vs Gangplank is that he can CS from a very long distance with his barrels which makes it difficult to freeze a lane against him.
Garen
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T GO EVEN IN TRADES. ALWAYS EXTEND THE FIGHT. DON’T EAT FOR E COMBO. CARE FOR HIS IGNITE+R. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED
Garen is a very easy matchup for you. The only time he even has a chance of killing you is through some ignite+R cheese he can do level 6. His ultimate is stronger than yours as an execute on a single target but that should not matter as your kit hard counters his. If he steps up to CS, make sure to chunk him out hard. The only point in the game where trading is a bad idea is level 1 IF he goes for the Grasp -> Q max build. If he goes the normal, E max damage Garen, then it will actually be so free as he will be very easy to wear down. A great way to screw him over is to save your W or E for when he silences you. This way, you will CC him long enough for the silence to wear off, allowing you to dumpster him. Ideally, you should try to kite out his E while you try to Q him as it stacks up Conqueror really quickly but even if he hits you with every last bit of his damage, he still loses. MAKE SURE TO KITE HIS E WITH YOUR GHOST POST LEVEL 6 IF YOU ARE EVEN WITH HIM. OTHERWISE HE KILLS YOU WITH IGNITE + R.
Gnar
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. DON’T TAKE FREE POKE. CONQUEROR IS RECOMMENDED ALONG WITH SECOND WIND. STEELCAPS RUSH IS GOOD. TRY TO CANCEL HIS JUMP WITH YOUR E.
A Gnar lane is somewhat difficult to play, as a good Gnar will always be out of your range. It is a skill matchup between you two. It is an even lane so the better player will always win. Gnar is slightly more useful than you in teamfights if his team is ahead but he is also prime target to stack 5 off of. You should try to avoid his boomerang poke but you can take D shield along with second wind just to be sure. Phase Rush SOUNDS like a good choice into him but Conqueror is actually the recommended choice. Try to freeze the wave in your side of the lane and then run him down. If you time it correctly, you can use your pull to cancel his jump which is essentially a death sentence for him. Be careful when fighting him at low hp, as with Mega Gnar, he has enough cc to keep you stunned long enough to kill you. Not to mention how his CC allows him to set up ganks very well so keep an eye out for it. Steelcaps rush is great into Gnar.
Gwen
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. NEED HP + ANTIHEAL + MOVESPEED. CAN'T TANK UP VS HER. YOU HAVE TO AVOID HER FULLY STACKED Q. IF SHE HITS YOU WITH IT SHE WILL KILL YOU AND ALSO HEAL UP TOO MUCH. DON'T OPEN WITH Q SHE WILL E INTO YOU. TRY TO START WITH AA - W - E - Q. THEN YOU CAN GHOST AND RUN HER DOWN. MOST OF THEM DON'T TAKE FLASH SO USE YOUR FLASH TO GET OUT OF THE WAY OF HER R/FULLY STACKED Q. DON'T LET HER TOUCH THE MINION WAVE AND STACK UP HER Q. IF ITS NO STACKS IT DOES NO DAMAGE BUT IF ITS MAX STACKS IT DOES HALF UR HP. TRY TO STAY ON THE WAVE AND FIGHT HER IF SHE WALKS INTO IT.
Hecarim
TL;DR - EASY LANE. JUST DESTROY HIM. DOESN’T MATTER WHAT YOU TAKE. DON’T DIE UNTIL LEVEL 3 AND YOU SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO.
Hecarim is another easy matchup to beat for Darius. He can’t do anything vs your Q poke. His only hope is cheesing you early on with his Q spam and ignite. He is good at working with his junglers but you can destroy him even if he is ahead. Try to itemise against his team instead of him, as you beat him anyway. Just don’t die in the first few levels. He shouldn’t be bullying you Level 1-2 but just in case he is better than you, wait until level 3 as at that point you beat him anyway even if he outplays you. Don’t let him touch the minions at all.
Heimerdinger
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T TAKE TOO MUCH POKE. START DSHIELD +SECOND WIND INTO MERC BOOTS IF YOU HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN FIGHTING BACK. IF YOU HAVE BEEN GETTING OBLITERATED, GO FOR NEGATRON CLOAK AND FARM UP. YOU OUT SCALE HIM IN 1V1. IF HE GETS COCKY AND STEPS TOO FAR UP, PULL HIM IN AND CHASE HIM DOWN WITH GHOST. ASK FOR JUNGLE HELP IF POSSIBLE. CONQUEROR WORKS SINCE WERE BUILDING DEFENSIVELY. FORCE FIGHTS WHEN HE DOESN’T HAVE TURRETS SET UP/IS NOT NEAR HIS TURRETS. FREE KILL WITH STRIDEBREAKER.
A Heimer lane is poke city. Take EVERY anti poke thing at your disposal. His rockets do so much damage if he lands all of them that you might need to start triple dshield in order to have enough health to actually survive in this lane. On the bright side, he will almost ALWAYS be pushed up so he is very gankable. Not to mention how if he is overconfident and steps too far up, you can run him down. He is low hp so you can kill him very quickly. The trick is not dying after. Even if he isn’t there to attack you, his turrets will be. Unflinching in addition to Second Wind is great. I’d recommend packing tenacity and Rushing Merc boots if you think you have kill pressure on him. If he completely destroys you, just give up and build Negatron Cloak. On the bright side, you outscale him in the 1v1 as you tend to be very tanky so as long as you dont die and get whatever farm you can get, you will get to a point where he is free food for you. Feel free to kill his turrets using your Q or W. But later on, they become so tanky that the damage you take while doing so is not even worth killing the turret, especially since Heimer will just put another one down.
Illaoi
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. GENERATE A LEAD PRE-6. TRY TO NOT GET HIT BY HER E. BRAMBLE VEST WORKS WELL INTO HER. STEELCAPS + BRAMBLE IS GREAT COMBO VS HER. CONQUEROR BEST. LAND YOUR QS. CAREFUL WHEN FIGHTING HER WITH YOUR JUNGLER.
Illaoi is quite a one dimensional matchup. If she lands her E, she is in a position to kill you. If she misses her E, you are in a position to kill her instead. Against Illaoi, you need to be on your feet as there is going to be a lot of dodging involved. You have to dodge her tentacles if possible and you MUST dodge her E. Especially Post-6, as it will lead to her killing you. Keep in mind that without her ultimate, Illaoi cannot kill you at all. Pre-6, she has no kill potential on you whatsoever. Use this to your advantage to generate as big of a lead as possible. Do not miss your Qs. Bramble vest is a good pick up into Illaoi as it allows you to burst her down without her being able to heal back up using her tentacles. I’d recommend a Dblade start if you can force fights early or a Dshield start if you know that she is going to play passive. Conqueror works wonderfully in this lane as you need to put her down quickly. If she landed her E AND used her ultimate, then just RUN. Take as little damage as possible and RUN unless you are 100% positive you will be able to burst her down before she can start DPSing you. Do not underestimate her ability to destroy you at this stage.
Irelia
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOUR. DODGE HER STUN. DON’T FIGHT HER WHEN HER PASSIVE IS STACKED. DON’T FIGHT HER NEAR TOO MANY FRIENDLY MINIONS. TRY TO LAND YOUR Q. CONQUEROR IS A MUST. STEELCAP + BRAMBLE COMBO IS GREAT VS HER
Irelia is not too difficult of a matchup. She cannot quite stand up to you in lane in all ins and, unless she takes ignite, the lane should be yours to take over. This is a very snowbally lane so try not to die to her. And if you do, try not to die any more, because Irelia can be a teamfighting monster who can obliterate your backline. When fighting her, there are 2 things you should try to be mindful of. The biggest thing is Irelia’s passive. Try to make sure not to fight her when she has it stacked up fully OR when she has the means to stack it up VERY quickly (basically, a bunch of low health minions for her to Q between). The second thing that is even more important is dodging her stun. If Irelia has her passive AND she lands her stun on you, there is nothing you can do to prevent death. If only ONE of those things is true (basically she lands her stun but starts from no passive stacks OR she has her stacks but missed her stun) then the winner of the fight will be the better player. It is worth it to flash her stun at times but ghost will allow you to dodge it easily. Try to understand what an Irelia is going to go for. If you have a low hp minion near you, and Irelia walks in range, you can prime your E to cancel her Q. This is INCREDIBLY difficult and you need to actually play Irelia as well as Darius in order to do this consistently but If you manage to cancel her Q, you basically insta win the fight. Conqueror is a MUST against Irelia, as you need to out fight her. Don’t just stand next to her and let her auto you, as she has more DPS than you thanks to her passive. Kite her, going in to AA and use your abilities. Try to make sure you land your Qs on her, as it will be very tricky when she has her Q up. One trick to do this is E and then immediately go for the Q. You should have enough time to land your Q on her before she can get in a position to avoid it. Because Irelia's rush BORK, it is an insanely good idea to go Steelcaps + Bramble.
Jax
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. KEEP AN EYE ON HIS PASSIVE STACKS. HE CAN DODGE YOUR Q EASILY WITH HIS Q. IF HE JUMPS IN AND USES COUNTER STRIKE, USE E AND THEN Q WHILE WALKING AWAY. DON’T TAKE TOO MANY BAD TRADES. FREEZE WAVE INTO HIM. HE SUCKS VS FREEZES. CONQUEROR IS GOOD. Jax is a very strong champion and can be tricky to beat for a newer Dariuses. You really do not want to die to Jax in this lane. If he gets fed he will be too strong to match on a splitpush and will easily be able to 1v2. The removal of Spear was nice as you can actually play around his E now as opposed to him permeanently having it up before. But a Bork rush also makes Jax INSANELY hard to 1v1. This is why a Bramble + Steelcap rush is very effective against him. But if he goes for Triforce/Sunderer, just go for Steelcaps. If he takes E level 1 which is what most Jaxes take, try to land as many Qs onto him as possible. You want him to use up his corrupt pot stacks as much as possible as him surviving your bleed stacks thanks to it is the most tilting thing on the planet. A good Jax will most likely jump into you with Q if you try to Q him so try to be wary of that. If he jumps onto you with his counter strike up, you want to pull him in and then Q him as you walk out. This will give you both free damage and stop him from properly utilising his stun. You want to keep an eye out on his passive, as if he attacks you with it stacked up, he will beat you down very quickly. You treat Jax like you would most other DPS heavy toplaners. By kiting him. Having a higher AA range along with ghost and your W slow makes this very doable. Try not to use your W when he uses counter strike. There is a trick you can pull off where you activate your W and then hit him with it JUST as the stun goes off. This way, even if you are stunned, the animation for the W will continue playing and it will actually hit him. But doing this requires you to have knowledge of how long Jax’ counter strike is. He is VERY easy to kill if you have the wave pushed into your side of the lane and you spike harder than him at level 6 (provided you are both at high hp). Steelcaps + Bramble is a good combo vs him. If he goes ignite, DO NOT FORCE ALL INS WHEN YOU ARE LOW HP. HE WILL BEAT YOU. If you are a higher elo player and have better wave control, try your hardest to thin the wave before it hits your turret. Your goal is to make sure that the wave gets stuck juuust outside your turret. This is the prime all in distance, because at this point, Jax cannot Q into your Q because he will take turret shots. This is the point where you want to sneak in a few stacks on to him here and there while he is trying to shove the lane and then try to all in him with Ghost. But for this to be even possible, you HAVE to thin the wave a bit.
Jayce
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN HIS FAVOR. DODGE HIS POKE. RUSH STEELCAPS. CONQUEROR IS BETTER FOR CLOSER FIGHTS/IF THE JAYCE IS GOOD. DONT FIGHT BEFORE LEVEL 3. TRY TO FIGHT AT LEVEL 6.
Jayce is not too strong in the meta at the moment but a great Jayce player can make him work anyway. Read the Ranged Matchup Playstyle I have written below for a good idea on how to play against all ranged champions. With Jayce, it is recommended to go for an early Steelcaps rush as that will completely gut him. Most Jayce players opt to go for Lethality early on in order to snowball too which would be negated by Tabis. Against Jayce, Conqueror is a must as you won't be building damage early.
Try to dodge his skillshot poke early on and get used to it. It does a LOT of damage, even if the Jayce is inting. Being poked down like that can lead to him just killing you in a single combo which is sometimes just sad as you watch yourself try to crawl to him and he knocks you back and puts you down with autos. His form change has a cooldown so you can try to play around him not having access to his melee form if possible.
The most important thing when fighting a Jayce is positioning. He is a VERY good trader and E->AA->W->Q Combo is just not going to cut it as he will just dash to you, knock you away, go ranged form, auto you 3 times and then fire his blast at you. And at a closer range like that you will not be able to dodge it which will just lead to you getting pushed out of lane. What you have to do is to just all in him every chance you get. Just drag the fight out. What you have to do is E and then just walk behind him or walk between him and a wall. It is no problem if he knocks you back before you can. Just try to make sure that you E or W him. Darius’ abilites are unstoppable so even if Jayce knocks you back, the slow/pull will still lock him in place which gives you time to catch up to him with ghost. If the E WORKS however, don’t use AA or anything. Just walk behind him and THEN do you combo. He will either A, Flash+knock you back for a disengage or B, knock you back behind him and start kiting you. Ghost will help you catch him at this point. You will probably be able to catch up to him regardless and kill him anyway. A Steelcaps rush helps in a situation like this as it prevents him from killing you before you catch him. If you need even more tankiness, buying and sitting on a Wardens Mail is great.
A Jayce matchup is somewhat oppressive early on but he really should stand no chance after level 6. Just try not to die to him.
Karma
TL;DR - EVEN MATCHUP SLIGHTLY IN HER FAVOUR. DON’T GET TILTED! KEEP COOL. DSHIELD+SECOND WIND. UNFLINCHING IS GOOD. CONQUEROR WORKS. TRY TO ITEMISE VS HER TEAM. RUN BEHIND HER SO THAT SHE HAS NOWHERE TO RUN. WITH GHOST YOU CAN CHASE HER DOWN EVEN AFTER HER ROOT, JUST MAKE SURE TO W HER AS SHE WALKS OUT OF YOU RANGE SO YOU CAN CATCH UP. STRIDEBREAKER MAKES THIS LANE FREE.
Karma is a very infuriating matchup for a lot of Darius players. In fact, the only way a Karma beats you is by constantly annoying you with her slows, unavoidable CC, shield and movement speed that allows her to kite you while pestering you for days. God forbid a Karma picks up a Phase Rush as at that point, you will be tilted out of your mind. But remember that you being pissed off is what the Karma wants. She wants you to get angry and impatient so that you make a mistake that she can turn into a kill through jungle pressure or through extensive kiting. The good news is that Karma has nowhere near the damage to kill you. A Dshield along with Second Wind allows you to tank through most of her pathetic damage. Patience is the key word here. The best Darius player is one that is perceptive enough to spot mistakes, and patient enough to wait for said mistakes. YOU are a brick wall that THEY are trying to overcome. So just be patient and you will find a crack in their gameplay that you can turn into a kill or a lost summoner spell. Against Karma, you should try not to eat too much poke as per usual. Since she doesn’t do too much damage, the health from dshield should be good enough. Just run her down with Ghost and make her regret picking such a terrible pick. Even if you lose lane, don’t worry. She cannot snowball which means if you bide your time and play safe, you will be able to outdo her in teamfights. The biggest thing, again, is to keep a cool head and not get impatient. On the bright side, Stridebreaker makes this lane quite easy. You just gotta survive until then.
Kayle
TL;DR - EVEN LANE IN YOUR FAVOR EARLY. DUMPSTER HER PRE-6. CONQUEROR IS GREAT. PHASE RUSH IS USABLE. STRIDEBREAKER MAKES HER A FREE KILL. DON’T LET HER FARM. SHE IS A LATEGAME NIGHTMARE.
Kayle is not 5 due to her early laning. Though her slow and her poke are somewhat annoying, you should be able to stomp her easily pre 6. Wait for the wave to be on your side of the lane and then run her down with ghost once you get a pull or once she missteps. Make sure you kill her over and over again and try to prevent her from farming as Kayle can win lategame by herself. Phase Rush is an okay pick for this lane as it lets you run her down even without your Ghost as her slow won’t be able to stop you. But if you lose with Phase Rush its gonna be a nightmare. Conqueror is also a great choice with Nimbus. A trick to keep in mind is that she cannot cast her ultimate when she is stunned. So if you/your jungler/whoever’s working with you possess the burst to kill her quickly, you can do so by pulling her and chain ccing her. But that requires too much coordination for soloq. Just keep it in mind if she is at 4 stacks and the next AA+R will kill her, do E-AA-R. If you are fast enough, you should get your ult out before she ults. After she gets her ultimate, it shouldn’t be too difficult to run her down still. You have two options. 1) Burst her down quickly BEFORE she can ult. 2) Apply stacks on her and get her low enough so that you can kill her with your ultimate AFTER she ults. If you are looking to burst her down before she ults, it might be a good idea to do your combo on her (AA+W+Q)and then pull her in. If she hasn’t ulted, you can opt to quickly R her as this will probably leave her low enough where you can kill her with 1 more auto after her invulnerability is over. If you are fighting multiple people and HAVE to save your ult, just keep aaing her until you get your passive.
Kennen
TL;DR - BORING/SKILL MATCHUP. DON’T EAT POKE FOR TOO LONG. TAKE SECOND WIND AND DSHIELD/TRIPLE REJUV BEADS AS A STARTING ITEM. MERC BOOTS RUSH IF YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL HIM. SPECTRE’S COWL IF YOU CAN’T DEAL WITH HIS POKE BUT HE REALLY DOES NO DAMAGE SO JUST DSHIELD AND PLAY PROPERLY. CONQUEROR IS GREAT. PHASE RUSH CAN WORK. IF KENNEN DOESN’T TAKE PHASE RUSH, JUST STOMP HIM WHEN HE PUSHES UP. TRY TO LAND YOUR W/E ON HIM WHEN HE USES LIGHTNING RUSH. FARM UP AND DON’T DIE TO HIM IN LANE. FREEZE THE LANE AND THEN RUN HIM DOWN IF POSSIBLE. TRY TO SPLIT PUSH VS HIS TEAM IF HE ISN'T STOMPED BECAUSE HIS TEAMFIGHTING IS VERY STRONG. STRIDEBREAKER MAKES HIM A FREE KILL
Kennen is notoriously known as being one of Darius’ hardest matchups and it is completely false in my opinion. In Season 11, Kennen is completely free because Stridebreaker turns this little rat into a 300g bag of gold. His poke is pretty laughable compared to other ranged matchups and his all ins are very terrible. His poke is moreso a Quantity thing rather than a Quality thing so just play back and give up a few minions while you are healing back using Dshield. Try to farm up while sustaining. I’d recommend a Merc boots rush along with tenacity from runes which makes you essentially impervious to his stuns. Conqueror is an okay choice and you should take it since we are rushing early boots and the extra AD will be helpful to us. Conq + Nimbus is the best. If he plays properly, this is going to be a very boring lane as none of you have too much kill potential on the other. Try to farm up and itemise properly. One thing to keep note of is that Kennen is a monster in teamfights thanks to Zhonya’s Hourglass. It lets him face tank your entire team and stun everyone while being invulnerable which honestly has little counterplay other than having a champion with good and fast disengage (Gragas, Lee, Janna). I’d recommend trying to splitpush into his team and force him to match you. This is only the case if you ARE NOT fed though. If you get fed, just run his team down. You scale much better as a duelist than him so keep that in mind. If the Kennen goes AD, the lane is going to be more difficult as he is going to have a 5 second CD on his E which makes him impossible to catch. But on the bright side, he will be much worse in teamfights. Overall, just be patient and keep an eye out for positioning mistakes. If all else fails, Stridebreaker will save you.
Kled
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP HEAVILY IN YOUR FAVOUR. DODGE HIS QS. DONT EAT HIS W AUTO ATTACKS. BE CAREFUL WHEN LOW HP. CANCEL HIS SECOND E WITH YOUR PULL. LAND YOUR OWN QS. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED.
This is not that difficult of a matchup. Even with ignite and PTA, Kled cannot beat a good Darius in lane. Kled is essentially a much weaker Renekton. Try to dodge his Qs. If he lands them onto you, then try to either walk out of its range or make sure you land a Q before it pulls you in as the anti heal on his Q is really stupid. You have to make sure to kite him around with ghost so that he does not get every single one of his W autos off on you. In all honesty, even if you miss half your abilities, you should still be able to beat him in an all him after Steelcaps. Just don’t take stupid short trades, as Kled has much more health to work with than you. Don’t get into an AA match with a dismounted Kled, as if he gets his remount off you are most likely dead. Steelcaps are the CHEAT CODE for a Kled lane. Get Steelcaps first EVERY TIME vs Kled because it just insta wins all ins for you. Trust me. Try your hardest to make sure he doesn't get ahead of you though, it will be a nightmare because a Kled can solo carry a game thanks to his ultimate. Just ping your team like crazy when he goes missing. You do outscale Kled eventually so don’t worry if you lose early. Just sit tight and look for opportunities. Conqueror is a MUST into this lane as you need the extra damage to cleave through all of his HP.
Lillia
TL;DR - EASY MATCHUP. DON'T BE AFRAID OF HER. IF SHE STEPS INTO YOUR RANGE, SMACK HER WITH YOUR COMBO. TRY NOT TO TRADE WHEN SHE HAS HER PASSIVE STACKED HIGH. IF SHE HAS HIGH MOVEMENT SPEED, SHE CAN OUTRUN YOU VERY EASILY. YOU CAN'T CATCH HER EVEN WITH GHOST. CONQUEROR SORCERY IS GREAT. GHOST IS A MUST. WITHOUT GHOST YOU CAN'T DO SHIT. GO SPECTRE'S COWL IF LOSING. BUT YOU CAN JUST SIT ON NEGATRON CLOAK MOSTLY. MERC BOOTS IS GOOD TOO BUT YOU SHOULD BE WINNING THIS MATCHUP SO GO FOR STRIDEBREAKER. STRIDEBREAKER MAKES HER FREE. I honestly thought this matchup would be far worse than it actually is. But I guess things are different in practice than they are in theory. If you are mechanically good on Darius, you should have very little trouble against Lillia because she kinda has to walk closer to you to do her thing. Her poke and her damage is a bit annoying but the the annoying part of her kit is her passive movement speed. You want to treat it like Irelia passive where if she has it stacked up, you probably aren't gonna beat her. Even if you catch her she can just Phase Rush out of your range and continue to poke you down with a constant 600 movement speed. At least with Lillia, you just take poke instead of getting oneshot like vs Irelia because she lacks the power to do much damage earlier on. In lane, she is just annoying. Build Dshield and go for Conqueror Sorcery. If you get ahead in lane, you can start oneshotting her once you have Stridebreaker with ur normal combo but even then, she can be hard to catch if she has her passive stacked up. Also be aware of her infinite range Es as they tend to come out of nowhere but be very dangerous when combined with her ult as it keeps you slept for enough for her jungler/team to capitalize.
Lucian
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. CONQUEROR. SECOND WIND + DORAN’S SHIELD IS A MUST. RUSH STEELCAPS. RESPECT HIS DAMAGE. DON’T GO FOR STUPID CS THAT LETS HIM GET A FULL COMBO ON YOU. ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT IF HE IS RUNNING PTA+IGNITE. VERY SNOWBALLY LANE. Lucian is a difficult matchup for the impatient Darius but if you properly play around your powerspikes and have basic knowledge on the champion, you can absolutely demolish him. Much like all Darius matchups, you have to keep your eyes open for any mistake the Lucian does whether that is wasting his dash, dashing towards you or him misstepping. You will have to give up some CS in order to conserve your HP. Cannon minions are nice and all but you do not want to eat a full combo + PTA from Lucian and lose 60% of your HP. The thing with Lucian is that if you catch him, he is pretty much dead. You have to play aggressive and look for hooks that you can turn into all ins at level 3, 6 and when you buy Steelcaps. And you HAVE to rush Steelcaps against him. In terms of runes, I’ve found that Conqueror works best because against Lucian, you will just have many close fights which is where Conqueror shines. Either way, you need to be taking Second Wind and picking up a Doran’s Shield ingame. If you are confident, go for Sorcery. Rejuvenation Beads are okay but they don’t work too well in early fights as they don’t actually give you any stats. If you ever land your pull on him, he is pretty much dead as with the W slow on him, you will catch up even if he dashes away. If you have ghost, a pull on the Lucian is pretty much a free kill. The good thing about this matchup is that once if you win it and get ahead, the Lucian is pretty much screwed. You will snowball on him super hard and he won’t be able to do much for the rest of the game unless you and your team give him a lot of kills in a teamfight. Stridebreaker also turns him into a free kill if you are even/ahead. The bad part is if he gets ahead, he will be a very massive threat to your team.
Malphite
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T EAT POKE FOR FREE. GENERATE LEAD BEFORE LEVEL 6. BLACK CLEAVER IF BEHIND. CONQUEROR DAMAGE NEEDED.
Malphite is not a challenge at all. The only hope he has against you is going AP, Comet and spamming you with es until you are low enough to all in and kill with R. And if you predict his R, you can activate your E just as it hits you in order to stun him so that he cannot do is his combo on you. He is only unstoppable DURING his ultimate, not after. Look to pull him as he throws his E onto you as he will be in E range for a MILLISECOND. Be careful of his level 6 powerspike as at that point, he can do a surprising amount of damage and is incredible at setting up ganks. You should have a kill and/or a cs lead before level 6. If somehow you got killed by him, you can go Black Cleaver which should help you easily take him down. Stridebreaker lets you catch him every time and turn the fight into an all in so its recommended if you are ahead.
Maokai
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T TAKE BAD TRADES. DONT GET CHEESED BY SAPLINGS. TRY TO WIN TRADES HARD BECAUSE OF HIS SUSTAIN. CLEAVER IF BEHIND(somehow). CONQUEROR DAMAGE NEEDED.
Even if you miss ALL of your abilities and just auto attack him, you will probably kill him. He is very shit at extended fights. A Maokai will be looking to safely farm with his abilities and keep trades with you short, damaging you a little and then disengaging, with him healing off of his passive later. Just don’t leave yourself in a position where he can easily knock you back without you retaliating. Q spam poke him off of minions. If he roots you in order to dodge the Q, just W/E him in order to stop him from escaping. If possible, time your E/W (whichever one is left) same time as his knock back so the slow lets you catch up. Maokai is VERY GOOD at setting up ganks.
Mordekaiser
TL;DR - EVEN LANE IN YOUR FAVOR. DON’T EAT FREE QS. DON’T STAND IN HIS PASSIVE. KITE KITE KITE. IF HE ULTS YOU, KITE AROUND HIM. HE NEEDS ULT TO BE ABLE TO 1V1 YOU. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. SILVERMERE DAWN IS GREAT
Mordekaiser is a somewhat tricky champion to deal with. His kill pressure goes up a lot if he takes Ignite but most Mordekaisers take teleport instead. The trick to beating Morde is to not stand in his passive and eat his Qs for free. You have to be quick on your feet as in an all out fight where everyone lands everything, Mordekaiser wins. But as Darius, you are a bit more mobile than him due to being able to move while using Q. If he pulls you in to trade, just run him down and kill him. The general idea should be to do your combo, walk in front of him(towards his tower) while kiting him, and then going back in once your Q is back up. Outmaneuvering him should be a breeze with ghost. Try to make sure you have a lane lead before level 6. If he uses his ultimate on you, try not to fight him. You will not beat him inside of his ultimate. Even if you are ahead by a kill. The idea should be to apply your stacks and kite away from him. Once his ultimate is over, you are free to go back in and just put him down. He is somewhat like Nasus in that he needs his ultimate to be able to beat you. Mordekaiser DOES outscale you eventually though. But the point he does should be the point where he is going to be looking to ult someone in your backline. And worst case scenario, if you are the only carry, a QSS can go a long way. The idea to using it is to get 5 stacks in his ult and then QSS so that you can murder his entire team. Upgrade it into Silvermere Dawn later on. I recommend Conqueror as you really need to punch through his healing and his shield.
Nasus
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T LET HIM STACK/DON’T EAT TOO MUCH POKE. PHASE RUSH IS RECOMMENDED. CONQUEROR WITH TENACITY STACKING WORKS AS WELL BUT PHASE RUSH IS BETTER. DON’T FALL BEHIND NO MATTER WHAT.
The Nasus matchup is somewhat difficult as if you ever fall behind, you will never be able to catch back up to him. He can win fights with an entire item behind sometimes because of his Ultimate which is depressing. The key is to stomp him early on in order to make sure you have a big lead by level 6. You are able to do this if he goes the normal Q max Nasus. The E max Nasus is a different story. He won’t be scaling as hard but he will be poking you down hard. The thing is, Doran’s shield or even second wind on its own is enough to negate it as long as you don’t eat every single E. He also has sustain with his passive. You should be freezing him off of the wave if he doesn’t have his ultimate/if its pre-6.
The biggest problem when fighting Nasus is that ultimate makes him ridiculously tanky and cranks up his DPS to an unreal state. His wither stops you from kiting him properly. The clear way to counteract this is to bait out his ultimate and then disengage. Some Darius players go full tenacity (Merc boots, Legend:Tenacity, Unflinching). But the simpler way is to just take Phase Rush. It helps in early fights as he can’t disengage with Wither and it is great as you can just E+Auto+W him when he activates his ultimate. If you lose this lane, it is over. Build Cleaver into full tank and peel for your team. Be careful of ganks as he is great at setting them up.
Neeko
TL;DR - EVEN MATCHUP IN HER FAVOUR IF SHE BUILDS AP. DIFFICULT MATCHUP IF SHE BUILDS AD. CONQUEROR. DSHIELD WITH SECOND WIND AND UNFLINCHING ARE MANDATORY. IF YOU ARE TAKING CONQUEROR, TAKE TENACITY. IF SHE IS BUILDING AP, BUILD MERCS. IF SHE IS BUILDING AD, BUILD STEELCAPS. PLAY PATIENTLY. WAIT FOR HER TO MISPOSITION. THEN PULL HER IN AND RUN HER DOWN. DON’T STAND CLOSE TO HER. GIVE UP CS IF NEEDED. DON’T STAND TOO CLOSE TO YOUR OWN MINIONS. DON’T GET HIT BY HER STUN. DON’T LET HER HIT YOU WITH HER EMPOWERED AUTO.
The Neeko matchup is very difficult to deal with for an inexperienced Darius. Her abilities are difficult to dodge as her stun gets faster when it passes through minions. The hitbox on it is very tricky to dodge, as it will not look like it hit you even though it did sometimes. Up against Neeko, you really need to play carefully. Once you kill her once, you will snowball really hard to the point where she really can’t do anything to you but up until that point, you simply need to be patient. Neeko’s early damage is INSANE. Don’t even try to trade with her level 1. Level 2 might work once you have your E but I’d still recommend being patient until level 3, as at that point you will have enough CC and slows to run her down. The good part is that if you hit her with an ability before she makes a clone of herself, your bleed stacks will be visible on the actual Neeko. Not to mention how your Q heals you when you hit Neeko’s clone with it. Start Dshield along with Second Wind and Unflinching. Conqueror works very well in this lane, as you sometimes need the damage to punch through her shield. Not to mention how by taking Precision into Resolve, you should be able to run max Tenacity which helps against Neeko. In this vain, an early Merc boots help against her a lot if she is going AP. AP Neeko does a LOT more poke damage which makes getting caught by her stun much more punishing. AD Neeko on the other hand is a different matter. AD Neeko with PTA is going to be able to take half of your HP bar away in SECONDS early on. DO NOT let her get her empowered auto attacks off on you. AD Neeko’s abilities and ultimate are quite terrible but her damage can be very surprising. If the Neeko builds AD, you’d better have packed tenacity in runes because you are going to NEED Steelcaps. Be patient. AD Neeko is still beatable. Just try to remain healthy throughout the lane and wait for the perfect opportunity. An AD Neeko, once behind, is going to do much less in teamfights than an AP Neeko who is behind.
Nocturne
TL;DR - CHEESE LANE. DON’T DIE UNTIL LEVEL 3. DON’T DIE TO HIM EARLY. KITE HIM WITH GHOST. PING LIKE CRAZY WHEN HE IS MISSING. CONQUEROR IS GOOD. DON’T LET HIM FEAR YOU. USE Q TO CANCEL HIS SPELLSHIELD.
Nocturne is a VERY cheese pick into Toplane. His only hope is killing you in levels 1/2. Be careful though, as his damage at these levels is surprising with Lethal Tempo. Your goal is to make sure you can effectively land you slows on him and kite him, as if you let him just stand there and AA you, he will melt your health bar. If he is allowed to win lane, he will be free to roam and wreak havoc on the entire map, oneshotting your carries. After level 3, he is VERY easy to beat with Ghost. Ping like crazy when he is missing as he will roam 100% of the time. He is also very good at working with his jungler, as he can essentially be in any fight that is on the top side of the map. It is also a good idea to play around lethal tempo if he took it. Steelcaps rush is a great way to guarantee the lane.
Olaf
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. DON’T FIGHT HIM BEFORE LEVEL 3. KITE HIM TO HAVE HOPE OF BEATING HIM EARLY. DON’T LET HIM HIT YOU WITH HIS AXES. BE CAREFUL WHEN FIGHTING HIM LEVEL 6. STEELCAPS’S ARE MANDATORY.
You do NOT want to fight Olaf early on. Once he hits one of his axes, you are legit fucked as the slow allows him to catch up and land another one. Try to play safe until you get both of your CC abilities. Basically, wait till level 3. At that point, you have the CC to stop him from moving and getting his axes which allows you to kite him properly. And if you can properly kite out an Olaf, there is essentially nothing he can do. Try not to die to Olaf. Remember that Olaf falls off super hard so if he LOSES lane, his team essentially has no toplaner. Try to dodge his axes. In all honesty, if you are patient you will win this lane. Try to be careful as he spikes extra hard in level 6. You no longer will be able to kite him out with JUST your CC. You HAVE to dodge his Axes AND have Ghost. Try to kill him when he is low as Olaf is great at healing in crucial moments. His DPS is also highest when he is low. In terms of runes, I’d recommend Bone Plating and Conqueror. Phase rush is somewhat helpful for when you want to disengage but Conqueror helps you just out fight him. Steelcaps are great as usual.
Ornn
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. DON’T EAT FREE BRITTLE AUTOS. KEEP TRADES SHORT LEVEL 1-2(A SINGLE Q) AND LEVEL 3, TAKE CONTROL OF THE LANE. CLEAVER IF YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT TO PUNCH THROUGH HIS ARMOUR/IF YOU ARE BEHIND. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED.
Ornn is a somewhat difficult matchup because of how much damage he does in trades. He appears to be the average, easy to beat tank but in actuality, he is a lot more dangerous if you aren’t paying attention. Try to dodge the second part of his fire breath as that is the part that applies his brittle stacks on to you. It should not be too difficult as all you have to do is to move sideways which is not something he can do. This is easier to do with ghost activated. If he does get the second part off on you, then you should not let him activate it by auto attacking you. The combo can take away a third of your health bar and he can run away before you can trade back into him. This is even worse considering how he can buy items that let him sustain in lane. Losing to Ornn is very bad as he snowballs hard and becomes ridiculously tanky because of his passive. Don’t worry though. Aside from his brittle stack autos, nothing else in Ornn’s kit is dangerous in a 1v1. He is just free food if you have your ghost activated, provided you don’t let him land every single bit of CC on you. You can stop him from reactivating his ultimate and knocking you up with an E but you’d probably use your E much earlier in a fight. If he engages with R, chances are he is setting up for a gank which he is very good at doing so try to make sure the lane is frozen on your side of the map. You can also cancel his dash with your E, stopping him from getting away. The general idea is to not take stupid trades Level 1-2 and then try to pressure him into an all in at Level 3, as from that point onward you should easily beat him in all ins, especially with ghost. Conqueror is definitely recommended in this matchup.
Pantheon
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN HIS FAVOUR. DON’T FIGHT HIM EARLY. DON’T TAKE TOO MUCH FREE POKE. STEELCAPS ARE GOOD. CONQUEROR IS GOOD. CANCEL HIS STUN WITH YOUR E. WALK AROUND HIS SHIELD BLOCK WITH GHOST. PING WHEN HE IS MISSING.
Pantheon can potentially be a difficult matchup if he is the better player. You want to not eat too many free Qs from him, as that is how he wins the lane, by poking you down and then all inning you. A smart Pantheon will almost never use his Ranged Q. He will just tap it as that gives the same damage but is better in every single way. It might be a good idea to play safe early on, at least until level 3 because you can start properly retaliating against him. D shield along with Second wind are a MUST. You beat him in all ins but properly counterplaying his E and landing your Qs are crucial to doing so. Try to make sure you stay healthy in lane and not take too much damage. In terms of rune choice, Conqeuror and Aftershock both work depending on your playstyle. In terms of items, Steelcaps are a good pick up and are mandatory at times. If thats not enough, pick up a Chain Vest as well. Try to make sure you stack up some health though. Ping like crazy when he is out of lane as he is very good at ganking others due to his ultimate. This will be bad for you too because once he gets fed off of your teammates, he might be able to beat you. A good trick to know is to use your E when he tries to stun you. If you time it right, you will cancel the stun and even if you screw it up, he will be stunned to. If he uses his shield to block damage, just walk around him and start hitting him. This should be easy to do with ghost. If he keeps it, try not to ult when he is using block damage.
Poppy
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T STAND BETWEEN HER AND A WALL. DON’T EAT HER POKE. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED.
Poppy is not too difficult of a champion to fight. You don’t need too much special knowledge. Just don’t stand between her and a wall, try to stop her from taking her shield but keep in mind that she might use it to bait you into a wall stun, try to be aware of how she can flash and wall stun you and lastly, be wary of her ultimate. If possible, try to save your e in order to cancel her r as it is one of the best disengage tools in the game. It has been a while since I’ve seen a Poppy utilise an ultimate correctly but the potential for her stopping your rampage in a teamfight is there.
Pyke
TL;DR - BORING MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOUR. HE CAN’T BEAT YOU. DON’T LET HIM ROAM. FREEZE HIM OFF OF CS IF HE STAYS IN LANE. IF PYKE WANTS TO ROAM MID, SHOVE THE LANE IN PROVIDED THE JUNGLER ISN’T TOPSIDE. DSHIELD+SECOND WIND ARE GOOD. CONQ IS RECOMMENDED. YOUR GOAL IS TO KILL HIM IN ONE ALL IN AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. DON’T TRADE WITH HIM UNLESS YOU WILL WIN THAT TRADE HEAVILY OR YOU KNOW YOU CAN TURN IT INTO AN ALL IN. YOUR E CANCELS BOTH HIS HOOK AND HIS E DASH IF YOU PREDICT IT.
Pyke is a very annoying matchup to face as, much like Singed, he does not play the game as would a conventional laner. Pyke players will often completely give up on farm and permanently roam to grab kills with his ultimate. Not to mention how his passive allows for him to take trades that makes no sense, as he will just heal most of the damage back up anyway. Fortunately, Pyke is not really that strong on his own. He is simply slippery. Know that you will not be able to poke him down as you would usual laners. You have to kill him in one try. This is why you have to try your best not to push the wave. Your E cancels his hook and if you can predict him, you can pull him out of his E which essentially leads to his death. Let him push up and freeze him off of farm, with you shoving before a fight elsewhere can happen so that he is stuck farming or he gives up minions if he decides to roam. Pyke is also not too strong in a 2v1, which means that if you are able to keep yourself high enough HP by hitting both him and the jungler with your Q or flashing his ultimate, you will be able to easily 2v1. Pyke cannot build hp so this makes him especially weak vs your ultimate. Another wonderful thing is that if your bleed is to kill an enemy, if will give you vision of them. Although this won’t always work, it will sometimes stop his passive from healing him which will lead to him dying to the bleed anyway. At the end of the day, it does not matter if you kill him and snowball. In this lane, your priority is to keep him from roaming and keep him in your lane where he can’t kill you. Also, don’t actively trade with him. Try to simply Q him unless you know you can keep up with him and kill him. A Dshield along with Second Wind are very helpful in outlasting him. Conqueror is great as you need the AD to oneshot him with your ultimate.
Qiyana
TL;DR - EASY MATCHUP. CONQUEROR WORKS WELL. RUSH EARLY ARMOR. STEELCAPS/CHAIN VEST. DSHIELD IF YOU WILL GET POKED OFTEN/IF SHE HAS IGNITE. DBLADE IF YOU ARE CONFIDENT YOU CAN AVOID POKE. DON’T STAND HER WALLS. SHE CAN’T 1V1 YOU. PING HER ROAMS.
Qiyana is very slippery and does very well in short trades which makes her somewhat difficult to deal with if you don’t know what she does. But it is not too difficult to take care of her. Conqueror works wonders into her. I’d recommend Aftershock too but its just over kill. Against Qiyana, it is key to not die to her. You outscale her in the 1v1 so if you are losing trades, just hand back and sustain. I’d recommend Dshield for the poke she has but if you are confident you can avoid it, go for Dblade. Treat her in lane like a worse, AD Akali. Your bleed reveals her in her invis so she can’t easily get away either. Rush armor early on whether it is in the form of Steelcaps or a simple Chain Vest if her team doesn’t allow it. You will be far too tanky for her to kill which lets you run her down if she ever dares stepping up. If you are trying not to get poked down, hide behind your minions but don’t stand close to them, as her poke goes through them. Lastly, don’t stand near walls as her ultimate is quite ridiculous. If she lands it, you will still win the fight but it allows for her to win teamfights and set up ganks for her jungler.
Quinn
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T GET POKED DOWN. CONQ WORKS. PHASE RUSH IS RISKY. DON’T MISS YOUR ES. STEELCAPS RUSH IS MANDATORY. USE YOUR E TO CANCEL HER HEADBUTT. IF YOU PULL HER, WALK BEHIND HER BEFORE AA+W. PING YOUR TEAM IF SHE IS MISSING POST 6. BEAT HER BEFORE SHE GETS SANGUINE BLADE.
Quinn is one of the most difficult matchups for Darius in the game. Conqueror would be decent. Take anti-poke in the form of Second Wind and Dshield/Rejuv Beads. You need to pick up an early Steelcaps. Quinn has a low AA range so it is not too much of a nightmare to catch her. It is a matter of landing your stun before she headbutts away and repositioning so that she cannot. If you time your e correctly, you can cancel her Headbutt with it. Doing this will guarantee you the kill every time. The trick is to predict it, as it is too quick to cancel based purely on reactions. Try not to fight her too much early on if you can’t get your hands on her. This also means giving up CS. She loses the all in at level 6 so you have that to look forward to. If she is not in lane after 6, ping like crazy. Ping where you think she is gonna go, as she can roam very quickly with her ultimate. If you manage to E her, try to walk behind her and THEN auto+W. This would mean that she if she headbutts you, she will knock herself to your side of the lane which would allow you to kill her. The slow should make landing your Q on her manageable, even through the blind. Stridebreaker is great for this lane.
Rengar
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T TAKE STUPID FIGHTS AT LEVEL 1/2 WHEN HE HAS FEROCITY STACKS. DON’T LET HIM WALK AWAY FROM TRADES. FREE AFTER LEVEL 3. STEELCAPS IF LOSING.
A Rengar matchup depends on how good the Rengar is. Joe Schmoe who builds lethality every game is going to be free food compared to a Dekar but generally speaking, Darius is one of Rengar top’s biggest counters. All you have to do is to make sure he does not cheese you level 1. Just stand outside of his jump range from bushes. If you don’t know the range, just hop into practice tool on Rengar. Level 1, it is best to give up unless you catch him outside a brush. And even then, Rengar wins hard, especially if he has ignite. Respect his 4 stacks.
Once you hit level 3, the lane should be over. If the Rengar keeps playing aggressively and does not adjust his playstyle, he is free food. The second he goes in for a minion, Q-AA-W, pop ghost and then just mess him up. Try to dodge his E root and be mindful of where the Rengar can jump in order to stop him from outplaying you. If he does a W+Empowered W, just E him back. There is no hope for a Rengar to win this lane. What most GOOD Rengars will do is go for W max and essentially beat you out by attrition because a W+W leads to them taking zero damage and you taking more damage than him. Rengar’s tactic would be to utilize his W to cancel your slows and heal back up the damage you deal to him as a way of poking you down. Just don’t let him walk away for free. Land your Es. Phase Rush works but I prefer Conqueror to help me punch through his healing. One last thing is to keep in mind that he is deceptively tanky. If you ult him and it DOES NOT kill him, he will just heal back ALL of the damage if he has his w up. Get Antiheal if his W healing is a problem.
Renekton
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN HIS FAVOR. DON’T TAKE BAD TRADES. PULL HIM IN TO CANCEL HIS SECOND DASH. ALL IN HIM BUT BE SURE TO KITE WELL. BE CAREFUL OF HIS POWERSPIKES. PLAY AROUND HIS FURY. STEELCAPS + BRAMBLE IS A MUST VS HIM. BONE PLATING IS GOOD. CONQUEROR IS GOOD.
This is purely a skill matchup slightly in Renekton’s favour. It has become MUCH easier with the removal of Spear though. You essentially don’t want to let him go in on you, get a successful trade and then get out with his E. He is very good at short trades and his Q healing minimises the damage he takes from the trade. Not to mention how his stun just stops you from being able to react. Ideally, you want to use your E to cancel his second dash but that is not always the case. You simply need to take smart trades. Don’t eat his Qs in lane for no reason. His general approach, much like all other champions, is to get you low enough for him to all in and kill you. You want to give up lane pressure when he has stacked up fury, as he is just going to destroy you in trades. Consequently, if he has no fury stacked up, you want to try to get a good trade off. The trick is to simply try to get him to push into you, and then just run him down with ghost. Do NOT let Renekton to be up in your face the whole time. You MUST kite him. Especially when he has his ultimate activated. It is slightly easier to land Qs on him a he will grow in size but the amount of fury he gets is ridiculous. Be VERY careful of his level 6 powerspike and respect his burst, especially when he has PTA. With Conqueror stacking better on literally every other bruiser than Darius, you might want to invest in a Bramble Vest against him on top of Steelcaps as this will give you enough tankiness during all ins. If all else fails, try not to die to him too much. You kidna outscale him so dw if you fall behind. I’d recommend Conqueror vs him.
Riven
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. FIGHT HER LEVEL 1 WITH W. CAREFUL OF HER BURST/ALL IN. RESPECT HER LEVEL 6 DAMAGE. TRY TO CANCEL HER Q WITH YOUR E. STEELCAPS ARE A GOOD BUY. CONQUEROR IS GOOD.
The Riven matchup is, obviously, HEAVILY dependent on how good the Riven is. But in general, your biggest priorities should be not underestimating her damage and not wasting your abilities because a good Riven will be able to take advantage. She is much harder to deal with when she has ignite so just try to be careful. You are stronger than her level 1 if you level your W so try to make use of this and heavily outtrade her. Try to trade against her when she wastes her abilities. If possible, use your E in order to cancel her third Q as this can leave her in a very vulnurable position. If you do not have your E, you can buffer your W to slow her down just as she knocks you up. This might not matter much in the end though, as she has a ton of mobility. Level 6 is tricky as you have to respect her ultimate. If she catches you off, she can kill you from full health quite easily. It is going to be quite tricky to land your Qs on her but doing so is the key to beating her. This is an extremely snowbally lane so try not to die. And if you do, try not to die any more to her as that would potentially render the game unwinnable. Steelcaps are an amazing purchase against her. Thanks to Conqueror giving more healing AND some Rivens opting for Ravenous/omnivamp items, Bramble Vest is another good pick up against her, especially if the rest of her team requires you to get Merc boots to survive in teamfights. Conqueror is good into her.
Rumble
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. DON’T EAT FREE POKE. LAND QS. EASIER AFTER LEVEL 3. RUSH SPECTRE’S COWL IF HE IS WINNING. PHASE RUSH/CONQUEROR BOTH GOOD.
Low Elo Rumble players are horrendously bad. So it should be an easy lane. You want to make sure that you don’t just stand in front of him and eat his full flamethrower combo. Don’t stand in his ultimate but try to land all of your Qs. Rumble will try to poke you down and then all in you to kill you when you are low enough. Keep yourself healthy with Doran’s shield, second wind and properly timed Qs. He is pretty immobile so if you are able to pull him, he is essentially dead unless he is under turret after you pop your ghost. Both Conqueror and Phase Rush work well into this lane.
A Rumble lane should be easy after Level 3 but if you are struggling, a Spectre’s Cowl will help you win the lane. Don’t even go for Merc Boots unless his team has good AP+CC.
Ryze
TL;DR - BAD MATCHUP. PLAY BACK AND DON’T TAKE FREE POKE. DON’T STAND NEXT TO FRIENDLY MINIONS. FIGHT AROUND HIS E(ENGAGE IF HE USES IT ON THE WAVE). LET HIM PUSH AND THEN RUN HIM DOWN. EARLY MERC BOOTS RUSH IS A MUST. WAIT FOR STRIDEBREAKER.
A good Ryze is a nightmare to deal with. You essentially want him to push into you, which he does naturally, and then chase him down to his turret. He gets move speed and Phase Rush movement speed so you need as much distance as possible. Post-6 he can use his ultimate to escape and the only thing you can do to stop his Ult is your E but you need your E to start the fight anyway so good luck. An early Merc boots rush is a must, as you need to cut his root short so that you can catch him before he can escape. Don’t stand near minions as his E can spread from them, onto you, leading to him being able to get a nice chunk of damage off on you with his Q. Try to play passively during the lane so as to not take too much damage. If he is good, you probably won't kill him earlier but Stridebreaker helps in any case. If the Ryze is good, this is possibly one of the most difficult lanes in the game in my opinion.
Sett
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. TAKE CONQUEROR. SHORT TRADES EARLY LEVELS. DON’T LET HIM HIT YOU WITH W TRUE DAMAGE. DON’T STAND IN A WAY WHERE HE IS BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR FRIENDLY MINION. YOU BEAT HIM PRE-6 IF HE MISSES W AND POST-6 STRAIGHT UP. IF YOU ARE LOSING EARLY WAIT TILL 6. DODGE W OR AT THE VERY LEAST GO TO THE SIDE OF IT SO YOU DON’T GET HIT BY THE TRUE DAMAGE. YOU CAN WAIT FOR HIS SHIELD TO DECAY. TRY TO KITE HIM. DON’T TAKE FULL AA DPS. LEVEL 6, DON’T STAND BETWEEN HIM AND HIS TURRET. HE CAN R YOU INTO TURRET AND INSTA KILL YOU. CORRUPT POT WORKS. DBLADE IF CONFIDENT. DSHIELD IF NOT SO CONFIDENT. STEELCAPS -> STRIDEBREAKER.
Sett is a matchup that you can sometimes snowball off of but it is nevertheless a tricky one to play properly for Darius mainly because of his W shield. You’d play into him as you would into a Jax or a Tryndamere where you wouldn’t just stand in front of them an AA them. The trick is to use your ghost and your AA range to kite them. With Sett it gets a little trickier to do but he is still beatable in all ins in early levels if you are able to outplay his W. His shield decays rapidly (for 3 seconds) so it might be a good idea to kite around him until the shield goes off and then go back in. If he is between you and one of your(allied) minions, then he will stun you which will allow for Sett to use his W’s on you, leaving you no option but to take the true damage. This insta loses you the fight as he just deals crazy amounts of damage. His HP regen is also something to look out for as it comes into play later on into the lane. He essentially has built in rejuv beads which means that he will be able to survive through some of your poke later on. This means you have to switch between 2 playstyles during this lane to play around his strengths. You want to be playing the early levels carefully, poking him with Qs and backing off. His HP regen is a bit weaker early on so exploit it and take quick but good trades. The reason you want to do this is due to his W. This is his most powerful tool and disengaging before he can use the shield is the way to go. Sett is a lane where a Corrupt pot start would actually be a good option as your approach shouldn’t be to all in fight him. But people make mistakes so a Dblade or a Dshield start will allow for you to better punish Sett and force his flash/kill him if he missplays/mispositions/misses his abilities. Remember in fights to KITE him. If you don’t, the fight will be a lot closer as he can sometimes just bash your face in. And a fed Sett is a NIGHTMARE to deal with.You should try to poke him before he can use his W shield enough so that you get him low enough to all in him. You CANNOT cancel his abilities with your E. If you pull him during his W, he just moves with it. Use your superior movement speed if you have ghost to sidestep his W. If you feel like he is going to use his W, get really close to him and just run around him as the W is easier to dodge the closer you are to him. Once he uses his W and you have some HP left to work with, he is free food. You have to NOT take his full AA DPS though. KITE. If you find yourself getting demolished in trades, try to sustain up and wait for level 6 because you will be able to kill him in an all in at that point. Your ultimate is much better than his and this is the point where you want to be switching gears. His W damage scales to be quite high at this point and his HP regen comes into play so you want to be looking to just full all in him and kill him if you aren’t behind already. Building against Sett is similar to how you would build against a Darius actually. You are going to want to rush Steelcaps and then get a lot of health. Health is the only way to counterplay flat true damage. Runewise you will be looking to go for Conqueror most of the time.
Shen
TL;DR - EASY LANE, HARD GAME. TAKE EARLY DSHIELD TO COUNTER ACT HIS LEVEL 1 PASSIVE AA DAMAGE. DON’T STAND BETWEEN HIM AND HIS SWORD. DON’T EAT HIS PASSIVE AUTOS FOR FREE. DON’T WASTE YOUR W ON HIM, WHEN HE IS BLOCKING AUTOS. FREEZE MOST OF THE TIME. SHOVE WHEN HE IS ABOUT TO TP. DO NOT LET HIM TP TO HIS TEAM. E HIM. DON’T FIGHT HIM UNDER HIS TURRET. CONQUEROR IS VERY GOOD.
Shen is not too difficult to fight per se. The difficulty in dealing with Shen comes in trying to outdo him, as his ultimate gives him a crazy amount of presence everywhere. Try not to fight Shen in a massive enemy wave as if you get taunted then, you are most likely dead. If you get taunted under enemy turret then you are also dead. Shen is great at setting up ganks, and escaping them. His zone of blocking around his sword does not block your Q or your Ultimate. Try not to stand between him and his sword, as that way, he will have the attack speed to outtrade you with his empowered auto attacks. You can take an early D shield in order to counter act the damage of his auto attacks. Wave control and map awareness are the key to figuring out this lane. You mostly want to keep the wave frozen in your side of the lane most of the time, so that if he walks up, he is putting himself at risk of you killing him. This way, you should easily build a solid gold lead off of minions. IF you know that the enemy jungler is about to gank a different lane, OR a decisive fight is about to happen Botlane or Midlane, then you should be looking to shove him in so that he cannot teleport freely. If he is backing off, know that he might be trying to use his ultimate so be ready to E him and then back off/fight him depending on whether you can kill him. Be mindful of where the jungler is by the way. If the Shen is teleporting to a fight that the jungler isn’t involved in/isn't GOING to be involved in, try not to do much more than just cancelling his teleport as you could die to a 2v1.
Singed
TL;DR - EASY LANE BUT YOU CANNOT AUTO PILOT. YOU NEED NIMBUS TO CATCH UP TO HIM. DON’T WALK IN A WAY WHERE HE CAN FLIP YOU AND ESCAPE. YOU CAN USE W OR E DURING HIS FLIP. DON’T LET HIM PROXY THE WAVE, WALK WITH OR SOMETIMES AHEAD OF YOUR WAVE.
Singed is not a normal champion, which makes him very annoying to deal with. He can almost NEVER beat you out in a straight fight. You don’t really need the Conqueror damage. The problem with Singed is trying to catch up with him and then slow him so that you can apply the rest of your damage. With Nimbus and Ghost, you should be able to outrun and kill him. Singed always shoves his lane which leaves him weak against freezes. If you are able to pull off a proper permafreeze, the Singed has essentially lost the lane. The biggest thing to keep in mind when facing Singed is to make sure that you don’t let him proxy your wave. Proxying is basically when the singed walks behind your turret and then kills the minions before they get to lane. If you have a jungler, he is a free kill every time he does this. But since it is soloq, that is not always an option so try to make sure he does not do it in the first place. You can sneak a kill on the Singed a lot of times when he is proxying but try to fight him in a moment when you won’t miss too many minions. Try to make sure he cannot just flip you over and escape. Walk behind him, opposite to the direction he WANTS to go, so that you keep up with him to apply your damage but if he flips you, he places you in front of him. A good trick to keep in mind is that if you start your W or your E during his flip, the ability will CC him, slowing him down to the point where you can come out of the flip and stick on to him. His aoe circle ability does not let you use your ultimate when you are inside of it so try to walk out first. On the bright side, Singed is almost ALWAYS a free kill, even if you are behind. If you are ahead, he will just int you.
Sion
TL;DR - EASIEST LANE. DON’T LET HIM FARM.
Sion is among the easiest lanes in the game. There is nothing he can do. Just be careful level 1 as he might be cheesing your redbuff or charging up his Q in a bush. In all honesty, there is no way Sion can actually solo beat you. Your E cancels his Q as well. You can very easily dive him. Your ultimate resets off of his passive form which is good to remember. You also get your passive if you stack it on his passive form. He can escape with R in level 6 but you should have a massive lead before then.
Swain
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. CONQUEROR. MERC BOOTS IF BEHIND. JUST RUN HIM DOWN, HE HAS NO ESCAPE. SIDESTEP HIS PULL. EXECUTIONER’S CALLING IS A NICE PICK UP.
Swain is probably the easiest ranged toplaner to beat. Phase Rush allows you to snowball on him and kill him but to me, Ghost is enough so Conqueror works better. Up to you. Taking Dshield is recommended but you can play without Second Wind. It is also up to you whether you take it or not. Swain has lower range than other mages and has no easy cc ability he can use against you. His root is very easy to side step and even if he does land it on you, him pulling you in towards him allows you to pull HIM in. Swain is a late game carry so try to abuse him as much as possible. He is a little difficult to deal with due to his healing but honestly, your dps is better than his healing even without Conqueror. You can pick an executioner’s calling just in case though. If he becomes a problem, just get Merc boots.
Sylas
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T EAT TOO MUCH POKE. KEYSTONE DOESN’T MATTER. DSHIELD IS A GOOD START BUT DBLADE WORKS IF YOU ARE CONFIDENT ABOUT BEING ABLE TO DODGE HIS POKE.
Sylas is not a difficult matchup for Darius at all. He might have an easier time in midlane but not up here in top. Sylas is somewhat difficult to land your first Q on due to his shield dash and him being able to pull himself to you. But other than that he is very free to fight against. Just grab a Dshield as it should be enough on its own to negate his poke. And poking you is all he can do as if he ever gets in the range of your W or E, he is just dead. Freeze him off of farm and kill him if he ever steps up. If he ever becomes an issue, get executioner’s calling as it helps a lot against his healing. Unless the Sylas is smurfing vs you, you should be able to beat his face in.
Teemo
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T EAT TOO MUCH POKE. PACK A LOT OF ANTI-POKE(SECOND WIND, DSHIELD/REJUV BEADS) SPECTRE’S COWL IS AMAZING INTO HIM IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE. NEGATRON CLOAK IF LANE IS EVEN. MERC BOOTS IF YOU ARE AHEAD. GET SWEEPER. MANDATORY AT LEVEL 6 FIGHTS. CONQUEROR LETS YOU BUILD ITEMISE VS HIS DAMAGE WHILE ALSO HAVING THE DAMAGE TO KILL HIM YOURSELF. LET HIM PUSH UP AND THEN RUN HIM DOWN. TENACITY HELPS REDUCE HIS BLIND BUT ITS NOT NECESSARY.
Teemo is widely known as a bad matchup for Darius. He is a nightmare to deal with if he knows what he is doing. Conqueror is a MUST in order to beat his face him, as if he manages to hit you with a mushroom during the all in you die anyway. If he takes Ignite, play very carefully and try not to take too much poke. Rejuv Beads/Dshield along with Second wind are mandatory to not get poked down and killed by him. Getting Merc boots in order to shorten the blind isn’t bad either but you should only consider it if you killed him already. You want him to push into you so that you can run him down with ghost. Sweeper is mandatory after level 6, as this allows you to walk around his shrooms. If you don’t have Sweeper, a good trick is to make sure NOT to take the EXACT path that Teemo takes when chasing him. Stridebreaker is great into him so wait for it if he is giving you trouble. Before it tho just get the wave on your side of the lane, thin it and ghost run him down after you pull him. MAKE SURE to land your Qs. Try to Q him when blind. Spectre’s Cowl is a good buy into Teemo but it is not really necessary often unless you are behind. Normally, Negatron cloak gives enough MR to just facetank his damage and cut him down. His AA range is very short so if he is the type of person to AA you often, you can very easily walk up and pull him in. P.S. : Bad Teemo players suck vs Darius. This matchup helps you deal with the good ones.
Tahm Kench
TL;DR - CHEESE MATCHUP. JUST DON’T GET CHEESED AND YOU SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO. DODGE HIS Q. POKE HIM DOWN WITH Q FROM BEHIND YOUR MINIONS SO HE CAN’T FIGHT BACK. CONQUEROR IS VERY GOOD INTO HIM. CLEAVER IF YOU ARE STRUGGLING. KITE KITE KITE! DON’T EVER FIGHT HIM STRAIGHT UP AND TRADE AAS WITH HIM. HE CAN KEEP YOU STUNLOCKED UNTIL HE END OF TIME. MERC BOOTS WORK INTO HIM.
Tahm Kench top is a rare pick nowadays but when he was meta, he used to be a crazy strong pick. He is annoying because you have to destroy his health bar twice. But on the bright side, if he loses lane to you you can just dumpster him over and over again. The trick is to be careful when he just walks at you. Don’t get his by his Tongue, as the slow can sometimes be a death sentence. Poke him down with your Q as much as possible while staying behind minions so he can’t retaliate. Don’t sit next to him and get into an AA match with him as he WILL win. If he gets too tanky to kill, Cleaver will be a good buy into him, ESPECIALLY with the removed true damage of Conqueror. On the bright side though, the Conqueror healing allows you to stay in fight longer vs him…until he buys Bramble Vest. You beat him Level 6 with your ultimate if you dodge his abilities. AND he is bad vs ganks.
Trundle
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. CONQUEROR IS RECOMMENDED HEAVILY. DON’T FIGHT HIM EARLY. STELCAPS->BRAMBLE IF YOU ARE GETTING DESTROYED. BE CAREFUL OF HIS PILLAR. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE HIS ULTIMATE.
He is similar to Olaf in that you should be keeping trades short early on. Try to just Q him and back off, because a PTA Trundle can beat you up very quickly. His DPS when you allow him to constantly auto and use his abilities on you is staggering so you really should be kiting well against him. Try to fight him after he uses his Pillar, as then he will have no way to slow you down/escape. As I mentioned before, you should be looking for Qs, as he doesn’t really have any way of avoiding them if he is going for minions. His ultimate can be surprisingly powerful at times as he just steals ur stats so it might not be the worst idea to simply try to disengage and then fight him again. Trundle also falls off super hard so there’s THAT to look forward to. He is very good at setting up ganks due to his Pillar so try not to walk around walls to much so that he can’t just completely block you off. Steelcaps are a great buy into him and if that isnt enough, Bramble vest is another great purchase if he is ahead of you. If you are ahead, you can freely buy damage. Conqueror is recommended, as both the extra damage and the healing are nigh mandatory.
Tryndamere
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOUR. DON’T FIGHT HIM WHEN HIS FURY IS STACKED UP. DON’T LET HIM STACK IT UP. KITE HIM WHEN FIGHTING HIM. PHASE RUSH + GHOST RECOMMENDED IF YOU ARE NOT CONFIDENT/IF YOU ARE PLAYING IN HIGH ELO. CONQ NIMBUS IF YOU ARE CONFIDENT. STEELCAPS IF HE IS GIVING YOU A HARD TIME.
Tryndamere is a champion that is very oppressive when ahead so try to make sure that you win this lane. Luckily, Darius is able to give Tryndamere a hard time in lane. Don’t fight him too much level 1 when he has fury stacks, as he can kill you really quickly with Ignite and a few lucky crits. Try your hardest to kite him. Do not EVER just stay up in his face and trade auto attacks. You WILL lose. Go in, apply your damage and then walk around him. This will be especially crucial when he gets his ultimate, as you will have to kite him for 5 seconds and then apply a single bit of damage to kill him. To help with the kiting, I recommend taking Phase Rush. Conqueror is nice but it is not going to help too much against Tryndamere. Tryndamere is one of the easiest champions to stack Grasp on but Grasp is not optimal. If you want to give him a hard time, you can opt to buy an early Steelcaps or even a Bramble vest but I’d recommend stopping at the Steelcaps and going for your Stridebreaker. As a good rule of thumb, try to make sure he does not touch the wave too much. His fury bar, once fully stacked, makes him very difficult to trade with. And going even in trades is what Tryndamere WANTS. Think about it. You are both low HP, only one of you has the ability to be unkillable. Try to fight him when he has no fury and don’t let him stack it up. Try to kite him if he has lethal tempo up.
Urgot
TL;DR - EASY MATCHUP. BEAT HIM PRE-6. CONQUEROR. TRY TO CANCEL HIS DASH WITH YOUR E. DON’T GET HIT BY R IF POSSIBLE. CAREFUL OF HIS JUNGLER.
Urgot’s only hope should be getting help from his jungler. Pre-6, he has zero kill potential on you so you should be looking to generate a lead at this point. Dshield and Dblade are both okay options, depending on whether you think you will take too much poke or not. But him poking you down should be no concern, as his AA range is quite low, allowing you to Q him easily. I’d recommend taking Conqueror into him. Urgot’s only way to beat you is to land all of his abilities on you, R you and then walk around you. If you flash his R, then he is essentially a free kill. If you time it correctly, you can use your E to cancel his dash. Be careful of the jungler as Urgot is quite good at setting up ganks. His ultimate also has a ridiculous slow which can make it difficult to fight him when it is up.
Vayne
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T GET POKED DOWN TOO MUCH. TRY TO FIGHT LEVEL 3. DON’T MISS YOUR HOOK AT ALL. CONQUEROR IS OKAY. DSHIELD + SECOND WIND. IF YOU ARE GOOD JUST GO DSHIELD WITH NIMBUS CLOAK. STEELCAPS IS A MUST HAVE. STRIDEBREAKER HELPS VS HER A LOT.
Vayne is a very tough matchup for Darius. However, there is doable counter play against her. You might even be able to snowball against her if you make use of powerspikes correctly. Vayne is a kiting GOD with self peel which makes her a pain in lane, as if you miss any of your abilities, you can bet your ass that the Vayne will run up and AA you until you are left at half HP. Missing your E is a death sentence so try to land it every time. Phase Rush is okay but personally, I go Conqueror as the point at which you will be able to reach her is the point where you will be poked down quite a bit, which is where the extra damage and the healing from Conqueror come in. Conqueror also helps you have the damage to beat her, considering how you will exclusively be building defensively into Vayne until you are able to kill her. While running up to her, time your E so that it lands on her as she is condemning you away. Try not to get Condemned into a wall, as that is usually certain death. Rush Steelcaps and then try to go for Stridebreaker. You will NEVER beat her 1v1 later on into the game without this item, even WITH ghost. Pre-6 she is easier to kill so try to pull her once you have level 3. All in her once you have Steelcaps if the lane is even, as the powerspike of this item is huge in this lane.
Viktor
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. GO FOR TENACITY. CONQUEROR IS REQUIRED. GO EARLY ANTI-POKE (DSHIELD/REJUV BEADS). MERC BOOTS + UNFLINCHING WILL LET YOU GO THROUGH HIS SLOWS. PHASE RUSH MIGHT WORK AS WELL BUT CONQUEROR IS GREAT. IF YOU ARE A GOOD PLAYER GO CONQ NIMBUS WITH DSHIELD MERC BOOTS INTO STRIDEBREAKER. STRIDEBREAKER MAKES HIM A FREE KILL.
Thank god Viktor is no longer meta toplane. If he is picked, you might have a bad time as him being such a niche pick usually means the person playing him is good at the champion. You need movespeed from Ghost + Nimbus to catch him. But if you land a pull, just Ghost is enough. Since only his slows are a problem, you can go Conqueror, take Dshield for the poke and go full slow resist. Going Tenacity helps a lot but slow resist is great as it lets you actually catch the guy. He is pretty immobile so once you catch up to him and avoid staying in his zone, you should be able to kill him easily. Stridebreaker is a BLESSING in this lane.
Vladimir
TL;DR - BORING MATCHUP WHERE NOBODY WINS. DON’T TAKE FREE POKE. IF YOU ARE GONNA TRADE, MAKE SURE TO DUMPSTER HIM IN IT. PHASE RUSH IS RECOMMENDED BUT CONQUEROR IS OKAY. GHOST IS GREAT.
Vladimir isn’t a difficult matchup similar to a strong lane bully per se. It is just that it is very difficult to generate a lead against a competent Vladimir. He has a frightening lategame and the sustain in lane to get there. You have to get early sustain with Dshield and etc in order to match his healing. Try not to take stupid trades. He is free food when he does not have pool but don’t overextend and take free damage after he uses it to get away. The health cost of pool is high enough to be punishing enough on its own. Just make sure you stomp him in trades, as his sustain is quite annoying. Executioner’s is a must buy into this lane, so if he ever gets in a bad enough position where you can punish him, he is most likely dead. I’d actually go for Swifties in this lane if I'm running Conqueror as he mostly relies on slows from his E and Pool to kite you. But this is only a consideration if you are a good player AND if noone else on the enemy team requires a specific type of boots to counter them. Vladimir does not have enough damage to beat you in an all in. Even with his ultimate. Conqueror is not bad but Phase Rush is a good choice as it lets you stick to him through his annoying pool slow. If all else fails, just try to make sure you keep up in cs and dont feed him. He can 1v9 once he gets his items. As with most Ranged matchups, Stridebreaker is great.
Volibear
TL;DR - SKILL MATCHUP. CONQUEROR RECOMMENDED. FREEZE HIM OFF OF THE WAVE EARLY. DO NOT STAY UNDER TURRET WITH LOW HP VS HIM. YOU DON'T BEAT HIM WITHOUT GHOST. KITE KITE KITE. LAND ALL Qs. GET STEELCAPS.
The main playstyle into him has not changed. You simply have to play it as you would any other tank matchup, except with you being more careful in all ins. He is sooo tanky and is able to output solid damage. You beat him quite easily with W level 1 but unless you have ghost, you would HAVE to avoid his lightning thing and kite him to not deal with the shield because otherwise, you would just be dead. You can wear him out over time using good trades but that needs mana and Darius now has mana problems. If he is giving you any trouble just rush Steelcaps and then Cleaver as the powerspike should help you confidently beat him through his tank items. If he is going AP rush Merc boots instead. In all honesty, its a free lane if you know what you are doing but if he SOMEHOW manages to get fed, he will seriously 1v9 the game. I'm not even kidding. He can get RIDICULOUSLY tanky and somehow outdamage entire teams. 200 Years at it again. Another great job Riot!
P.S. If you lost a trade post level 6 and you arent multiple kills ahead, just go back. Give him the plates, give him the CS. It is better to lose less than to lose a lot more because he might be able to burst you down. Also try to avoid his Q with E or ghost. Just kite it and wait it out.
Warwick
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T DIE UNTIL LEVEL 3 AND YOU SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO. HE CAN ONLY CHEESE YOU EARLY ON IF HE TAKES IGNITE. CONQUEROR WORKS WELL BUT IT IS BETTER TO ITEMISE VS HIS TEAM INSTEAD OF HIM.
Warwick is easy to defeat for you as Darius. Try to hit him with the EDGE of Q because otherwise he can bite into you and then dodge your Q. If he keeps doing it, either start the trade with AA W or combo your Q with E. WW works VERY well with junglers and his bite has the damage to cheese you in the first few levels so be careful first three levels and you should be good to go. I’d recommend Conqueror into him but honestly, do whatever you want. You auto win after level 3. Just don’t let him disengage with his fear too easily. To prevent this, time your W or your E JUST as he fears you so that he doesn’t have the Movespeed to walk away. Another trick you can do is cancel his ultimate. If he ults towards you, make sure to time your E so that it starts just before you get suppressed. The E will still play out and you will cancel his ultimate while he is on you.
Wukong
TL;DR - DIFFICULT LANE. WUKONG BEATS YOU EARLY. HE BEATS YOU AT 6 IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL. DON'T TRY TO Q HIM IF HE HAS IGNITE. BUILD STEELCAPS. TAKE CONQUEROR. AFTERSHOCK SHOULD WORK. GOAL IS TO SURVIVE. YOU CAN'T WIN IF HES GOOD. TRY TO FARM AS WELL AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT TAKING ANY DAMAGE. KITE KITE KITE. DON'T EVER STAND IN FRONT OF HIS FACE.
Wukong went from an easy lane to one that is essentially a counterpick. If you don’t die to him then you should be good to go but the problem is that he is MUCH better at EVERYTHING than he used to be. I don't know what the fuck Riot was thinking but they essentially took out NOTHING and added 50 things to his kit, with half of them being specifically made to fight Bruisers. If you die to his cheese, then just play safe. He snowballs EXTREMELY hard. He can also ult twice so there is that to look forward to. If he takes ignite, you have to be very careful when fighting him. You must not lose any trade. VS any intelligent Wukong, don't try to Q him. He will just dash on you and start autoattacking with his massive AS steroid. You can take Sweeper if you want to catch him reliably after his invis but your Bleed stacks reveal him so this is not always necessary. He is good at working with a jungler post-6 so keep that in mind. Conqueror works best but take Aftershock if you want to play safer. Just try to survive laning phase to be honest. This character is COMPLETELY broken.
Yasuo
TL;DR - EASY LANE. DON’T ALL IN LEVEL 1/2. FREE AFTER LEVEL 3. STEELCAPS RECOMMENDED WHEN BEHIND OR AHEAD.
Yasuo is a very free matchup in all honesty. Just don’t get outtraded by him levels 1 and 2 as at that point, he is stronger than you. He can sneak in a cheese kill if he is packing ignite so be mindful. After level 3 it is just very easy to run him down. If he has his Tornado, try to save your E in order to pull him in AS he throws it out. This way, even though you will be knocked up, he will be stunned by your E which means he cannot ult you. At that point it is a simple matter of popping Ghost and running him down. Yasuo WILL be able to beat you if you missplay hard though. If you need to pull him in for an all in, try to just E->Insta Q or a W->Q if you are fast enough/are on low ping as Yasuos will try to dodge your Q by dashing into you. Just land your spells and you should be good to go. Even if Yasuo cheeses a few kills early, Level 6 should be free as your ultimate is better than his. If he is putting up a good fight every trade, consider a Steelcaps rush which will shut him down for good. Yasuo will only be able to beat you hyper lategame but as a Darius, you should be trying your best to make sure the game doesn’t get to Lategame unless you are vs a low DPS comp.
Yone
TLDR - SKILL MATCHUP IN YOUR FAVOR. TRY TO KITE KITE KITE. MANIPULATE WAVE SO HE DOES NOT EASILY TRADE INTO YOU WITH E. USE PULL TO COUNTERPLAY Q/KEEP HIM IN THE ALL IN. TRY NOT TO GET HIT BY ULTIMATE. CONQUEROR SORCERY IS GREAT INTO HIM. RUSH STEELCAPS. Yone, despite having a kit similar to Yasuo, is not at all like him in that the Yone lane is more difficult. You have to make sure to not take too much poke and when you all in him, you must try your best to kite him because his DPS is STAGGERING. Not to mention how his Ultimate is very difficult to avoid as he will be using it while Eing. The general idea is to all in him when he is on your side of the lane. After level 3, a Yone will try to get a great trade using his E and then back off. In order to make sure you can turn this short trade into an all in, try to catch him BEFORE he uses E. Because at this point, the only way he can get away from you is using his third Q which you can cancel with E. When he goes in his E, try to kite him because he will redeal all the damage he has dealt in it. But if you are confident in your ability to kill him, try to stand close to where his original return spot is in order to be able to continue the all in. If you get him in this situation, he is pretty much just dead. Post 6 he can escape you quite easily with his ultimate but honestly, getting him to waste ult is worth it since wihout it, he cannot really do too much into you or your team. Conqueror + Sorcery is great as you need the MS in this matchup. Rush Steelcaps and go for Stridebreaker.
Yorick
TL;DR - DIFFICULT MATCHUP. DON’T PUSH LANE BRAINLESSLY. FREEZE IT AT EVERY POINT IF POSSIBLE. DON’T DIE AT LEVEL 3 WHEN HE HAS 4 GHOULS. DON’T GET STUCK IN THE CAGE. IF YOU DO, AUTO+W IT. YOU CAN ALSO TRY FLASHING OUT OF IT. TRY TO FIGHT HIM WHEN HE HAS NO GHOULS. DON’T GET HIT BY HIS SPELLS WHEN HE HAS GHOULS/GRAVES. TRY TO BAIT MAIDEN INTO YOUR TOWER TO KILL HER. SHE WINS EVERY FIGHT FOR YORICK UNLESS YOU HEAVILY OUTPLAY HIM. HE DOES BOTH AP AND AD DAMAGE SO HE’S DIFFICULT TO ITEMISE AGAINST. STEELCAPS RUSH GOOD.
Yorick is a VERY annoying lane to deal with. As an immobile champion, if Yorick has ghouls and he catches you in his cage, you need to flash in order to avoid dying or aa w the cage quickly. His cage is buggy as hell which stops you from outplaying him sometimes. Auto+W killing the cage actually does not refund your W cooldown sometimes. And it means you have to waste a big portion of your combo as well. His Cage is the buggiest thing in existence and the lane would be much easier if Riot fixed it. But its Riot games so we cannot expect too much. Yorick WITHOUT his ghouls is free food. You have to make sure he does not touch the wave. STOP HIM from generating graves. If he has ghouls then you are in trouble, as you have to give him lane priority which also means he can generate EVEN MORE graves. Yorick beats you by unleashing his army on you and then kiting away from you using the cage. This is why you have to have your ghost when fighting him as you need to both stick to him, Kite away from his empowered auto AND kite from his ghouls. Try to freeze Yorick off of the wave as this allows you to run him down and it stops him from generating ghouls. Madien makes his matchup a nightmare. Try to get hit by his skill shot under turret so that the Maiden aggros onto you and dies under turret. The 50% of your HP you lost from doing this is worth not having Maiden in the fight. Conqueror works well in this lane. Overall, if you force him into an all in if he doesn’t land his Cage, he is dead. And even if he does land the cage, a trick you can do is wait for him to throw out his skillshot that aggroes the ghouls and Maiden to you, and then flash towards him to try to kill him. Yorick is a losing matchup and you HAVE to mechanically outplay him in order to beat him down.
Alistar
Although I haven't seen him around anymore, Alistar is a great support to have on your team. Having another frontliner on your team allows for you to build more damage and Alistar can set things up for you very effectively. Alistar also is able to engage teamfights which is great as engaging on Darius usually means that you will be focused down and killed before you can get your dunk on unless you build full tank engage with Aftershock or something.
Anivia
Anivia is an okay teamfighter and has decent waveclear. She is also a strong laner which means that having an Anivia on your team will give you a reliable source of slows and waveclear. She has so much waveclear on her that if you two are the only fed people on the team, she can essentially hold an entire team off while you splitpush.
Blitzcrank
Blitzcrank is good at catching people and that is pretty much it. The Synergy increases to "OK" if he can regularly hit hooks but in all honesty, Nautilus is better than Blitzcrank in almost every single way possible when it comes to working with Darius.
Braum
Braum is another good tanky support that works with Darius due to how much CC he has. He isn't as tanky as an Alistar but he will be able to follow up VERY well if you go in too deep.
Galio
He is an okay midlaner to have due to how much he can roam. If he has a single shred of intelligence, ulting you when you are getting 3 manned and ccing everyone might just give you enough time to get your reset and kill them all.
Gragas
Gragas is a great jungler to have on your team. His ganks are phenomenal, some Gragas players build tanky which works great for Darius, AND Gragas has a very nasty engage which splits the enemy team apart. As Darius, you can use this disorganisation very well in order to just kill everyone.
Ivern
Ivern is an okay companion to have for Darius. He isn't too tanky on his own and can't really do much but his shield spam on you is very strong if you are the carry of the team. You also get a free Red Buff if you are on the top side of the map. As a last plus, Daisy helps out a lot in dives against the enemy. Ivern himself does tend to get kinda useless the more the game goes on though.
Jarvan IV
Jarvan IV is another great jungler to have. He ganks early which means he can snowball you if he chooses to gank toplane. He is very powerful early so if you two get fed you can essentially 2v5 the entire enemy team. He is great at diving the enemy backline and will be focused down by them which gives you the opportunity to get your dunk on AND his flag gives you a bit of attack speed which is just a nice plus. The Jarvan Darius combo is imho very underrated. This combo is somewhat difficult to pull off though, due to the fact that both players have to be good at the game. But if you are smurfing with a duo, a combo like this is very strong.
Karma
Karma is not really the best at anything. She's not even the second best at anything. She just has a bit everything really. She can give you shields and a decent bit of movement speed which is always nice. She has okay CC but its very slow so it will mostly be used as a follow up. Really, the only thing that makes her good is how she can give you a ton of movement speed.
Leona
Leona is a great support champion to have as she has a TON of CC to work with. She isn't the tankiest by far but the sheer amount of CC she has allows her to engage, dive and follow up on essentially anything you want to do. She can keep an hold off and entire team while you get your passive.
Lissandra
Lissandra is an okay mage to have on your team if you yourself want to be the carry. She has great CC, can lock down people, and can, in certain circumstances, even engage teamfights. What's great about her is her passive though. Basically, with your Ultimate and her passive, you will be able to shut down entire teamfights as every kill will give you a reset and will turn into Lissandra's ice ghost which will walk towards and slow an enemy target.
Lulu
Lulu is an okay support champion to have on your team. Her shields suck but her slows allow for you to chase better and her ultimate saves you in teamfights. A Lulu becomes MUCH more useful if there is a fed toplaner, as she can polymorph them as you lock them down and begin trying to kill them.
Morgana
Morgana is an support that has SOME synergy with Darius but its not really comparable to a Zilean. Her Black Shield is very useful if you plan on running in and she can accompany you with her own ultimate. Her root is also a very powerful CC ability.
Nami
Nami has fairly strong synergy with Darius because her abilities are a bit longer ranged so she can help you from afar. She is great at chasing people down and engaging fights with her ultimate. Her healing and the damage you get from it are negligible but in all honesty, Nami's synergy with Darius goes from worthless to strong depending on whether she can hit her bubbles consistently or not.
Nautilus
Nautilus is somewhat like Leona in terms of him having very good synergy with Darius due to his CC and his tankiness. Nautilus is not as good as her at starting fights but he makes up for it with how great he is at catching people. A Nautilus that can hit his hooks along with a Darius that can do Darius things well is a very powerful combo.
Nunu & Willump
Nunu is a great partner to have for Darius. He can engage, he has a crazy amount of tankiness, he can gank very often. His teamfighting is not the best when it comes to tank junglers but he is still a great champion to pair with Darius.
Rakan
Rakan is a character that can get a LOT done. Having a Rakan that jumps around, dashes to you and etc. is like having hacks. He makes life so much easier for you. He has CRAZY mobility which means that he will be able to make plays and work with you regardless of where you are, he is able to charm and hold off entire teams, his knock up makes him excellent for catching people out/chasing, especially since he can dash to you and he can do a tiny bit of healing which might help you survive an Ignite or so. A mechanically gifted Rakan along with a somewhat ahead Darius can 2v5 streamroll an enemy team.
Rammus
Rammus is great at diving, ganking and catching people out. He is VERY tanky which means he can take pressure off of you in teamfights. But that is pretty much it. He can only engage if the enemy are GROSSLY out of position and his ultimate does next to nothing. He is not bad by any means though.
Sejuani
Sejuani is probably the best tank jungler to have on your team. She is very good at ganking, she has decent amount of 1v1 damage, she has a CRAZY amount of single target CC which makes it very easy to catch out and kill people and she has an incredible engage that can end teamfights before they start if she can land it properly. Catching a team out of position in a Sejuani ultimate is essentially a win condition provided that your team has the means to follow up.
Sona
Sona is somewhat like Karma but she is pretty much worse in terms of working with Darius. This is mostly due to her range. Darius is going to be running in fairly quickly and Sona can't really keep up. But she does have healing, movement speed, damage and a pretty good ultimate that works best after the enemy have engaged on your team.
Soraka
Soraka is a great support to have in general, with her working with Darius as well. Her healing is insane. With her ultimate, she is going to be able to help you out during early fights in laning phase which is great. If you are up against a poke comp, she will be able to keep you very healthy as you facetank damage for your team. Soraka works well with Darius when you are on the offensive but where she really shines is when the enemy team have engaged on to you as you will get moments where the enemy team come VERY close to killing you but the Soraka is going to use everything at her disposal to keep you alive which will be more than enough for you to kill everyone. If she survives the teamfight, she will make sure you are healthy enough to tank any objective your team would get from winning that teamfight as well.
Taric
Taric is an okay champion when it comes to working with Darius. His downfall is that he isn't too mobile and that he is not there to do too much of his own. What he does do however is basically make you better at everything you do. If you catch someone, a Taric stun will keep them down long enough for you to kill them straight up. And also if you engage, a Taric ultimate will keep you alive for quite a long amount of time, with it being guaranteed to go off as Darius cannot be bursted down if he builds properly. He is a solid companion to have.
Thresh
A Thesh goes from OK to Strong depending on whether he can land his hooks or not. He is a wonderful champion to have as he can catch people out, have a good presence in teamfights with his ultimate and save you when you get caught. His flay also makes him great at keeping people off of you as you wait for your cooldowns to come back. A good Thresh is great to have around.
Vi
Vi is another great damage jungler that can do wonders with you. Her ganks are powerful, her early game is great meaning that if you both get fed you can duo carry a game and she is okay in teamfights. If she was any better in teamfights she would have ideal synergy but unfortunately, she is not.
Volibear
Volibear is a very underrated champion imo. He is great with Darius. He is a great duelist and is a terror to face if he gets ahead. But he really does not need to. A Volibear can go in with you in teamfights with how tanky he is. He is very powerful in skirmishes and fights in the river and whatnot early on so definitely keep an eye out if he gets in a fight near toplane. His passive can keep fights long enough for you to use your own passive to kill everyone with.
Wukong
Wukong has decent synergy with Darius. This is only due to his ultimate. Wukong will be able to dive and ult and entire enemy backline, with him also being able to chunk them down which makes it easier for you to get resets.
Yuumi
Yuumi is great. If she decides to go into you, you can pretty much 2v5 the entire enemy team if you are fed enough. She is seriously great, as you are able to solo engage a teamfight and she will be able to use her ultimate to CC the entire enemy team in their place so that its easier for you to get your dunk on. She is great at chases and slowing people down, her healing is not Soraka good but it is still significant, and she gives you movement speed which is great.
Zac
Zac is an excellent ganker, a great diver and an okay teamfighter. There isn't really much to say here. He is good at what he does and what he does is what you need.
Zilean
Zilean is a very fun champion to play with as Darius. He just makes life SOO MUCH EASIER. His ultimate allows you to risk your life and go for crazy plays. His stun is very strong and it lets him shut down whoever you catch. And you will be catching a lot of people as he gives you loads of movement speed. The best part is unlike some of the other IDEAL synergies, playing Zilean well is not the hardest thing to do in the world.
Synergies
IdealStrongOkLowNone
Alistar
Although I haven't seen him around anymore, Alistar is a great support to have on your team. Having another frontliner on your team allows for you to build more damage and Alistar can set things up for you very effectively. Alistar also is able to engage teamfights which is great as engaging on Darius usually means that you will be focused down and killed before you can get your dunk on unless you build full tank engage with Aftershock or something.
Anivia
Anivia is an okay teamfighter and has decent waveclear. She is also a strong laner which means that having an Anivia on your team will give you a reliable source of slows and waveclear. She has so much waveclear on her that if you two are the only fed people on the team, she can essentially hold an entire team off while you splitpush.
Blitzcrank
Blitzcrank is good at catching people and that is pretty much it. The Synergy increases to "OK" if he can regularly hit hooks but in all honesty, Nautilus is better than Blitzcrank in almost every single way possible when it comes to working with Darius.
Braum
Braum is another good tanky support that works with Darius due to how much CC he has. He isn't as tanky as an Alistar but he will be able to follow up VERY well if you go in too deep.
Galio
He is an okay midlaner to have due to how much he can roam. If he has a single shred of intelligence, ulting you when you are getting 3 manned and ccing everyone might just give you enough time to get your reset and kill them all.
Gragas
Gragas is a great jungler to have on your team. His ganks are phenomenal, some Gragas players build tanky which works great for Darius, AND Gragas has a very nasty engage which splits the enemy team apart. As Darius, you can use this disorganisation very well in order to just kill everyone.
Ivern
Ivern is an okay companion to have for Darius. He isn't too tanky on his own and can't really do much but his shield spam on you is very strong if you are the carry of the team. You also get a free Red Buff if you are on the top side of the map. As a last plus, Daisy helps out a lot in dives against the enemy. Ivern himself does tend to get kinda useless the more the game goes on though.
Jarvan IV
Jarvan IV is another great jungler to have. He ganks early which means he can snowball you if he chooses to gank toplane. He is very powerful early so if you two get fed you can essentially 2v5 the entire enemy team. He is great at diving the enemy backline and will be focused down by them which gives you the opportunity to get your dunk on AND his flag gives you a bit of attack speed which is just a nice plus. The Jarvan Darius combo is imho very underrated. This combo is somewhat difficult to pull off though, due to the fact that both players have to be good at the game. But if you are smurfing with a duo, a combo like this is very strong.
Karma
Karma is not really the best at anything. She's not even the second best at anything. She just has a bit everything really. She can give you shields and a decent bit of movement speed which is always nice. She has okay CC but its very slow so it will mostly be used as a follow up. Really, the only thing that makes her good is how she can give you a ton of movement speed.
Leona
Leona is a great support champion to have as she has a TON of CC to work with. She isn't the tankiest by far but the sheer amount of CC she has allows her to engage, dive and follow up on essentially anything you want to do. She can keep an hold off and entire team while you get your passive.
Lissandra
Lissandra is an okay mage to have on your team if you yourself want to be the carry. She has great CC, can lock down people, and can, in certain circumstances, even engage teamfights. What's great about her is her passive though. Basically, with your Ultimate and her passive, you will be able to shut down entire teamfights as every kill will give you a reset and will turn into Lissandra's ice ghost which will walk towards and slow an enemy target.
Lulu
Lulu is an okay support champion to have on your team. Her shields suck but her slows allow for you to chase better and her ultimate saves you in teamfights. A Lulu becomes MUCH more useful if there is a fed toplaner, as she can polymorph them as you lock them down and begin trying to kill them.
Morgana
Morgana is an support that has SOME synergy with Darius but its not really comparable to a Zilean. Her Black Shield is very useful if you plan on running in and she can accompany you with her own ultimate. Her root is also a very powerful CC ability.
Nami
Nami has fairly strong synergy with Darius because her abilities are a bit longer ranged so she can help you from afar. She is great at chasing people down and engaging fights with her ultimate. Her healing and the damage you get from it are negligible but in all honesty, Nami's synergy with Darius goes from worthless to strong depending on whether she can hit her bubbles consistently or not.
Nautilus
Nautilus is somewhat like Leona in terms of him having very good synergy with Darius due to his CC and his tankiness. Nautilus is not as good as her at starting fights but he makes up for it with how great he is at catching people. A Nautilus that can hit his hooks along with a Darius that can do Darius things well is a very powerful combo.
Nunu & Willump
Nunu is a great partner to have for Darius. He can engage, he has a crazy amount of tankiness, he can gank very often. His teamfighting is not the best when it comes to tank junglers but he is still a great champion to pair with Darius.
Rakan
Rakan is a character that can get a LOT done. Having a Rakan that jumps around, dashes to you and etc. is like having hacks. He makes life so much easier for you. He has CRAZY mobility which means that he will be able to make plays and work with you regardless of where you are, he is able to charm and hold off entire teams, his knock up makes him excellent for catching people out/chasing, especially since he can dash to you and he can do a tiny bit of healing which might help you survive an Ignite or so. A mechanically gifted Rakan along with a somewhat ahead Darius can 2v5 streamroll an enemy team.
Rammus
Rammus is great at diving, ganking and catching people out. He is VERY tanky which means he can take pressure off of you in teamfights. But that is pretty much it. He can only engage if the enemy are GROSSLY out of position and his ultimate does next to nothing. He is not bad by any means though.
Sejuani
Sejuani is probably the best tank jungler to have on your team. She is very good at ganking, she has decent amount of 1v1 damage, she has a CRAZY amount of single target CC which makes it very easy to catch out and kill people and she has an incredible engage that can end teamfights before they start if she can land it properly. Catching a team out of position in a Sejuani ultimate is essentially a win condition provided that your team has the means to follow up.
Sona
Sona is somewhat like Karma but she is pretty much worse in terms of working with Darius. This is mostly due to her range. Darius is going to be running in fairly quickly and Sona can't really keep up. But she does have healing, movement speed, damage and a pretty good ultimate that works best after the enemy have engaged on your team.
Soraka
Soraka is a great support to have in general, with her working with Darius as well. Her healing is insane. With her ultimate, she is going to be able to help you out during early fights in laning phase which is great. If you are up against a poke comp, she will be able to keep you very healthy as you facetank damage for your team. Soraka works well with Darius when you are on the offensive but where she really shines is when the enemy team have engaged on to you as you will get moments where the enemy team come VERY close to killing you but the Soraka is going to use everything at her disposal to keep you alive which will be more than enough for you to kill everyone. If she survives the teamfight, she will make sure you are healthy enough to tank any objective your team would get from winning that teamfight as well.
Taric
Taric is an okay champion when it comes to working with Darius. His downfall is that he isn't too mobile and that he is not there to do too much of his own. What he does do however is basically make you better at everything you do. If you catch someone, a Taric stun will keep them down long enough for you to kill them straight up. And also if you engage, a Taric ultimate will keep you alive for quite a long amount of time, with it being guaranteed to go off as Darius cannot be bursted down if he builds properly. He is a solid companion to have.
Thresh
A Thesh goes from OK to Strong depending on whether he can land his hooks or not. He is a wonderful champion to have as he can catch people out, have a good presence in teamfights with his ultimate and save you when you get caught. His flay also makes him great at keeping people off of you as you wait for your cooldowns to come back. A good Thresh is great to have around.
Vi
Vi is another great damage jungler that can do wonders with you. Her ganks are powerful, her early game is great meaning that if you both get fed you can duo carry a game and she is okay in teamfights. If she was any better in teamfights she would have ideal synergy but unfortunately, she is not.
Volibear
Volibear is a very underrated champion imo. He is great with Darius. He is a great duelist and is a terror to face if he gets ahead. But he really does not need to. A Volibear can go in with you in teamfights with how tanky he is. He is very powerful in skirmishes and fights in the river and whatnot early on so definitely keep an eye out if he gets in a fight near toplane. His passive can keep fights long enough for you to use your own passive to kill everyone with.
Wukong
Wukong has decent synergy with Darius. This is only due to his ultimate. Wukong will be able to dive and ult and entire enemy backline, with him also being able to chunk them down which makes it easier for you to get resets.
Yuumi
Yuumi is great. If she decides to go into you, you can pretty much 2v5 the entire enemy team if you are fed enough. She is seriously great, as you are able to solo engage a teamfight and she will be able to use her ultimate to CC the entire enemy team in their place so that its easier for you to get your dunk on. She is great at chases and slowing people down, her healing is not Soraka good but it is still significant, and she gives you movement speed which is great.
Zac
Zac is an excellent ganker, a great diver and an okay teamfighter. There isn't really much to say here. He is good at what he does and what he does is what you need.
Zilean
Zilean is a very fun champion to play with as Darius. He just makes life SOO MUCH EASIER. His ultimate allows you to risk your life and go for crazy plays. His stun is very strong and it lets him shut down whoever you catch. And you will be catching a lot of people as he gives you loads of movement speed. The best part is unlike some of the other IDEAL synergies, playing Zilean well is not the hardest thing to do in the world.
Runes: Early Cheese
12345
Domination
Hail of Blades
Taste of Blood
Eyeball Collection
Ravenous Hunter
Precision
Triumph
Legend: Alacrity
Bonus:
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Precision
Conqueror
Triumph
Legend: Bloodline
Last Stand
Domination
Taste of Blood
Ravenous Hunter
Bonus:
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Precision
Press the Attack
Triumph
Legend: Alacrity
Last Stand
Sorcery
Nimbus Cloak
Celerity
Bonus:
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Inspiration
Unsealed Spellbook
Magical Footwear
Biscuit Delivery
Time Warp Tonic
Precision
Triumph
Legend: Alacrity
Bonus:
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Resolve
Grasp of the Undying
Demolish
Bone Plating
Overgrowth
Precision
Triumph
Legend: Alacrity
Bonus:
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Hello everyone. I have recently reopened my coaching sessions.
I have been sporadically coaching people over the year or so I have been making content in. I went through multiple techniques and general ways to do so and I think that, given enough information about the student, I can find the best way for them to learn and improve at the game as soon as possible.
Now, thanks to the website, I can accept and do more sessions than ever in addition to it being easier to get them to begin with. Click on the image below if you want to get good fast.
I am
I've been a League of Legends player ever since the 6th Season, with me maining and learning the game through Darius. Right now I am a Darius Onetrick and my main is usually somewhere in Master/Grandmaster on the EUW server. I have peaked high Master before the end of Season 9 after which point I could no longer play properly due to my PC being broken. Season 10 I played well for a bit more than the first month and peaked Top 400 (almost Challenger). Because I am so busy with my university, I usually spend my time playing things for fun & working on creating content for you guys. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me through the Discussions section of this guide, through private messages on MobaFire, through my stream or through any of my socials which I will link below.
I do not wish to claim that I am some amazing high elo god by putting my opgg and all these plays here. I simply want to provide SOME credibility to this guide. Know that you are receiving advice from a person who knows what he is talking about when it comes to Darius. I have mained him ever since season 7. He was the perfect champion for me which was why after picking him up, I immediately started climbing. With him being a popular pick and a great character to learn the game with, I want people to understand the basics of this champion. I've seen cases where someone picks Darius for the first time when filled Toplane, thinking he is an easy champ to play, only for them to fail miserably as they don't know a thing about the character. If you are a Toplaner or a Jungler/Midlaner who needs a champion for Top, learning Darius can give you a staple pick that you can use to effectively carry entire games and shut down teamfights.
Be sure to check out my Darius Informative Commentaries. My channel has more videos like this one for different elos, VODs featuring different matchups, tutorials explaining certain mechanics and more. So pleae Subscribe to my Youtube channel for more useful content.
I have made a Season 11 Darius Guide which contains many of what is contained within this guide so if you are better at learning through videos, check this video out. Keep in mind that this guide will probably contain more details so if you want to make the most of everything, watch the video to get a good idea and then read the guide in order to expand upon your knowledge
If you wish to expand your champion pool, read my Mordekaiser guide. He is a similar champion to Darius so if you are a Darius player, you will have no difficulty picking him up.
Here is my Youtube Channel. I don't have a regular schedule so far but I upload as frequently as I can. I put up informative commentaries, guides, VODs from my stream demonstrating how you should play into specific matchups and more. If you are interested in learning Darius, my Youtube channel goes hand in hand with this guide in helping you so please check it out.
Here is my Twitch account. I have an updated stream schedule that I keep on my discord. I have the link to my discord here also and I ping whenever I go live. When I am live, feel free to come on and ask me questions at any point in time. I stream mostly around 7 PM CET.
A while ago I was talked into opening a Twitter account so here it is. I mostly just post low quality memes, make jokes, troll my friends and argue with randoms over nothing. If this method is convenient for you, then feel free to DM me on there.
Here is my Discord Channel where all of my content is announced. I will announce my youtube videos, streams and more on there. Join it if you want to stay updated with me. I will also always be on there so you may contact me through there as well. I'd like to see you come and be a part of the community I am trying to build.
These are all the socials that I check regularly. I'd link more but honestly, some are just a waste of time as I am almost never on. Enough about me then. Let us begin.
Pros
+ Can potentially deal incredible amounts of damage. + Difficult to kill due to his tankiness. + Can win entire teamfights singlehandedly. + Is very good at exploiting mistakes. + Can turn a gank into a Double Kill. + Snowballs hard and can be used to win any lane if played correctly + Can easily come back into the game off of a single teamfight. He may be down, but he is never out.
Cons
- Immobile and very easy to kite. - Missing E can sometimes mean certain death in some lanes. - Falls off and becomes more team reliant lategame. - Very difficult to play vs high elo toplaners. Sometimes you need to slow with W or E to be able to hit Q. - Not a good tank. Has mediocre peel. - Can be killed very quickly if he misses Q - People in SoloQ are prone to stealing your Ult resets
ATTENTION: I will be keeping this tier list updated for every patch.
ATTENTION
The important thing I have to tell the person reading this is to try to pick their runes themselves. It is by no means WRONG to copy runes but at the very least try to understand WHY you are taking the runes you are taking. Don't just copy the runes and go into the game without consideration of what your runes do. Although I have given you the optimal rune choices in most matchup descriptions, there will be times when my advice won't be specific enough. Only you know what you are up against so therefore, learning to pick the best runes yourself is the best way to go about this. Learn what each rune does and think whether it is useful or not in your specific scenario. Doing this will make you a better player. Quickly skimming through this guide before you get ingame when you've picked Darius for the first time in your life, will not.
WATCH THE VIDEO FOR ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW
In order to save time, here is a video from my Youtube channel where I break down the main page you are supposed to take into every game.
With Darius, 3 of the 5 trees are viable options whereas the other two are situational. Darius is very versatile rune wise and has a surprising variety of playstyles, despite being a simple champion. Though you do need more skill and game knowledge to utilise some keystones and runes. What you take is all based on your personal playstyle, what you find most fun, and, more importantly, the team comp that you're up against.
Below I have a FULL breakdown of how EVERY SINGLE RUNE in the game synergises with Darius. Some might think this is excessive but I did not write this to be read in one go. Basically, I wrote it so that if a player is wondering whether a certain rune synergises with him, they can simply refer to this guide and find out. If you've seen the videos above, especially the first one, you do not necessarily need to read the rest of this section and may just go to the next one.
Viable Trees
Precision
The Precision tree is an excellent one for Darius as both a primary tree and a secondary tree. The keystones all provide different playstyles and there are very powerful individual runes that offer a lot for Darius like Triumph. You should be taking Precision as a secondary tree always when going for any Resolve tree primary tree setup, and when going for Phase Rush into easier matchups. It gives you access to Triumph, along with one of the Legend runes which is immensely useful.
CONQUEROR
Conqueror is the most versatile keystone as it works against almost everything, can be used in most situations and it gives Darius quite a bit of healing as it synergises with Noxian Might. Though Lifesteal sucks on Darius, the healing on the rune is very impactful in earlier fights when you have not tanked up that much. Though it has been changed and nerfed in ways that make it slightly worse for Darius, it is still the best keystone for him in the game. It gives you far more damage than most keystones, it makes you a monster in teamfights or fights that last long and it does not take any playstyle adjustment to use. Overall, this is the keystone you want to run 90% of the time.
PRESS THE ATTACK
Press the Attack is a rune that requires you to play a lot more selfishly, as it is a dueling keystone. It makes your split pushing and early laning a lot stronger, allowing you to beat somewhat problematic matchups that can outdamage you in lane. It also helps your bleed stacks guarantee a kill. The sacrifice you have to make when taking this keystone is that Press the Attack is very bad in teamfights. As Darius, you won't be fighting a single target in teamfights. You will almost always get focused down. Which is why Conqueror would work better as it helps you in fights against multiple targets.
FLEET FOOTWORK
Fleet Footwork is a keystone that should only be taken into the worst matchups. It offers no damage, it does not help too much in teamfights and it makes your all ins weaker. It does give you a bunch of movespeed and healing which lets you survive, or even cheese a kill or two against a laner who you normally wouldn't be able to reach. It also has uses in a split push scenario, as it allows you to heal back up so that you can siege better, AND it gives you a little extra movement speed which can help you escape the enemy team when they decide to collapse on you. I'd recommend you to gather some experience with Darius before using this Keystone.
LETHAL TEMPO
Lethal Tempo is a very situational rune that is also quite tricky to use. The general idea is to damage someone with a Q and then slow them with W or pull them with an E so that you can actually land your autos on the enemy. It helps to be good at managing your auto attacks with this rune, as if you are not able to cancel AA animations, then this rune will be nigh useless on you. Against most competent players, they will be kiting you which won't allow you to fully utilise the keystone at all. It is also only good in duels, as in teamfights you won't be tanky enough to just stand still and AA someone. If you wish to quickly stack up your passive, Hail of Blades is the better option.
OVERHEAL
Overheal is not a very good keystone for Darius. Remember that Darius' Q heals for PERCENTAGE MISSING health so the shield is going to have to come purely from auto attack lifesteal if you do not have a healer on your team. The extra shield scales with 10% HP which is has its uses for Darius. I won't recommend you take this rune but if you really wanted it, you could opt for Legend: Bloodline which, along with a Doran's Blade, would let you stack it up decently quickly in the midgame. Lifesteal isn't too great of a stat for Darius though. Overheal is also, vastly overshadowed by Triumph which works too well with Darius to NOT take.
TRIUMPH
Triumph is the cream of the crop when it comes to the Precision tree. It is undoubtedly the best rune by far. Darius excels at cleaning up fights which is what Triumph helps you do. There have been COUNTLESS times where Triumph has saved my life in an important teamfight. It GREATLY helps you fight battles against multiple opponents, with it helping you in the 2v1 when you are trying to fight off a gank. Triumph is also AMAZING for when you are diving the enemy under their turret. It allows you to walk away with a SLIVER of health and due to it healing percentage missing health, it almost always saves you from the last turret shot. It is too good. Just take it.
PRESENCE OF MIND
Darius has some mana issues. As a lane bully, you will be using your abilities to harass often and can easily go on auto-pilot and waste all of your mana. If you are bad at managing your mana, you will very quickly run out and be left completely vulnerable in lane. But his mana pool isn't that big of an issue to the point where you need to sacrifice Triumph. Getting your mana back in a fight is nice but it is not too useful, as with proper mana management, you won't be in a position where you will ever NEED to take this rune. You are not Kassadin. You don't need it. The extra healing from Triumph is MUCH better. There is no way to make this rune work so don't even try.
LEGEND: ALACRITY
Legend: Alacrity is the rune you want to take from here whenever you are up against a team with either little to no CC, or CC that you know you are going to be able to avoid. This rune is mandatory for when you are planning on building Black Cleaver, as you need attack speed on Darius in some form. Even if you are going for [[Trinity Force], the extra attack speed will make you a splitpushing monster. The rune assists in your snowball so if you are confident, this is the one to take.
LEGEND: TENACITY
Legend: Tenacity is a god send. Darius HATES being CCed and locked down. CC not only allows for your enemies to kite you out, but it also leads to you getting focused down and oneshot because you are not able to properly retaliate. Legend: Tenacity works very well into CC heavy teams and it scales the best into the lategame, as being stunlocked in a teamfight is a death sentence. Sometimes, the appearance of single champions make taking this rune a necessity. Sejuani, Braum, Morgana, Lux, Neeko are all examples of champions that force you to take tenacity. This rune is also very useful in certain lanes like Ryze, Kennen and even Renekton due to their stuns being able to stop you from either catching up to them or retaliating.
LEGEND: BLOODLINE
Lifesteal is not a great stat for Darius. It helps when trying to sustain and for when you are trying to take jungle camps but it does not help you at all in fights. Life steal/spell vamp on Darius is not too good on general but if you really wanted it, you'd be better off picking up a Death's Dance or using Conqueror. The rune is also designed to scale to late game, as it starts off with no lifesteal. And Darius is not the best character lategame. You could maybe use this rune together with Overheal to get the shield without having to build lifesteal ingame but I wouldn't recommend it.
COUP DE GRACE
Coup de Grace used to be a good option to pick up as opposed to Last Stand before. But now it no longer gives you the additional AD that it used to give which synergised with Triumph so well and together could help turn lost fights around. It is great for early on fights where you need the bleed to secure a kill so you should be only taking it against easy lanes where you want to snowball harder. But overall, it is inferior to Last Stand. It also does not increase the damage of your ultimate so I'd only take it if I knew I'd be in a position where I can't easily use my ultimate.
CUT DOWN
Cut Down does not work with Darius at all. You are going to be building health. And even if you build full damage, Darius has so much base hp that it does not even work. Never take this rune.
LAST STAND
Last Stand is the best rune in this tree. It gives more damage than Coup de Grace and it is active more often because as Darius, you are immobile which means you will be taking a lot of damage which is what Last Stand helps with. It helps against tougher lanes and it helps in teamfights. You mostly want to take this rune if you are taking a Precision keystone.
Sorcery
Darius cannot properly utilise many of the runes in this tree. His immobility however, allows him to make good use of the extra movement speed provided. You mostly will be taking Nimbus Cloak and Celerity/ Transcendence along with a Conqueror page for the most part though because Nimbus synergises very well with him. You may also take a Phase Rush page into specific matchups.
SUMMON AERY
Summon Aery is not a very good keystone for Darius. The tree itself is not too great but the keystone itself is even worse. It helps in poking but Darius is not the kind of champion who would get any use out of this. Summon Aery may proc twice due to bleed but that tiny synergy is nothing impressive. Do not take this.
Phase Rush is an immensely good keystone for Darius that makes certain matchups that were impossible before, entirely doable. Though you lose the potential damage of Conqueror, you get a massive amount of sticking power. This keystone is going to help against teams who have lots of slows where the movement speed and the slow resist are going to help you exist in teamfights as opposed to being slowed down to a crawl and not being able to do anything. It is great in dealing with kiting champions and, combined with Ghost, it lets you run very quickly in and out of fights. Phase Rush is also commonly taken with Teleport as it compensates with ghost in a way. But there are many situations where Ghost is irreplaceable. When combined with Unflinching, it essentially makes you immune to slows.
NULLIFYING ORB
Although Nimbus Cloak is a great rune for Darius, Nullifying Orb is a great pick up into certain AP matchups like Cassiopeia or Ryze that give you a hard time. It scales with AD which means that once you have your passive activated, you will get a much bigger shield. If Nimbus Cloak wasn't as broken as it is, this rune might be worth it to take. But at the moment, if you are going Sorcery and NOT taking Nimbus, you are making a mistake.
MANAFLOW BAND
Manaflow Band is a decent pickup on Darius because his mana pool is not that great. If you are looking to spam your abilities in a lane to poke an opponent, then Manaflow Band might be a viable option. I'd only recommend it if you are going Black Cleaver, because Sheen solves all of your mana problems.
NIMBUS CLOAK
Nimbus Cloak is probably the best rune in this tree. You essentially want Nimbus Cloak if you are ever going to take Ignite, as it gives you SOME movespeed to work with. Even without Ignite, Nimbus Cloak is great in certain situations, especially for when making plays with Flash. Darius' relevancy in game is directly related to whether he has his summs up or not and Nimbus makes your Flash or Ghost plays even more powerful.
TRANSCENDENCE
Transcendence gives you extra Ability haste at level 5, 8 and a new passive at level 11. This is why I like using it more than Celerity. It reduces the cooldown of your abilities by 20% per takedown which is great.
CELERITY
Celerity gives you a tiny bit of early movement speed which is nice and it amplifies the ridiculous amount of movement speed given by this tree anyway. You can take it if you enjoy the extra movement speed but it is not always necessary.
ABSOLUTE FOCUS
Absolute Focus allows you to do a bit more damage when you are at higher HP and allows you to win earlier trades. But you are playing a character that likes to face tank a lot of damage so you won't be getting much use of this rune. You're better off going for Transcendence or Celerity.
SCORCH
Scorch gives you a decent bit of poke in lane and a bit of early game power. It has a 10 second cooldown so you can use it often if you fight a lot in lane. It is the go to in this section if you are not looking to roam often.
WATERWALKING
Waterwalking is a decent rune if you are looking to roam through the river often. It helps a lot in early river fights and skirmishes, with it also helping in fights around Rift Herald/ Baron.
GATHERING STORM
Gathering Storm is not a very good rune for Darius. The AD comes to you later on in the game in a point where it has no impact on anything at all. It is a lategame rune and Darius is not a lategame champion.
Resolve
This tree is very good for Darius as it allows for you to pick up a variety of defensive runes that help with most playstyles and matchups where you might struggle. Second Wind makes some nightmare matchups more doable and Demolish’ turret destroying power allows you to snowball very hard by taking plates in seconds. It also makes you a very dangerous split pusher, as it, combined with Trinity Force, leads to you melting turrets.
GRASP OF THE UNDYING
Grasp of the Undying is a good Keystone that Darius can take. Though there are runes that provide more damage and more utility, Grasp of the Undying lets you do very well in short trades. This is why it is optimally taken into matchups where the enemy champion will be looking to go in for quick trades and back out like Renekton or Riven, or taken into matchups where the enemy champion cannot retaliate properly after you AA them for the stack. This Keystone can also give you a very nice bit of health to work with.
AFTERSHOCK
Aftershock is one of the best runes for Darius in the game. Aftershock, much like Conqueror, both synergises with Darius’ kit AND is in a great tree which makes it a very good choice. I’d suggest taking it only after you are used to hitting your hooks but with enough experience, that should not be too difficult. Aftershock makes certain difficult lanes very easy ( Riven, Akali), allows for you to tank much more damage in teamfights, AND it encourages Flash+E engages, as without it, you usually get focused down and oneshot.
GUARDIAN
You should, under no circumstances, be thinking of taking this rune in a solo lane. Even if you are autofilled and are playing Darius support, you’d be better off with Aftershock. You do not have a gap closer like Braum or Rakan that lets you quickly get to your ADC to use this rune and as a Bruiser, you will be fighting solo/diving the enemy backline alone a lot. Even if you could use it properly, which Darius cannot, the shield wouldn’t even be worth it. It is nice to be friendly and work with your team but understand that Darius is a selfish champion.
DEMOLISH
Demolish is an incredible rune in this group and is probably the one you will be taking every time. Darius has a lot of lane pressure and can easily take enemy plates. Not a lot of people know that Darius’ E armor penetration works on turrets which makes it even more effective. This rune helps you split push harder later on in the game and it accelerates your snowballing. It is sort of the Triumph of the Resolve tree. Trust me when I tell you that once you start playing with Demolish, it is very difficult to go back.
FONT OF LIFE
Font of Life is a very terrible rune. As I explained in the explanation of the Guardian keystone, Darius is a selfish champion who needs to be great at working alone first, and with his team second. Even if you are playing Darius support, you don’t have a great way of mass applying this rune. Not to mention how the heal is just pathetic.
SHIELD BASH
This rune is unusable. Darius has no way of generating a shield for himself. You might combine it with Overheal and Legend: Bloodline so that you can make shields and make use of this keystone but it is just not worth it. The tiny amount of damage you get from this rune pales in comparison to the sheer power of Demolish.
BONE PLATING
Bone Plating is a great rune for Bruisers and Fighters in toplane. And Darius is no exception. You will be wanting to take Bone Plating into characters like Irelia or Kled who will be hitting you multiple times per trade. Taking Bone Plating into a champion who can easily poke you OR a champion who can attack you and disengage with ease is not optimal though, as this will mean that if your lane opponent is smart, you will be getting no use out of Bone Plating.
SECOND WIND
Second Wind is the most general rune out of this group and you will be combining it with Doran's Shield very often to combat lanes with oppressive poke. Second Wind is great into ALL ranged matchups and even some melee matchups that can either poke often ( Aatrox) or ones that can easily disengage from you. You will be taking this most of the time.
CONDITIONING
Conditioning is the black sheep of this group. Second Wind and Bone Plating both make your laning easier whereas Conditioning does not really do anything until after 10 minutes. However, the buffs to your Armour and Magic Resist that Conditioning gives is nothing to scoff at. You can take it if you are up against a high damage team, if the team has a lot of big damage dealers and if they have a mix of both physical and magic damage that is difficult to itemise against. The key thing to keep in mind is that you have to make sure that you are laning vs a character where you can easily beat them( Sion) and don’t need extra help in lane from the other two runes.
UNFLINCHING
Unflinching is a situational rune. But it is very effective in such situations. Unflinching gives you Tenacity and, more importantly, Slow Resist that can do wonders vs certain matchups and certain compositions. Unflinching is essentially MANDATORY when the enemy team is populated by champions with lots of slows ( Ashe). You can combine Unflinching with Phase Rush to be practically immune to slows or even take it with Legend: Tenacity to cut the duration of all CC in half. If you are up against a team where Tenacity is not that useful, then this rune is not what you should be taking.
REVITALIZE
Revitalize seems good in theory. Spirit Visage essentially does the exact same thing but better so when stacked up with it, Revitalize sounds like a great choice. But you have to remember that it only comes into play when you are at low HP. Not to mention how the healing is honestly negligible at times. Explaining how this rune is bad is hard so you will just have to take my word for it. The Tenacity and Slow resist from Unflinching and the extra HP from Overgrowth are things that you WILL be missing when you take Revitalize. HOWEVER, if your team has a champion like Soraka, Janna or Yuumi who will be healing and shielding you often, Revitalize would be a very good choice.
OVERGROWTH
Overgrowth is a simple but good rune. If the other two situational runes in this group are not applicable, you can go ahead and just take Overgrowth. This rune gives you a decent chunk of health. If you like the extra HP from Black Cleaver but want to go Trinity Force, then this rune will make up for the lacking health. The best part about this rune is that it works really well into difficult lanes where you won’t be able to farm too much.
Situational/Difficult to use Trees
Domination
The Keystones and the runes in this tree range from completely useless to situational for Darius. Simply put, the Domination tree is not good for Darius in anyway. You might be thinking that the extra healing from Taste of Blood and Ravenous Hunter are great but you would only partially be right. Lifesteal on Darius is NOT a good stat. Spell Vamp/Lifesteal from abilities is BARELY a good stat. Though it helps you heal up and take jungle camps, the healing you get is not going to make a difference 9/10 fights you take. Not to mention how it becomes nigh-worthless in the lategame. I would recommend you to stay away from this tree. You may experiment with it here and there or even take it for fun but overall, the tree is difficult to properly use. It is home to both Predator and Hail of Blades which are awkward to use but they both have their purposes.
ELECTROCUTE
Electrocute is not a very good Keystone for Darius. Now on its own, having the ability to get a bit of burst in short trades sounds great and I agree. But you have to understand that the tiny buff in short trades is not nearly enough to compensate for the TERRIBLE set of runes that the Domination tree has. Not to mention how Electrocute won’t synergise with your passive as it procs early into the fight, not later on in the fight which is when you will have your passive activated. Lastly, in Mid-Late game teamfights, you are going to have to kill people VERY quickly. Most of the time, you will only have the time to land a single W or a Q before ulting which won’t even proc Electrocute. So overall, I wouldn’t recommend this Keystone.
PREDATOR
There are a few Darius players in the world that make use of this rune. Predator Darius is a very roam heavy Darius build. It is very unusual, difficult to use, situational and at times, just useless which is why I would not recommend this Keystone at all. Worst of all, it does not really offer much strength in lane which means it is only useful against lanes you dumpster anyway. If you are a player that likes roaming quite a bit, then Predator might be an okay Keystone. But I’d highly recommend better Keystones if you do not have experience playing Darius.
DARK HARVEST
Dark Harvest is a very fun Keystone to use, despite not being a very good one. Try it out in a normal game a few times, because once you get ahead and start killing people, Dark Harvest adds like 300 extra damage to your ultimate which guarantees the execute most of the time. In theory, the synergy might seem very good but not so much in practice. You have to keep in mind that Darius, once ahead, does enough damage with his Ultimate to people to the point where he can oneshot them from half health. Dark Harvest is ONLY good when massively ahead but it does not always work with your ultimate. If winning the game is your intention, I wouldn’t recommend Dark Harvest.
HAIL OF BLADES
Hail of Blades is the only Meta Keystone in this tree. It is very cheesy, tricky to use, easy to counter play when against better players and forces you to use the horrendous Domination tree. If you do not utilise your slows properly, landing all of the autos might sometimes be difficult. You have to be good at cancelling your AA animations too. With all that said, Hail of Blades DOES give you a very quick way to stack up your ultimate and allows for you to be VERY DOMINANT in the early laning phase. I’d recommend it against immobile characters who cannot disengage very well, as that way you can just wail on them and get your 5 stacks up very quickly. But you have to understand that Hail of Blades falls off VERY quickly. The thing in most teamfights is that most of the time, you will be killing people with your ultimate before reaching 5 stacks and getting your passive with the R execute instead of stacking it up fully. Despite that, Hail of Blades works when the fight begins instead of other Keystones that come into effect only later on in the fight which can be good in certain circumstances. Try it out for yourself.
SUDDEN IMPACT
Sudden Impact has no synergy with Darius whatsoever. It ONLY activates when you Flash. And Flash has a 5 minute cooldown. Utterly unusable. Not to mention how Darius has Percentage Armour Pen built in already, making the flat Armour Pen nigh useless.
TASTE OF BLOOD
Taste of Bloodis usable but its not very good. The healing it gives in lane is not very high and the cooldown means you can’t proc it often. This rune is better on ranged champions that poke as it gives them access to easy sustain at the expense of their lane opponent. Darius cannot as easily make use of this rune as he has very low range. As bad as it is, if you ever go Domination you will probably take it as the rest of the runes are horrendously bad.
CHEAP SHOT
Cheap Shot might sound like an okay choice as it has a low cooldown and Darius has more than 1 movement impairing ability but you have to remember that we use E along with W in a single combo. And also, the amount of damage this rune offers is quite pathetic. It being true damage means nothing. If you have Hail of Blades and can properly space out your E and W, then maybe you can get more than one use out of this rune. It's either this or Taste of Blood and honestly, Taste of Blood is a bit better.
EYEBALL COLLECTION
Eyeball Collection is what you should be taking in this group if you are bad at warding. It is SOMEWHAT useful if you are snowballing and switching to sweeper to get the extra AD from wards but it is a very terrible rune as the extra AD is negligible at best.
GHOST PORO
Ghost Poro is useful if you are going to be warding often, as knowledge of an upcoming gank is very vital. But the better you get, the less you will get out of this rune as you will eventually learn how to track enemy junglers. Overall, I’d recommend this rune as it is more forgiving of wasting stealth wards.
ZOMBIE WARD
Zombie Ward is like Ghost Poro but you need to be taking sweeper or buying a ton of control wards. Overall, if you are looking to have vision control just take Ghost Poro. Zombie Ward might only work if you are trolling as Support Darius.
ULTIMATE HUNTER
The Hunter runes do not work on Darius. You are not known for ganking other lanes. You will be getting two stacks at most which makes these runes very ineffective for you. Not to mention how Darius does not even need his ultimate to be on a lower cooldown, as it is low enough as it is. The benefit given by it is miniscule.
RELENTLESS HUNTER
As mentioned with the previous Hunter rune, you can’t stack it properly. But out of combat movespeed is SOMEWHAT useful as it lets you get to skirmishes faster, get to midlane for the once in a blue moon Darius gank and it lets you get back to lane a bit faster. Its not good, but its SOMETHING.
INGENIOUS HUNTER
Darius only builds items with actives in certain games. He can’t even utilise this rune properly. It may be an okay pick if you are running Predator but honestly, just go Relentless Hunter instead.
RAVENOUS HUNTER
A fully stacked RavenousHunter actually gives you quite a bit of healing with your Ultimate which CAN be useful. But more often than not, it WON’T be. Still, when going for a rune in this group, it is either going to be this or Relentless Hunter.
Inspiration
Inspiration is probably the trickiest to use tree with Darius. You need to be VERY good with him to use these runes and Keystones properly but once you do, you can actually craft great playstyles for yourself. You have to be creative with this tree. Inspiration is also the go to secondary tree as you need Time Warp Tonic if you are going to start with Corrupting Potion. Magical Footwear synergises with this combo well, as the potion gives you movement speed when you need it which lets you delay your early boots to get an extra 10 movement speed later.
GLACIAL AUGMENT
Glacial Augment is a tricky keystone to use to its full extent. But it can be done. The slow form the autoattack allows you to set up an enemy for a Q without needing to use your W or your E. It also allows you to and encourages you to build Turbo Chemtank and Randuin's Omen, as the actives of both items will be great in teamfights. A Glacial Augment build is a tanky, full teamfight oriented build where you will be looking to engage the enemy and mass apply slows to everyone. I’d say go for Black Cleaver and skip Sterak's Gage as you are going full tank. Remember to pick up a Gargoyle Stoneplate as it will let you engage and then survive your own engage as the enemy team focuses you down. This build doesn’t let you duel or splitpush too well though.
UNSEALED SPELLBOOK
Unsealed Spellbook used to be a very nice choice for Darius. After trying it out for a while, I regret to inform that it is no longer as good as it used to be. It isn't bad by any means, but it is far too difficult to use properly. It kinda lets you have Teleport which lets you splitpush without having to worry about your team on the other side of the map but I dunno. This Keystone is the most difficult one to use properly but when done right it can pay off greatly. It is still WAYY TOO MUCH EFFORT for very little gain in my opinion. However, do not let that deter you from trying it out and forging your own playstyle as it is doable.
PROTOTYPE: OMNISTONE
This Keystone is like Unsealed Spellbook but for keystones. You might think that it is also another high skill high reward keystone like Unsealed Spellbook but you would be very wrong. The rune picks a keystone at random and honestly, you can only take it into easy matchups where getting the wrong keystone wouldn’t screw you over. Imagine getting ready to all in a Riven level 6 and then getting something stupid like Fleet Footwork where just picking Aftershock would’ve been a lot better. You have to know how to use every rune to make it work but again, “smart” or otherwise, it is still RNG. You may try your luck but I wouldn’t recommend it with this specific keystone.
PERFECT TIMING
Perfect Timing is a useful rune. It is situational though. Stopwatch is an overpowered item and the active can be used very well on Darius and virtually any other champion in the game. You can save it to survive a dive, to turn around a fight by using it to avoid your opponent’s crucial damage source or even save it for a lategame engage. It also builds into a Gargoyle Stoneplate or a Guardian Angel which are both decent pick ups for Darius.
HEXTECH FLASHTRAPTION
This rune is only good for bush cheeses and in very NICHE cases where you have to cross a wall. It may be used to cheese a ranged opponent once but after that one instance, they probably are not going to fall for it again. I would not really recommend this rune at all.
MAGICAL FOOTWEAR
Magical Footwear is a viable rune to run, and it is what you are going to be taking if you are going to go for the Time Warp Tonic + Corrupting Potion combo. It synergises with them, as they give you the early movement speed you need in certain fights and give you a kill’s worth of gold along with 10 extra movement speed. But I personally cannot live without an early Boots buy. You only get the movement speed when drinking the potion which means that all the other times in the lane when you have to dodge skillshots, when roaming and when running back to lane, you are stuck with the default, 340 movement speed until 10-12 minutes into the game. Not to mention how Ninja Tabi and Mercury's Treads are sometimes vital early purchases in some matchups and taking this rune does not allow that.
FUTURE’S MARKET
Future's Market is a great rune to take. Often times with Darius, you are 100-200 gold off your main purchases. Future's Market allows you to circumvent that. It works really well into difficult lanes where you cannot farm too well as it gives you that little bit of extra gold to build those defensive items that might help you kill your opponent and snowball the lane. Though it is unnecessary into easier lanes, it still helps in certain scenarios.
MINION DEMATERIALIZER
Minion Dematerializer is a tricky to use rune which has a purpose that you won’t be needing if you are going to build any damage. However, if you are going for any full tank build with Black Cleaver, then you need this rune to be able to actually waveclear properly.
BISCUIT DELIVERY
Biscuit Delivery is a great option to go for if you are running the Corrupting Potion + Time Warp Tonic combo but do not want to take Magical Footwear. The Biscuits give you very nice sustain early against tough matchups. They also allow you to make mistakes. If you take a bad trade that leaves you low enough to be all inned and killed, you can simply take a Biscuit and heal back up some of the damage you took. They also give you a bit more mana to play around with.
TIME WARP TONIC
You want to be taking this rune exclusively with Corrupting Potion. This rune allows for you to have more movespeed early on before you get your first boots, Corrupting Potion gives you a bit more damage that works very well with Darius’ bleed AND it lets you survive DOTs like Teemo Poison or even Ignite in some cases as it gives you half of the health and mana from all potions instantaneously. It is not my cup of tea but it might be yours.
APPROACH VELOCITY
Approach Velocity does not work with Darius. You can only apply your CC once you have already reached your target. The only situation where it might work is when you are running in to help out a low HP ally but that is not common enough to take this rune I’m afraid.
COSMIC INSIGHT
If you like the Inspiration tree but dislike the Time Warp Tonic + Corrupting Potion combo, then you can opt for this rune. This rune gives you AH for EVERYTHING which is very nice. The AH it gives for your summoner spells is what Darius really loves though. Flash and Ghost allow for Darius to actually be a threat to the enemy backline and having them on a lower cooldown is great to have.
Bonus Stats
The stats you take into your specific games are unfortunately, very match specific which makes copying them off the internet suboptimal. It is not too difficult to decide which one to take however so do not worry. You may take double armour into a difficult AD matchup, double AP into a tough AP matchup or Attack Speed+AD into an easy lane opponent that you can kill. Are you good at CSing to the point where you don’t need the extra AD early on? Would the stacking health be better for you as the lane is easy enough early on? Ask yourself these questions and adapt to the enemy. One thing that I CAN tell you to take is Attack speed. You almost ALWAYS have to take early attack speed. Darius' attack speed scales terribly by level and he doesn’t start out with much which will make duels in lane difficult without compensating for it by using your runes, especially if you go for Black Cleaver.
FLASH
Flash is vital on Darius. It makes him a threat to the enemy backline, it saves your life when you get caught which will be often as an immobile champion and it allows you to outplay your opponents in lane. Not taking Flash is a very bad idea. If you don't take flash, you are essentially nerfing yourself.
GHOST
Ghost is a great summoner spell as it eliminates one of the things that inhibit your destructive abilities on Darius which is your lack of mobility. Ghost makes it difficult to nigh impossible to kite you, it makes it easy to land your Qs, it lets you run away from ganks while saving flash and it also lets you chase people down. Ghost makes many lanes killable like ignite while also letting you be an effective teamfighter. The recent changes to it have make it even more powerful when teamfighting and it allows you to Ghost preemptively to get to teamfight and clean it up for your team. This combination of Flash and Ghost is what most, if not all experienced Darius mains will be taking.
TELEPORT
Teleport is the natural Summoner Spell to take as a toplaner. It allows you to recover from ganks/bad plays and salvage an otherwise horrendously bad wave that would leave you vulnerable. It lets you get back into lane faster to get items and have an instant item advantage against your opponent. It lets you have presence in the botlane and everywhere in the map and it is vital for splitpushing sometimes when the enemy has a strong engage and it is lategame. The macro utility of Teleport vs the unmatched power of Ghost. Though it is your choice at the end of the day, I highly suggest you take Ghost if you want to be a better Darius.
IGNITE
Ignite basically makes some lanes impossible to lose. Ignite along with your 5 stacks of bleed guarantees the death of your opponent if they even dare to trade with you. The bad part about Ignite is that although it makes your a very prominent terror in lane, it falls off super hard and it doesn’t give the map presence of Teleport or the immense utility of Ghost. If you are a Darius player who relies on Ignite, please stop. You are putting yourself at a disadvantage. Learning how to use Ghost will boost you a few ranks just by itself. Trust me.
Everything Else
All the other Summoner Spells are not good with him at all. Exhaust is only useful when you are fighting a laner with strong burst, when you are trying to catch someone out and slow them and when you want to weaken an assassin for your ADC. But supporting your team is not what Darius does. You can counterplay bursts by playing the lane/fights properly and Ghost can be used to catch up to people. It doesn’t make one person slower. Instead, it makes you faster which lets you reach everyone. Darius jungle is not exactly meta. If you wish to learn more about jungling, check out my Darius Jungle Guide. If you have no time and HAVE to go Darius jungle, I’ve heard that a build/playstyle of Olaf is the one most similar so try to replicate that if you are a jungler.
Heal and Barrier are worthless. With you stacking health and resistances anyway, the amount that you get from them is not that impactful. Just do not even think about them. Even if you are going Darius ADC for some ungodly reason, just take Ghost.
PASSIVE ABILITY
HEMORRHAGE
♦︎ Darius' basic attacks and damaging abilities cause enemies to bleed for 5 seconds, dealing 13 - 30 (based on level) (+ 30% bonus AD) physical damage over the duration. The bleeding will trigger every 1.25 seconds, and can stack up to 5 times, for a maximum of 65 - 150 (based on level) (+ 150% bonus AD) physical damage over the duration. ♦︎ Upon applying full Hemorrhage stacks to an enemy champion or killing one with Noxian Guillotine, Darius gains Noxian Might for 5 seconds. ♦︎ Noxian Might: Darius gains 30 - 230 (based on level) bonus attack damage and instantly applies full Hemorrhage stacks through his usual means.
Tips & Tricks
♦︎ Hemorrhage makes Darius a massive threat in lane as he is essentially going to win trades due to it. It is one of the two reasons as to why fighting Darius is a bad idea. The bleed stacks are a built in Ignite of sorts as they will be securing kills for you very often. It also has great synergy with your ultimate so try to get an idea of just how much each stack increases your ultimate’s damage by so that you can get access to Noxian Might faster. Noxian Might itself is what makes Darius such a monster. ♦︎ This passive gives Darius enough damage so building full damage on him is not ideal. You want to be surviving long enough in a fight to get you passive and then oneshot the enemy team with the overwhelming damage that it provides you with. Nothing closes out a fight faster than a Flash + Q with Noxian Might along with him executing everyone unfortunate enough to get hit. It turns disadvantaged fights in your favour and allows you to sweep up whatever’s left of the enemy team even when behind.
Q
DECIMATE
♦︎ Darius prepares his axe for 0.75 seconds, then swings it around himself, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies, reduced to 35% against enemies hit by the shaft. ♦︎ Darius heals for 15% - 45% (based on the amount of enemy champions hit by the blade) MISSING health. The shaft of Darius' axe will not apply Bleed or heal him.
Tips & Tricks
♦︎ Decimate is your main trading tool in lane. It is useful for wave clearing, poking weaker laners, trading vs stronger opponents, mass applying Noxian Might and staying alive thanks to its healing. Learning to land this ability is mandatory if you are going to be a good Darius, because a Darius that cannot land his Qs is not going to be of much use. And in many of the harder matchups, the opening for them to go in for a trade is you missing your Q. ♦︎ A trick to learn with Q that is useful for executing low health enemies and turning teamfights around is using it in conjunction with Flash. You learn how to do it consistently with experience after getting used to Flash range and Darius’ Qs’ outer zone. Try to get good at hitting Q as doing it in higher elos is difficult.
W
CRIPPLING STRIKE
♦︎ Darius' next basic attack within 4 seconds gains 25 bonus range, deals bonus physical damage and slows the target by 90% for 1 second. ♦︎ If Crippling Strike kills its target it refunds its mana cost and half of its cooldown. ♦︎ Crippling Strike resets Darius' autoattack timer.
Tips & Tricks
♦︎ Crippling Strike allows for you to slow the enemy enough to hit them with a Q, apply massive amounts of damage if you have Sheen and it is the source of most of your combos. An E->AA->W->Q combo is good to learn on Darius so make sure you know how to do it. Make sure to be used to your attack speed so that you can efficiently reset your autoattack timer with it. W is a great tool for farming as it refunds both half the cooldown and the entirety of the mana cost. Lastly, make sure you know how to cancel the animation of W by using it with Q. Further explanation on how to do this in the Combo section below.
E
APPREHEND
♦︎ Darius gains armor penetration. ♦︎ After a brief delay, Darius pulls in all enemies in front of him, slowing them by 40% for 1 second, and briefly grants sight of the area around the pull.
Tips & Tricks
♦︎ Landing this ability is vital to your survival on Darius in some matchups. Landing it can grant you kills, whereas missing it can get you killed. Instead of going to the people kiting you, you just bring them to you. This ability allows Darius to stand a chance against ranged laners and it gives him outplay potential against many things. ♦︎ Much like his Ultimate, Apprehend cannot be stopped. This means that it can be used to cancel things that suppress you like Warwick ultimate or Malzahar ultimate if you time your E correctly. E can also be used to pull people out of dashes. If you have great predicting skills and reactions. You can essentially render the dashes of many champions obsolete. Camille’s hookshot, Aatrox’ E and essentially ANY movement spell that isn’t instantaneous and isn’t explicitly states as being unstoppable. If you are fast enough, you can stop the really quick ones like Akali’s R and Irelia’s Q. ♦︎ You can utilise E to escape ganks or even engage the enemy team, which should work better if you have Aftershock. The passive armor pen makes you a nightmare to fight for tanks and lets you shred towers better which is always nice. ♦︎ People often don't utilise the slow of this ability. Basically, the champions that you pull are slowed for 1 second after you use your E. Now this is only situational, as some champions having movement abilities means you have to do your AA->W->Q combo immediately after pulling but if your opponent is immobile and you need to make optimal usage of your slows in order to run them down properly, you can use the slow of your E in order to land an extra auto before doing your combo (so basically E->AA(during E slow)->AA->W->Q). ♦︎ One thing to note is that despite your character model getting bigger, your E range stays consistent. That is why you might run into situations where you have Sterak's Gage activated and your E goes through the enemy champion’s model but it still does not hook.
R
NOXIAN GUILLOTINE
♦︎ Darius becomes unstoppable for 0.25 seconds and attempts to execute the targeted enemy champion, dealing icon true damage, increased by 0% - 100% (based on Hemorrhage stacks). ♦︎ If Noxian Guillotine kills its target, Darius causes all nearby minions and monsters to flee in terror for 3 seconds during which they are rapidly slowed by up to 99% over the duration, activates Noxian Might, and is able to recast the ability within the next 20 seconds at no additional cost. This can occur multiple times in succession. ♦︎ At rank 3, if Noxian Guillotine kills its target, its cooldown resets completely.
Tips & Tricks
♦︎ The execute. The dunk. The identity of Darius. Noxian Guillotine is why Darius is feared in teamfights. A good Darius will make proper usage of it and clean up teamfights at every opportunity. There is a bug ingame, as the “Maximum” damage displayed, does not factor in your Noxian Might AD so it is lower than what you will ACTUALLY do by 60-345 damage. ♦︎ It is a good idea to know how much minimum damage your ultimate does so that you are able to get an easy reset off of a low HP opponent which should win you the fight. Just know how much your ultimate does as you do not have an indicator like Cho'Gath or Pyke. Make sure to take shields and heals into account, as you might need an auto or two before utling to make sure they don’t get in your way. ♦︎ Although it is always good to secure the kill with your ultimate, keep in mind that sometimes, it might be better to use the ultimate early, when it won’t kill. This is useful vs champions who have invulnerability spells ( Fiora, Kayle), in fights where getting your passive is more important than getting your ultimate off, when you have a Sheen and just need the empowered auto and for when you are about to die which means that you might as well use it so that your team can capitalise off of your damage. ♦︎ If you are looking to Flash+R, make sure to buffer your R before you Flash as that makes it instantaneous and impossible to avoid, even if the enemy Flashes. ♦︎ You are unstoppable while ulting. Unless the spell ( Sivir) or the damage ( Fiora) is blocked, the ability is going to go through no matter the distance or anything. It cannot be avoided and can only be stopped by killing Darius. If your target gets out of vision, goes untargetable( Zhonya's Hourglass) or you yourself are in stasis( Bard R), then the Ultimate does not go through but it also does not go on cooldown so you will be able to use it again instantly. It is a good idea to ward the other side of a wall or a bush, when you know that your opponent is going to be using Flash to try to escape. ♦︎ A little known trick with Darius is that you don't have to kill an enemy with your Ultimate for it to reset. I know it sounds crazy but if the enemy just dies milliseconds after you use your ultimate, regardless of whether it is you or your ally that kills them, you get your ultimate back. If you attack speed is high enough, you might be able to get your ultimate back if you kill the enemy with your Auto Attack right after ulting. Here is a video of me explaining this trick but basically speaking, you want to start the AA AS SOON as the R lands AND cancel the AA animation. It becomes easier to do on level 11 on as the Ult animation is faster as you level your R.
♦︎ Another thing to consider is that Darius' R is technically a movement ability. If you look closely, Darius slightly moves closer to his target that he uses his ultimate on. This basically means that you cannot use your ultimate if you are grounded, by Cassiopeia's Miasma for example, or rooted.
ATTENTION
I've had a similar disclaimer in the Rune Breakdown chapter but I shall put it here as it applies to items too. Do not just look at my finished builds and copy them one to one. I tried to make them all as general as possible so that they'd work in most situations but no matter what build I put up here, there may be a better build that is optimal for your specific game that you yourself are going to come up with on the spot. It is difficult to do initially which is why I have written everything below. I have explained what the use of every item is, when you should buy them and/or what champions/type of champions they are good against. Ultimately, only you can decide what the best build will be and you should have a general idea before the game is even loaded. It is not WRONG to use a pre existing build but it should only be used as a guideline.
Item Set
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Guide on how to use item sets with the new client.
Here is a video format of this section where I go into detail as to what Darius should be building.
Here is a shorter video of me explaining how lifesteal is a bad stat for Darius.
STARTING ITEMS
Doran’s Shield
Doran's Shield essentially good into every matchup. If you don’t know what starting item to go for specifically and are new to Darius, just pick this one up all the time. Doran's Shield works well into unfavorable skill matchups that trade well into Darius, and is DESIGNED to fight ranged toplaners which is when you should be buying. It has very good synergy with Second Wind as well. Just do not buy this item later on in the game, as it is just a waste of money.
Doran’s Blade
Doran's Blade is the item you want to take if you are confident in your lane, are good at Darius and/or need the early stats to fight your lane opponent. If you are planning on fighting within the first few levels, Doran's Blade is a mandatory purchase. Doran's Blade is also a very gold efficient source of stats. If bought it as a starter item against a Jax for example, you can buy one more as the extra stats will help you win early on.
Rejuvenation Bead
Rejuvenation Bead is an incredibly underrated starting item that helps certain unplayable matchups actually doable. With triple Rejuvenation Bead, Darius has 25 Health Regen at level 1. That is 5 hp per second which is the equivalent of half a potion on. Permanently. It works really well into poke matchups. Another great plus is that selling one of the Doran's items gives you back only 180 gold whereas selling all of your Rejuvenation Bead gives you 315 gold. The item used to be even better when it built into Raptor Cloak but it is still good as it builds into useful items that you can pick up later on into the game.
Corrupting Potion
Corrupting Potion is a starting item that lets you be more reckless with your Mana. It is also great into champions like Jax and Illaoi who build it as well. This is because, although you beat them in a trade, they drink a stack of Corrupting Potion and heal up the damage you’ve dealt whereas you wouldn’t have that luxury. If you also take Corrupting Potion, you will be able to match them and be higher HP overall. However, that whole thing along with a tiny bit of damage Corrupting Potion gives is not really worth it unless you take Time Warp Tonic along with it.
Cloth Armor
Cloth Armor start is a bit old fashioned but it works somewhat into strong AD characters like Pantheon or even Jayce, who can potentially bully you out. Cloth Armor along with 4 Health Potions gives you a decent bit of early armor and sustain that lets you survive until you are able to build it into Ninja Tabi.
Long Sword
Long Sword is a very greedy and a snowballing item. You only want to be only taking it into lanes like Sion where you just win straight up. Long Sword gives you a nice bit of damage but it makes you much weaker than you should be early on as Doran's Blade is so much more efficient with gold. It gives you health along with lifesteal for just 2 less AD. If you can get to your first back with Long Sword without dying, you have accomplished your goal, as you have not set yourself an entire kill ahead. But it is far too risky and it makes you too weak in early fights to take it into a lane that is difficult by any means.
Health Potion
You want to be buying Health Potions with whatever money you have left. They are pretty self explanatory. Just make sure that you do not waste them. A common mistake is spamming the Health Potions the second you take damage which only wastes them. A good guideline that I personally use is to take them only when I am below 60% HP IF my enemy laner can exploit my low health AND if I am not planning on going back to base soon.
EARLY ITEMS
Refillable Potion
Refillable Potion. This item is not mandatory by any means. I personally get it every game. It gives me an extra bit of health that is useful when I take bad trades. If you have spare gold, pick one up and try it out to see how you like it.
Control Ward
Control Wards are vital. Though I will break this down into more detail in the warding section, know that you should be helping your team out with vision, as doing so leads to you knowing better where the enemy jungler is and adapting your playstyle off of it.
Phage
Phage is Darius’ strongest item early on. Though there are more viable options when it comes to specific matchups, this item is useful against everyone. The stats on it, health and AD, are very good on Darius but the passive is what makes this item so great. With Phage, you can kill a minion and use the movement speed that you get in order to run up to your enemy laner and start fighting them. Since you will have more movement speed, you will be able to catch up faster. This item lets you stick to enemies, kite dangerous opponents and it builds into both of your big power spikes.
Chain Vest
Chain Vest is not the best early purchase as it does not build into anything you’re going to be building quickly, unless you are going to go full tank. Despite this, the item is very good against champions like Jayce and Wukong who build lethality. It is also great against AD characters in general. As long as you aren’t feeding, you should be able to beat your laner if you have a Chain Vest on top of Ninja Tabi.
Spectre's Cowl
Spectre's Cowl is a great item into annoying AP matchups that are able to easily poke you out. Rumble, Teemo, Cassiopeia and Ryze are examples that come to mind. Spectre's Cowl combined with Doran's Shield and Second Wind let you sustain from poke very easily. Going Phage into some of these champions can be high risk high reward, as if you do not get a kill on them without Phage, you will not be able to stay in lane too long as they will get their items and be dealing a lot more damage than before. Spectre's Cowl is the safer option and it is recommended against competent players. If you are confident/smurfing though, you can simply go for Phage.
Boots of Speed
Picking up an early Boots is great. It lets you kite better. It lets you stick to enemy champions better and it allows for you to dodge skillshots much more easily. I love being able to move around so I usually pick it up in my first back. Doing so also allows me to more quickly upgrade it into one of the two very powerful upgrades.
Ninja Tabi
Ninja Tabi are amazing. They essentially work into every AD matchup in the book. And into some, it is mandatory. Riven, Jax and Jayce are great examples of champions that you need Tabis against if you do not want to be destroyed. Ninja Tabi give you a decent bit of armor but the passive is what makes this item shine. The reduction of AA damage makes this great into any and all autoattackers. If the enemy team has a strong auto attacking character, say a fed ADC or a fed Yasuo, you will probably be looking to pick up Ninja Tabi.
Mercury's Treads
Mercury's Treads are great items as well. The tenacity that they provide can be great into matchups where they have stuns that you cannot counterplay. Champions like Kennen, Ryze or even Neeko where dodging her stun is possible but very difficult. Treads work very well into high CC teams with champions like Sejuani, Morgana or Braum where you getting stunned is an inevitability. Overall though, unless the matchup specifically requires it, Mercury's Treads aren’t the best early rush.
Bramble Vest
Bramble Vest is a great item into bruisers/characters that are both AD and love to heal. With Conqueror’s healing being greater, this item is going to be more useful. Bramble Vest works really well into Fiora, as it allows you to just win any fight against her. If you are good enough at playing the matchup, it is not necessary but Bramble Vest stops her healing which makes you a brick wall that she cannot overcome. Bramble Vest is also good into characters like Illaoi and Renekton who are known for turning fights using their healing.
Executioner's Calling
Executioner's Calling is similar to Bramble Vest in purpose. Darius’ bleed allows for him to apply Grievous Wounds very effectively with this item. If they have a strong healer on the enemy team and nobody else is willing to pick this item up, then it might be you who has to do it. Executioner's Calling is also great into Vladimir and Swain, as they are big healers who won’t be auto attacking you. Though it is not as necessary into Swain. Unfortunately, Executioner's Calling does not build into any useful item for Darius later down the line. Once another character in your team gets Grievous Wounds, you should be selling it.
Kindlegem
Kindlegem is an early component of Black Cleaver. The CDR is neat but not too great. On the bright side however, it can also be built into Spirit Visage which means that if you were on your way to building Black Cleaver, you can change your mind and go for Trinity Force if you happen to pick up a few kills in a skirmish or a fight.
Sheen
Sheen is a great item. On your way to building Trinity Force, you will be buying Phage, either Sheen or Stinger, and then completing the item. I personally like Sheen more, as it massively increases your damage output if you combo it with your abilities correctly. Sometimes, when in a fight, it might just be worth it to use your Ultimate just to get the sheen proc. Sheen also allows for you to do a massive amount of damage in quick trades. Last but not least, Sheen lets you melt turrets as well. The CDR is also nice.
Stinger
Stinger is great as well. The CDR is nice but this item is going to be giving you a decent bit of Attack Speed to work with. Though it won’t make your trades as strong as it would with Sheen, Stinger lets you get to Noxian Might quicker which makes it better in all ins. If you are up against a tank character who just lets you stand there and auto them, Stinger is the way to go.
TRINITY FORCE vs BLACK CLEAVER
The choice between Trinity Force and Black Cleaver is one you are going to have to make depending on your playstyle, the enemy team composition and whether you are able to generate a lead or not. The TL;DR of the comparison is that you want to go Trinity Force if you are ahead and are up against squishy champions. This makes you a better splitpusher and a better carry. Black Cleaver however, is what you want to buy when you are up against more than 2 tanks or when you have fallen behind, as it lets you be more useful to your team in teamfights. Do not build both of them at the same time.
TRINITY FORCE
VS
BLACK CLEAVER
Trinity Force has much more damage and it lets you outplay your opponents better. You will be less of a use to your team utility wise but that does not matter as you will be a dueling monster and a splitpushing threat with how quickly you take down turrets. Your burst makes you very dangerous to the enemy backline and allows for your Flash plays to be even more powerful. You want to go for Trinity Force if you are fed and it is up to you to carry. Although Darius isn’t known for his roaming, the movement speed helps you reach river fights and midlane quicker.
Black Cleaver is what you should go for if you are looking to play more around your team, if the enemy has a tanky lineup or if you fell behind in lane. It has more AD and HP but it does not offer anywhere close to the damage Trinity Force does. Your bleed passive synergises with the item very well, because if you hit an enemy once, the bleed stack will lead to them having the full Black Cleaver armour shred. If you wish to work more with the team incase there is another carry, and especially if you are looking to frontline for your team, then Black Cleaver with a full tank build might be a viable option.
CORE AND VIABLE TANK ITEMS
Sterak's Gage
Sterak's Gage is an incredible item for Darius. The stats that it gives are great. The health is great but due to Darius’ high base AD, the item gives you up to 70 bonus AD which is very powerful. The shield along with the tenacity is very powerful in teamfights as it stops you from being bursted down. It lets you survive getting caught, survive some burst, and it helps you 2v1. Another great thing about this item is that the shield scales off of the HP you will build and the bonus AD will scale along with your level, leading to the item scaling well as the game continues.
Gargoyle Stoneplate
Gargoyle Stoneplate is actually a must buy for Darius, especially if you play in higher elos. We all get to that point in the mid-lategame where no matter how fed you are, you just get oneshot once you get caught and your team cannot do anything. THIS ITEM FIXES THAT. Gargoyle's Stoneplate allows you to survive so many situations where you would instantly get oneshot before. It also lets you engage and frontline for your team long enough for you to get 5 stacks. It is a very solid choice for third item after Sterak's
Dead Man's Plate
This is a great best tank item for Darius. It gives you great tank stats and it gives you an okay slow on your next auto attack. The damage is somewhat negligible. But the slow on the AA is not why we build this item. The movement speed is. The movement speed lets you chase people down better and, more importantly, it allows for you to rotate much faster. This becomes exceedingly more useful as the game goes, as you might have to collapse on someone or get to an objective before a fight breaks out. The movement speed is also helpful when splitpushing.
Spirit Visage
The tank stats of this item are great. The increased healing on it, makes Spirit Visage your go to Magic Resist item. It synergises incredibly well with Darius, as your Q hits now heal for 20% of your missing HP instead of 15. It is a great option when the enemy players pick up grievous wounds and a VERY good purchase when your team has a healer.
Randuin's Omen
This item is great if you are up against champions that build crit. Yasuos, Tryndameres and fed ADCs come to mind. The slow on it is very great in teamfights and when catching people out for your team.
Righteous Glory
Turbo Chemtank is a very nice item. It gives you a powerful active, decent tank stats and is quite cheap. It allows for you to catch up to characters who would normally kite you out. It helps you teamfight better, so it is a great 3rd of 4th item to pick up. If you are up against some cheese champion like Zilean or a Vayne, then Turbo Chemtank might be your only hope of reaching and killing them.
Adaptive Helm
Adaptive Helm is somewhat inferior to Spirit Visage but if you are up against an AP champion that spams abilities like Ryze or Cassiopeia, then you need to go for this item. Adaptive Helm also works vs the AP damage portion of Corki’s autoattacks, Kai'Sas passive and Kog'Maw’s percentage health damage. It works against ANY SOURCE OF MAGIC DAMAGE THAT IS REPEATED. It should work against Mordekaiser as well but if you are going to itemise against him, it is better for you to pick up Quicksilver Sash, break free of his ultimate and disengage as he only beats you with his ultimate.
Thornmail
Thornmail is a very niche item but it is great at what it does. Though for most of the game, you will be sitting on a Bramble Vest, upgrading it to Thornmail is not a bad idea at all. The massive amount of Armour helps greatly when you are stacking it against a full AD team. This item is optimal against an enemy team that has healing autoattackers( Fiora, Draven with Bloodthirster). It also SOMEWHAT helps against those that build on-hit but on-hit builds tend to be nigh impossible to deal with once the one building them gets ahead. Overall, Thornmail is a great pickup if you are up against a full AD team.
SITUATIONAL ITEMS
Death's Dance
Death's Dance is actually a great option for Darius after the changes to it. It is a bit pricier but it also is a lot better for Darius AND it has a much better build path which I love as the build path was my biggest problem with the old item. Now it is a solid third item choice if you are ahead, as the item prolongs your existence in fights for as long as possible. It stops you from getting quickly bursted down so it is very useful. But, its price means that you should ONLY be getting it when you are massively ahead. You should also try not to die with this item as if you start falling behind, you will have been better off with tank items instead of Death’s Dance. In short, you can get this if you are ahead and know how to play in a way where you do not die a lot. Otherwise, just go to your tank items.
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel is the item that you want to be getting if you are super ahead and have to carry your team. It is when you know that your death would probably lead to the end of the game which is why you would immediately build this item and then get into teamfights to abuse your mid-game powerspike. The stats on it are not that appealing but the passive is really great. Keep in mind that this item isn't going to allow you to go “oh I get to turn off my brain and run at the enemy team”. When you carry, you have to think the MOST. So when you die, make sure that you have taken down enough people with you to the point where your team can actually follow up and help you as you revive. The item does fall off super hard lategame, where a tank item would be much better though. It is a good choice as a third item. It is also viable if your team is ahead which means you can just turn your brain off and make plays. If they are fed enough, they can follow up well as long as you don’t int too hard/go in too deep.
Maw of Malmortius
Hexdrinker is a great pickup into AP lanes but what it upgrades into, namely Maw of Malmortius, is a terrible item. It is probably one of the worst AD items in the game. I would not build into Maw at all if I had to get a Hexdrinker. And the only situation you would get a Hexdrinker into in the first place is a full AP team..
Quicksilver Sash
Quicksilver Sash is a great item to pick up and sit on if you are your team's only carry and are against Malzahar or Mordekaiser. Just train yourself to use it quickly. You almost never want to upgrade it to Mercurial Scimitar unless it is hyper late game, and you have completely filled out all of your item slots but you NEED QSS still.
OFF-META ITEMS
Titanic Hydra
No good Darius player is going to recommend this item to you. And for good reason. With Darius, you mostly want to tank up very quickly and start stacking resistances in order to avoid being destroyed in teamfights. Keep in mind that only a FEW damage based items are good for Darius in all situations. Most of them, are only good if you are splitpushing and are planning on fighting 1 or 2 champions. In teamfights when you are up against the enemy backline, you will get shredded to bits. Titanic Hydra, suffers from this issue. It allows you to oneshot any squishy champion you get your hands on but realistically, you rarely even get people to 5 stacks as your combo gets squishy champions low enough to kill them with a 3/4 stack ultimate. On paper, the extra autoattack reset sounds great as it lets you get your passive in 1 combo off of the enemy frontline but if you are fighting the enemy frontline, then you will mostly be CC'ed and held down by that tank you are fighting while the enemy backline melts you away. And the lack of resistances opting for Titanic Hydra gives, allows for you to be killed faster. You might be tempted to try it out instead of Sterak's Gage but Sterak's Gage is straight up better. It scales with your other tank items, it gives you a massive amount of AD and it essentially allows you to beat any assassin(unless they are like 20 kills ahead) as you will be impossible to kill before you can chop them down. This item DOES have its uses though. It gives you that extra bit of waveclear that allows you to push lanes faster and it makes you tougher to beat in 1v1s. I'd only recommend this item if you are planning on split-pushing most of the game. I'll write more about split-pushing below.
Frozen Heart
Frozen Heart is a VERY niche item that you will be building on VERY RARE occasions. The item is great if you are stacking armour against an all armor team but you really want to be buying this if your team if up against a lot of autoattackers. The item is also very cheap and cost effective so if you are behind but need to tank for your team, it is a great pick up. Not to mention how it has 20% CDR which comes in handy.
Warmog's Armor
With how popular percentage health damage is in the game, building straight health without resistances is not a great idea. However, Warmog's Armor is actually very effective if you are up against a poke heavy team, as it allows for you to face tank many skillshots for your team and then heal everything back up.
Iceborn Gauntlet
Frostfire Gauntlet is not the best item for Darius but I've seen it work so I am putting it down here. I don't recommend you build this if you are new to Darius but if you have Black Cleaver, are against a full AD team and want to be split pushing, it is a decent item. Honestly, the only reason you would consider this item is due to its price. If you are behind but want some splitting power against a Jayce or something, then it is an option. Not the best one, but it IS an option.
Boots of Swiftness
These boots are only great vs a slow heavy team like Anivia, Ashe and etc. where their mere existence makes teamfighting hell for you. They are also great into tank Viktor top, as it lets you walk through his Frostfire Gauntlet slows more easily. The other boots are MUCH more efficient though, so only use this item as a last resort.
Wit's End
Wit's End is an optional item against a full AP team. It makes you strong in 1v1 situations. But it is **** in teamfights as it requires you to sit there and spam autoattack which is not what Darius does. Overall, if you have to play splitpush into a full AP team, then it is somewhat viable but I do not recommend it at all. It works better on top of Black Cleaver though.
Phantom Dancer
Phantom Dancer is a very troll item for Darius. It's passive stacks with Sterak's Gage which makes it even LESS viable. It is also not a good replacement at all. It leaves you too squishy and it does not stack with HP. It is a fun item but just don't get it. It used to be a better item before they changed it but now, it just has no purpose. It makes your splitpushing a LITTLE stronger and its price is great if you pair it with Black Cleaver but hear me out when I tell you to run far away from this item if you are new to Darius.
Essence Reaver
If your victory is guaranteed and you want to have fun, grabbing Essence Reaver or an Infinity Edge can lead to you doing crazy amounts of damage with your W if it crits. You are TROLLING if you are buying this item but when the game is guaranteed or you are just playing normals for fun, they are very entertaining items to purchase and play around with.
Edge of Night
I used to love the old Banshee's Veil. Edge of Night fulfils the same purpose now. Though the stats on it are not too great, as Lethality on Darius is a troll stat. Overall, it suffers the same fate as other damage items but it is still fun to use at times. Just don't pick it up if you are serious about winning.
Youmuu's Ghostblade
Youmuu's Ghostblade is the only lethality item I'd recommend and only if you are playing a roam heavy playstyle. It also only works against a squishy team. Overall, high risk and barely minimum reward item. Don't use it if you are new to Darius and even if you are good at Darius, don't use it either way.
Blade of the Ruined King
Blade of the Ruined King is a powerful item against massive tanks. It also makes you very strong in splitpush 1v1s and it ruins the lives of any tanks that want to screw with you. It makes you squishy in teamfights which is why I rarely buy this item. It is great on top of Black Cleaver as it turns you into the ultimate tank buster(keep in mind that merely tanking up, helps against tanks as your passive means you have the damage you need to kill them whereas they, do not) and it helps in 1v1s against champions like Fiora. But then again, going for straight up tank items might be better for you in teamfights. Difficult item to use too.
Runesteel Spaulders
Support Darius is not something I recommend. You get poked down too hard, you have to share exp and you don't get a source of gold which SERIOUSLY weakens you. If you are trolling/playing for fun,then go for this.
Knight's Vow
Playing support AS Darius isn't great. HOWEVER, if you are feeding and you have a fed carry on your team who is your only hope for victory, then it does help to get tanky support items like Knight's Vow or Locket of the Iron Solari to help them out.
There is not really a big combo that will work every time. This is not a fighting game. You are not Riven where you have a 15 button combo lined up for every situation that is only possible because you have your enemy stunned during it so they can’t react. As Darius, you have to use your abilities in any order depending on the situation. In longer fights, you just use your abilities as soon as they come up. There are a few tricks you can do with him mechanically that I will be covering here though that you can combine with each other depending on the situation.
USING W AS AN AA RESET
This is pretty simple and self explanatory but I’ll repeat it here. Almost always use W as an Auto Attack reset. An AA reset is basically something that lets you auto again without having to wait. So instead of doing just W, do a normal AA and then do W. The only exception to this rule is when the enemy can quickly dash around and you have no time to do both AA and W.
CANCELLING W ANIMATION
The biggest thing to remember for Darius though is the cancelling of his W animation. You use your empowered W on a target and then press Q just as Darius begins his auto attack animation. This way, Darius avoids the W animation but the attack still goes through. In terms of how this works, your Q disarms(when you cannot autoattack) you so you kinda apply CC to yourself. But your W avoids CC so if you start W before you start your Q, your W will go through anyway DURING the Q. If you add in an auto attack, you are left with an AA+W+Q combo that can get you 3 stacks in seconds. With Trinity Force, this combo will be able to chunk squishies down and do so VERY quickly. Get into practice tool and work on being able to do this combo reliable.
BUFFERING ULT AND AUTO ATTACKS
♦︎ Buffering is basically using an ability or an attack before you can actually use it due to range or due to cast times. What this basically does is that after your champion gets in range or done channeling their previous ability, they are able to INSTANTLY use the ability/attack you buffered. This technique works with all champions but it applies well to Darius as well.
♦︎ If you are in a teamfight or are chasing your opponent down where your target is out of your R range, and your ultimate will immediately kill them, then the obvious thing is to Flash+R. But remember, if the enemy predicts that you will do this, then they can Flash too. In order to circumvent this, you have to press R on your target and THEN Flash. R+ Flash. In the opposite order. Why this is better is due to the fact that when you press R on someone, Darius will walk towards them and ult immediately as they get in range. So if you R before you Flash and are in Ult range with your opponent for mere milliseconds, then Darius will automatically begin ulting. And we all know that Darius Ultimate cannot be dodged once it begins.
♦︎ This techinque essentially reduces the time window the enemy has to Flash or dash away to a bare minimum. It being super easy to do is also a plus. If you do not have your ultimate, you can also buffer your auto attacks with Flash in order to make them start instantly rather than giving yourself the opportunity to missclick and screw up an easy kill.
USAGE OF FLASH
Darius is strongest when his Flash is up and here I have ALL the things you can do with it to seriously mess your opponents up. Flash is really the core of outplays as Darius so you should really master this summoner spell, especially if you want to be relevant in higher elos.
♦︎ Flash Q is an obvious thing you can come up with but in actuality, you should be performing it in the opposite order. I show you how you should be doing this in the video below but basically, the key idea is to Flash just before Darius swings his Q around, NOT when he winds it up. Remember, in League of Legends, the more time you give your opponent to react, the less successful you are going to be as they can counterplay you. Be lightning quick so that you can kill them before they can react. You should ideally be using this after getting your passive in a teamfight to apply your bleed to as many people as possible before going to town on them all and executing everything.
♦︎ Another usage of Flash is to use it for a quick engage. Flash E, though it isn’t the BEST engage, it can be certainly devastating when comboed with the abilities of your team(Orianna R). It is also necessary you know how to use your E well in case you are your teams sole tank/frontliner.
♦︎ Both Flash Q and E will get better as you play more Darius and get used to his hitboxes and whatnot though.
♦︎ You can also Flash in the middle of your own ultimate in order to dodge damage while still executing the enemy.
♦︎ If you are fighting a mobile character like Ezreal for example, you can Flash W onto him and if he blinks away, he will be slowed enough so that you can catch up to him and pull him with E. This works against mobile enemies with dashes and whatnot that put them a bit outside your Pull range.
MAKING SURE YOU LAND Q
Another thing is to guarantee that you land your Q. To do this, pull the enemy and then IMMEDIATELY Q them. This will make sure that your Q lands as the pull duration is long enough for darius to do all of his Q animation. Do this into champions like Kayn, Master Yi, Zed, Riven and etc. who have VERY RELIABLE ways of avoiding your Q.
Here is a video I made where I do most of the above in addition to all the mechanics, combos and etc. Give it a watch!
As an early game lane bully, this period of the game is going to be the most important one. Darius spikes very hard during early-midgame fights where nobody has the damage to burst him down. Gathering a lead in lane will allow for you to be the main carry of your team up until the very end of the lategame. The most important thing you need to know going into the laning phase is the matchup. How does it play out? Are you up against a Sion who you can endlessly bully? Or are you against a Vayne who will be harder to deal with. I have written about every matchup in detail including the optimal playstyle which you should try to replicate or at the very least keep in mind. As Darius, if a melee enemy missteps hard in the first level, you can very easily cheese a first blood off of them using your W. But this is only against bad players though.
In general, you want to be playing very carefully, as some champions who are supposed to be easy to beat, are actually difficult to play around during the first 2 levels. You should also keep in mind that standing inside bushes and ambushing your enemy is a very strong tactic for Darius. Try it once or so by standing in the closest bush in lane to the enemy or by standing in tribrush(if you are on the bottom side of the map) to see if you can get a free kill or not. Again, such cheese tactics only work against weaker players.
One tip that I can give you is to utilise Honeyfruit. It is the green plant that spawns in the river, which will drop 5 fruits that you can collect for HP and Mana. Once you push a wave onto the enemy turret, you have a bit of time on your hands which you should use to ward up your brushes. You can also use this time to look for a Honeyfruit if you took a bad trade in lane, want to sustain up but don't want to use your Health Potion. Their spawning is somewhat RNG but generally, the first Honeyfruit spawns between 6:00 and 6:30 somewhere near the Baron Pit.
A quick side note I want to leave here is to do with leashing. I won't go on about this for too long but I just want to warn you to be careful before you find out the hard way for yourself. Basically, Darius' bleed stacks can sometimes take the camp that you are leashing for your Jungler. This is obviously bad as you are ruining your Jungler's early power and tilting him. This is why in my leashes, I always hit the camp until it has 5 stacks and just leave. You might want to help your Jungler out by leashing more but trust me when I tell you that they might not respect your bleed so leaving early is the safer option. This way, you also make sure you get to your lane earlier.
Here is a coaching video I made where I go into the mistakes of a Gold player. Though the video covers an entire game, I analyze quite a bit of early game things in the video so definitely check it out to see if you make similar mistakes.
Jungle Pressure
Although shoving the wave is great for getting lane priority, you have to keep in mind that junglers LOVE ganking Darius. And as a toplaner, you have to accept that you are on your own, as good junglers in soloque are rare to come by.
Fighting a 2v1 is very difficult as it requires you to have knowledge about both your enemy laner AND how powerful the enemy jungler is (a Kayn will be free food compared to an Olaf). Aftershock makes fighting off jungle ganks easier but once you get fed enough, you can win 2v1s very easily regardless of your rune choice. Before getting ahead, fighting off ganks is just risky and I’d just recommend trying to avoid ganks. Do not shove your lane in too hard. It is even better if you let the enemy push to you. Try to keep your bushes warded. I have a very basic image in the warding section and a warding guide that gives you all the basics you need to know about vision control and more.
Generally speaking, once you get level 2/at 2:30, keep in mind that the enemy junglers might be wanting to gank you so adjust your playstyle to be more passive if you think that the jungler is on your side of the map. Some junglers like Twitch, Jarvan IV and etc, like to gank you IMMEDIATELY after doing their red buff so keep an eye out for those.
The first 10 minutes of the video cover how to track enemy Junglers. The rest of the video has many more tips on other topics.
My Own General Playstyle
Allow them to get level 2 first, with you backing off and sacrificing your minions so that you have the HP to fight and kill them. Once your lane is at your turret, farm up until level 3 and look to catch the enemy out so that you can run them down. Your Level 3 powerspike is IMMENSE as it turns around so many matchups so try to see if you can get a kill. All of this is very general advice though. I mention, once again, that the optimal playstyles for every matchup are written in the matchup section.
Tough Matchups
Some matchups are just tough and impossible to beat sometimes. That is okay. Remember that Darius still spikes midgame, regardless of whether you are fed or not. Just try to play safe. IT IS OKAY TO GIVE UP CS FOR HP. A lot of players glorify the usefulness of CS and while it is true that simply farming better can win you more games, what ISN’T true is that you should be tunnel visioning on CS. Is getting that cannon minion really worth having half of your HP being chunked out? Because most of the time, it isn’t. The general rule of thumb that I use is that if you take less than around 80-100(a single autoattack) damage for every CS, it was worth it. If you take ANY more damage, then it wasn’t worth it. So do not put yourself in a position where you just eat an entire combo and have the enemy laner chase you down with their ranged Autoattacks.
Farm up to get your tank counter items ( Ninja Tabi, Spectre's Cowl) and once you get your hands on them, try to see whether you can kill them or not. Even if you can’t kill them, you should still be looking to farm safely so that you have the strength to contribute to mid game teamfights. If you are in a favourable matchup though, just try to keep a good amount of CS. (9-10 CS per minute is Optimal. 7-8 CS per minute is Good. 5-6 is Okay if you are in a bad matchup. Anything less means you aren't CSing properly so you should be practicing your CSing.).
Here is a video of me demonstrating how you should be playing into a ranged champion. Don't focus on the parts where I killed the Kennen though. Focus on the parts where I tell you the habits you need to conserve health in lane. Pay attention to my playstyle BEFORE I get ahead in lane so to speak.
Here is a game where I get less fed but offer more gameplay of how you should be playing into a ranged champion if you need more to learn from.
Mid Game Playstyle
The midgame is arguably the most important part of the game and most of the time, it is when the game is on its way to finish as game length has been very low lately. The length of a game gets lower the higher up the ranks you go, as people tend to be better at closing games out and knowing what to do with leads. The midgame is when Darius spikes the hardest. As long as you haven’t died more than 5 times in lane, you should be one of the key players for your team so keep your eyes open. And even if you did feed, getting multiple kills in a single teamfight can get you back into the game so you should always keep your eyes open.
Mid game is all about snowballing the lead you accumulated through the laning phase into a win. Your biggest priority should be taking down your opponent’s first turret but that alone isn’t enough to win you games. The tricky part of this stage is balancing how much time you spend pressuring you are going to do toplane together with how much time you spend getting kills and/or objectives around the map. I myself play primarily around Top and Midlane, as I tend to regularly go back up top to farm, pressure my opposing laner AND to protect my own turret. This is simply my playstyle though. Sometimes, conceding your toplane t1 turret is worth it.
For example, if the enemy bot looks like they are pushing up, it might be a good idea to go back and then use a summoner spell or two to run both the enemy ADC and Support down. You almost always have to be there for the elemental dragons as they are another win condition on top of Baron now so it is always a good thing to keep the bottom side of the map in mind. Rift Herald is a powerful objective so if you get ahead early, take it with your jungler or even alone if you aren’t afraid of the enemy 2v1ing you. If a fight at dragon breaks out and you are too far away to impact it, you can continue to push down the enemy T2 with the Herald. But you mostly be wanting to use Herald in order to take down the mid turret.
Work with your Mid and your Jungler to 3 man the enemy midlaner and knock the turret down. The rest of it just comes naturally. But you HAVE to make sure to go back toplane to take the CS that your opposing toplaner has inevitably pushed to your turret. If they are taking your turret, then go kill them.
The examples I’ve explained here vary greatly from moment to moment. Sometimes, the enemy laner is so strong that you won’t have the lane pressure to take the enemy turret down. In situations like these, it might be better to continue pushing or to go help your team if you think that your laner will be able to destroy your team without you. It is all about the specific situation and it is up to you and your knowledge of Macro to pick the correct decision.
Mid game is when teamfights occur most often and it is when you could start splitpushing. Before we get into these concepts, there are a few more things that you should know. One of these things is the importance of your summoner spells. You might’ve noticed that after playing a bunch of Darius, WITH your Ghost and Flash, you are an unstoppable god but without them, you feel like an immobile turtle who rarely does anything. This is why sometimes, it is better to get into fights only when you have your summoner spells. And sometimes, wasting a summoner spell for a single kill in lane won’t be worth it as you can do a lot more with it. There are obviously SOME circumstances where opposite is the case (killing a person with high bounty/killing an important champion lategame where any pick can lead to the game being over). It is up to you really.
Just be aware of your limits as a Darius who has no summoner spells as overstepping and expecting to be saved by your Ghost when in actuality it is on cooldown can be a great way to int away a game. Another key tip is to NOT DIE. Seriously. Dying throws away such a massive gold and XP lead. If you just focus on not dying and you keep farming properly, you will eventually build up a 4 level advantage over the enemy team. That is not to say that it is ALWAYS bad to die. But it is just bad MOST of the time. With how bounties work recently, if you have a lead, then the game is going to slap a bounty on you which will make death even more punishing.
Here is an informative commentary video where I crush a game singlehandedly. This should give you a good idea as to how you should be carrying through teamfights and overwhelming your enemy.
Teamfighting
Teamfights in most elos are a chaotic mess where nobody really knows what’s going on. And sometimes, neither do you. To keep focus in teamfights and not do stupid things, you have to, first off, clear your head when a teamfight is coming up. Concentration is key. The next thing is to establish what your goals for a teamfight are. What is your role for this current game? Are you acting as a peeler where you will be sticking to your carry, stopping everyone from getting to them and getting 5 stacks off of the tank that is going to attack them in order to then run the enemy team down? Are you a tank frontliner who will be the one engaging and facing the enemy tanks? Or are you a squishy yet dangerous threat to the enemy backline who can use his summoner spells to decimate the enemy backline?
Whatever your goals are, keep them in mind and stick to them. It is a dynamic game though and with a situational champion like Darius, unpredictable things can happen and certain opportunities may arise. You might be trying to get 5 stacks off of a tank because you are a frontliner but then an assassin will be caught and reduced to 300 health right next to you. At that point, switching targets will allow you to get to your passive faster and then instantly oneshot the enemy backline with a Flash. Do not tunnel vision too much as situations may arise where you might need to do things that are outside of the objective you set for yourself before the fight to win the fight. Try to be perceptive and flexible. Keep a general overview of how the fight is going. And if it looks like you guys are all gonna die, it might be better to fall back and mitigate the losses.
Your goal as Darius should be to kill the enemy team which you do by getting access to your passive. Your passive is a GAME CHANGER. It can turn the tide of battle as it lets you oneshot essentially anyone on the enemy team unless you are very far behind. There are two approaches to go about doing so but keep this extra way in mind. IF A LOW HP ENEMY IS IN YOUR RANGE, GO FOR THEM! AUTO THEM ONCE AND USE YOUR ULTIMATE TO KILL THEM. The more you play Darius, the more of a sense you are going to get for how much damage he does with his ultimate. This option is the "unpredictable" and you must be ready to drop whatever you are doing and go for the easy reset when the opportunity presents itself.
Now that we got that out of the ways, lets get into the two way you can get your passive. The first way is manually stacking up to 5, and then chunking a backliner with a combo and executing them with R. Manually stacking up to your passive can take quite a bit of time. You need to be a frontliner to do so and as a juggernaut, you will be very prone to getting comboed and chunked down. And since Darius isn't THAT tanky, you will get oneshot if the enemy team has someone that is fed.
The other way is to get your hands onto a Soraka or a Jhin or some other low HP backline champion and using your combo to get them low enough where your Ultimate will be enough to kill them without 5 stacks. Depending on how squishy they are, somethign like AA W Q AA R will be enough to oneshot them in 3 seconds or so. This way is easier to do when you are flanking and you are generally going to need a summoner spell to do it effectively. But this way IS the more effective way to go through teamfights unless you’ve built like a full tank. Flanking is also a big part of splitpushing which we are going to get into now.
This is a gameplay commentary I did in plat and it contains tips of how you should be trying to 1v9 teamfights once you get fed in lower elos.
Splitpushing
Splitpushing is one of the most powerful tactics that you can utilise as a strong dueling champion. A lot of bruisers, including Darius, fall into this category which means that it is something you can do too. It is quite difficult to do properly due to Darius having low mobility and it is done improperly by most people in general. Splitpushing teaches you a LOT about Macro and how the game works. Mastering this skill is going to essentially give you a free ticket to high Diamond/Master if you combine it with other skills.
What is Splitpushing?
Splitpushing is basically when you move to a side lane(preferrably one that is on the opposite side of the map when compared to the major objective that’s available, e.g. botlane when Baron, toplane when Elder Dragon.) and then start clearing waves in order to create pressure. This puts the enemy team into an awkward position as they are forced to deal with both you and your team. Although you might have fantasies of pulling off a crazy 1v3 and taking a turret and an inhibitor by yourself, most of the time, splitpushing is just going to be used to waste the enemy team’s time and resources so do not be too sad if you do not get anything when splitting.
Just make sure that you do not die. I mentioned this already but dying is not great for you at all, so if the choice is to die but take 2 people down with you OR to retreat but waste people’s time, go for the safer option. Splitpushing is dangerous because it is a very risky strategy. It essentially gives you control of the game. This also means that if you lose the game, then it was probably because you ****ed up and didn’t rotate to your team for a teamfight.
When should you Splitpush?
Knowing when it's a good time to splitpush and when its a good time to group up with your team is purely based on your specific game. Splitpushing might be worse against a team with a hard engage but it might also be the only way to win against a team with a crazy amount of waveclear with champions like Anivia. There are just general conditions that, when checked, will most likely lead to split pushing being a good idea.
The biggest thing when it comes to splitpushing is to make sure that your teammates can handle a 4v4 or a 4v5. If you know that your team will get slaughtered if you leave them alone, then do not splitpush. As Darius, you should be looking to stomp and carry teamfights in the Mid Game, with you taking objectives afterwards. Splitpushing should mainly be a consideration for Lategame where your teamfighting is weaker but your 1v1 is still strong. Just make sure that your team can at the very least waveclear and SURVIVE in a 4v5.
You should also only be splitpushing if you have the damage to easily clear the wave. If you are running ONLY Black Cleaver, then it is going to take you far too long to push the waves so you might be better off grouping with your team more often. Splitpushing is also MUCH easier to do when you have Teleport. With Ghost, although you can be very dangerous against anybody who comes to stop you, you won’t be there for your team if they get caught out without Teleport.
This part is pretty self explanatory but please make sure that you can reliably beat anybody on the enemy team before splitpushing. You do not want to be a free kill. It also helps to take a few wards with you and upgrade your ward to the blue trinket in order to keep sight of the enemy and leave before they collapse on you. Sorry to repeat this but it SUCKS to DIE. DON’T DIE.
One more thing to keep in mind is to communicate what you are trying to do to your team. Let them know that you are going to split push and tell them to not pick fights when you aren’t there, but also tell them to force things when the enemy team is starting to rotate to you. You ideally don’t have to explain all this if they know what splitpushing is.
There are multiple things you can do while splitpushing. As I mentioned before, you want to be wasting your enemies’ time as your own team gets objectives/a better position on the map. You basically want to draw people to you and then quickly run away before they can get to you in order to waste their time. It is simple, it doesn’t require you to be too fed and is what you should be doing if the enemy that is protecting the turret against you is not someone you can dive. Be careful when doing this against champions like Camille who can EASILY trap you.
My personal favourite thing to do is to use splitpushing in order to split up the enemy team, and then flank the rest of the enemy team to get a very easy and a favorable teamfight OR have your team catch someone off on a rotation as the enemy team will be disorganised from having to move around the map. If you are fed enough to dive and kill whomever is sent to defend against you then do so by all means and then take the turret. This is the last time I’ll repeat this but seriously. DON’T DIE.
NEACE is great at explaining this concept and if the above text is not doing the job, then watch the video below. A Darius splitpushing guide from me will be coming out soon.
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If you haven’t carried the game to a victory by now, know that it is no longer up to you to win the game. Darius is strong early, immensely powerful midgame but also terribly weak lategame. Although a tank build will allow you to do more than a damage build, you will get shredded to bits either way by the enemy backline. You have to work with your teammates and if your teammates are feeding, then the game is essentially lost. If you are planning on splitpushing, do so with caution. Always be sure to rotate to your team before teamfights break out so that you can peel your carries. That is essentially all you can do.
Teamfighting lategame is very difficult as one misstep results in your immediate death. If you do not have Flash or Ghost, then you will not be able to do any killing in a teamfight if the enemy carries know how to kite properly. Your ultimate damage is still staggering though. You should be saving your squishy teammates from assassins and peeling for them until you get your Noxian Might after which point you should try to oneshot at least one of the enemy carries using your Flash. Your ultimate also helps deal with tanks. I'll write this again but remember, don't tunnel vision on attacking the enemy.
PROTECT YOUR BACKLINE.
I’ve mentioned wave control and things like “freezing” and “shoving” many times throughout this guide, especially in certain matchups where doing so is vital. You might be thinking that spamming Q to damage the enemy in an easy matchup might not be a great idea. Your opponent, if they have but a shred of intelligence, will want the wave to push into their side of the lane which leaves you in a very gankable position. Thinking about things like where the minions are, the amount of damage the minions do and how to manipulate the minions so that they work FOR you instead of against you is a massive part of toplane. And with how much pressure Darius has in the lane, mastering lane pressure on him is important to exploiting easy to beat lanes and VITAL to surviving more difficult lanes.
Why learn Wave Control?
If you are throwing a Q, it would be better if you make sure that you hit as little minions as possible. But sometimes your level 2 is just too important. If you are playing against a laner like Renekton where playing around powerspikes is important, then you should try your best to kill minions as fast as possible and then use your additional ability to take a good trade. What I am basically describing here is how the way you should interact with the minions changes from game to game. I have written about how you should be keeping the lane in some of the matchups but this will change based on who the enemy jungler is. A great yet simple tip is shoving the lane after you kill your lane opponent. You have to make sure that the minions crash at the enemy turret and are NOT frozen just outside the turret range(this is suicide just make sure that at least most of them are under the turret range). That way, the wave will slowly bounce back to you, with you being in a spot that allows you to escape ganks. This is just the beginning though. There are many more subtle things you can do and if you master your interactions with minions, you will be dictating how the lane plays out. Add split pushing and mid game into the mix and knowledge of minions is essentially going to allow you to control where your opponents will be.
The Basics
Before you can learn how to run, you must first learn how to crawl. Let us start with the very basics. There are 4 types of minions in the game: Melee Minions, Ranged Minions, Cannon Minions and Super Minions. A small side note but the word “Creep” is just another way of referring to a minion. CS just stands for “Creep Score”. Minions give more and more gold as time goes on, especially Cannon minions. All minions are counted as equal in terms of CS. But some minions are more important than others. Cannon minions for instance, are very important as they give much more gold than any other minion. This means that you should make sure to get the last hit on them. Whereas last hits on Ranged Minions, though still good, are not as important.
To summarise, Cannon>Melee>Ranged in terms of what you should be prioritising. Keep in mind that if you are up against a difficult matchup, sometimes it might just be better to not go for a minion at all if you are going to eat an entire combo for it.
In terms of DPS, the Cannon minion obviously does the most damage followed by the Ranged minion and then the Melee minion. This is why if you are going to freeze a wave, it is better to keep Melee minions alive as dragging them is going to cost less of your HP.(when you have to freeze your lane, instead of letting the minions hit your turret, you sometimes take aggro and drag them away from your turret and let them crash with your minion in order to keep them frozen outside your turret range).
In order to know how to effectively farm minions under your turret, you need to know how many turret shots it takes to kill each of them. Keep in mind that damage from your own minions and damage from yourself will change this so try to make sure to use your abilities to get all the minions. Until you get some additional AD through items, a melee minion is gonna die to 2 turret shots and 1 auto attack. A ranged minion will die to 1 turret shot and 2 auto attacks(Ranged minions are somewhat tricky to farm on Darius as your bleed damage messes it up a bit. Try to use your Q and your W to last hit them properly). A cannon minion will take 7 turret shots and then an auto attack to kill. As I mentioned more than a few times, use your W to CS as much as possible. There is essentially no drawback to doing so.
Minion Aggro
Minion Aggro is a very important thing to understand as well. If you auto attack an enemy champion or hit them with a point and click spell, the minions will aggro on to you and start attacking you. This is why fighting inside an enemy minion wave is a bad idea, especially in the early game where their damage will make a huge difference. This is also why ranged champions are so oppressive in top lane. Their range allows for them to poke you and then walk away to avoid minion damage whereas a melee champion would never be given such luxury. Darius Q is great though. It is AOE meaning that if you hit the enemy with it, you do not attract minion aggro. Turret and Minion aggro are far more complex but this basic understanding is good enough.
Though it is not very high up on my to do list, I might get a CSing guide video out at some point where I can better explain some of these concepts. But what I have explained here is enough. If you need a video demonstration, you can simply watch one of my videos as I demonstrate how you should be CSing in them. Here is an example:
Manipulating the Wave
Although in many videos and guides, even this one, manipulation of the wave is going to be split up into a few categories but in my opinion, this isn’t strictly speaking the truth. It is simply a guideline to make it easier to grasp minion control. Wave control is very difficult to understand and is honestly more like a spectrum. How much damage you deal to the minions, which minions you deal the damage to and etc. all contribute to this. I will try to give you an easy introduction to minions in a digestible format which you can use to get a beginner’s understanding of this concept. Know that more often than not, a “beginner’s understanding” is more than good enough for a majority of ranks. I’ve faced high Diamond toplaners who have had very bad wave control.
Basically speaking, wave control is all about how and when the minions are going to get reinforcements. If you look at your map, you see the next minion wave(the minion waves are mirrored. If you wave is at your T2 turret, the enemy wave is also at his T2 turret) and where in the lane both minion waves have crashed is going to change which side is going to get the next wave of minions first.
This image is a basic guideline as to how many MORE minions a wave needs in order to continue overcoming and pushing against the enemy. You simply have to keep a basic count of how many minions there are in your head. This imagine is going to be very important to explain our first concept, Freezing.
Freezing
Freezing is very difficult to pull off but also very rewarding when done right. Freezing is BASICALLY when you last hit the minions when they are about to die(at the very LAST second. Easier with high attackspeed) and also match the damage that the enemy does to your minions in order to make sure that the minions stand in a certain position in the lane(if the enemy does damage to your minions, then they will die faster so you need to do around the same damage to his minions). The position in which you should be freezing the wave, ideally, should be right outside of your own turret.
In the image above, it would be the area between the yellow and the blue zone. Freezing the lane puts you in a very difficult to gank position, you can get every single CS whereas the enemy champion will struggle to do so, the enemy laner is in an easy to gank position and in higher elos, a perfectly execute freeze shuts lanes down. In lower elos, you can starve your opponent out very effectively with a good freeze. You mostly want to be freezing against lanes where you are massively ahead and/or the enemy champion misstepping would result in their death. Unless they possess room tempreature (degrees celsius) IQ, they will most likely back off and try not to fight you. If that is the case, executing a freeze is an amazing way to slowly put together a massive gold lead as you can zone them off of all minions(do NOT let the enemy CS. make sure they get destroyed every time they try).
Freezing against ranged toplaners is much more difficult as they have ranged abilities that they can use to thin out the wave. You can try to simply replicate their damage onto the minion wave to keep it even. Another great thing about freezing in a position like this is that the enemy champion is far away from their turret, which means that if you have your Ghost up then you will essentially kill your laner every time.
Shoving/Hard Push
Shoving the lane is basically when you want to be doing as much damage to the enemy minions as possible with both your abilities and autoattacks. Learn how Darius’ abilities work and try to practice taking down entire waves. If you want the wave to push quickly on its own(Fast Push), you can kill all minions except the ranged ones as this will lead to the lane pushing on its own (this is good for when you want to roam as it will lead to a larger wave that you enemy laner has to deal with which gives you a lot of time to roam and participate in skirmishes outside your lane). But most of the time when shoving, you do not have time to do that.
After killing your opponent, you need your minions to crash at the enemy turret ASAP. And during the midgame, you need to shove sidelanes very quickly so that you can participate in teamfights. More on this specific point in the Mid Game section.
Shoving the lane during a normal laning phase when both of you are in lane is not the best idea as it leaves you in a very vulnerable position. It also gives the enemy the opportunity to freeze the wave against you which, as we discussed before, can be very difficult to overcome. You should probably only be pushing when you are ahead and can handle a 2v1. Shoving the lane to the enemy does have its advantages though. If the lane crashes at the enemy turret, it will eventually bounce back to you. If you thin the wave properly on its way back, then you will be able to execute a freeze. Shoving minions also keeps your opponent in lane which gives you time to roam and help in river fights that are about to break out.
Overall, you should not be permashoving the lane as it is a very easy way to just get destroyed by ganks. Shoving is a useful too to utilize though. What you should be doing more while laning is Slow Pushing.
Slow Pushing
Slow Pushing may refer to two things. The more complex thing is basically when you kill all the minions in a wave except for the melee minions. This will lead to your minion wave pushing slowly but it will do so in a way where it builds up a massive friendly minion wave that HAS to be dealt with. This is a great midgame tactic to employ if a teamfight at an objective is about to happen. Leaving a side lane to do this a minute or so before a teamfight will lead to the enemy team having to deal with the pressure created from the massive minion wave AND the pressure created from your team having to contest the lane. It is basically a version of Splitpushing where the minions are the ones splitting. Be careful though as you should ONLY do this if your team is going to take a major objective. Otherwise, you will be feeding a ton of farm to the enemy.
The other definition of a Slow Push, the more popular one, is when your minion wave is slowly pushing towards the enemy and all you do is last hit the minions. This type of pushing works great as it means that the enemy will not be able to trade into you due to you having more minions. This is what you want to be doing most of the time in lane so get used to last hitting. It crashes large minion waves at the enemy turret that are difficult to deal with and is excellent for setting up dives. Remember how minions aggro onto the enemy laner if they auto attack you? It also applies to dives. If you have a massive minion wave crashed at the enemy turret and the enemy champion auto attacks you, then your minions will start attacking him, leading to the dive being even easier to pull off.
Here is a great video to explain Wave Control. Make sure to pay attention to the video and listen to what it covers.
Proxying
Proxying is not really something you will be doing too often but it is good to know about the concept anyway. Proxying is when you go behind the enemy turrets and kill the minion wave by yourself before they can reach your own minion wave. You might be seeing Singed players do this a lot. This tactic is VERY risky as it puts you in a very gankable position AND killing the minions without your own minions will mean that you will be left at lower mana and HP as you will have to tank the minions. But this tactic is the ultimate way of applying pressure on the map as the enemy team will HAVE to deal with you.
I’d only recommend you do this if you are strong enough to 2v1 or even 3v1, as the enemy midlaner will be on their way to get you. I overall wouldn’t recommend you use this tactic as a beginner.
Warding
It is very important to utilise your wards in order to avoid ganks. By proper wave management and vision control, you should be impossible to be beaten in a gank. And learning to do all that properly will allow for you to be a very powerful soloq player. Darius being an immobile champion only makes this skill all the more important. You mostly want to ward around 2:30-3:00 as that is the time period where most junglers will have finished their level 3 clear and be looking to gank top. However, there are some junglers like Twitch or Jarvan IV that are able to gank at level 2 which is why it might be a better idea to play carefull early on in lane. Predicting these level 2 ganks mostly comes down to knowledge on different jungle champions and their clear speeds.
Instead of a messy jumble of disorganized text, I made all of that information into a nice Warding Guide down below that contains all of the tips discusseed here and more in a more digestible format.
Macro
Macro is what sets most players apart. The most mechanical player in the game will only get to low Diamond with no macro. Game sense is very important, especially in League. Whichever player thinks more and has more knowledge on what the limits of every champion are and where everyone is, is going to be the one to come out on top most of the time.
What should you be doing at any given point in time? Is it better to farm in lane or go help with an early skirmish(its almost always better to help your team out if a fight is happening near the lane btw. Don’t go if its a lost fight though. Like when there are more enemy champions and your jungler just got caught) Though it is good to be active around the lane to pick up kills and snowball, with Darius, you do not want to be roaming all that much. Staying in your lane and drawing pressure is how you use your champion optimally. Drawing pressure from the enemy jungler to you and allowing your team to 3v4 the rest of the map while you 2v1 up top.
The bad thing about "macro" is that there is not much you can do to immediately improve it. It is the hardest skill to improve as it requires you to have experience, read a lot about the game, watch a lot of instructional videos, and watch your own demos to question your deaths and take note of how the enemy jungler/team rotates around the map and etc. You can make it a habit to look at the map and register where the enemy jungler is and so on but this skill just takes time to learn.
Do not be impatient. Just try to play the game and STAY OFF AUTOPILOT. Think consciously about the things you are doing. Do not go in after a teammate if they are stepping into certain death. You too will die. Do not get tilted and if you do find yourself frustrated after a game, stop yourself from playing another game. I personally always take a break after a frustrating loss.
A tip I can give you is to watch videos of high elo players as they explain things. TFBlade does an okay job giving you a general idea of how to play toplane but in my opinion, they are not really the best ways to learn the game out there. The way I myself improved my Macro was watching the videos from NEACE and some analysis videos from LS. NEACE is probably one of my favourite instructional League content creators as I enjoy his “no bs” style of explaining things. He has many guides for you to go through and he has a splitpushing guide that I linked earlierin this video. Both LS and NEACE has a few good coaching videos that you can view where they break down a LOT of the mistakes the players in those matches make.
I suggest finding a video of them coaching a player at your rank and just looking through the gameplay as they explain concepts. You want to keep your eye out for the same mistakes you make and keeping your mind open for the players with the better macro to tell you how to get better. I myself also coach Darius players live on stream and I will be uploading my coaching sessions to Youtube. Here is the most recent one. Special thanks to OB SUPREMACY! He makes a lot of great Darius Content on his Youtube and he Streams sometimes. A wide range of topics were covered in this video which makes it a great all purpose video to study.
Even if you don’t sit down and work on improving your macro, you should improve by just playing along with your sense for Darius Q size, Darius E range, how his kit works and interacts with other champions and what fights you can win. Macro is very difficult to master. I myself have only begun to grasp things so don't worry if you aren't making much progress quickly.
The most important part about climbing is attitude and mentality. How you view your games and whatnot is the defining factor of whether you are going to play 10 games a day and be hardstuck or if you are going to be slowly but steadily climb over a month or so. You have to be patient, consistent and positive. Though I am not exactly positive, below I have written a list of rules for myself that forms a somewhat good attitude.
ΩDo not flame. You cannot convince someone that they are dumb. You aren't the first, you won't be the last. Save your breath and focus on your own game. If you find yourself typing an essay in chat just mute all. If you keep doing this then turn chat off in the settings.
ΩIf you died X amount of times to a jungle gank, it is not your jungler’s fault. It’s yours.
ΩIf climbing is a goal for you, make sure you are calm and focused before playing. If you are not able to concentrate, if you are having a bad day or if you are upset/tilted, either stop playing or know that you will not be able to play at your best.
ΩDo not have herd mentality. Don’t just follow your teammates. Think for yourself. It is a team game but don’t run in to a massively unfavourable situation that will certainly lead to your death.
ΩNever surrender. Especially if you are low elo. A lot of games can be thrown.
ΩBe confident enough to know you will beat everyone who opposes you but don’t let your ego stop you from recognising your mistakes.
ΩExcuses are for the weak. You can blame your team for being bad, you can blame Riot for having terrible balance and you can blame the matchmaking system being broken and putting you up against smurfs. Know that none of those reasons is why you are not climbing. Its you. You are the only common factor in all of your games. If you are stuck at a rank for a long period of time, it’s your fault. Only by recognising your own flaws can you begin improving.
Here is a video I made on my channel where I talk about the right mentality you should have in order to avoid being hardstuck.
Thanks a lot for reading my guide. It took me a LOT of work to get this out. I hope that it was of some use to you and it helped you improve in some way. If it didn't then I hope that it was an entertaining read at the very least. I tried to contain everything you need to know in this guide. If you do have any specific questions or need something explained in more detail, then simply contact me and I will try my best to help out as quickly as possible.
Special thanks to Sam D-B for the edit. He creates and uploads Darius montages to his channel every so often. They are incredibly clean and he is very talented so please check him out. Here is his Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAetgDN5myAZE_YP7PDszXQ Tell him Rhoku sent you :>
My profile picture for Twitter account was drawn by my good friend. If you are a fan of the style and want to commission her/bother her, you can do so on her twitter at @Jrabanito.
Many thanks to Jovy for the Headers! Makes my guide look much better :>
Be sure to check out my Darius Jungle Guide as well!
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