Pro's
Manliest champion in the game - I aint joking. There is just somethin so cool with darius comming in late in the fight or crushing his way for the backline and getting kill after kill with his ultiamte.

One of highest damage dealer in the top lane - seriusly, this alone would be reason to play him. He is on par with guys like Riven and Rumble - even when you're building tank.

He scales with tanky stats - As he gets a lot of free damage from his passive once he gets of 5 stacks, he can get like 400 ad with a very tanky build.

He is very flexible in his build path - He can both go full tank or full damage or anywhere inbewteen really.

Godly cleanup - THis 1 explains itelf. Anyone with a resetting execution ability is good at cleaning up.

Few couners - THis is the same reason taht Renekton is strong. Very few champions can reliebly deal with him.

He doesn't snowball - Yes its a pro that he doesn't snowball. Becuase he avalanches. Yes, in my opinion he is one of the hardest top lane carries in the game. This is becuase he can become much more tanky than most other carries, making him harder to just pop before he can even deal any damage, and he deals so much more damage than champions that are just as or more tanky than him. As long as darius can get into the fight, he is unstopable when fed.

Cons
Immobile - This is darius biggest weakness. The problem isn't dealing the damage, its getting in range to deal it. For this reason darius does really well with champions like Varus or Sona that can lock down targets. All reliable mobility has to come from items like Dead Man's Plate, boots of swiftness] and [[phage.

It's easy to get overconfident - I often fall for this myself. When you're using such a tanky high damage dealing champion its easy to forget that you cant still get melted, and taht some champions are to tanky for you.
Easy to pickup, hard to master - Before the storm hits and kills me, let me explain. Yes, Darius is easy. You could probobly let your almost dead, senile grandma play him and she'd do okay. But he has alot of potential that a new darius player wouldn't pull of, or even know about. Like when you can ulti them for the kill, managing to hit as many opponents as possible with the edge of his q, and the most important part of it all; KNowing if you can kill someone early game. Stuff like; do they have ignite? How high is their dmg? Can they dodge my abilites?
Gets litle respect - This is the biggest con to playing Darius. You would think that being so ******* imposing would get some respect but no, he doesn't. Darius is just one of those champions people like to gripe on. "oooh he is such an noskill champion", "Darius just ks all the time, can't get his own kills". Stuff like that. But do not fear, for its hard to hear people whine and insult you over the sound of you cutting through their boddies and crushing their skulls!

Now you probobly looked at that and said; "hey, those are not real downsides, 1 about how its easy being to macho and 1 about people being douchebags to you and 1 about being easy to learn and hard to master wich applies to pretty much all champions? Then the only real downside to Darius is his lack of mobility right?

- Walter White

But seriusly though, he doesn't have any real downsides aside from being immobile without items. And is having to buy items a bad thing? About it being easy to go Rambo style, is having to think about what you do a bad thing? Neither of these are. So yes, darius doesn't have any real weaknesses. He is strong early, mid and late game, deals high damage while being tanky and is fun too play. If anyone is better than him in any of these areas its simply becuase they are better, not taht darius is bad at them.

Ok, ok. When I build my runepage, I had a very specific goal in mind. It was one that recuired a lot of though, strategy and knowledge about the game, as well as hours upon hours of testing in game. But I have come up with the perfect rune page for my goal. What is that goal you may ask? Well just scroll down, and you will see...

TO GO FULL BERSERK ON THE ENEMY LANER

No but seriusly though, the goal of this build is to get a very strong early game through flat runes. Darius is always strong, no matter what but if he gets ahead he is pretty much unstopable. And how do you get ahead? By killing everything! How do you kill everything? By being stronger than everything else.
Honestly there isn't really many options for Darius when it comes too runes, its just wether you want scaling or flat runes really.

First lets discuss the starting items;

Long Sword vs dorans blade
Ok, most people would say that if you want to go for early kills, get Dorans. But do not agree with the. Honestly, I HATE DORANS BLADE. I don't know why, but i just hate just having 1 health potion. And honestly, its not worht losing 2 health pots for dorans. Dorans gives you 80 health, 8 ad and 3% lifesteal. The lifesteal is not nearly big enough to sustain on if you ask me, you actually gain more ad from long sword and even thouh you get 80 more health, you gain about 120 more health from the healthpotions. It's just not worth it.
Note: this is a very personal opinion. Alot of people like it, its just that every time I go with Dorans blade it seems like I always flaunder becuase of to low health, health I would've had if I got the healpotions.
Plus another problem with dorans blade is that it doesn't build into anything. If you start with long sword, you can get phage 350 gold earlier. That's a kill, or about 2 minion waves, wich is alot.

Cloth Armor vs dorans shield
Dorans shield suffers the same problem for me as dorans blade, so just apply all of the same things on the last note on this one.

I guess i should clarify when you should get Cloth Armor and when you should get Long Sword. If you're up against someone you counter hard or if you're just confident, take the long sword. The extra damage and healthpotions are a very good start as you can often trade at level 1 with your opponent as you outdamage pretty much everyone at that level and then get back all health with your health potions and q heal.

All other items are fairly self explanatory.

Black Cleaver Core on darius. If you can only get 1 pure damage item, get this. The bleed on your passive deals physical damage 5 times, wich means that with 1 singel hit on an enemy champion, you can apply all 6 stacks of the armor shred for 30% reduced armor. The stats it gives Darius are very good for him and the other passive effect, rage is extremly good for helping with kitng.

Ravenous Hydra Just all around good item on darius. I actually like to rush this item if i'm crushin my lane as it has the cool ability to be turned into the tanky version, Titanic Hydra if I need to get tanky. Other than that, it just adds so much.
Damage? check.
Sustain? check.
Wave clear? Check.
Extra burst? Check.

Trinity Force Just for for the fact that your w is a basic attack enhancer. Other than that, it doesn't add much. The rage passive is already given by black cleaver and although it does give alot of good stats the mana, attack speed and crit chance are not really needed on darius. Still it's a good buy if you just need that third damage item

Dead Man's Plate Is another core on darius. It just does so much for him. First off, the stats it gives are really good. 5o armor and 400 health is so good. And the passive is also extremly good. It helps with getting to the backline, and makes kiting Darius alot harder. One thing that you can do if you dont want to spend that extra bit of gold on boots is start rush trinity, black cleaver and dead mans plate as all those items give you movement speed in some way. You do lose the consistent movement speed but its still a viable strategy if you dont have the extra money.

Titanic Hydra This item is really, really good. However, you should only buy this item if you intend on going really tanky. If you intend on having a more damagy build with items like blackcleaver, trinity and maw of malmortius becuase you're snowballing all over your enemy and you dont really need more tankyness than deadmans plate and spirit visage, then get ravenous. In all other situtaions, get titanic. Really good movie too btw, just throwin taht out there.

Spirit Visage Speaking of the devil. Really, this is so good on Darius. It gives good stats, is very cost effective and the passive healing bonus can give you some insane Sustainability during fights. And if your team has like a Soraka, this item is so broken.

Most of the other main options are self explanatory, it's the items listed as viable that are interesting to talk about.

thornamil Get this item only to counter a specific enemy. Do they have a fed trydamere, Caitlyn or any other basic attack based champion on their team, then get thornmail.

Frozen Mallet This item is not really needed at all, but if you somehow, after having both Dead Man's Plate and Black Cleaver, are still getting kited, then you can get frozen mallet. It gives you the second highest health of any item in the game, second only to Warmog's Armor and some decent attack damage. Its very rarely worth it just to get that passive slow though.

Maw of Malmortius In most situations you don't need this item. For the most part, just get Banshee's Veil if you dont already have spirit visage. However, if you both need that tiny extra bit of damage as well as magic resist, this is your only real option. It is very niché and I only really get it if i'm up agaisnt a swain] or [[vladamir when I need both of the beforementioned stats, but very rarely otherwise.

Iceborn Gauntlet Basicly get this item if you are facin the same problem as with frozen mallet but want cooldown reduction and armor instead of damage and health. Not much else to say. Neither this item or frozen mallet are that good on darius but I feelt i should at least mention them.

mercurial schimitar I have only gotten this item a very, very few games, but in some situtations, it is simply needed. Keep getting locked down by a lisandra? Ryze and his snare making you blow a vessel in frustration? then you may concider this item.

Mortal Reminder This item has become one of the new "very good but niché items" along with things like banner of comand, Zz'Rot Portal and Frozen Mallet. And it is understandable. You very rarely need this item instead of its counterpart, lord dominik's regerds but when you do need it, darius is one of the best champions to have it on. First of, it gives you 40% armor pen. THis, together with your e passive and black cleaver is just ridicules. You mealth through tanks like nothing. Seconly, it's unique effect reduces healing on opponents after they take physical damage from you for 3 seconds. Now since all attaacks applies a bleed for 5 seconds, that means that you will apply taht healing debuff for 8 seconds with just 1 strike.
Still only get this if your opponents have a soraka that keeps giving you problems or something alike.

Hemorrhage
This is such a good passive. But before I talk about that, let me just ask one thing.
WHY IS IT A SPECIAL ABILITY TO MAKE PEOPLE BLEED WHEN YOU CUT THEM WITH AN AXE. I mean, if Garen, Zed, Rengar, Riven, Pantheon and so many more attacked you with their blades, you would think that you would start bleeding, but nope. Apperently, only Darius has the mystical ability to conisintetly make his opponents bleed with his attacks. Like waht riot?

Anyways, what makes the passive so good, is 2 things. First of, it gives you a lot of bonus damage for just doing what you would normaly be doing. Just clipped your opponent with your q? Here, have some extra 15 damage. Oh you just traded with your opponent and got 5 stacks on them? here have like 100 bonus damage.
The second thing about it is the ad bonus. If you get 5 stacks of on someone or if you kill someone with your ultimate, the most glorius thing happnes. You get a wonderfully gruesome musical que as your screen turns red with your opponents blood as you get 40-200 bonus ad depending on level. The fear of this alone can make a lot of opponents not even want to fight you. And if they're foolish enough to actually keep batling you, you'll just slaughter them att this point. No other buff, in the entire game gives that much ad. 200 ad is 3 infinity edges! So whenever you're trading blows with your opponent early game, don't back of, stand your ground like the manly man you are and get those 5 stacks so you become the god worth fearing.

Decimate
This also is a very good ability and very straight forward. How do you use it? You spam it whenver an enemy is even remotly close to you. Your opponent went up to farm, hit that mathafuhcka with that q. You're running away from your opponenent after a bad trade? Hit that mathafuhcka with that q. You're chasing someone down? You know the drill. In teamfights, this healing can get so stupid. By this time it'll probobly have about a 4 second cool down, and it heals 12% of your missing health per champion hit, capping at 36%. Now, if you have a spirit visage taht increases to 14.4% and increases the cap to 43.2% THat means that you can be healing almost 50% of your missing health every 4 seconds.

Crippling Strike
Ok, again I have a question. Is it really that special to have the ability to cut someone with axe so that they can't move as effectivly? Not to be that kinda guy but if someone with an axe as big as Darius cut me, i'd probobly get crippled wether he used this ability or not you know.

Aside from that, this is again a very straight foward ability. Use it whenever it comes of cooldown in fights, when hitting turrets and use it to farm. The only note here is that it does reset your auto attack timer so always try to use it after another basic attack so you get out that damage faster. It also apllies 2 stacks very quickly.

Apprehend
This is a very good ability. The extra armor pen can make building defensivly against darius hard as he ignores alot of armor and the pull can be used to either threating someone out of farm or by getting those running cowards too you.
1 cool trick that you can use is that it does reset your auto attack timer, while also stunnin your opponent for just a moment after the pull ends. That means that in some clutch situations after you've hit your opponents with your q while running away or when you're melee ranging it like a boss and you're both at low health, you can pull them in and get of that 1 extra auto attack. And dont underestimate 1 extra auto attack, it can be what saves you.

Noxian Guillotine
If you ask me, this, THIS FREAKING ABILITY is the most beautiful, glorius ability in the entire game. You jump up into the air, strikng down upon your opponent to dunk them into oblivion so hard that thunder strikes. And as they die, that glorius cue from activating your passive triggers, as you go berserk on the enemy team, getting reset, after reset.

The 2 things to keep in mind about this ability is that first; do not use this ability to only get resets. If you are about to die, do not wait with using it, you go out like the manly man of dunking that you are and get off that last ditch effort of like 700 true damage on him. Secondly, keep track of how much damage it does as well as your opponents health. Every bar in their healthbar represents 100 health, so using that you can estimate when your ulti will kill.

IN your lanning phase you should look for kills whenever you can, as Darius can snowball hard, especielly on the enemy laner. He is like when Riven gets like 2 kills on you and you can't even go a few feet from your turret without getting killed in justa few seconds by her. Darius is like that. At level 1 just spam your q every chance you get. You deal amazing level 1 damage, and you dont have to be close to your opponent to deal it, making you immune to most counter attack and minion aggro at level 1. WHen you hit level 2 and you're feeling confident, you can just walk up to your opponent when tries to farm while using your q and hit him with a basic attack, w for the auto attack resent and then back off and boom, you've won the trade. At level 2, very few champions have anything to counter this, especielly since your w slows them for 90%. At level 3, pick either another point into your q if you need the extra damage or your 3 if you can kill your opponent. Often you can just get first blood at level 3 by pulling them and doing your usual comob with ignite, wich is why we take ignite btw. Rince and repear untill your opponent dies or goes back to base. When you hit level 6, your killing power rises so much. Don't worry to much about killing them with it, often just hitting them with it to get them low and igniting them will do it. The reason that you shouldn't hold onto it for to long is becuase unless their jungler is comming in to revenge kill you, you most likely wont have to use it again for the 20 seconds that you have it. Most people dont retreat untill you get 5 stacks of on them so sometimes it better to just ulti them at 4 stacks and if they flash or start to run away at taht point ignite can often kill them.

Mid game you have 2 options; splitpush or group up and it depends on your teams situation. Since what is best varies so much its hard to say when and why you should do one of the other, but generly, if your team is ahead, group up and force obejctives. If your team is behind and you feel like you can't win a fight even with you there tell your team to still group to force your enemy to them, but dont engage. assuming that you're fed or at least beating your opponent, you can at this point start splitpushing and force one of the enemies that would other wise be with their team to you to stop your splitpushing. This will put your team at an advantage as they have 4 members present and they have 3.
note: this works much better in theory than in practice as teamwork on this level can be hard to pull of.

In the late game you should either always stick to your carries or go after their carries. If your carry is more fed than their carry, stay with your carry. If a mean Kha'Zix or Riven wants to jump on them do your best to keep them of your carry. If their carry is more fed, than you go for them. If you get focused, it's no problem, you are one of the tanks of the team and if you are ignored you can wreck havoc in the enemies backline.

To actually get to the backline can be hard to do with your lack of mobility if you do get focused, so flashing for the carries can be a good option. That is why i get both distortion enchantment on my boots and the summoner spells cooldown reduction mastery so my flash cooldown is about 90 seconds shorter.

Thank you for reading this guide of mine, the first one that I have ever made. I do deeply appriciete it if you comment your thoughts and suggestions on this build.

One note that i want to make is that for some items, like Dead Man's Plate it just shows red text instead of the item icon like it should, Long Sword. I do not know why it is like that and if I can do something to fix. Please comment about it if you know.
The lack of visual stimuly is simply becuase I dont really know how I can/should design it, so please leave me input on that front too.