I am 10 Stars, I've been an avid gamer and in and out of many competitive video game scenes for years. I was the creator of the Counter Strike 1.6 clan, |6o9|, which peaked in around 2004-2005, before i disbanded it in 2006/2007.

After that I moved onto World of warcraft, placing 20th in the ranked 3v3 bracket on Wildhammer, during season 3 of the burning crusade. After getting Gladiator in WoW, I quit playing.

With WoW out of the picture, i moved over to the Marvel vs Capcom 3, Guilty gear, and Blazblue competitive circuit. With a couple first place showings at local tournaments, and a few top 8 showings at major tournaments, i felt as though I had peaked for the characters that I played.

Then I moved onto League of Legends. I am currently Platinum 2, with my first season of playing being Season 4, in which I landed in gold. I have a very competitive spirit when it comes to gaming, and I typically strive to advance as far as my raw skills and talent allow me to. Unfortunately, I also have the drawback of only playing characters that I really enjoy. Which leads us to here, at a Darius guide. I saw a lack of true depth to other Guides that were posted, and I really want to build a guide that a player can come to when they have to learn anything Darius related.

So, lets get this started!

Darius is easily one of the most fun characters in league of legends, his Ultimate; Noxian Guillotine is by far the most satisfying and enjoyable ult in the game. He also suits my playstyle of being very aggressive, and he's a mans man as far as alpha male characters go.

As far as Darius' Pros
His damage is ridiculous
Can shred tanks like nobodies business
Excellent duelist
Few bad matchups
Attack damage, Magic damage, and True damage all in one kit
Amazing cleanup potential
Amazing ability to kill towers

As far as his cons?
Lack of mobility and escapes / Can be kited
Crowd control ruins him
Easily ganked and camped
Passively pushes his lane during laning phase if he's harassing his opponent
Is not a hard carry / being super fed doesn't secure you a win
His few bad matchups are almost unwinnable


With all that being said, Darius is still a very strong character, and he's often underestimated by opposing teams.

If you're brand new to Darius, I have an introduction video to his kit/abilities that you can watch here: Play Video

If you already understand his kit, this video can be skipped.

My itemization path is broken down in this guide already, but if you want a video reference to why I take what and when, here's a video that covers most of the basic build path stuff for Darius:
Play Video

If you don't want to watch, that's fine too! Here's a text breakdown:

STARTING ITEMS
Crystalline flask, Three health pots, and your stealth ward

This is your common start. It allows you to constantly harass with your Q, as well as stay in lane if someones pumping damage into you like Pantheon.


FIRST BACK
Pickaxe

At your first back, try to purchase a pickaxe. This is going to jump your damage up, and it'll really show.

SECOND BACK
Tiamat

At your second back, get your Tiamat. This is going to give you some regen, as well as boost your damage and wave clear. It also gives you a huge boost in fights, and a damage spike when you're doing combos.

THIRD BACK
Ninja Tabi + Alacrity OR Mercurys treads + Alacrity

CHOOSE ONE! AND MAKE SURE YOU PUT ALACRITY ON IT AS SOON AS YOU CAN! Boots are incredibly important on Darius. The extra movement speed from tier 2 boots, as well as alacrity allows you to outrun ganks if they happen early, and position better for landing Qs, and Es.


FOURTH BACK
PHAGE

ITS PHAGE TIME! With Tiamat bought, you have some damage, with boots, you have some run speed. This gives you some more of both of those, with health to boot. This is the absolute battle stat item.


FIF
SHEEN

Sheen IS AMAZING on ANY character that has an auto attack reset. Lucky for us, Darius' W is an auto attack reset. And you'll notice after purchasing sheen, that everytime you hit something with a W, it screams out in pain. This also helps you demolish turrets.

FINISH YOUR TRINITY!
Trinity force!

Expecting a picture of Zeal? Nah bro. Just finish your trinity force, it costs an extra 78 gold after buying zeal. This will give you some crit rating, as well as spike up your movement speed some more. It's a fantastic item for Darius.


DARIUS NEEDS SOME REGEN
Ravenous Hydra

With your boots and Trinity finished, it's time to turn your tiamat into a ravenous hydra. This is going to be your final damage spike from items. It's also going to give you the ability to duel champions with regen, such as Warwick


WHAT NEXT?
Upgrade your vision ward!

YOU GOTTA SEE THE WHOLE COURT, SON. Vision is one of the most important things in this game. If you haven't done so already, upgrade your trinket. It only costs 250 gold. It's also worth noting that after you've finished your Ravenous Hydra, you can sell your Crystalline flask, which pretty much PAYS for you to upgrade your trinket. DO IT.


ALL THIS DAMAGE AND VISION, WHAT NOW?
Randuins Omen!

It's time to build some tank items. At this point, you're in dire need of health and armor. Randuins satisfies both of those like a cold beer on a hot summer day. Its active also creates an AOE slow that turns all enemies near Darius into frightened sloths. Which is amazing for chasing carries down.

ARE WE TANKY ENOUGH YET?
Banshees Veil

NOT AT ALL, MAN. Casters are still a nasty problem, and all your armor and health doesn't mean much to them. You need a banshees for when you cross paths with a nasty caster that has snares or slows. Absorbing a 25.png snare can be the difference between life or death! Or catching your prey at least.

ONLY ONE ITEM LEFT, WHAT DO?
Guardians Angel

WHAT DO? You DO a guardians angel. This is going to spike up your armor and magic resist a little more, as well as give you a resurrection if you die. This can come in handy for two reasons; People don't want to make you their target if you have a GA. AND if they do, your team is putting out damage, which means when you get back up, there should be some ripe tomatoes ready to get dunked.



SITUATIONALS!
Black Cleaver

Black cleaver is a lesser version of Trinity force. It's cheaper, and you clearly get what you pay for. You lose the ability to murder turrets, and your overall damage goes down slightly. You also lose some passive runspeed. The main reason to get this instead of trinity force, is if you're up against an extremely tanky team. Other than that, this item is far outclassed by trinity force.

MORE SITUATIONALS
Maw of Malmortius

Sometimes during laning you get a nasty AP character top that's just beating the daylights out of you. Building an early hexdrinker is sometimes the answer. And when you do so, maw is the finalized version of that item. I advise getting this if the opposing team is really AP heavy. This item takes the place of your late game guardian angel, it's just built way sooner.

ONE MORE SET OF SITUATIONALS:
Sunfire Cape
Thornmail

These items are great if you're up against a full AD team. Pair a sunfire and a thornmail up with your Randuins instead of getting Banshees and Guardian Angel, and you're suddenly a tank god against puny all AD teams. Outside of when you're against full AD teams though, neither of these are worth buying.

Keep in mind that this is a standard itemization path. Against some champions, your initial buy may change, and the order in which you build items is changed. These will be specifically listed in the matchup videos that are coming over the next couple of months.

EARLY GAME / LANING PHASE (Levels 1-9)

WARDING IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT EARLY GAME. I advise putting a ward in your bush at any point where you're pushing, or at level 3-4 when a jungler would be ready to gank.

At level 1, your main goal is to harass your lane opponent with max range Qs. At any point that they last hit a minion, you should be able to get in range to Q them.

At level 2, with a point in apprehend, you don't want to pull them, keep landing Qs to make them go through their pots.

At level 3, with a second point in Q, focus again, on just landing max range Qs, they really start to hurt at this level.

At level 4, Darius' gameplan changes a little bit. If the opposing laner has 50-60% health, when you land a Q, follow it up with a combo; like this:

Max range Q > E (Apprehend) > Auto Attack > W (Crippling strike) > Auto Attack > Max range Q

Sometimes this will end up killing your target, but the majority of the time they'll be spamming all of their pots in order to maintain their lane so they can continue to farm.

At level 5, your gameplan is the same as level 4.

At level 6, it changes in Darius' favor. If the opponent is at 60-75% health, and you can hit them with a Q, follow it up with the same combo, but add your ult at the end:


Max range Q > E (Apprehend) > Auto Attack > W (crippling strike cancel) > Auto attack > Max range Q > R (Noxian Guillotine)

This will likely kill your lane opponent, and if it doesn't they're almost 100% guaranteed to back.

The other option at 6, if you really want to secure the kill, is to do the same combo again, but don't use your ult. Instead, do this:

Max range Q > E (Apprehend) > Auto Attack > W (crippling strike cancel) > Auto attack > Max range Q > Wait 3 seconds (Bleed will be ticking) > Flash into range for a Max range Q > R (Noxian Guillotine)

This combo gives you all the benefit of your max damage ult, your full combo, as well as damage from an EXTRA Q, and 3 seconds of bleeding before the ult hits, AND it gives an extra 5 second bleed AFTER that!I can't even begin to tell you how many times my lane opponents *thought* i let them get away, just to flash > Q > Dunk them back to spawn.


At level 7, 8, and 9, Darius gameplay stays the same. Harass with Q until they're low enough to combo with R. The only difference is that you should really be looking to put down the top lane turret around now, as the gold spike helps your entire team, and you're about ready to start roaming come level 9-10.

MID GAME (LEVELS 10-15ish)

Around level 10, you should be done your laning phase, and if not, be very close to it ending.

At this point in the game, your damage is first class, but you are not tanky. Your best bet is to help mid lane get their turret down, or help bot lane get their turret down and help gank both of those lanes. You also have the option to go into the enemy teams jungle and search and destroy them, however this is risky, and you really need flash in order to do it safely.

During this time, help secure dragons, if a team fight comes up, remember that you're a brawler, you aren't a tank yet. DO NOT be front line if the enemy has carries that are fed. They WILL crush you.

If you're way ahead, and the enemy team is overall losing, you can be front line and look for some max range Es on squishies or non engage type tanks, but it's still a risky play, at this point you have a ton of damage, and not much of anything else.

I strongly advise sitting behind your tank, but in front of your carries. This way if they get a good engage, you can follow it up, and if someone gets on your carries such as a 254.png59.png35.png, you can E them off and dunk them without the entire enemy team focusing you.

ENDGAME (LEVELS 16-18)

This is the part of the game where your decisions will either make you shine, or burnout.

Darius is TANKY at this point, and still has obnoxious damage. He has a decent peel, and an offensive hook if he chooses to use it either of those ways. He also does massive damage to turrets and has a great 1v1 duel potential. This gives Darius ALOT of options for teamfights:

Option #1: The IM AHEAD option

If you're WAY AHEAD of the rest of your team on gold, you're playing front man. Which means that while you aren't hard engaging, if a tank on your team does engage, you should be going deep, and looking to dunk the opposing carries off the face of the earth. It also means that you're looking for max range Es, on ANYONE. Darius is a major threat to tanks because of his passive armor ignore from E, as well as true damage from his ult. When you're ahead of the curve, being in front is your best bet. Enemy teams don't want to really dive passed you when all you have to do is turn around and dunk whoever dove.


Option #2:The IM EVEN and so are our teams option:

If lanings went pretty even, or it's a low kill game in general for both sides, being front man can get you snared or stunned and killed pretty easily, even though you're tanky, you can't take constant poke from carries that are on equal footing and expect to really do well. This is when you want to hang back, inbetween your tanks and your carries in formation. This way, if someone dives your carry, you can E them off and dunk them, but if your team and tanks engage, you can go on the offensive, and getting into the fray second isn't a bad thing for Darius, as his cleanup potential is insane.


Option #3: The IM BEHIND, but my team did ok option:

If you didn't do well during laning, or got camped, this is the choice you should be making. Sit back, next to your carries. If someone dives them, peel for the carry and kill whoever dove. Don't go deep in a team fight, if the enemy team engages or your tank engages, slaughter their front line and try to cleanup whatever you can. You'll do more good in the back saving your carries life if your behind then being front line and dying without accomplishing anything. This also gives you the opportunity to dunk your way back into the game. If you sat back with your carries, and the enemy team gets low from the engage, by the time they realize you're in the middle of them, their health bars are all at 40%, and a Q > W > R can end a carries life.


Option #4:The split push option:

This option isn't horrible for Darius. You're pretty tanky, and have quite a bit of duel potential under your belt. If one or two champions come to stop you, you should be able to fight your way out of it or at least do enough damage to kill one and escape. You also do massive damage to turrets with your W + Trinity. The most important thing when split pushing is to make sure that you either have vision on the majority of the opposing team, or you have flash and teleport up, while your team is pushing another lane. If everyone's missing, and your team isn't pushing another lane, there's a pretty high chance that you've acquired aggro, and are about to come face to face with a 1v5 that you can't win. Map awareness during split pushing is key, and if your team is just farming the jungle or not really pushing, it doesn't tend to work out. Split pushing is SPLIT pushing, another lane has to be getting worked on as well.


That about sums it up for this guide! Stay tuned for video matchups and in depth guides for laning!

WOW! HUGE DARIUS UPDATE COMING!:

Notes

Some of Darius' early lane power has been shifted more towards the mid and late game
We expect Darius to build much more tanky items than he has previously done with the help of Bloodrage
In order to accommodate for the strength and importance of Bloodrage, a lot of Darius' base damage numbers needed to be reduced

Changelist

General

Attack Range increased to 175 from 125
Attack Damage per level increased to 5 from 3.5
Health per level increased to 100 from 93
Armor per level increased to 4 from 3.5
Base Attack Speed reduced to 0.625 from 0.679
Attack Speed per level reduced to 1% from 4%

Hemorrhage (P)

Darius now enters Bloodrage for 5 seconds whenever an enemy champion reaches max Hemorrhage or dies to Noxian Guillotine. During Bloodrage, Darius gains 40-200 bonus Attack Damage and applies max Hemorrhage to enemies hit.
Bleed now deals physical damage instead of magic
Bleed damage reduced to 10-27 from 12-36
No longer grants Movement Speed per enemy champion bleeding

Decimate (Q)

Now has a 0.75 second delay before swinging
Darius now heals for 10% of his missing Health for each enemy champion hit by the blade (max: 30%)
Blade damage (outer circle) changed to 20/40/60/80/100 (+1.0/1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4 total Attack Damage) from 105/157.5/210/262.5/315 (+1.05 bonus Attack Damage)
Handle damage (inner circle) reduced to 50% from 66%
Enemies hit by the handle no longer receive a stack of Hemorrhage
Mana cost reduced to 30 from 40

Crippling Strike (W)

Damage adjusted to 140% total Attack Damage from 120/140/160/180/200%
Slow amount increased to 90% at all ranks from 20/25/30/35/40%
Slow duration reduced to 1 second from 2 seconds
No longer slows Attack Speed
Cooldown changed to 9/8/7/6/5 seconds from 8
No longer reduces base cooldown per Hemorrhage stack on the target
Mana cost reduced to 30 from 30/35/40/45/50

Apprehend (E)

Fixed a bug where enemies would be pulled in if they escaped the area during the cast time
Cast time reduced to 0.25 seconds from 0.32
Now slows enemies grabbed by 90% for 1 second after landing

Noxian Guillotine (R)

Damage reduced to 100/200/300 from 160/250/340
No longer refunds Mana on re-casts, instead all re-casts cost no Mana
At rank 3, Noxian Guillotine no longer has a Mana cost
Upon executing an enemy champion, all nearby lesser creatures (non-champions) become terrified for a few seconds



These are all PBE based for right now, as soon as they hit live this will be updated.

THE FIRST OF THE VIDEO MATCHUP SERIES FOR DARIUS IS HERE!

This series is on hold for Darius at the moment due to his coming buffs!


DARIUS VS GNAR, THE VIDEO GUIDE: Play Video