I've been a Darius main for around 5 seasons and he's the champion that helped me climb to Diamond. He is a good champion to pick up for those hoping to climb through lower elos.


https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=counterblad3


https://gyazo.com/5fe7df3c0c5bc53c3586ded79c25d9de <- League of Graphs

Pros:
- Easy to pick up
- Extremely aggressive lane bully
- Snowballs hard
- Strong Early game
- 1v2 potential when ganked
- Has actual impact as a top laner
- Provides a lot of pressure when splitting
- When fighting for scuttle crub 2v2 between laner + jungler, Darius is typically much stronger

Cons:
- Literally 1 gap closer with E
- The only way to reach enemies is Ghost + Nimbus cloak
- If shut down early, Darius is extremely hard to come back with
- Isn't a true front line like most people think
- Falls off late game
- If you don't get passive in the fight, it's extremely hard for you to do anything in team fights

Everything about the items is also included in the notes

Starting Items:

If you are against a melee match up with little to no poke, always opt for Doran's Blade as it provides extra sustain and damage

Otherwise against ranged tops such as Gnar or adc tops like Lucian, opt for Doran's Shield instead

I almost always swap for farsight alteration when I hit level 9 as it provides "permanent" vision and helps with knowing where the enemy jungler is as well as getting vision for objectives like dragon

First Item:

Trinity Force: If you are ahead in lane, always go for Triforce as it gives you stats incomparable to cleaver

Black Cleaver: If you are behind or the enemy has 2 or more tanks, Black cleaver is a much safer item to rush than Triforce

Boots:

Mercury Treads: Build if enemy has a lot of CC and is viable even if your laner isn't an AP champion (ex. Kennen)

Ninja Tabis: Build if enemy is mostly attack damage champions that focus on auto attacks such (ex. Jax)

Power Spike:

Steraks Gage: People usually think triforce and cleaver is when Darius get's strong, but imo steraks gives you insane attack damage as well as survivability allowing you to get passive up much safer

Other Items:

Deadmans Plate: If you need mobility as well as armor
Deaths Dance: If you are finding yourself getting bursted by the enemy
Spirit Visage: If the enemy has heavy AP damage and it also provides extra sustain
Guardian Angel: If your team needs someone to engage this provides you with an "extra life"
Thornmail: Against heavy healing champions opt to buy an early bramble vest and finish thornmail last
Randuins: Against heavy ad champions as well as a "crit adc" (ex. Jinx)
Righteous Glory: Only buy if cannot reach the enemy, otherwise it's sub-optimal
Gargoyle Stoneplate: A really solid buy if your team desperately needs someone to frontline

Meta Slave Build:

This prioritizes the damage from your auto attacks and passive synergy with the botrk and cleaver

Darius only has a few mechanics that you need to know of.

Auto Cancelling: This is quite simple, all you have to do is right after your auto-attack animation starts, immediately press w to cancel the animation. This should almost always be done when trading as it gives you increased DPS

W animation cancel: This is similar to auto cancelling, except this time you press w , and then immediately cast q to cancel the w attack animation. Chain this together with an auto cancel and you have 3 stacks of bleed in 1 second.

R reset: Self-explanatory, when you execute someone with R, it's cooldown will reset for a period of time and at rank 3, the cooldown is completely refreshed. There is also a mechanic where even if you don't get the kill, as long as you cast R within .25 seconds of the kill; your ultimate will still reset.

Your typical trade in lane vs a melee champ is

AA > W auto cancel > Q animation cancel > AA > AA > E to prevent them from running > R

If you need to gapclose a ranged champ or someone with a dash

E > AA > W auto cancel > Q animation cancel > AA > R/AA if the champ would die to bleed immedietely cast r instead of AA and then R

In teamfights the order of abilities matter the least, as long as you have a target you can either stack passive or that you know you can kill with ulti to get a reset

Thanks for taking a look at my quick Darius guide, make sure to leave a comment if you want something to be added or if you have a question.