Darius LoL Build Guide: How to Play Darius in League of Legends

Spinning, swinging and slashing. Darius has become a staple pick in plenty of League of Legends matches regardless of patch and meta. The Noxian Guillotine is a Darius LoL player’s favorite, with flashy plays worthy of a compilation. To put it in simple words, Darius in LoL is simply an Alpha. The ultimate lane bully with his lore explicitly stating of his “refusal to ever take a backward step”.

Darius is designed to always take fights given his highly lane dominant kit which can outduel almost everyone. It’s an amazing pick if you decide to main him, or even when you get auto filled to top. Here’s our simple guide on how to play Darius in League of Legends Season 11.

Get Dunked

Darius Item Builds – Core items

You can take several different build paths to Darius depending on your lane opponent. In both scenarios, your goal is to have your opponent drop down to low health to get executed. If facing a lane that can kite you out easily or poke you out, going the tank route is preferable. Alternatively, if you can bully your opponent you should go all in on the aggression.

Early game

• Dorans Blade / Dorans Shield – A Doran’s start is best as it gives Darius even better early laning strength. This will allow Darius to better pressure scaling champions in the early game, and increase your chances of 1 v 2’ing during ganks. The Blade start is better for tanky match ups as it gives better sustain when you have established lane control, and most importantly, the best all in potential. Going the shield round is better when against ranged champions, or ones that can constantly spam ability harass, Eg. Teemo or Gankplank. The shield in combination with Decimate’s heal will enable Darius to sustain champion poke until they run out of mana.
• Kindlegem / Phage – Depending on your lane and build path you chose (read below), two items are likely going to be the target on your first back.

Mid game

• Hull Breaker – Hull Breaker is the best bruiser item on Darius due to his aggressive playstyle. It allows Darius to have complete lane control along with a very strong chance to 1 v 2 when junglers come to gank.
• Ninja Tabi or Mercury Treads – A choice between Ninja Tabi or Mercury Treads is situational, however, defensive boots are highly advisable as Darius already has strong base damage. Defensive boots will allow Darius to sustain longer, and get a better chance to use Decimate’s heal multiple times. Boots is one of the priority early to mid-game items due to Darius’s immobility.

Late game

• Spirit Visage – Spirit Visage synergizes extremely well with Darius as it allows him to heal more with Decimate. The item’s health and magic resistance also allows Darius to live longer in fights to get full utility out of his passive and ultimate.
• Randuin’s Omen – Aside from the large health and armor stats Randuins gives which gives better sustain, its passive is extremely helpful. The Randuins passive allows Darius to slow multiple enemies, enabling him to chase them given his lack of mobility. If used early, Darius can also use the slow to make it easier to hit champions with the outer edge of Decimate.

Darius Mythical item

• Divine Sunderer – Divine Sunderer is best option to maximize Darius’s damage. This item is for players with an extremely aggressive playstyle. It should be built in situations Darius is already ahead in the landing phase, as it is on the cheaper side, and allows Darius to get his Mythical item earlier to 1 v 2 enemies.
• Sunfire Cape – Sunfire cape is always a go to Mythical items for players going the tank route. However, while this item is strong, it should only be built when Darius is behind as it does not give Darius the lane dominance he usually holds.
• Trinity Force – Trinity Force while a riskier item to build due to its high cost, is the strongest mythical item for Darius in the late game phase. Trinity Force should only be built at the start if already significantly ahead due to its risky nature as Darius needs established tank items in order to sustain him.

Source: OP.GG

Tips & tricks

Darius is a fairly easy champion to play given his simple kit. However, there are a few tips and trick you should try out to properly learn how to play Darius in League of Legends and climb your way to the top. These tips will not only take down your lane opponent one on one, but give you a better chance to fight multiple enemies during ganks.

• Constantly trade with Decimate (Q) – Successfully using Decimate on the outer edge almost always leads to a successful trade. This is because the ability not only deals bonus damage, but also heals Darius. Going in for trades will generally lead to Darius on top, or enemies being forced back, losing exp and CS (minion kills / creep score) as a result.
• Auto cancel with Crippling Strike (W) – Crippling strike can cancel your last auto attack’s animation. To maximize your damage, you should always use an auto attack and use W straight away after the damage has been applied.
• Apprehend (E) enemies then use Decimate (Q) immediately – Hitting Decimate on the outer blade gives an enormous advantage over its inner handle. Using this combination will pull enemies in, shortly making them airborne for one second, and effectively guarantee enemies will be hit on the outer edge.
• Use Noxian Guillotine (R) at max stacks – Every stack of Hemorrhage (Passive) applied on enemies, up to 5 stacks, will increase Noxian Guillotine’s damage by 20%. Considering Darius’s ultimate is true damage, maximizing your stacks before ultimately is extremely significant. Using Noxian Guillotine at max stacks in the laning phase is also a very viable option even if you are unable to kill the enemy.

Darius LoL Counters

There is plenty of theoretical counters to Darius, as he relies heavily on getting into your personal space to dunk on you. If you can effectively kite out your opponent anything can be a viable counter. However, three champions stand out in their ability to dominate Darius from the get go.

1. Quinn – Able to constantly kite darius
2. Kennen – Ranged champions that can spam abilities and is hard to catch
3. Vladimir – Is able to harass and out sustain Darius

Darius favorable matchups

As Darius is a champion where you are expected to be heavily clearing waves and shoving in, enemies that cant clear waves effectively early or heave to get close to Darius to do so are in danger. These three top lane picks easily get countered by Darius in 98% of matches.

1. Yassuo – Able to out damage and sustain
2. Sion – Able to cancel Sion Q and put duel him due to passive
3. Malphite – Can kill Malphite despite armor built due to passive and true damage.

Final tip

Simply ward up and constantly apply pressure, when facing ganks, do not be afraid in fighting 1 v 2. If your laner is extremely passive, shove in the wave and roam towards the enemy jungle or mid depending on map awareness.

During early to mid game phase Darius is at his peak. Fight fight fight, that’s the true answer to how to play Darius in League of Legends.

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