ABOUT ME

On League I go by Federals1, and since 2018 I have hit challenger with at least 900 lp every single season.



I have also hit Challenger on EUW



I was also the number 1 Darius in the world in season 9.



Over the years have gotten top 10/5 on Volibear, Dr. Mundo, Sett, Garen, Malphite, Olaf, Aatrox and Mordekaiser. Most of the time I will play on my main account, so you can check out what I do there.

I will be livestreaming almost every single day for at least 8-10 hours (unless something comes up and I need to leave) at https://www.twitch.tv/federals123 , so if you want to check it out and see how it's going be sure to tune in! I will be answering any questions and trying to give my thought process while playing, giving general tips and such. I hope if you end up checking it you will enjoy your time.

I am going to start streaming at around 11 AM CEST and ending the stream at 7-9 PM CEST. There will be times when I will start/end the stream sooner/later but this is the general schedule you can expect.

FUTURE GUIDES

I will be making more guides in the future, some already being in the works. My goal is to make a guide for every single champion I am extremely confident with, and ones I've been playing for a very long time where I have unique insights to share.
I am currently working on multiple guides but I cannot give an exact date when they will be out. I will post them gradually as I finish them, so if you want to see when they are out for a new champion you can follow and be up to date. To make sure they are done quicker not all of them will them will have a matchup spreadsheet at the start, that alone takes me a week by itself, it's massive.

While you wait in the loading screen, or even before minions spawn, go on an external website and check what runes your opponent has. I use op. gg or u. gg, but any website that show runes in full works. You will be able to see exactly what your opponent's runes are, and it can play a big part in your very first trade and knowing exactly how you might want to play out the first few waves. Here's an example: you see the enemy has Resolve secondary. It's extremely important to see what he has in Resolve. You can check and let's say they have Bone Plating and Overgrowth. Now you know you should play out your first trade a bit differently, trying to proc down Bone Plating first, or knowing that if you go for a trade he has that extra block power. This is something you should look to do every single game to gain an advantage.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1f_9snkmaBSLGNe8YvcmUc02-_5DaPmcDUlHMBj6LiS0/edit?usp=sharing

Here you will find every single champion matchup in the entire game and the way I tend to play them most often.

This section is specifically made for someone else I know who is a Darius main and who is playing in Masters+. I have put his social links here in case you wanna follow him:

MariusSmecherul

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mariussmecherul
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MariusSmecherul

First Part xEarly Game xMid Game xLate Game Second Part xSummoner Spell Breakdown xAbility Tips and Tricks xCombos

Third Part xAll final items explained xAll Possible Runes xConqueror VS Phase Rush Final Part xExplaining my Unique Setup xPros xCons

Early on Darius is a pretty massive lane bully in a lot of melee matchups. He usually wins out a lot of 1v1s because of his passive that gives him a lot of AD when stacked, on top of the massive bleed damage. Ghost also helps you a ton to keep up with enemies and chase them down for a kill, it's why if Darius freezes on his side of the map it can be extremely hard to break it alone, as you can be under threat of just getting ran down by him if he pops Ghost.

That being said, he's not impossible to fight. There are a lot of champions in the early game that, though they might not be able to outright fight him from full health, have the tools to get him low enough to where they can burst him down before he can stack up and become strong. Riven has a ton of ways to do slow chip damage and then go for a full all in when he is low enough. He also struggles to his his q consistently against champions with dashes, such as Wukong, Jax, Riven, etc., and then there's the champions that can anihilate in melee range if he isn't careful, such as Olaf once he gets his ultimate , or Illaoi that can do the same with her ult

DO NOT START MOST FIGHTS WITH YOUR PULL!

This applies at all stages of the game, but it's most important during the mid game. A lot of your matchups can be beaten because you can use your pull to turn the tides in the middle of a fight. If you start with your Apprehend in a matchup like Sett, you cannot kite out of his E range and you could possibly die just from that. Your E is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT IN THE EARLY GAME so understanding that you need to hold off from using it into certain champions can mean the difference between hard winning a lane, or getting absolutely obliterated.
Depending on what your enemy top laner is the enemy jungler will just straight up ignore you, as there are a lot of lanes where you can just 2v1 them if he tries to gank you. That being said, there are a lot of top+jungle combos that can explode you within their combo rotation and make it impossible for you to outplay it, so don't get cocky.

If you are playing into a ranged matchup, you are going to suffer, big time. Darius struggles most against ranged opponents and you need to play around your Ghost timing as well as using brushes to at least stay in experience range. One way you can make sure you are safe in brushes is by starting Oracle Lens, making it impossible for them use their Stealth Ward in a brush for vision as you can kill it that way. You can't ward up either, but you don't care about that in a ranged matchup.

You can also look to get priority for Voidgrubs and get them early with your jungler. Another thing you can do is heal up on jungle camps when you are low. Darius Q heals him when he hits the outer edge on large jungle monsters, so if Gromp , Krugs or Voidgrubs are up, you can walk to one of those camps, ideally the closest one to you, and get some extra healing.

This is going to be your strongest point in the entire game. Your biggest spike in terms of power will be between levels 11 and 13. At level 11 you get your rank 2 ultimate and the damage spikes up heavily, and at level 13 you get your Apprehend fully maxed, meaning your armor penetration is at the maximum value. Your dueling power is massive at this point, and depending on how the lane went, you can force out 2 or 3 people to have to permanently deal with you on side lane, or go to teamfight and run through the enemy comp. If you get that one reset you can probably go off and kill everyone. That being said, there are still a few things to keep in mind when playing the mid game:

Darius is horrible in teamfights without his summoner spells up. If you want to go into a teamfight, unless the enemy comp has 3 melee champions with no mobility, and little cc, you're probably going to get kited into oblivion. If you are fighting just Hwei and you have no Flash and no Ghost, you're basically just a much tankier minion that eats damage for your team, as you're probably not gonna get to anyone, like ever. Darius has to play around his summoner spell cooldowns , to the point that even if you see someone overextending on side lane you might not want to burn a single summoner spell for them unless they have a massive bounty, as it can mean it won't be up for a big fight later on, like a Dragon fight or a Baron contest.
If your summoner spells are down it's actually better to go on side lane and pressure them up, forcing the enemies to come to you and diverting attention until they are up.

Another thing to remember is that Darius does not want to be the main engager. Obviously you can start fights with your Flash+E combo, but most of the time you'd rather not. You are actually a great follow up champion, letting your Rammus, Zac, Nautilus, etc. start the fight first, lock down someone, and THEN you want to go in. Being the first one to go in means you risk losing a ton of health before you even get to your second or third passive stack , and that can be very bad. You can also wait out a bit out of vision, waiting for the opponents to burn a crucial lockdown/escape tool and then looking for a pick angle, if you really need to be the first one to engage.

Keep in mind that you don't need to kill the first person you attack, if you can just get 5 stacks off of that person and then jump onto the squishies you're good to go, like getting 5 stacks on an Alistar who is in the frontline tanking, and then ignoring him after to go into the backline.

It's not as horrible as you'd think, but it's not amazing either. With Darius teamfights usually go one of 2 ways: you either instantly get burst down, or you wipe them out with a single reset. Your rank 3 ultimate is extremely high, but the issue is that at this point in the game there's a lot of things that can deny you the reset, such as getting hyper cc locked down or last second shielding/healing.

Going on side lane can actually be very risky as you can get collapsed on and die. At this point there's also a lot of champions who you would bully in lane but that can actually just match you on side lane. One of the best examples here would have to be Sion. You can beat him out in lane really hard, but if you get to 5/6 items, unless you have Blade of the Ruined King it will take you up to a literal minute of constantly hitting him to actually get him down. He won't be able to win the 1v1, but you're gonna sit there and hit him for a solid 25 seconds and he would barely lose half his health, which is just not worth it for you, and if you don't constantly go in front of him he can just ult away, wasting that entire time for you. Having no Teleport also hurts a lot here, as if the enemy does they can match you on side lane then appear at a teamfight long before you.

This is the time when Darius has to have his summoner spells up to fight, it's no longer ever an option. You absolutely need them to get access to the high priority targets and squishy champions quickly, or else you will find it really hard to do anything meaningful in fights.
Death's Dance is also quite important during this time to have in a lot of situations, same goes for Sterak's . Because burst is so insanely high and the game can be ended by a single teamfight it is important to be able to ensure you have the highest chance of getting your reset before you explode, and those two are very good at delaying your death. Kaenic Rookern is also extremely valuable at this point if the enemy has a ton of magic damage as the shield becomes massive.

You mostly try to do what you do in the mid game, looking for someone else to engage for you and then following up. It's also at this point where if you are fighting champions that can hyper teamfight and outvalue you, like Kennen or Ornn it could be best to sit on side lane and force them to match you, the only issue is that usually they run Teleport and can just clear waves until they are needed and can almost instantly join up a fight.

In my opinion, you absolutely need your summoner spells up in the mid to late game as Darius. Any fight past 16/17 minutes you will most likely need at least one out of your 2 summoner spells, that being either Flash, or Ghost, and if you end up taking Ignite then you must get kills in lane or get a massive advantage, or because your teamfights will always suffer. I will break down each of these summoner spells and their purpose so you can get a better understand of exactly why they are so important:

Flash: Darius has absolutely zero mobility. He gets kited extremely easily, which is why most builds have some sort of extra speed items for him, such as Dead Man's Plate or Force of Nature, and even Boots of Swiftness for the extra speed and slow resist. The only reliable way he could get close to other champs if he had insane speed, from something like Zilean speedup or a way to close the gap quickly with a dash or blink, and here is where Flash comes in.
This is the way for him to ensure that he can get on top of someone fast and that he can actually deal damage and be able to become a threat in teamfights. The champ doesn't have the highest range ability wise, so he literally has to walk towards you. Almost every other bruiser has some type of speedup or way to close the gap quickly. Garen has his Q to cleanse slows and speed up, Olaf becomes fully immune to cc in his ult , Sett has his ult , even Trundle has his Frozen Domain , and so on. You are almost always forced to have your Flash up to reliably close the gap. This is why I think taking Cosmic Insight is so good, as it will allow you to have it up sooner so you can possibly look for more plays.


Ghost: Much like Flash this summoner spell will allow you to get to your targets quicker, but it's also a very good summoner spell for lane kill pressure. The reason Darius is actually really hard to deal with if he freezes on his side of the map, is because he can pop his Ghost and kill you before you get to your turret. There are a lot of matchups where Ghost is used to chase down people on lane, or to kite out certain abilities. For example, you can use your Ghost to get out of Garen's spin , avoiding a lot of damage and making sure he cannot get you into lethal range. Another example would be to force Riven to use more of her dashes, either from her Q or her E if she wants to chase you down hard, after which you can use the extra speed to turn on her.

Ignite: If you take this then you have to get a very good lead, because if not you will go into the mid and late game being much weaker without Ghost. Your passive combined with it will actually bleed out people insanely hard, but you need to take fights and force plays, because if not missing the speed of Ghost makes it so that you are forced to always have Flash up for teamfights, as opposed to having either Ghost or Flash.

HEMORRHAGE (P)

You don't always need to have your passive in fights to win them, but it gives you a massive advantage if you get it. The AD means almost no champion should be able to 1v1. There are a few exceptions, like how Illaoi can still beat you in melee range really hard if she hits you with her E and then uses her ultimate , but overall if you aren't too low when you finally get your passive you shouldn't lose out the 1v1. There's nothing really flashy to mention here about his passive, what you see is what you get.

DECIMATE (Q)

This is your main ability when it comes to trading in lane. It gives you very good damage and it is your primary source of waveclear. It is very important you hit the outer edge of the ability, the issue is there are a ton of champions who have multiple dashes and can make it to where it's basically never possible to hit your Q. Champions like Riven, Vayne, Wukong, etc. make it only possible to hit your Q if you use your E first, and that's not even supposed to be the case, it's actually a bug.

The best way to make sure you hit your ability on these type of champions is to wait until they burn the dashes and then use it. Sometimes it's easier said than done, like with Riven, so you can use your Q to burn one dash before fighting. For example, if Jax can jump in to your melee range to dodge your Q , but he is low enough to where you kill him with the rest of your combo, it doesn't really matter. You use your Q to force out his escape tool. If he doesn't jump on you and jumps away to a minion, that's still fine as you burn his escape tool, so you can have a window where you can straight up dive him.

Another way to hit your Q vs them it to use Q + Flash to reposition yourself and ensure the hit, but the enemy can also predict this and use their Flash. This is a mindgame for both sides. If your Q + Flash would kill your opponent but you know their Flash is up, make it seem like you are going to 100% commit and use your Flash, but just hold it. Most of the time the enemy will Flash away trying to predict your Flash. So you can keep yours but they need to use theirs. This is usually only a high elo trick, because in lower ranks people don't actively think about it.

CRIPPLING STRIKE (W)

It acts as an auto attack reset and it fully refunds the Mana cost as well as half the Cooldown when it kills a unit. This is the main way I stack up my Spear of Shojin on Darius when I take it sometimes. It is also an uncancellable auto attack so even if something like Riven Q3 knocks you back slightly it will not stop, it will go through the cc. It also gives Darius a bit of extra range , which can be really good if you are just out of auto attack range of an enemy, and it setups up his Q hit nicely if the enemy has no dash to quickly escape.

APPREHEND (E)

In my opinion this is the Darius' best ability and the one that he needs most in his entire kit. It's what allows him to play ranged matchups at all, or to get most lane priority and dominance. There are so many matchups where if you use your E incorrectly you just straight up get anihilated. It's also his only real utility tool, so if you fall behind you can at least still offer something. You can use Flash+E to possibly get a pick, or catch a high priority target. It also cancels certain dashes if timed properly, like Riven Q3 or Tristana jump .

His E also allows him to almost always hit his Q right after. Sometimes your E+Q will be faster/slower and that is bugged. E+Q is actually meant to give the opponents room to use a dash or Flash out of it, so whenever you get off an undodgable quick E+Q it's actually a bug.

NOXIAN GUILLOTINE (R)

This is the spell that allows Darius to carry games extremely well. The damage on this is massive, and if you combine it with the fact that if he kills an enemy it resets and allows him to use it again, you can quickly see why this can swing a teamfight by itself. Giving Darius the initial reset in a fight is very important, because you do not want to go into an extended fight where it takes up a long time for him to get to his 5 stacks and to not get any reset.

When using your ultimate to execute someone always keep in mind the stacks you have on them as well as if they have certain items that you need to take into account, like Sterak's Gage with it's massive shield, or even champion spells that can heal/ shield at the last possible moment, like a well timed Mordekaiser W , or instant Lulu ultimate , etc. There's a bunch of scenarios like this, but as you play more Darius and get a rough feeling for how much his ult does at what points you will start to ult mostly off of muscle memory when you see certain champs on a certain amount of Health, even taking into account the items/ champs that can deny the reset.

LANE TRADING COMBOS:

+ +




+



These are the very basic combos you can do on Darius to trade in lane. For these combos most of the time you can squeeze in an extra auto attack when doing them and they can look something like this:


+ +




+ + +

OTHER COMBOS:

+



Pretty situational ability combo, but it does have it's uses. One example is if you are in the range of an ability that would kill you and you can Flash over it to dodge it out. This is especially good if you are low health and you need to dodge that specific ability to survive.


+



In lane this can happen a lot where both players Flash at the same time to outplay eachother. For this one in particular I said a lot more on the ability tips and tricks section for the Q .


+ + + + +



This one is the combo that gives you the highest damage output in the shortest amount of time from one combo rotation. However it will not give you the highest possible damage as you are going to use your ultimate at 4 stacks, not 5.
If you actually have Titanic Hydra then you can add it into the combo and it will do the highest damage possible and in the shortest amount of time and it will look something like this:


+ + + + + +

Stridebreaker: The most bought item on Darius and the most consistent one. The slow is amazing for allowing you to catch up to people, as well as allowing you to line up much easier Q hits. It is amazing to get in both melee and ranged matchups, and it can provide an extra hit to activate Phase Rush if you run that keystone.

Trinity Force: Good item for Darius. It gives you a lot of push power and the ability to melt turrets insanely fast if you rotate your Sheen procs. On top of that, Darius has one of the highest best AD numbers in the game so the Sheen effect is even better for him.

Sterak's Gage: Very good option if you want to not get burst down. The shield is very good for Darius, and he gets a lot of AD from it as well because he has one of the highest base AD numbers.

Dead Man's Plate: Usually this item is built second after Stridebreaker. The slow resist combined with the extra speed the item gives is really good for Darius as getting kited is his biggest issue by far, so this helps out a lot.

Force of Nature: Very good item if you need even more speed. Kaenic Rookern is the an insane magic resist item, but if you need speed and the magic resist this isn't bad at all.

Death's Dance: Usually this is either your dead last item or just before that, you don't really ever take it any sooner than that. The bleed effect is very good in the late game as it can allow you to tank up a lot more, and if you get a single takedown in a fight the heal feels really good. It is worth noting that the item does not put true damage into bleed at all, so if Sett gets the middle of his W on you it won't do 30% in bleed damage.

Spear of Shojin: You need to get used to this specific playstyle when you get this item. You will feel the loss of the Stridebreaker slow or even the speed Trinity Force gives when you auto attack someone, but man is it fun to get multiple combo rotations off. You can actually get 2, possibly even 3 Apprehends off in a fight, not to mention in the early game you can get off multiple Q rotations, which is basically never possible anymore.

Sundered Sky: Decent item for Darius that you can take later on into your build to win out 1v1s. If you have 5 stacks and use auto attack+W on someone and it's the first hit with Sundered Sky, you basically do as much as your ult does if it's on a squishy. It's also worth noting that if you use the proc on a champion and then the champion clones themseleves, the clone gets the Sundered Sky effect on them, so you can know if you are being faked out by a Wukong pretending to W , or Shaco ultimate , LeBlanc clone , etc.

Jak'Sho, the Protean: Usually you get this as your final item, but it can also be done as a 3rd item option if you are playing into a heavy melee team comp, or some other specific cases. The item gives very good tankiness.

Kaenic Rookern: This is the best anti magic damage in the entire game for most bruiser champions by far. If you are facing heavy magic damage and you want to tank it as best as you can, this is the item for it.

Maw of Malmortius: If you end up doing this you are either facing a full AP or close to full AP team, or you need to rush it for a specific matchup, such as Gwen or sometimes Akali. Since you can't buy this with Sterak's Gage it's quite situational, but the shield is very good.

Spirit Visage: This used to be a very good item for Darius, but now it's quite bad unless it's paired up with mega healing champions such as Soraka, Sona, or Seraphine. Your Q heal and Sterak's shield get increased by it, but even so most of the time it's just not that good.

Thornmail: Very good item if you need heal reduction as well as armor against AD threats.

Randuin's Omen: Good item vs champions who buy crit , such as Yasuo, Caitlyn, Tryndamere, etc.

Titanic Hydra: The auto attack reset it provides is absolutely massive, and in matchups it can win you the 1v1 because you are unable to hit your Q , so you make up for that by gaining 1 extra stack. For example into Riven it's basically impossible to hit your Q into her, so you can buy Titanic to get that extra bleed stack from the reset, or if you do hit Q then you get to 5 stacks even quicker.

Black Cleaver: It can be bought, but most of the time it's actually kind of a bait item in a lot of situations. You already get 40% pen on your E passive in the mid to late game, so unless the enemy team has tanks who stack heavy armor it's not really worth it, either that or as a rush item if you want vs specific matchups, can work as well.

Chempunk Chainsword: The offensive item for heal reduction, you can either get this or Mortal Reminder.

Mortal Reminder: You almost always buy this over Chempunk Chainsword if you need to apply the heal reduction. The crit basically means that you have a 25% chance to nuke a carry and kill them with W +ult from full hp. It's some disgusting damage if you crit, on top of the fact that you will have a lot more pen total. You only ever build this item dead last or almost last, never really as a 2nd or 3rd item.

Edge of Night: I only ever build this vs Vayne and Singed, as they cannot proc it off you, Singed needs to use E or it stays on, same with Vayne.

Blade of the Ruined King: Darius has no % health damage in his kit, at all. Vs champs like Dr. Mundo or Cho'Gath in the late game it can take you up to a literal minute of just hitting them to kill them. Dr. Mundo scales incredibly well late game and can beat you 1v1 just because you need do kill him 3 times, one time when you get him low, and then two more times when he ults and giga heals, so it's insanely difficult. You buy Blade for these specific situations, where the enemy champ has a ton of health that you need to go through. Your autos and W will proc it, and the pen you have on E means the damage will stick very well.

Hullbreaker: The only time I actually build Hullbreaker is if you know the only way to win is through hard split pushing. You can combine it with Demolish and Titanic Hydra to melt towers. It is also quite good to rush vs specific matchups where you can straight up take plates from under their nose, such as Nasus or Malphite

KEYSTONE RUNES:

Conqueror: This is the most consistent rune to take on Darius. It stacks up very nicely with his passive , only one extra auto attack to get it to full. The healing is rly good, the damage feels nice, and it gives him very good dueling power.

Phase Rush: Very underrated rune for Darius. It allows Darius to play out a lot more lanes, especially ranged ones. Stuff like Quinn, Vayne, Kennen etc. you need Phase Rush to get close to them, and you can basically never stack Conqueror into them. It's also insane in mid to late game teamfights, I think the speed outvalues the healing and damage Conqueror gives. I go into more detail between the two keystone in it's specific guide chapter.

Lethal Tempo: Matchup specific rune that can work quite well. You don't really care about the on-hit damage it provides once fully stacked, you just really want the attack speed out of it as there are matchups where it's close to impossible to stack up quickly when you basically can never hit your Q , such as Olaf or Riven. Your W also gives you an extra stack quickly and if you have Titanic Hydra you can get 3 Lethal Tempo stacks really quickly

Fleet Footwork: Extremely specific rune where you need both the sustain and the extra speed . Usually you will only ever take this if you are also running Absorb Life and Second Wind for maximum sustain during lane. The matchup I run this most into is Heimerdinger.

RUNE SLOTS:




Triumph: Very consistent rune. It can really help you to clutch out fights with barely any health remaning.


Absorb Life: Generally taken into some specific matchups where you get extra healing not just from minions, but also enemy spawned units. Some matchup examples where you can take it are Yorick and Heimerdinger.


Legend: Alacrity: Almost always you go for this one, sometimes you can do Legend: Haste.


Legend: Haste: Personally I like this one more on Darius because I like getting more rotations off in fights, but generally speaking Legend: Alacrity is much more reliable.


Last Stand: The best one out of the 3 from its respective space.







Taste of Blood: You can proc it decently well and almost always on cooldown due to your bleed. On top of that Darius gains a lot of extra ad from his passive so mid game the heal isn't super bad.


Eyeball Collection: Best one from its respective space generally.


Treasure Hunter: Out of all the hunter runes this is the best one for Darius. You can also run Ultimate Hunter but in the late game it's useless as you get a full cooldown refund on your ult.







Manaflow Band: Very good rune for mana sustain. I use it a lot in specific matchups, such as Jax and a few other ones, you need to get used to the overall setup though.


Nimbus Cloak: Usually you take this with Darius. The speedup feels very nice after using a summoner spell.


Transcendence: I take this into some specific matchups with Spear of Shojin. Most of the time though Celerity is the best one.


Celerity: Great rune for Darius, most of the time you pair this one up with Nimbus Cloak to get a ton of speed out of it. It also boosts the speed other items give, like Stridebreaker or runes like Phase Rush.


Gathering Storm: The only real option Darius has on the last rune slot here. Once the game hits 30 minutes the damage it gives will equal that of Conqueror, so you have the AD permanently on you after that point, and then anything past that will give you more.







Demolish: Solid rune if you want to take early tower plates or split push a lot.


Conditioning: More scaling as you get into the mid game.


Second Wind: Best rune in its respective space for sustaining in the lane.


Bone Plating: Works best against combo champions like Sett, Riven, Renekton etc.


Revitalize: Decent rune for Darius. It amps up your Q heal, but most of the time I tend to run Overgrowth.


Overgrowth: Usually this is the one I end up taking most on Darius, combining it with Conditioning for very good mid to late game scaling.







Magical Footwear: Sometimes I will take this on my secondary. usually though I like to rush boots on Darius so it's not that amazing.


Cash Back: I take this when I am running my unique setup. One matchup that I do it in is Garen, I will also do it into Kayle.


Triple Tonic: Decent rune for Darius. It does scale kinda poorly, once you hit level 13 putting points in your W does basically nothing, but it's good before that. It also gives you a stronger level 6.


Biscuit Delivery: This rune is used in some very specific matchups for early game sustain. If you pop it while you are low you can actually get up to 100 or more extra health regen in a very short amount of time, possibly swinging a fight in your favor.


Cosmic Insight: Very good rune for Darius, I love to take it in both the unique setup and the standard one. Having your summoner spells come off cooldown sooner is extremely important for Darius, so much so I have made a specific section detailing why they are so important.

I have made this section specifically to outline the differences between Conqueror and Phase Rush on Darius playstyle wise. In my opinion there are enough changes in your overall gameplan and play pattern that it needs a specific chapter guide for it. With that said, let's begin.

TL;DR for the entire thing:
- Conqueror is usually better early to mid game and in 1v1s
- Phase Rush gives you much better teamfighting in the mid to late game
- Conqueror gives you more damage and extra healing, but at 30 minutes you get the same ad and once you are past 40 you straight up get more always ( Gathering Storm), but still no healing
- Conqueror allows you to take extended trades in lane much better than Phase Rush does
- Phase Rush allows Darius to be able to short trade very well by speeding away after his rotation
- Phase Rush allows you to play out some very tough matchups, especially ranged ones
- Phase Rush can act as a mini Ghost in some specific cases

Explanation:

Almost every single Darius runs this Conqueror. It's very easy to stack for Darius, it's like stacking your passive 6 times instead of 5, but Q inner edge hits also stack it. On top of that, the precision page is very good for Darius. You have Triumph, which is a very good rune for him, he can turn around fights at low health with it, then there's Legend: Alacrity, solid choice to just take for more auto attacks, and then there's Last Stand, which works very well with Darius as he usually fights at lower health. So it's not just the keystone rune but also the precision tree itself. That being said, the Sorcery tree is also great for Darius.
Nimbus Cloak is always good, as well as the option of Manaflow Band in some specific lanes for more spell rotations, or even Nullifying Orb, once again for some specific matchups. Celerity is always good, and Gathering Storm is very underrated.

At level 18 Conqueror will give you 28.8 damage when fully stacked. Gathering storm will always give you exactly 28.8 damage as well starting from 30 minutes. So if you get to 30 minutes you always have the Conqueror damage, still no healing, but you match the damage, and anything past 30 minutes is straight up more damage. On top of that, the 20 minute amount, which is 15 damage, is still decent and almost fully makes up for not having the Conqueror damage.

There are also matchups where you cannot fully proc Conqueror, like a ton of ranged matchups, or where the mobility of Phase Rush vastly outvalues the damage and healing of Conqueror. In matchups such as Vayne, Quinn, Heimerdinger, etc. you cannot really proc up Conqueror, you don't have the time for it. You actually want to do short trades into most ranged matchups, but the issue is that you usually need to start with your E in those matchups, as they will never let you get close enough to just slow them with W .

With Conqueror if you do your E +auto+W +Q combo and then try to run away, there is a very good chance they will just auto attack you a ton as you run away, and you will end up losing the trade, or straight up kill you.
Vayne can just hard chase you down and space you really hard, Quinn can do the same, Kennen can just stun you up in melee range after your combo and do his rotation, even some matchups like can use dashes to chase you down and do their side of the combo. But if you have Phase Rush, you can do your side and then speed away.
It won't mean you won't take any damage back, but someone like Kennen would have to chase you down really hard to get his E mark on you and then stun you up, or Riven would have to use more of her Q dashes just to get into your melee range, or Vayne would need to commit to an even longer chase just to be able to poke you down, and so on. So now you can start the short trades with E and not get punished as hard.

Another very good thing about Phase Rush is that it's kinda like a mini Ghost.
You can proc it up with an auto+W +Q and then keep chasing the person down, which can allow you do save your E for when your Phase Rush goes out. For example into Nasus if he uses his slow you almost always need to pull him back because he will outrun you, but with Phase Rush you can tank through most of the slow and keep up with him, possibly getting in an extra auto attack or 2, and then using your E .

Currently I am doing a rather strange build for Darius, and it usually looks something like this:



What I am going to do in this section is try to explain why I am trying this setup and what I like about it.

The reduction of summoner spell cooldowns

As I specified in the mid and late game chapter guides, Darius cannot play teamfights during that time if his summoner spells aren't up, so I came up with this combo:

Cosmic Insight + Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Your Flash and Ghost will both be up 1 minute sooner than usual, which doesn't seem that massive, but there are a lot of times when having summoner spells be up just 30 seconds sooner can make a difference, and this is absolutely massive for your all in timers in the early game. If you are playing vs Vayne for example, and she takes Flash and Ghost, she can just always trade the summoner spell you use to run away and kite. For example, you Ghost to chase her down and she does the same. You need your summoner spell to get close to her but she doesn't, and can just chase you down without it. If you have this combo it would mean there would be a full minute where she wouldn't actually have it up, and you can abuse that window to get a kill. It might not seem that massive, but there are matchups where this window is literally your only window to ever get a lead.

Another example, this one being in the mid game:
You see an opponent overextending on the side lane, no real bounty, but you can still get 300 gold for killing them. Dragon is up in 3 minutes. If you use Ghost now it would mean it won't be up for Dragon and it could be really bad for you, but with the less cooldown you would have it up in time. Obviously this is a pretty specific case, but my point is you can find more kill angles and outplay moments because you would have your summoner spells up sooner.
In a 25 minute game you would probably use your Ghost around 5 times, and even that can be a little much. If you had the combo you could use it 7 times in almost the same time as the 5, just 1 extra minute. Again, doesn't seem like that much, but those 2 extra times can mean you get an early kill where the opponent wasn't expecting you to have summoner spells back up, or allowing you to punish someone greedy in the mid to late game when you normally wouldn't be able to.

Extra mana during laning phase

One issue Darius has is that in the early game it's actually pretty easy to go out of mana if you use your Apprehend more than 3 times. You can only do it a select few times, and if the champion you are playing against is someone like Jax or Riven, who can just jump onto you a lot, you know that you can't always use your pull because you would run out of mana. Having Manaflow Band instead of Celerity can help out to fix up this issue well. It makes it to where you can even "poke" opponents more. Into quite a few matchups you could actually just use E to deal your full combo and you would be fine, for example Illaoi, the issue is that if you do it too much and it doesn't result in a kill or forcing them to recall you will run out of mana and then they can beat you. However, due to the extra mana of that rune you don't really need to worry about it.

Diversity in both small runes and items

You don't actually need to do this exact setup every time, and a lot of times you can change up small runes depending on the matchup, same for items. For example, you can take Triple Tonic instead of Cash Back if you want the extra AD at your level 6 and the extra kill point at 9, making you use a little less mana as your E loses a bit of its cost when you put a point in it. Nimbus Cloak can be changed to Manaflow Band to have some insane mana sustain for lane, or changing Celerity for Transcendence. You might not need the speed Dead Man's Plate provides due to your Phase Rush, so you can take Death's Dance instead, which is an insane item for teamfighting as it gives an extra reward for getting your reset, and it's a pretty massive reward. On the same note, you can take Kaenic Rookern instead of Force of Nature, and if you combine it with your Sterak's Gage, you will be an absolute MONSTER and it will take them a lot to take you down.

I PERSONALLY FIND IT REALLY FUN

This one isn't factual, but I just wanted to place it here either way. This is a setup that I've found that I have a lot of fun with. I have been enjoying the general playstyle of it, and there will be people who play Darius and they might not enjoy it personally, but I really like it a lot, again PERSONALLY!

+Massive lane bully in a ton of melee matchups, most tanks will despise you
+Incredibly high carry power, a single reset in a teamfight can ace the entire enemy team
+Can build differently for a lot of matchups, typically buying a specific component item can win you out the lane big time and Darius doesn't really mind delaying his spike item
+Need to be shut down early on or he can run over the game very fast
+Soaks up a ton of pressure in the side lane
+Can 2v1, 3v1 and even 4v1 enemies when ahead, after the first kill the others follow shortly after
+His high armor pen ensures his late game damage doesn't fall off super hard vs tanks who just stack a lot of armor

-Low mobility, he can get kited extremely easily
-If the enemy team comp has mostly ranged champs you're basically a cannon minion
-Extremely summoner spell reliant, the later the game goes the more he needs his summs
-Can have decent mana issues early on and that can be abused
-Has some absolutely disgusting matchups to play into
-Overall low ability ranges, he actually need to be decently close to you to get his pull off

If you liked this guide, perhaps you would like to check out some of my other ones as well. As I make more guides for more champions this list will be updated to contain all of them. Simply click on the words below the champion portrait and it will take you to the respective guide.

Volibear Top Guide

Garen Top Guide

Olaf Top Guide

Dr. Mundo Top Guide

Mordekaiser Top Guide

Here there will be a list of all the significant changes I am going to make going forward on the guide, so you can look here to see what the newest updates are, or old ones:

Update Log

Patch 14.22
9th November 2024:
- added a new build called "heavy split pushing"
- added Biscuit Delivery as a rune choice
- added the link to the matchup spreadsheet as it has been completed
Patch 14.20
9th October 2024:
- added Mordekaiser to the other guides chapter
- added Fleet Footwork as a possible keystone rune to take as well as a new rune page called "Hyper Lane Sustain"
- added Absorb Life as a possible rune to take
Patch 14.19
5th October 2024:
- added other guides chapter
25th September 2024:
- added Lethal Tempo back on the possible keystone runes and a Lethal Tempo rune page
- updated the unique setup chapter
- removed Biscuit Delivery as a rune choice