Hello, this is my guide on how to play Darius, the Hand of Noxus. My summoner name is Dunkmaster and I am a Season 9 Platinum player on NA. I have played League since Season 3, and I've been playing Darius since Season 5, boasting over 1,000,000 Mastery Points at the time of writing this guide.


I believe that Darius is one of the most fun champions to dominate the top lane with, as he offers superb tank stats as well as very high damage. His ability to take on multiple enemy champions alone as well as the satisfaction of achieving a successful Noxian Guillotine chain is what makes him so appealing to me, and allowed me to escape from Bronze and Silver with ease.

Darius has significant presence in the game at all points. At level one, you can take down an overconfident lane opponent by quickly applying your passive, Hemorrhage, which will almost always assure an easy first blood. Once you get Noxian Guillotine, your job is to get tanky and destroy the enemy team by achieving resets and pushing out the lanes.

In this guide, I will use my experience to demonstrate what I believe is the best way to play Darius. If you have any questions, leave a comment and I will do my best to get them answered as soon as possible.

Pros + Strong at All Points in Game + Fairly Low Mana Costs + High Damage Without Damage Items + Insane Health Regen on Decimate + Noxian Guillotine resets and becomes free to cast. Darius' kit is very well rounded for a Bruiser, as he is equipped with aoe, healing, slows, cc, natural armor penetration, and massive true damage. His kill potential is insanely high throughout the entire game, and a Darius that is behind can easily catch up after snagging a few kills in a team fight. Also, he gets a power spike every time he levels up his ultimate, meaning that he can constantly be a threat and turn fights with ease.

Cons - Easily Kited - Focuses Strangely - Hard to Learn How to Manage Hemorrhage Stacks - Countered by Ranged Top Laners - No escapes Darius will lose to any marksman who knows how to stay out of the range of his Apprehend. Also, in team fights, he will tend to focus targets that are easy to gain Hemorrhage stacks on, usually being the tanks. Because of this, your back line may be inclined to focus the same target as you. Speaking of Hemorrhage stacks, the management and transfer of these stacks is one of Darius' most important features, meaning that someone who is unable to keep track of these stacks will not be able to use Darius to his full potential.

Unfortunately with the Conqueror changes, it feels that it may fall out of favor for Darius. Therefore, the Phase Rush rune set may be more preferable.

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Flash: Necessary in almost every situation, whether it is escaping a gank, chasing, or closing that little bit of distance to allow to you use your ult on an escaping target.
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Ghost: Very good as it helps with Darius' issue with being prone to being kited.
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Ignite: The extra burn can help to snag up kills in the laning phase when your lane opponent is running away with bleed and low health. The grievous wounds also help against any enemies that have high healing capabilities. I would still recommend taking ghost instead.
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Teleport: Usually take this if you want to focus on being more of a team player.
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Hemorrhage: This passive has two parts. The first is that every attack in which Darius hits an enemy with the blade of his axe applies one stack of bleed, up to five stacks on each target. Attacks that apply bleed are auto attacks, the outer edge of Decimate, Crippling Strike, and Noxian Guillotine. Bleed stacks last for 5 seconds, and deal more damage based on the amount of stacks that are on the target. Applying bleed stacks to a target that is already inflicted with Hemorrhage will reset the timer.

The second half of this ability is Noxian Might. Upon applying five stacks of Hemorrhage to a target, you gain 30-200 AD based on your level, and instantly apply five stacks of Hemorrhage to any target that you hit while Noxian Might is active. If you apply bleed to an enemy champion while Noxian Might is active, it will reset the timer on Noxian Might. Also, successfully killing an enemy champion with Noxian Guillotine will activate Noxian Might.

Decimate: Darius' Q ability is Decimate. After 0.75 seconds, Darius swings his axe in a circle around him, dealing damage to all enemies around him. Enemies that are hit by the blade of his axe take more damage, are inflicted by Hemorrhage, and heal darius for 12% of his missing health per enemy hit, up to 36%.

As this is Darius' primary damaging ability, you want to take a point in it at level 2 and max it first.

Crippling Strike: Crippling Strike is Darius' W. Its main function is to act as an auto attack reset, allowing you to instantly apply two stacks of Hemorrhage when timed correctly. Also, it applies a 90% slow for 1 second, creating an opportunity to get more attacks off on your opponent. Additionally, this ability is very good for last hitting minions, as the mana cost and half of the cooldown is refunded when striking the finishing blow on a unit.

You will want to take this ability at level 1 because it activates significantly faster than Decimate, allowing you to reach 5 stacks on your lane opponent faster to get a very early kill and lane advantage over them. You will max this ability last.

Apprehend: Apprehend is a very strong skill, and is often overlooked due to the prevalence of Darius' other abilities. This ability pulls enemies in front of Darius in the shape of a cone. This is useful as an engage, but also as an interrupt. Most notably, it can be used to cancel Riven's third Q and Yasuo's ult when timed correctly.

The other portion of this ability is its passive. For each point that you put into this ability, Darius gains 5% armor penetration, granting 25% at maximum rank. This is almost a free Last Whisper!

You will want to take a point in this ability at level 3, and max it second in order to take advantage of the free armor penetration, as well as the significant reduction in cooldown time that leveling this ability offers.

Noxian Guillotine: Finally, Darius' ultimate ability is Noxian Guillotine. This ability is insanely powerful when used correctly, but requires the ability to manage Hemorrhage to be effective. This ability is a point and click, causing Darius to leap to an enemy champion and deal true damage based on the amount of Hemorrhage stacks on them, up to more than twice of its base damage on a target with 5 stacks of bleed. If this ability successfully kills the target, Darius receives Noxian Might, and is granted the ability to recast Noxian Guillotine for 20 seconds at no mana cost. Additionally, this ability becomes entirely free to cast upon reaching level 16.

The effectiveness of this ability is completely based on the micromanagement ability of the player. One who arbitrarily ults when it will not deal lethal damage is not using Darius to his full potential. In a team fight, your goal should be to deal lethal damage to the first target available with Noxian Guillotine and use the activation of Noxian Might to snowball the team fight by applying max Hemorrhage to the other enemies and use your ult to execute them as well. In lane, the use of Noxian Guillotine is much more situational, as you are usually going to be fighting 1 vs 1. In most cases, you want to use your ult in the same manner, but using it to apply the fifth stack of bleed or get a bit of extra damage off in a skirmish is also acceptable.