Hello guys, this is my guide of Darius, The Hand Of Noxus. First of all, I have to mention that this champion is just awesome and great, he has a nice harassment tool, a passive that damages you over time, a small grab that can be very useful to you and your team, and a magnificent ultimate that you will use to win teamfights.

Note: This Darius guide can be useful on 3v3 also.

Note II: Please read all the guide before voting, you need to master this champion before making any pentakill. Test the guide first.

As many people said in their guides, this is a GUIDE, you don't have to follow it like the bible.


Let's start :D

This is the Ability Sequence that you should follow to get the full power of Darius.

• [Q] "Darius swings his axe in a wide circle. Enemies struck by the blade take more damage than those struck by the handle.
  Deals 70/105/140/175/210 (+0.7) physical damage to all nearby enemies in a circle. Champions in the outer half of the ability are struck by the blade, taking 50% additional damage."
  
  
• [W] "Darius's next attack strikes a crucial artery. As they bleed out, their movement and attack speed is slowed. Crippling Strike's cooldown is lower the more bloodied its target.
  The next basic attack deals 120/140/160/180/200% damage and slows the target's movement and attack speed by 20/25/30/35/40% for 2 seconds."
  
  Crippling Strike's base cooldown is reduced by 1 second for each stack of Hemorrhage on the target.
  
  
• [E] "Darius hones his axe, granting him passive armor penetration. When activated, Darius sweeps up his enemies with his axe's hook and pulls them to him.
  Passive: Grants 5/10/15/20/25% armor penetration."
  
  Active: Pulls in all enemies in front of Darius.
  
  
• [R] (Ultimate) "Darius leaps to an enemy champion and strikes a lethal blow, dealing true damage. This damage is increased for each stack of Hemorrhage on the target. If Noxian Guillotine is a killing blow, its cooldown is refreshed.
  Leaps to target enemy champion and strikes a lethal blow, dealing 160/250/340 (+0.75) true damage."
  
  For each stack of Hemorrhage on the target, Noxian Guillotine deals an additional 20% damage.
  
  The cooldown is refreshed if Noxian Guillotine kills the target.
  
  
• (Passive) Darius aims his attacks strategically, causing his target bleed. This effect stacks up to five times.

There are many ways to build Darius talking about runes.

Build number one:

On this build you have some extra initial AD that is very useful to draw first blood or just to deal more damage in early game. Also has enough Armor penetration that will help you all over the game and stacks pretty well with Apprehend. You have flat Armor and Magic Resist that makes you less squishy in early-mid game.



Build number two:


On this one you have the same Armor and Magic resist but you have no Armor Penetration, instead of that you have full Attack Damage on Marks and Quintesences. It can help you very much in early game but Armor can counter you easily.

Here is the explanation of the masteries.

My build of Darius:
21/9/0 to have Damage per level, Critical Damage, some Life Steal, Armor Penetration and Brute Force to kill my enemies. But if you are not that ofensive, you should use this masteries:
9/21/0 to be more tanky and enough powerful to deal moderate damage to enemies. Recommended.

• Boots This item will help you to be fast and avoid harassment on toplane.
• Health Potion You should buy 3 of these after Boots of Speed to have some sustain on toplane.

• Mercury's Treads These boots are useful against heavy CCs and give you some magic resist. Pick these if there is heavy magic damage.
• Ninja Tabi (Optional. Buy these instead of Mercury's Treads if you need it.) These are very useful against heavy phisical damage, gives you some armor and reduce the damage taken from basic attacks.

• Frozen Mallet Pick this item for some AD and huge HP + PermaSlow.
• Wriggle's Lantern Armor, LifeSteal and some AD, very useful for sustain.
• Force of Nature Extreme magic resist, pretty nice health regeneration, extra movement speed and restores your champion's maximum health by 1,75% per 5 secs. Great against heavy magic damage.
• Thornmail (Optional. Buy this instead of Force of Nature if you need it.) This item gives you 100 Armor and reflects 30% of the damage you receive from basic attacks.

• Randuin's Omen Need HP, Armor and AoE Slow? Pick this item and be happy.
• Atma's Impaler It gives you 1,5% of your HP as AD. Useful with Frozen Mallet and Randuin's Omen

• Trinity Force It gives you nice stats. If you buy this, do not buy Frozen Mallet
• Infinity Edge Nice item. Huge AD and brutal crit. strike effects.
• Maw of Malmortius Very nice item if you need survival against AP enemies on toplane. Also gives you 55 AD to PwN your foes.
• Guardian Angel If you are being focused all the time (not very usual) buy this item to revive instantly and kill you enemies.

• Frozen Heart Gives you 500 Mana, 99 Armor. Also reduces 20% the Attack speed of nearby enemies.
• Quicksilver Sash Gives you some magic resist and removes all debuffs affecting your champion. Just like Cleanse.

• Boots You need some speed on dominion, you can't go out there without this.
• Prospector's Blade Very similar to Doran's Blade but with more stats. (You cannot stack this item with other "Prospector" items.
• Health Potion Buy as much as you can with the rest of the gold. You will need some sustain to Def the Windmill.

• Trinity Force This item is great for Darius, it gives you all stats you need.
• Sunfire Aegis Armor, nice HP and some AoE damage per second to all nearby enemies.
• Atma's Impaler This item will work very well with your Trinity Force and Sunfire Aegis because it gives you 1,5% of you HP as AD.
• Sanguine Blade Just like Bloodthirster but modified for dominion. Take it to keep yourself alive on the base.
• Force of Nature Pick this item to counter very much magic damage. You can also move faster with this item and arrive to your base faster.

• Thornmail In case of heavy phisical damage pick this item and make your enemies kill themselves.
• Randuin's Omen Use this item if you need more HP and Armor. Also slows nearby enemies.
• Odyn's Veil Why not? This item is great in case of massive magic damage, it gives you HP, Mana and Magic Resist. Also reduces the magic damage taken by 10%.

This new map has a lot of changes and new items. But your build will not change too much:

- There is no Thornmail, so we will use only Atma's Impaler as a source of armor (if enemy team has heavy AD, buy Ninja Tabi.)

- You will not need Wriggle's Lantern, games on this map may be shorter than on other maps. But if you really need Life Steal you can buy a Sanguine Blade instead of Maw of Malmortius.

• Ghost(Recommended) This summoner spell is great for Darius and all AD champions in my opinion. You can run faster than your enemies and catch them with Apprehend or kill'em with Noxian Guillotine. Also useful to escape.
• Exhaust Very nice summoner spell. Slows an enemy champion up to 40% and reduce his damage with basic attacks 70% and damage dealt with spells 35% for 2,5 seconds. It helps you a lot when the enemy team has mass damage. You can deny much of their damage with this awesome spell.
• Ignite (Recommended) (Optional. Use it instead of Exhaust if you need it.) Also useful combined with Hemorrhage to grant you a kill if your oponent run away with low health.

• Vision Ward - Use these in important places (as Dragon, Baron and TriBrushes to avoid ganks)
• Sight Ward - Use these on your jungle's buffs and usual brushes.

You need to ward the map if you want to survive, you should ward prioritizing toplane to avoid ganks. Try to ward Baron Nashor too.

• Activate Crippling Strike and then grab an enemy champion with Apprehend to hit him in the face and don't let him escape.
• Use Noxian Guillotine right after stacking passive 5 times, it will deal double damage.
• Try to harass your oponents with Decimate but don't spam it too much, you use mana, don't forget.

Thank you for reading my guide, hope it was useful for you.

Special thanks to jhoijhoi for making this cool line separators that I used in my guide and for his guide of making guides. Also thanks to TehSkrunch for making the Darius banner that I used on the introduction.

Comment and rate please.