• I'm trying to make this very very in depth with everything I know.
• It's all about self preference.
• This build has been working out for me real good, so i'm just sharing it with you guys.

• Do not pick Darius against specific champions: Master Yi, Lee Sin (in the jungle), Kennen, LeBlanc, Vayne.
• Do not pick against full ranged/4 ranged team. Ranged champions can kite Darius hard, and 4-5 of them are gonna do that without needing any skill whatsoever. Just ranged top laner and jungler are gonna make your game so much harder already.
• It's generally not good to one trick Darius, even though I kinda one trick him in a sense.

VIDEOS

More in the spoiler. Just click on it, Kevin.

Spoiler: Click to view

Play Video

Play Video

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PROS/CONS

• Outstanding damage output: Darius's whole kit do one thing or another to deal damage. Damage on Hemorrhage, along with an INSANE raw damage increase when it activates, high damage on Decimate, AA reset and 40% extra AA damage on his Crippling Strike, armor penetration on his Apprehend, and the signature DUNK. Everything added up, and you're on top of the NBA ladder.
• Very few counter: There are only two champions (in my opinion) that can really shut Dunkrius down, and I almost never see them in the top lane (the only times I do, I get rekt. Bad).
• Relatively durable: You should be building tanky along with your Q healing for 12% of your missing health per enemy champion hit with your axe head, stacking up to 3 times, which is 36%. If you have a Spirit Visage mashed up into your build and having low health, a 3 man Q can heal you for about 1600 HP. This makes Darius an unstoppable brute that deals a quadrillion tons of damage.
• Made to KS: Yes, I mean it. The fact that his ult is reset when he kills someone with it means you can just press R, be 300 gold richer and say I NEEDED TO DO IT if a bastard teammate claims that kill was their.
• BM: Just get in a game and spam Ctrl + 3. Ctrl + 2 if you are Dunkmaster. Feels great.
• Super Saiyan Potential: Being able to use an ability with ~1100 potential TRUE damage multiple times and making your opponents go on their periods in one hit, Darius can suddenly blow up Vegeta's scouter with a Pentadunk out of nowhere.
  Play Video
  Stormraider's Surge helped me a lot here as I activated it by attacking Rengar and dodged Hecarim's ultimate thanks to the movement speed gained. Also, I reached level 16 killing Zed, so I quickly pressed Ctrl + R to level up Noxian Guillotine, and was able to QR Caitlyn. Just a neat little trick.

• Slow: Darius don't have anything to boost his movement. Being like this can sometimes make Darius look like a moron being kited around by flirting trolls.
• Hard to master: Yes, a mediocre Darius can find some success, but to really use Darius to his full extent, it takes a lot of mechanical skills and PRACTICE. If you really want to be an absolute d*ckhole (just like me), play a lot of Darius and you will feel the hang of it.
• Easily punished: Just look at how Darius works. His ultimate means that if you fail to execute one in a teamfight, your damage output is drastically deceased. Occasionally, failing a Decimate can mean DEATH.
• Weak against mobile champions: Champions like Lee Sin, Kindred or LeBlanc will most of the times give Darius a really hard time. It's almost impossible to land your Decimate on a mobile champion that knows what he/she is doing.
• Hard to freeze: The fact that his main ability, Decimate is large area of effect ability makes freezing the lane really hard. Everytime you go for harass, it's almost impossible not to hit the minion wave.

  AND THAT'S IT.

ABILITIES

First off, your overpowered passive: Hemorrhage

• After the Juggernaut rework, hemorrhage no longer deals magic damage and it's total damage has been decreased. BUT the fact that it deals physical damage means that it will proc Black Cleaver every single tick. Yes, you read that right. Every single tick.
• Besides that damage tweak, Riot has decided to give Darius an ability called Noxian Might, that activates when you infict 5 stacks of hemorrhage on an enemy champion or executing one with your ultimate , which gives Darius 40-200 Attack Damage and make every single ability that normally inflict one stack of Hemorrhage inflict five stacks instead. (Auto attacks, Outer ring Decimate, Crippling Strike, and Noxian Guillotine(yes, this will cause 5 hemorrhage if you somehow choose to dunk someone without stacks on them)). This ability lasts 5 seconds and has no cooldown.
• Once you've activated Noxian Might, attacking any champion and inficting 5 stacks to it will REFRESH it, meaning as long as there are targets for you, you won't lose your testosterone booster.
• If you manage to apply 5 stacks to a champion, it will deal a lot of DPS. Not only because it's stacked up 5 times (duh), but also because you'll activate your Noxian Might, gaining a lot of bonus AD, and Hemorrhage scales with 150% bonus AD.
• Will not apply a stack if the attack is dodged ( Jax), parried ( Fiora), or you are blinded ( Teemo). Will still apply a stack if the attack is blocked ( Pantheon).
• Deals damage once every 1.25 second.

Next up, let's talk about Decimate:

• After winding up for 0.75 second, Darius swings his axe around himself.
• It deals physical damage.
• Applies one Hemorrhage stack to enemies on the outer ring. Five if you have your passive activated.
• If you hit people with your pole, or in other words, the inner ring, it will only deal 50% damage and will not apply Hemorrhage.
• AD scaling increases per rank: 100/110/120/130/140 percent of your TOTAL AD. 50/65/60/65/70 percent total AD for inner ring.
• Heals you if you hit champions on the outer ring.
• Is blocked by spell shields. Will not apply Hemorrhage if blocked. Will still heal you.

The bread and butter of your kit. It deals really high damage on a short cooldown and low mana cost (although the mana portion got nerfed), plus the heals it gives being absolutely obnoxious. Along with Spirit Visage, this ability can heal you for up to 2000 HP. There's no hesitation, max it first.

Crippling Strike

• Resets auto attack timer.
• Causes your next auto attack to deal 140% damage. Also adds 25 extra attack range, making your range 200, more than most melee champions in the game.
• Works with Sheen.
• Refunds 100% mana and 50% cooldown if the blow kills the target.
• Crits on this hit will amplify the base damage, not the 40% bonus damage.
• 90% slow for 1 second.
• Blocked by spell shields
• Bonus damage will apply Life steal.

The "ultimate" vacuum

Apprehend

• Pulls in ALL enemies in a cone towards Big Daddy Darius. Does not do damage.
• Slows them by 40% for 1 second.
• Gives 5% armor penetration per rank, up to 25%. This is why we max this ability second ladies and gentlemen. Cooldown also goes down by 3 seconds per rank, which is triple that of Crippling Strike.
• Pulled enemy are then bounced a little bit away from Darius.
• Blocked by spell shields.
• Cancels all animation, such as auto attacks or abilities with long animation.

This ability mashed up with Black Cleaver, all kinds of armor will melt in front of you. Its active reels in kills for you all day long. ALL DAY LONG!

AND the ULTIMATE ultimate,

Noxian Guillotine

• Scales with 75% bonus AD with decent base damage.
• Base damage AND scaling are increased by 20% for each Hemorrhage stack the target currently has, therefore this ability can scale for up to 150% bonus AD.
• Does true damage, which means damage reduction, armor and magic resist have no effect. Exhaust will not reduce damage dealt either.
• If you kill your enemy with this, you can kill another within 20 seconds! Number of resets is not capped.
• No mana cost on recast.
• Activates your passive if it kills.
• Inflicts a Hemorrhage stack, although this is not the purpose of the ability whatsoever, maybe that extra stack will finish off your opponent. Never recommended though.
• Cooldown will begin after the ability's last cast, not when the recast window expires.
• At rank 3, its cooldown resets entirely on kill and its initial 100 mana cost is also removed.
• Will not reset if the ability doesn't actually "kill" the target: Guardian Angel, Zilean's ultimate, Aatrox's passive, Anivia's passive (You can dunk her egg, that will reset your ultimate), Zac's passive (Blobs are not dunkable).
• Will reset if the target doesn't dies from Noxian Guillotine but in the next ~0.5 seconds from any source. Thank you Riot Games!
• As this ability also makes you kinda dash towards them, rooting effects and Cassiopeia's Miasma will disable Noxian Guillotine.

Noxian Guillotine

Interesting fact: If you dunk a Sion and finish him off, you can dunk his reanimated body again! If you finish it off too, you can dunk another!

Interesting fact #2: If you execute one at rank 2 ultimate, then reach level 16 and put a point in Noxian Guillotine within 20 seconds, the ability will be reset. Great!

IMPORTANT: There is a known bug with Noxian Guillotine where if the target dies to Hemorrhage right IMMEDIATELY before the dunk, it will be set on cooldown.

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

ITEMS

Doran's Blade

Doran's Shield

Heimerdinger

Jayce

Teemo

Doran's Blade is superior to Long Sword as a starting item. There's no doubt about that.

Health Potion

Hemorrhage

Hemorrhage

Apprehend

Black Cleaver

Phage

Trinity Force

Hemorrhage

Boots

Phage

Black Cleaver

Black Cleaver

• Choose Ninja Tabi if you're against auto attackers ( Yasuo, Tryndamere, Fiora, Graves, ect).
• Choose Mercury's Treads against AP and heavy CC ( Teemo, Dr. Mundo, Cho'Gath, Kennen, Maokai, Ekko, ect.).
• Choose Boots of Swiftness against consistent and heavy slows ( Trundle, Nasus, Swain...).

OR

OR

Ravenous Hydra

Hemorrhage

Decimate

Noxian Guillotine

Black Cleaver

Decimate

Titanic Hydra

Ravenous Hydra

Ravenous Hydra

Apprehend

Crippling Strike

Decimate

Titanic Hydra

Hemorrhage

I recommend switching Ravenous Hydra for this if the game gets really long.

Trinity Force

Phage

Black Cleaver

Black Cleaver

The downside to this is you will overcap your CDR, so do not run CDR runes, although you will also just overcap it with 50% CDR after you get your Spirit Visage anyway. Also, it's really expensive, and the stats it gives don't really worth it on Darius. I mean, he doesn't really need extra mana, right?

OR

Those two items give the exact same stats. Both add some extra damage to your kit. THE FOLLOWING IS ENTIRELY AN OPINION.


I think Dead Man's Plate is better, personally. Darius is an aggressive-type champion that deals burst damage. A LOT of burst damage . Sunfire Aegis fit champions that deal sustained damage more (someone like a Dr. Mundo) (Well Darius has a lot of sustained damage too, but why deal sustained damage when you can just burst them down and put them six feet under). Dead Man's Plate however, gives a maximum of 60 movement speed, and a really nice slow. This fits Darius's proactive playstyle more. Whatever you prefer, pick one of these if you want to be a bruiser.

If you have decided to build defensive on Darius, you can't skip this. Even if the enemy team doesn't have AP, build this last after like, Black Cleaver, Ravenous Hydra, Dead Man's Plate, Ninja Tabi and Sterak's Gage. If you're facing AP, build it third. It gives some really nice stats, especially the 10% CDR. But most importantly, it amplifies your healings by 25%. This makes you heal like a mad beast with your Q and life steal from Ravenous Hydra. CORE

increases 25% base attack damage. Darius has the highest AD gain per level of 5, let's have a little comparision with a champion that we normally see building Sterak's Gage.

Pretty outstanding right? This makes Sterak's Gage very gold efficient on Darius. However, it increases BASE damage. We don't want that now do we? Only your AA and Decimate will become stronger because Hemorrhage and Noxian Guillotine both scale off of BONUS damage. 150% bonus damage. Therefore, Sterak's Gage should be considered as a defensive item on Darius for the health and damage mitigation from its shield. Great last item.

About Randuin's Omen, we are looking at some nice armor and health, along with crit damage and attack speed reduction. Build this if you're against critters such as Yasuo, Caitlyn, Tristana, Vayne, Sivir and so on or one of another category, Kalista.

Thornmail should be considered when the enemy AD carry is mechanically skilled and getting on your nerves.

Warmog's Armor should only be considered when you don't run CDR glyphs or if you decided to play against the rules and skip Spirit Visage. The counter to poke comps, as you will heal like a mad beast when out of combat. Careful, never build this against percent health damage such as Fizz, Vayne, Malzahar, so on and so forth.

You'll want Guardian Angel as a last item if you are severely ahead. The hybrid defensive stats it offers make you much more tanky, along with your high health, since you're ahead, and you are already tanky with your defensive items, 30% health on revival will be a lot. If you manage to line up a nice Decimate after you revive, it'll be basically 2 lives. After you've used the revive effect, you should sell the item and switch it out for something like a Randuin's Omen or a Sterak's Gage.

If you're still far ahead after you finish your build, take an Elixir of Wrath and shove it up your ***. You will deal a lot of physical damage with your basic abilities, especially your and the healing effect is not reduced on area of effect like Death's Dance.

If it's an even game or you're behind (you shouldn't be, you're Darius, remember?), do yourself a favor and buy Elixir of Iron. Extra tankiness and tenacity will help you a lot.

Remember to refresh elixirs every now and then.

That's all i've got to say for this build. Let's move on.

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NOXIAN PSYCHOPATH

ONE THING TO KEEP IN MIND, THIS BUILD IS PURELY REVOLVED AROUND AUTO ATTACK POWER!

Build this if you want to be full AD Darius. Sheen damage goes great with Crippling Strike. Attack speed helps with stacking Hemorrhage, 20% CDR boosts Darius's surviving potential and seriously, the 5% movement speed it offers make you go really fast. Like, super duper fast if you got used to the standard build. Overall, this is CORE for this build.

Crits. This makes full AD Darius full AD Darius. You have Crippling Strike which activates Sheen and the extra damage from , which can also crit and the crit damage is affected by Infinity Edge's bonus crit damage. This will give the result of ~1300 physical damage and ~250 magic damage in a single auto attack on a squishy, most of the time the AD Carry because those champions don't build armor, and since you will attack so fast with this build, it doesn't even matter if the blow finishes it off or not. ALSO CORE

60 Attack damage is beautiful. 10% cooldown reduction is great. 20 armor penetration is absolutely gorgeus. The active, helps you chase down targets that you normally can't catch. Really well rounded item. I highly recommend this item, even if you're playing bruiser Darius. Great against Quinn.

Upgrade boots when you feel like doing it. It should always be berserker's greaves, unless you're not doing so hot. Other choices should be made as stated before in the bruiser build.

This gives you some extra survivability, something the noxian psychopath lacks. It will heal you for A LOT, especially when attacking minions because you're gonna do SO MUCH DAMAGE with your auto attacks if you've finished the rest of your build.

Switch boots out for this if the game runs long. You won't loose too much movement speed. This item will boost your final crit chance up to 80%.

Build this in place of Youmuu's Ghostblade if you want some extra survivability thanks to life steal, stacked up with that of . Even though this item gives more raw AD, the armor penetration from make you deal more damage overall and you won't have the extra alacrity from 's active. Defensive alternative.

The only elixir that fits the Noxian Psychopath. Buy this after you've finished your build. Remember to refresh it.

---

MY PERSONAL ENJOYMENT/BEST BUILD

OUTDATED. SEASON 7 INFO DOWN BELOW

I've been running the Ravenous Hydra build for a while now. From time to time, I feel like this is not the best build, at least for me. I do enjoy building more offensive on Darius, but Ravenous Hydra just doesn't cut it for me. So after some giggles, I found out about this.

This makes Darius deal way more damage thanks to 20 armor penetration, and rank 5 Decimate has 140% total AD scaling. However, just straight up building this second in place of Ravenous Hydra makes me really squishy because Ghostblade is a full offensive item. After the fact, this build path is what I've come up with.

Double Doran's Blade offer the missing life steal for not building Ravenous Hydra, boosting my survivability.


I deal more damage with Ghostblade finished than with Hydra. The active gives bonus movespeed making you less kitable and attack speed boosting your DPS. Ninja Tabi + Spirit Visage combo makes me really tanky. Like, super tanky for the gold I spend on those 2 items, which is 3900 gold. By the time I finish them, I'll have around 110 armor and 110 magic resist, with around 2500 HP and increased heal from Spirit Visage.


Because Black Cleaver + Spirit Visage + Youmuu's Ghostblade already gave me 40% CDR, I no longer need 10% scaling cooldown reduction from my rune page, so I switch those for either flat magic resist or scaling magic resist, depending on matchup. Others are still the same.


This is now my legit build. I honestly run this build every game. I build Ninja Tabi even if I'm facing an AP laner so I don't have to worry about building a full armor item such as Dead Man's Plate so I can go for Youmuu's Ghostblade as a third item without worrying about AD champions messing me up. Just try it out, maybe you'll find this a miracle.

Cases where I don't build Tabi are when the enemy is full AP, like literally full AP, with a Corki ADC.

Sometimes I also build Youmuus second, when the enemy team's AP is minimal or he's really far behind at the moment.


Full item build path without explanations is up above, in the third build, in case you missed it.

---

END OF SEASON 6 CONTENT

---

SEASON 7

Before I get into this, I would like to make a point that Youmuu's Ghostblade is still viable, however it's not that good as it used to be anymore. The bonus attack speed, which was one of many reasons this item was good, got removed. It's still there if you like it, but better choices are in the game too.

They are:

PICK ONE

• Build against: 2+ AP champions and at least a melee bruiser on the enemy team.
• Why it's good: AD, MR, CDR, magic shield. Perfect anti mage item. Anti mage I said. Just don't build this against full AD comps and it's gonna be OP. It's even more OP with 10% Spell vamp you get when you have the shield activated (which can last forever and ever if you have something to hit on). This spell vamp will apply too ALL kinds of damage you deal. With your abilities of course. This includes Hemorrhage and Noxian Guillotine, and you know, those abilities deal a **** ton of damage. And they're spammable.

• Build against: 2+ melee tanks, preferably with little to no AP, so that you don't have any reason to build Maw.
• Why it's good: Extremely strong in extended fights with the synergy between delaying damage taken and life stealing. That delayed damage can be nullified completely if you deal enough damage. Also gives the highest AD among the 4 choices.

• Build against: Squishy immobile champions. Good examples are Rumble, Ashe, most control mages.
• Why it's good: The only item that offers extra HP. This will help fighting against those immobile champions I was talking about, but that's not the main strength of this. What's powerful is that this offers crazy health-based on hit damage. If you tried this, you'll notice. All those squishies are gonna get blown up with a combo from Titanic (AA-W-Q-AA-Titanic active). Will not work very well against mobile champions, even if they're squishies.
  
  About Youmuu's, just take it whenever you feel like it or when you're in a situation that I've not covered.
  
  Those are the offensive choices. HOWEVER, double AD items is not as good anymore, for various reasons. So, Black cleaver into 4 tank items (and boots) is actually gonna be more effective now.

PLAYSTYLE

Phage

Black Cleaver

Spirit Visage

Olaf

• If you're not leashing, when your creep wave meets the other, you wanna walk up and hit minions as much as you can. Switch your target to champion if you opponent gets in range.
• If you're leashing, walk up and give them some warning shots. Teach them respect. Also, even though this is dirty, hope your jungler messes up and let your passive kill their camp. It gives you a really big lead.
• If they don't respect the presence of Big Daddy, show them no mercy. Use AA - or just if they're not close enough.
• Make sure you move so that you hit on the outer ring. Continue attacking and moving forward (even if they're not backing off, just try to move towards their tower. Don't walk into tower range tho because it's dumb).
• Your Stormraider's Surge should activate after 2-3 auto attacks (if you're running it), making it even easier to chase down those cowards.
• Once you get 5 stacks, your damage will launch (40 extra AD at level 1), and most unexperienced enemies will be surprised by this.
• Continue auto attacking, flash after them if they flash.

Heimerdinger

Quinn

Vayne

Apprehend

Apprehend

Apprehend

Teleport

Take a close look at Kog'maw. Tell me how much of an *sshole Braum and his is.

• Avoid fighting their strong member. Just back off. Never hook them unless you got back up.
• Get early boots upgrade. It's actually worth it since they're so cheap. Ninja Tabi is so damn efficient now.
• If you see a kill, use everything you've got for it. It's gonna be really unfortunate if they get away. They're ahead, so you can't predict what they can do. For instance, don't hope your passive will kill them off.

MATCHUPS

Aatrox

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Easy.
• Playstyle: Go for level 1 first blood. His passive will revive him, but it won't heal him much. Prevent him from auto attacking, as he will heal. This is only relevant when he's below 50% HP though, as the ability itself is pretty underpowered. Play aggressive.
• Mechanics: His Dark Flight has a delay wher he takes off before he actually travels, so you can easily interrupt it with Apprehend. You will not get your reset if you execute him with Noxian Guillotine when he has his passive up (red resource bar), so watch out for that.

Cho'Gath

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Moderate.
• Playstyle: Go for first blood at level 1, when he's weakest. Cho'gath has a lot of damage packed in his kit. Post-6, recall if you get yourself below 60% health as his full combo will most likely finish you off.
• Mechanics: If he's moving forward, start winding up your Decimate as he will probably use his Feral Scream to silence you. You can still move so line it up. When laning, stay on the edge of your wave, as he will try to hit minions and you with it. Punish him if he's greedy. Do not let him get free CS after you harassed him, as his passive, Carnivore heals him a lot for every unit killed.
• Object: Do not get killed. Kill him if possible.

Darius

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: duh.
• Playstyle: You want to check his stats at level 1. If he has lower attack speed than you, go in for level 1 first blood. Keystone is also important. If he's running Grasp of the Undying and you're not, he'll deal more damage than you. You'll want to lend in some pokes before going in if he has Grasp. Overall skilled matchup.
• Mechanics: Only use your Q after he's finished his Q as the heal on Decimate is based on missing health. If enemy Darius starts his Decimate when he's in your range, Apprehend him. This will deny the heal and 50% damage.
• Object: Prove yourself. Aim to trash enemy Darius. Show the world who you are. It's just a normal match anyway.

Dr. Mundo

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Easy.
• Playstyle: Aggressive. Try to go for level 1 first blood. Whether you get it or not, freeze the lane. It's never a good idea to push against a Mundo. Do not try for warning shots. If you do ever catch him, finish him off because if you don't, he'll just regenate back up after a minute or so.
• Mechanics: Mundo does not have any tools to get away when he gets hooked. Avoid getting cleaved by his dirty cleaver by staying behind your melee minions. Step up and hook him if he tries to use his auto attacks to last hit.
• Object: Stomp the lane. You HAVE TO success because Mundo is a late game monster. If he wins even the laning phase, it's all over.

Ekko

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Moderate.
• Playstyle: Aggressive. Go for level 1 first blood. Do not let him farm without getting punished.
• Mechanics: When you successfully Apprehend him, move forward a lot if you see him cast his Parallel Convergence, after you finish your combo. Most won't expect this and aim it where you are. Watch out if you're low, as he will deal a lot of percent health damage with his auto attacks. His Phase Dive can be used to dodge your Decimate, then go right back on you, so don't try for pokes.
• Object: Prevent him from getting his items. Try not to get killed. Doing this will not be easy. Keep your wards up.

Fiora

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Hard.
• Playstyle: Aggressive if you feel like you have the skills. Be neutral and farm up for your items if you don't. You CAN win a lane against Fiora.
• Mechanics: Pay attention to where the vital currently is. Position yourself heavily over that direction. Fiora will have a hard time hitting it. If you Apprehend her, careful when she uses her Riposte. Dodge it by all means. If you don't, you'll get your movement speed AND attack speed slowed by 50% for 1.5 seconds. It will even stun you for 1.5 seconds if she blocked your Apprehend. If she somehow managed to block Apprehend and pointed the skillshot the right way, there's no way you can dodge it because of your animation. Whether you get slowed or stunned is not important. It will still lose you the duel. Post-6, save your Apprehend if you go all in. To prevent her from blocking your Noxian Guillotine with her Riposte, use E - R. She won't be able to block when she's being pulled. If she's used it to block your Decimate, just dunk her.
• Object: Pick one: stomp the lane, or just farm. You obviously can't afford to lose this lane. If you choose to farm, Fiora will become a giant threat to your team. Late game, you won't be able to defeat a Fiora that has an even amount of gold as you, or more, because Fiora scales extremely well with levels and AD.

Fizz

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Moderate.
• Playstyle: Play slowly level 1. Hold on to your skill point. Find out what ability he got. If he didn't take Seastone Trident, take Crippling Strike and go in. If he did, take Decimate and go in. Ask for ganks post-6.
• Mechanics: You will most likely never land your Decimate on a good fizz as he can use his Urchin Strike and Playful / Trickster to either dodge it or deny the heal and 50% damage (as well as a Hemorrhage stack). You need to rely on your auto attacks against Fizz. I recommend changing up your build a bit. Buy a Phage, then build a full Spirit Visage because fizz deals a lot of magic damage (he still deals a decent amount of magic damage even when he's building full AD) before upgrading the phage into Trinity Force. OR if they have a tank jungler, buy Black Cleaver instead.
• Object: Decide to go for first blood or not. Whatever you decided, farm up your Spirit Visage.

Nasus

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Easy.
• Playstyle: Entirely aggressive. This will most likely be a bloody lane as almost every Nasus will try to last hit to ramp up his Siphoning Strike's damage and Darius will punish him for every single minion he tries to get. Hold on to your ability point at level one. If he does move in for CS, take Crippling Strike and go in for AA - W. Try to kill him at level one. If he's not scared, kill him again everytime he goes in for that juicy CS. Freeze the lane afterwards, if possible.
• Mechanics: You need to run Stormraider's Surge against Nasus. 75% slow resistance offered by this keystone will make his Wither feels like non-existance. Don't try for AA reset while withered, as you will most likely mess it up because you'll attack very slow. Do not fight if he has a big minion wave. His E will reduce your armor, making minions hurt a lot. Darius don't have much trouble clearling minion waves, so do that first.
• Object: Stomp the lane. Prevent Nasus from stacking up his Q.

Heimerdinger

• Start: Doran's Shield or Corrupting Potion.
• Difficulty: Moderate.
• Playstyle: Survive level 1. Look for oppotunities starting from level 3. If he oversteps, unleash your wrath on him.
  Play Video
• Mechanics: Use AA - Crippling Strike to destroy his turret with ease, if it's too high up in the lane. You won't lose anything for this because Crippling Strike refunds mana on kill. Running into an unwarded bush will drop his turret aggro, especially useful when he uses his ultimate turret.
• Object: Survive level 1 and 2. Kill everytime you can post-3. Try not to get killed.

Gangplank

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Easy.
• Playstyle: Gangplank is farm thirsty. Punish him for every minion he tries to get. Try for level 1 first blood. Freeze the lane if you can. It's okay if you don't.
• Mechanics: If he lays down barrels in your range, wait for it to tick down to 2 HP and destroy it with AA - Crippling Strike. You will not lose anything for this because Crippling Strike refunds all of its mana cost if it kills. His oranges will only remove your slows on Crippling Strike and Apprehend, both lasting for only 1 second, so it's not impactful.
• Object: Stomp the lane. Prevent him from getting too much gold and silver serpents.

Garen

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Easy.
• Playstyle: Entirely aggressive. Kill everytime he gets in range.
• Mechanics: For a Garen running at you, it's not a challenge to lend in your full combo before you get silenced. AA-W, start winding up Decimate just before he hits you and you're good. Trust me, it's not hard to pull off. Your auto attacks and Crippling Strike along with DPS from Hemorrhage are stronger than his auto attacks and Judgment. Your ultimate is really just his ultimate on steroid.
• Object: Stomp the lane.

Gnar

• Start: Doran's Blade or Boots.
• Difficulty: Moderate.
• Playstyle: Try to get to level 2 before he does without fighting too much by focusing on attacking minions. Take Apprehend at level 2 and try to go for kills everytime you can. Preferably when he's close to getting his mega form.
• Mechanics: Unlike most other champions, you actually want to fight Gnar in his Mega form instead of his small form. His small form can kite you really easily and efficiently, so you touching him is really difficult. His mega form has high damage and crowd control, but it forces Gnar to stay in melee range and there are only few melee champions in the game can beat Darius, and Gnar is not one of those. Most Gnar players get confident when they transform, but little do they know, that's when you shine.
• Object: Win the lane. You also need to play your teamfights well because Gnar has a lot of teamfighting presence with his ultimate. You can't let a yordle be more useful than you.

Graves

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Moderate.
• Playstyle: You want to fight him at level 1, when he hasn't got his E yet. Try to get him low or kill him so you have the early lane advantage. You can beat him easily post-6, with your ultimate up.
• Mechanics: Graves's auto attacks are blockable, so he can't poke you easily. Since you have 175 auto attack range, you can hit enemy melee minions from behind your melee minions so Graves's auto attacks will be blocked by your minions. Armor and Magic resist coming from Graves's E is only refreshed when he attacks champions, turrets or jungle monsters, so try not to get hit when he's just used his E because if you let the effect stack up, it will make him super tanky and near impossible to kill. Your ultimate will just ignore this though. Switch up your buy order: Phage into Ninja Tabi. Just finish Tabi and he's not gonna kill you 1v1, not even a chance.
• Object: Make it a positive or even lane.

Olaf

• Start: Doran's Blade.
• Difficulty: Easy.
• Playstyle: Neutral at level 1. There's no way you will be able to win a level 1 duel with Olaf due to his Q spam. Take Crippling Strike at level 2 and show him who's boss. If both of you are level 5, play neutral again as his third rank Undertow will again, overpower you. Get to level 6 and take back your boss seat for the rest of the game.
• Mechanics: During Ragnarok, your Apprehend's active is useless. Your Crippling Strike won't slow him either. However, damage is still dealt as normal, so if he gets too confident because you can't CC him, he'll be dead before he realizes.
• Object: Survive level 1. Shove him out levels 2-4. Survive level 5 if it's equal. Be the boss post-6.

Rumble

Doran's Blade

Noxian Guillotine

Teemo

Doran's Shield

Doran's Shield

Apprehend

Decimate

Hemorrhage

Illaoi

Doran's Blade

Decimate

Crippling Strike

Poppy

Doran's Blade

Decimate

Shen

Doran's Blade

Hemorrhage

Decimate

Black Cleaver

Vayne

• Start: Doran's Shield.
• Difficulty: Hard.
• Playstyle: Passive levels 1-2. Lend in a warning Decimate if she gets in range. Accept some pokes, it's ok. Laugh at her. Show your mastery emote. Go in with either Flash - Decimate or Apprehend at level 3, or preferably level 4. Look to kill. Do not be afraid if your health is lower, as your Decimate heals for percent missing health. Try to find more oppotunities to kill. You can never farm freely against a Vayne unless she's dead.
  
  Play Video
  Sorry, the video is kinda laggy. I just don't have a good computer right now. :(
  
  
• Mechanics: A well timed Apprehend will cancel her Tumble. If you successfully hook her, immediately slow her with Crippling Strike (don't try for AA reset) before she uses Condemn so you can catch up to her again. Post-6, invest in pink wards and plant it in a bush so you can see her. Build Youmuu's Ghostblade in place of Ravenous Hydra, as a Vayne should not be building armor, and she is a kite type champion, so its active will help you out a lot.
• Object: Survive levels 1-2. Kill her levels 3 onward. Do not try to shove her from farm, you can't. Late game, Vayne will kill you with ease, unless you bullied her 0/10 or something like that.
  
  
  I lost though. My AD carry went AFK. :(
  
  
  

  STILL IN PROGRESS! WILL UPDATE REAL SOON! PLEASE LEAVE YOUR FEEDBACK!

CHANGES MADE

Used to keep track of changes made to the guide.

Spoiler: Click to view

ADDED: ABILITIES SECTION
Aside from simply levelling Noxian Guillotine before you dunk, there is a more advanced trick. This trick makes use of one mechanic: The damage is calculated by the time the blow arrives, not when the animation start. So, if you happen to get level 11/16 in combat, quickly pressing R - Ctrl R will increase your R damage without any delay.

ADDED: ABILITIES SECTION
There is a known bug with Noxian Guillotine where if the target dies to Hemorrhage right IMMEDIATELY before the dunk, it will be set on cooldown.

Spoiler: Click to view

EDITED: MATCHUPS VS. KLED
Damage wise, you win. However, his passive is kinda broken right now, it has some mechanics that I think should never exist in League. When he gets off or gets on his ride, any CC currently on him will be instantly removed. Damage will work the same way too. For example, if your dunk deals 1100 damage and Kled has 700 with his ride at 300, it will just simply knock him off the ride. 800 of your dunk will be wasted. My bet on this is it's gonna get patched by Riot. There's no way this mechanic should exist in League. For now, let's say this matchup is high-medium difficulty. Level 1 first blood and bullying is possible. Getting rekt is also possible.

ADDED: VIDEOS SECTION Play Video

Spoiler: Click to view

UPDATED: Profile pic

ADDED: Build 3: My personal enjoyment

Your dueling gets so much more powerful with titanic hydra, but only if you can hit them. Never build against mobile champions

Spoiler: Click to view

UPDATED: MY PERSONAL ENJOYMENT

Cases where I don't build Tabi are when the enemy is full AP, like literally full AP, with a Corki ADC.

Sometimes I also build Youmuus second, when the enemy team's AP is minimal or he's really far behind at the moment.

UPDATED: Profile pic

Spoiler: Click to view

ADDED: "JUST READ THIS, please" SECTION

Do not pick against full ranged/4 ranged team. Ranged champions can kite Darius hard, and 4-5 of them are gonna do that without needing any skill whatsoever. Just ranged top laner and jungler are gonna make your game so much harder already.

Spoiler: Click to view

UPDATED: "MASTERIES" section
Update on the preseason 7 masteries reworks!

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Merged "MY PERSONAL ENJOYMENT/BEST BUILD" with "ITEMS" section.

UPDATED: "MY PERSONAL ENJOYMENT/BEST BUILD" section.