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Delving into successful Darius builds at Worlds

Riot·10/7/2015, 11:04:19 AM·2 votes·27,279 views

One of the most contentious and discussed topics at the 2015 World Championship has been the role of four reworked champions, now organized under the banner of "juggernauts" including Darius, Garen, Mordekaiser, and Skarner. Along with Gangplank -- another recently retooled champion -- and the omnipresent Lulu, Darius and Mordekaiser have been incredibly high priority picks in Champion Select through the Group Stage thus far.

Due to the focus on banning out Mordekaiser, Gangplank, and Lulu, Darius has slipped through many ban phases but is almost always picked. Of all 24 Group Stage games in Week 1, he's only fallen completely through the the draft three times, with an 87.5% pick/ban rate. Interestingly enough, Darius has only a slightly higher than average win percentage at 57%. He is by no means a guaranteed win, necessitating care and a game plan before loading onto the Rift.

Group A: Flash Wolves' Steak Against the KOO Tigers

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With the largest amount of parity across regional lines at this year's World Championship, perhaps it's not so surprising that Taiwan's Flash Wolves managed to upset Korea's KOO Tigers. What is unexpected is how Flash Wolves managed the victory thanks to their top laner, Lu-Hsi "Steak" Chou. The much-maligned captain of Flash Wolves was considered a weak point on the team, especially in a meta so focused on carry champions in the top lane.

Their Day 2 draft against KOO gifted Flash Wolves not only Darius for Steak, but also Gangplank for mid laner Yi-Tang "Maple" Huang, and the comfort pocket pick of Varus for AD carry Wen-An "NL" Hsiung. This was supplemented by poke from Hau-Hsuan "Karsa" Hung's jungle Nidalee.

The new juggernaut Darius hits hard largely in thanks to his passive, Hemorrhage. Hitting his enemies causes them to bleed, and once Darius applies five bleed stacks, or delivers a killing blow with Noxian Guillotine (R), he gains a secondary passive: Noxian Might. Under the effects of Noxian Might, Darius has bonus attack damage and he applies full Hemorrhage stacks with his attacks as well. Ouch. Apprehend (E) allows him to pull and slow opponents, keeping them within melee range. The most important thing to remember is that Darius needs to be within a fairly short range to deal his maximum amount of damage, and teams have still struggled with this limitation.

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Flash Wolves, and Steak, overcame this by placing NL on a comfortable champion with strong waveclear, complementing the zoning potential from Gangplank in mid lane. This allowed Steak to go in without fear as his team poked away, forcing KOO to come to them.

Steak grabbed Phage first -- a key component of Black Cleaver -- not only for increased attack damage, but also for bonus on-hit movespeed. His first completed item is the Cleaver, which also grants armor shred in addition to the aforementioned movespeed. Steak followed up Black Cleaver with Dead Man's Plate, a new but essential item on juggernauts that gives 600 health -- synchronizing nicely with Darius' percentage health heal on Decimate (Q) -- and yet another movespeed bonus. His build was topped off by a Randuin's Omen, making him even beefier and giving him the possibility of slowing opponents with its active.

The end result is that Steak's Darius not only did massive amounts of damage, but even when caught by opponents, he could take a few hits while the rest of his team poked away from a safe range.

Group B: Cloud9's Balls Against Fnatic

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Rather than running a poke composition like Flash Wolves, Cloud9 opted for their bread and butter siege composition of Tristana for AD carry Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi and Azir for mid laner Nicolaj "Incarnati0n" Jensen. This allowed them to whittle down the heath bars of turrets rather than opponents while still providing zone control and coverage for An "Balls" Le's Darius so he could barrel into the center of team fights to deliver a killing blow.

Once again, the Black Cleaver is Darius' quintessential first item. Unlike Steak -- who is not relied upon to do a large share of his team's damage -- Balls built Randuin's next to combat attack damage from Fnatic top laner Seung-hoon "Huni" Heo's Yasuo. He picked up a Spectre's Cowl -- en route to Spirit Visage -- for a bit more magic resistance as well as health regeneration to deal with Fabian "Febiven" Diepstraten's Orianna.

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This is followed up by a Thornmail -- signifying again that if Balls goes into a fight, he's planning on staying there -- which deflects 15% of opponents' physical damage back onto themselves as magic damage. Balls then completed his Spirit Visage from Spectre's Cowl, giving him even more health and regeneration. While Incarnati0n controlled zones and counter-engages with Azir, Balls was able to immediately jump into frays following Incarnati0n's Emperor's Divide, staying alive while massacring the entire Fnatic squad with Darius' new kit.

While Darius is certainly strong, it's important to have a game plan for both the entire team composition and build path in order to make the most of his new juggernaut status. He's not an automatic victory once locked in, as many teams at the 2015 World Championship have shown thus far, but he's a blunt instrument capable of incredible strength once in the right hands.

Let us know about your favorite Darius builds and compositions from Worlds 2015, and watch teams play Darius (and 58 other champions so far) over on the spoiler-free VODs page.

38 Comments

Camba4ever10/7/2015, 6:56:07 PM7 votes

I think all of you posting negative comments about the article or Darius in general or how Balls got lucky etc... need to re-read the title of the article "... successful Darius builds ..." The article is highlighting the times he HAS been successful and the builds that were used, period. So... read more carefully before you continue the trolling and toxicity, k thx.

p0psicles10/7/2015, 1:42:04 PM4 votes

The title of this article should have read “delving into the one time Darius did well because Huni picked Yasuo” because that was the only time in worlds he has done well.

TechNutrelizer10/9/2015, 2:45:47 AM3 votes

Hate how people give Balls so much hate XD, I admit he got a bit lucky, but dat pentadunk thoughDarius item 3071

AnhDopTrai10/9/2015, 7:39:36 PM2 votes

༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ C9 take my energy༼ つ ◕◕ ༽つ

Earl Eulrich10/7/2015, 11:46:14 AM2 votes

if you want to delve into anything, then dive into which team compositions completly anhilated Darius...or how winrate and the strength of a Champion don´t always correlate.

Fekapeta10/7/2015, 6:00:28 PM2 votes

Well the champ does have a high win rate but i seriously question how much of it is due to the champ itself, cause the only time i saw the pick reallyh do something was 1 game with Balls on C9 and one time that he capitalized on a mistake by KKramer on the first game of Flash Wolves at worlds. Other than that it's a safe pick in lane phase (unless u play renekton against it). Counters most of the top laners right now but honestly not so great overall since his weakenesses are more than obvious..

AyRe CoNteMpT10/7/2015, 11:23:14 AM2 votes

not sure if you trolling but there was no successfull darius in worlds yet

andrewd0010/8/2015, 2:09:28 AM1 votes

Look at Hai's Face looooool

Irontruth10/8/2015, 9:04:07 PM1 votes

Darius doesn't need to carry hard to be effective in a game. Rather, he needs to be a potent threat that removes options from enemy teams. Normally top lane is used for engage champs who can control the pace of the fight, but Darius can only walk up to people. With a siege comp, you force the enemy team to engage onto you.

Take the last Flash Wolves vs KOO Tigers. At the 23 minute mark of the last game Darius and Azir were used to zone out the enemy team. KOO couldn't take advantage of it, but the threat of those two champs was real. If they had pushed a little harder, they could have forced the fight when they had the stronger position. Their failure to capitalize on this was due to playcalling, not champ select (or builds).

Black Cleaver is obviously required for Darius, it has everything he wants. After that, I'd like to see more players to prioritize Randuins to disrupt enemy engages, letting the ADC and midlane pump out their damage.

Refuze1210/7/2015, 4:27:22 PM1 votes

Darius = op and needs a nerf on the passive

thekingofnido10/7/2015, 7:07:46 PM1 votes

The truth is, Darius should not be first pick worthy. he is very easy to counter, but in the correct team comp he can destroy the enemy team. Balls showed this during the Fnatic game, he did a ton of work in that fight, and had a good team comp to back him up!