Can we in the very least TALK about Darius?

I think that there's a lot of people on the board who think Darius is some balance masterpiece who is completely fun and fair to play against, and as someone who has played as and against a lot of Darius's, I don't think that is entirely true, and below I'd like to talk about him in what I hope is an objective manner. If you disagree with me, at least tell me why in the comments below.

It's not a lie that Darius essentially hard counters most if not all melee matchups from the start without much effort from the player in question. Aside from Fiora, MAYBE Trundle, and most ranged top laners, I don't know of any matchups in which it is particularly hard for Darius to win. And you'll notice that the two melee tops I named are exclusively designed to fuck their opponent royally in a straight 1v1. Melee CSing vs a Darius is a very risky gamble - unlike practically all other Juggernauts, he has the option to force a fight whenever he wants, and in a way that can go through a minion wave, which many other beefy top laners do not have the luxury of possessing. By virtue of how his Q works, you have two options - run away from the handle completely, and thus miss CS or your damage, or run inwards to him, where he will gladly slow you and apply stacks in melee range. 'Just dodge the Q' is not always the best advice for winning a trade against Darius - sure, it is a lot of his burst, but fighting a Darius is a time bomb, that, if you do not count the second correctly, will blow up in your face in a way that no other champion operates. I've handily beaten many Darius' by several kills and quite a bit of CS and still lost a straight fight with him at level 6, which never feels fun or fair. Throw in arguably the highest base stats in the game of any AD top laner (and even other tanks!), a passive chock-full of raw value, and some utility to boot, and you have a champion that is exceptionally hard to put behind despite all the trouble he causes for his opponent when he is ahead. Darius is like the Zed of Juggernauts, and really top laners in general - when he's good, there really isn't a reason not to pick him, because what he does is devastating, and the skill floor to achieve said results is not very high at all. I am by no means a Darius main, but I have Mastery 5 and have played him quite a bit - he's got a low skill floor and handily destroys 90% of top lane matchups if you generally know what Darius does.

That's not to say Darius is broken or OP - I don't think that. But I think it's rich for people to act like he is a balance masterpiece. To quote myself directly:

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Darius's update was a 'success' in that it made him more interesting to play and exacerbated both his strengths and weaknesses, but he's too much of a generalist to be truly healthy. People like to say it made his highs higher and his lows lower, but his highs are often so high that it can cover up his lows quite neatly. When he's strong, there's not much of a point to picking other Juggernauts because he outdamages most of them while also having top-notch base stats and utility in comparison. He's also oppressive in most matchups and the lane becomes his to fail rather than for his opponent to play well - he starts the game with an innate advantage over pretty much all matchups in the top lane and can really only lose if he spams abilities without thinking or plays recklessly. Playing against a Darius, you are forced to play extra cautious and basically bow down to him most of the time; oftentimes you must simply pray that he is a worse player than you; and even then Darius can still brute force his way through most matchups with ease. There's a significant Darius circlejerk on the boards that likes to believe that he's Riot's gift to League but he really isn't; it seems to me that a lot of people have never actually played against one. If you're not ranged or Fiora the lane becomes his to lose. There's bias on both sides, however.

is generally how I feel about the champion. Its fine for Darius to be a lane bully, but for him to do so with pretty relative ease, not fall off, and in such an extreme way is a bit much. Playing against Darius basically means that the majority of the time, unless you are ranged or managed to cheese an early kill, you'll have to be his bitch and stay away from the wave for fear of him initiating a trade it is hard for him to lose. Some of you may think that's okay, and play Darius because you like doing that, but you have to consider how the receiving end feels, which is hopeless most of the time. I don't like playing matchups where I am not allowed to CS or fight my enemy because I immediately lose once he gets 5 stacks, which is actually pretty binary gameplay once you think about it. 'Oh, Darius just outplayed you, you deserve to lose'. Not....really. I don't see how I get outplayed by being autoed 5 times, with maybe a Q thrown in there, and if I run away I get pulled right back. Please remember not every champion is Fiora/Yasuo/Riven (very few, in fact) who can just dash around and engage him at will with little to no punishment. Darius breaks a lot of rules Riot has said they have instituted for design, and I can't think of a single time when he's ever actually been weak and not one of the top five top laners, if not top three. People will say over and over again that the rework was a success and Darius is super healthy and balanced, and it strikes a nerve as a guy who plays a lot of immobile melee top laners who are royally fucked by the guy simply for existing. As said above, the rework was a success because it fixed his god-awful first iteration by leaps and bounds, but it also made him much more frustrating to play against in other respects and much , much more powerful in accomplished hands, and a lot of people seem to forget that.

Right now, certainly, the game has basically been changed to expressly favor him through itemization and such, and I think that Darius will start to become very scary very soon.

Anyways, that's how I feel about Darius, and I've tried to type it out in a reasonable manner that fosters discussion.

TL;DR Darius rework was a success, but he is still an fairly unfun lane bully that leaves little room for his lane opponent to actually show up in a fight against him, whilst also scaling hard. By virtue of how his kit works he's essentially guaranteed an easy win against 90% of melee matchups barring a major fuckup on his part, and that is neither fun nor fair in a modern champion's kit. Recent changes to the game have also directly benefitted him and he will become even stronger because of them, and I hope people keep an eye on that.

EDIT: Whichever guy just randomly downvoted all my comments, thanks, I guess.