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Should Riot nerf Darius?

NuggeTech··12 votes·2,139 views

I am not a regular top laner. However, that does not mean I do not notice things going wrong during a match. Every ability that Darius is just too much to handle. His passive causes bleeding effect and you can use his ult twice. This is stupidly helpful in a teamfight. Killing him is almost impossible due to his huge amount of health. Almost every champion when up against a Darius just dies very easily against him. The only champ that can beat Darius is Teemo, but every one bans him due to his shrooms and poison especially at lower elo. Even cs difference between a Daruis and an enemy top laner is minimal he still starts to scale hard. And this is not something that has been happening recently. Ever since I started league Darius has been the toughest to kill.

With that being said, I know there are people who can easily win against Darius. But I am talking abt the average player, especially about a bronze like me. According to me,Riot needs to fix Darius. Get rid of his ult ability to use it twice or fix his passive. That's just my thought.

38 Comments

Dracocrash7 votes

I tthink you need to read darius's ult first.

NuggeTech3 votes

I have and I know what it does. Which is why is said it is very useful in teamfights. Especially against supports or mid laners who tend to be squishy.

Sahn Uzal9 votes

You actually don't understand what it does.

Understanding the champ is half the work buddy.

NuggeTech3 votes

Oh! maybe you are right. Sorry mb. But I think my point does stand among low elos.

MontethePython2 votes

Darius's ult is an execution, which only deals high true damage when he has 5 stacks of hemorrhage (meaning he has to hit 5 attacks consecutively or kill an enemy). He can't use it twice on the same target, but instead has to use it to kill someone just with the execution cast for it to reset and be able to be used again. That is how it works.

LemurMonster3 votes

Yes he does.. he damage is beyond stupid. With the Black cleaver, it is over kill. He even out scales Gnar in damage when he goes full tank after despite Gnars HP% damage. Not only that but darius has sustain to.

Which is something that should never be put in such a champ with his kit. It needs to go or nerf his armor penetration if anything...

Berserknurple1 votes

{quoted}

Yes he does.. he damage is beyond stupid. With the Black cleaver, it is over kill. He even out scales Gnar in damage when he goes full tank after despite Gnars HP% damage. Not only that but darius has sustain to.

Which is something that should never be put in such a champ with his kit. It needs to go or nerf his armor penetration if anything...

Gnar is a CC tank. Not only that, but a sometimes ranged one. At no point in the game should a Gnar do more damage than a Darius. Darius is a juggernaut, just like Illaoi or Yorick, which means:

  • He's immobile.
  • He has sustain if he can land abilities.
  • He has a lot of damage within certain windows of power. For Darius, that means when he successfully ults or gets 5 Bleed stacks.
  • He has little cc and no gap closer.

Juggernauts are powerful, but easily kited and CC'ed. You disengage them when they have their window of power (Illaoi tentacles, Yorick ghouls, Darius bleed stacks) and you whittle them down.

Darius has zero sustain if you dodge his spin. Either walk towards him or away from him, you can actually dodge it in two directions. Juggernauts can be easily ganked because they are immobile. If your jungler is competent and you have cc the juggernaut is usually fucked.

LemurMonster1 votes

{quoted}

Gnar is a CC tank. Not only that, but a sometimes ranged one. At no point in the game should a Gnar do more damage than a Darius. Darius is a juggernaut, just like Illaoi or Yorick, which means:

  • He's immobile.
  • He has sustain if he can land abilities.
  • He has a lot of damage within certain windows of power. For Darius, that means when he successfully ults or gets 5 Bleed stacks.
  • He has little cc and no gap closer.

Juggernauts are powerful, but easily kited and CC'ed. You disengage them when they have their window of power (Illaoi tentacles, Yorick ghouls, Darius bleed stacks) and you whittle them down.

Darius has zero sustain if you dodge his spin. Either walk towards him or away from him, you can actually dodge it in two directions. Juggernauts can be easily ganked because they are immobile. If your jungler is competent and you have cc the juggernaut is usually fucked.

That all doesnt mean squat with a good team... I always had the bad luck of him pulling me in right when I use a mobile ability... There is no justifying him at all. There is a reason why many dont like juggernauts & consider them the most hated class added in the game.

Berserknurple1 votes

Well that's your mistake right there. You need to save mobility for AFTER he pulls you. That way he just wasted a 25 sec cool down ability and got maybe an auto on you.

If you look at winrates there's nothing to suggest that Darius is overpowered or winning any more games than most other champions. Obviously people playing Darius are losing just about as many games as they're winning. Why do you think that is? Is every Darius playing against you just extra good?

I highly suggest playing a couple games AS Darius in the top lane. You'll very quickly learn what works well against him, and you'll understand how to read his abilities and cooldowns a bit more.

For the record, I don't particularly enjoy playing against Darius ether because of how hard he punishes mistakes, but I wouldn't call him overpowered by any stretch of the imagination.

Very Hard Engage3 votes

remove phage from cleaver. gg ez problem solved. (its the sole reason why you can never escape him or manage to have a favorable trade because he will extend the fight and all his stuff is just guaranteed damage, so even if you deal more damage than he does, or if you find yourself in a favorable position, none of it matters because hes going to get all of his auto attacks in)

he needs to be kiteable again.

cleaver is just an overloaded item to begin with.

fuffychan3 votes

item 3071 gives health, AD, 20% cdr, AOE armor shred, and movespeed boost.

Balanced kappa

TakaDama3 votes

You forgot kennen, gnar, quinn, swain, ... who else ... Malza-*******-har (I kid you not: top lane Malz wrecked me hard once bc his passive is complete bull against Juggernauts), anyone that kites him hard (btw Teemo w Mallet or Rylai's is a nightmare, as are Kalista and Vayne outside the laning phase). Hell, there is a recent thread regarding how Nocturne, a squishier melee, can 1v1 Darius, and I'd be hesitant to run Darius into a team with the reworked Zed (seriously: if Noxian Might procs before a lethal death mark, you just gave Zed a ton of AD to murder the rest of your team with).

If you're having trouble with itemization: mallet and rylai's adds much needed kiting potential as well as survivability against his flat true damage ult, and bc all of his damage is physical except for his ultimate, chain vest/warden's mail items are pretty good against him.

Unlike Season 1 Xin Zhao, there are solutions; just have to be willing to look for them.

Sincerely, A currently unranked Darius 'main'

MontethePython2 votes

All good points, and i find that i can usually outplay a Darius with my mains, Zed being one of them, Wukong as well can go toe to toe with Darius because of his insane burst and escapes. However, i do feel like Darius's heal and passive can give him a little too much strength in most match-ups, and if the Darius is good and knows how to avoid being kited, then good luck winning that match-up, not to mention that game. I don't think he needs hard nerfs, or hardly any nerfs at all, but i do think he would still be very strong with maybe a slight passive tweak, or some other tweak, maybe just not a god tier top laner like he is now. I feel like that could be pretty good for everyone. Plus his kit works too well with black cleaver, maybe if they just didn't let his passive apply black cleaver. Also i play a bit of darius myself, and there are times i feel a little too strong, like when you hit the black cleaver power spike. Just my two cents.

TakaDama1 votes

I understand what you mean: that P and Q is quite strong. However I'm unsure how best to tweak him without giving him the Mordekaiser treatment.

I don't believe you can just base the sustain off of a stat other than health, otherwise Darius loses incentive to build tanky and thus would start to suffer an identity crisis. But healing up to 24% of missing health because your opponents positioned themselves wrong is really strong, even with that split-second wind-up.

Playing devil's advocate for the sake of offering suggestions, but why not have Q's cap scale with level (from 1 at level 1 to 2 at level 9 to 3 at level 13) but buff the heal to 15% per champion. I'd imagine I'm not the only one who likes Darius as a lane bully, and this change would remove his 1v2 potential during ganks.

MontethePython2 votes

His passive proc is really what i've seen as his 1 v 2 gank potential, but i feel like the main problem is how much his passive works with black cleaver, applying the armor shred with ticks of bleed. A heal nerf would work, but i kinda feel like as you said his heal is only useful if your opponents don't know how to position against it or in a teamfight coupled with cc, and thus is fair. Riot simply caused the whole strength problem with his passive in relation to his kit currently. Kind of a conundrum i guess.

TakaDama1 votes

Yeah: that passive proc really solidifies his identity as a slow yet steady juggernaut raining dunks of doom on his opponents.

I'd be ok with cutting the AD it grants by up to half if they allowed the passive to proc on 4 stacks as opposed to 5. Or better yet, if the passive ramped up the AD as you apply stacks (which makes me giddy with the idea of getting 25 stacks overall on the enemy team and going to town, but that is very unlikely to pass PBE).

Of course this would require somehow reworking the ult so it still functions as a pentadunk enabler. Thoughts?

MontethePython1 votes

Infinite stacks would actually be worse for darius lol, i mean he generally get's max stacks by killing someone in a teamfight/dunking and not by getting 5 hits off on the same target. Cutting the ad and giving less stacks seems like it could be a good idea, but maybe it's not necessary to go that extreme, and just making his bleed not apply any on hit affects so that it couldn't apply Black Cleaver ( i know i sound like a broken record but darius really abuses black cleaver with his bleed application) would go a long way. I feel like that could cut his crazy mid game power. Honestly i'm not sure there's an easy answer for darius, he's a little oppressive, and abuses black cleaver, but isn't quite what i'd call OP, just more oppressive than most lane bullies. It'd definitely take some serious thought to fix him to be less oppressive.

TakaDama1 votes

It'd be cool if they gave BC the DFT duration effect for AoE and DoT effects. As it is, getting hit once by Darius gives him some kiting/chasing potential of his own for a good amount of time.

MontethePython1 votes

Well the bleed doesn't apply the phage affect, i'm referring to the armour shred passive that black cleaver has, which the bleed procs. This way both his bleed and attacks stack the armour shred, making it much easier to do for darius than other melees.

TakaDama1 votes

My bad: guess I don't know my main as well as I thought. Still, with the proposed change to Garen's passive or Judgment on PBE/surrenderat20 (the armor shred or so I've heard), it'd be a bit unfair to Darius to remove his own armor ignoring capabilities without giving him something to compensate.

At this point, I can't think of anything except to change his laning identity from anti-tank bully to anti-skirmisher bully

MontethePython1 votes

He already get's passive armour pen from his e, and he could stack black cleaver normally without the bleed like everyone else and it would still be a great item on him, just not abused. I feel like just because Garen get's an armour shred on his e (which darius has passive penatration on his anyway) doesn't mean darius's bleed should apply black cleaver tick by tick off of two basic attacks to full stacks. Also that change to Garen already got greenlighted and implemented in 6.24 btw. Also Darius is already kinda anti-skirmisher and anti-tank, when was the last time you saw darius lose to Riven Yasuo or Tryndamere? He's sooo anti skirmisher lol he counters them as well as tanks, the only top laners he even has trouble with are early game snowball gods like pantheon, renekton and wukong. I just feel like not having his bleed apply black cleaver is fair when every other champ applies it fairly with attacks and not to max stacks with a bleed effect when he has armour pen passively on his e and still black cleaver.

Berserknurple2 votes

Yeah.... that's not how his ult works. Plenty of champions counter Darius, he's actually in a pretty balanced state right now. You can play any of the other juggernauts like Illaoi or Yorick into him for easy wins usually.

I will say that you are right that Darius does perform better in bronze clown-fiesta scenarios where he can get his bleed passive off. I know you've probably heard his already, but just kite him. All he has is his pull. And if he gets 5 bleed stacks off on someone, do not fight him. Wait till it wears off and go again. If you're jungling, gank that top lane. Darius has no escapes and almost always will push the wave out.

FireDrizzle2 votes

{quoted} The only champ that can beat Darius is Teemo,

Thats not true, Cancer Quinn, Olaf, Renekton and Yorick can beat Darius, and there must be some I dont know.

NuggeTech1 votes

Quinn is not a champion that many people can play her properly, especially at bronze (my experience). If someone plays her properly, then she is a Nightmare. I've seen her destroy teams or get destroyed. The reason why I said Teemo because Teemo is an anti-tank, and in late game (more than 30 min) he can easily 1v3. Illaoi and Yorick can fight him but he decimates Juggernauts like Darius, garen and Morde if allowed to farm.

Olaf, Renekton and Yorick serve a similar purpose i.e. Juggernauts. The reason why I mentioned Darius is because he is played quite frequently in comparison to others and his skills aren't that hard to land

Berserknurple1 votes

Teemo is not anti tank, in any fashion of the word. He is anti auto attacker. Anyone with cc dumps on teemo, and as soon as you have MR/armor he does nothing to you.

Source: many, many Sion games where a Teemo thought he countered me because I'm melee

TequilaZombie2 votes

and you can use his ult twice.

errrrr

Get rid of his ult ability to use it twice

Do you even Dunk Bro?

I CAN USE MY ULT AS MANY TIMES AS I CAN KILL PEOPLE. Darius

1v1? Single Dunk. 1v2? Double Dunk. 1v3? Triple Dunk. Team fight? GET PENTADUNKED INTO GREYNESS.

Do you know his Q blade heals him, but only in the outer portion? That if you're in melee range his Q deals less damage? That he has free armor pen on his E? That his E costs a decent chunk of mana and has over 20 seconds CD?

He is a champion with situational sustain, no mobility and no way to escape a gank. He also WANTS to go for extended trades because his passive gives him 40-200 AD when at 5 stacks, so he wants to land at least 6 hits on you. It doesn't helps that his main poke ability is AoE and pushes the wave.

With this last paragraph, what does it tells you? Answer - You have two options against him:

1- Go for short trades if you can avoid his Q outer ring or if his Q is on CD. Go for pokes if you can afford. Jayce, Gnar, Kennen, Quinn, Teemo, Vayne. There are loads of champions who can abuse Darius on top lane. There are also skill match ups with champions like Fiora and possibly Jax, who can both outscale a Darius in a 1v1 once late game comes around. A decent Riven can also make his life hell.

2- GANK HIM. Darius pushes the wave by default. Darius is also one of the easiest champions to bait into a long 1v1. Play the bait. Go into his Aprehend Range, get pulled, stick to melee to avoid Q damage, get your jungler to follow and burst his ass to the ground before he can scream Noxus. This works better pre-6. If Darius falls behind, he stays behind.

All in all, Riot balances this game around Plat, not Bronze and while Darius is indeed a strong champion, there is plenty of ways to beat one.

Source: Dude who climbed out of Bronze to Silver and got his ass handed to him while playing Darius many times.

SoryInAdvance2 votes

YES THEY SHOULD. Omg he's insanely op. One q and the bleed takes 200 health on top of the 200 it already does. Its impossible to cs as a melee champ near him..

WoonStruck1 votes

You can crush him with Jax (ironically one of the weakest early game champs) pretty easily; if he pulls, you just pop E and out-trade him hard by using your W auto-reset. Use Q to make sure you don't get hit by the outer ring of his Q.

Genocide Victim1 votes

They should. Darius is disturbingly broken.

Dracocrash1 votes

my tip to you :

Play darius, then you will learn how to play against him.

Spoofghoul1 votes

Look ill give you a tip for laning vs darius

  1. Dont fight him

Ok that was kinda obvious

But on a more serious note

Here is a real tip for dealing with his passive:

  1. grab toughskin mastery and recovery mastery
  2. buy dorans shield
  3. grab 3 healthregen quints and

With toughskin and dorans shield passive you reduce bleed damage ticks by 10!

With the additional health regen from runes masteries ad dorans shield you get some nice earlygame sustain as well

Additional pointers

Dont be afraid to go into his face as he casts Q, as long as you do not get hit by his outer ring he wont bleed you and its damage is halved and he doesnt heal Ofc its better to avoid it completely

Disengage before he gets 5 stacks of his passive if you do trade or risk getting low on hp or worse, dying

That is how you deal with darius

grug1 votes

Darius feels really fucking easy to play however you can beat him if you know how to kite on even a basic level.

ranged champs like teemo, quinn, vayne

especially quinn as an insane matchup for darius as well as all ranged top laners.

Lady Hammerlock1 votes

This post disgusts me in almost every degree

But who could help simply hating Darius..... he is hella frustrating but i don't think he's op or needs a nerf, if anything he just needs tuning so he isn't hella frustrating

Imho it's his passive that needs changing, its very design is asking for trouble

bad arcade kitty1 votes

s7 people are still complaining about darius

BlâckLotus1 votes

holly hell you dont know the struggle until you play against a darius with summoner 6 or summoner 3 i feel like the slow on his w is exssesive in his kit. maybe if riot added the slow to his q he would be easier to escape from,i mean if his q hits youre not in autoattack range so if he doesnt have the slow on the w he cant autoattack you to death then q to finish you.

Papa Slothy1 votes

uh, it only resets if he kills someone. He does not need a nerf

l Helios l1 votes

Darius doesn't need nerfs.

If anything, Riot needs to buff other laners, otherwise the lane will just be garbage. All they've done is nerf the picks that were good: Trundle Shen Poppy Maokai Fiora Sion

If your problem is no one being able to fight him, try Illaoi Irelia Fiora Jax Kennen Jayce Renekton Shen Yorick Trundle Sion

Pretty much all of these champions can either beat him in lane or are just more useful than him in late game fights.

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