A letter I wrote to Riot Scruffy about Darius
About 2 weeks ago I wrote a letter to Riot Scruffy about Darius, I'm not sure if he has received the mail(heard it gets lost) or if he has read it and hasn't responded I will post it on boards for people to read the contents if they so wish to.
Note: I put my name as XXXXXX for privacy issues.
Dear Mark Yetter(Riot Scruffy),
Hi there, my name’s XXXXXX and I’m currently a senior in highschool. I first got into League of Legends around March 2012 and have loved this game since. When Darius was first teasered and released, he became my favorite champion and I loved playing the game ever since. His lore and character design made me love playing this champ as he reminded me of a story my dad told me about his cousin. Back in the 1970’s when my dad was still in Iraq(we are Kurdish) his cousin had been orphaned when he was 9 along with his 4 year old brother due to his parents dying in a flood. He went to an orphange but back then the orphanages weren’t good as many things such as going from orphange to orphange happened constantly. He had taken care of himself and his younger brother all those years all by himself. My father told me how he is an exceptionally smart man who does anything to keep his brother alive and safe, sort of like Darius with Draven. Today he owns an oil refinery in Iraq and works with my uncle there.
I wanted to write today about how I love your reworks on champions done so far(Skarner was one of my favorites after he got the new passive) and I was so excited to hear that you were going to work on Darius. Darius is the Hand of Noxus, a symbol of power and hope for the people of Noxus. He shows no mercy to all those he fights on the battlefield and will even kill his own captain(in lore). He isn’t just any soldier though, he’s a very smart soldier who knows how to precisely strike the enemy’s vital blood vessels. His passive shows how he knows where to strike his enemies to make them bleed and die much faster in battle. His rework I feel could really bring out his intelligence of battle and understanding of the human body. His W signifies how he knows to strike an artery with higher force to cripple his enemies.
I have ideas but I know you’re a smart man Mark, you have a job at a very large gaming industry and probably have a general idea but I wish that my idea could help further your work on the Darius rework. What I had thought could happen was that he would indeed have a higher cap of his passive, potentially even higher than 10, could be around 15 or maybe 12. I was thinking how the more blood vessels he had damaged the more it would debuff the enemy and increase his own power. A sample would be if it was 12 stacks at 3 stacks the enemy would take 10% more damage from Darius’s crippling strike as it now cuts even deeper into the opposing foe, increasing by another 10% capping at 100% more damage at 12 stacks. At 6 stacks the enemy would have their damage reduced by say 10% increasing to 25% at 12 stacks. At 9 stacks the opposing foe has lost too much blood and attacks more sluggishly, reducing their attack speed by X%. At 12 stacks Darius will deal increased damage with his autos and crippling strike now momentarily stuns the enemy when used. This is a sample idea of how the more he cuts the enemy’s blood vessels he will deal more damage, making him extremely difficult to fight in an extended duel. Crippling Strike no longer slows attack speed, that power has been put into the bleed.
The next few things I thought he could honestly have changed are his Q and E, along with his R. His Q is honestly a braindead skill, just spin around you, miss and you lose most of your damage potential in laning phase, land it and you won’t lose the duel(most of the time). I saw the new Sion Q and it made me think of how Darius’s Q could be, chargeable but not a ground slam or root him in place, instead he can charge it while moving and it would be a 2 part skill. The skill would do the same amount of damage no longer the charge duration but it would have different effects. Part 1: Darius swings his axe in front of him(same range as current Q) but not in a circle, half circle. If he charges this skill for 1-2 seconds, he can leap roughly 500 units or so then swing his axe in the half circle motion. He would have a passive on this skill which would NOT allow him to use it as an escape, the passive goes as following: I will not tolerate cowardice; Darius gains double the movespeed bonus of his passive when chasing bleeding enemies who have their backs turned to them, Darius can not use his charged Q to leap away if he is taking damage from an enemy champion with his back turned to them. This would tie in his lore and quotes as how he wouldn’t allow cowardice so why should he promote it himself?
His E is a lot easier to change, the skill would be the same but the passive would be changed from armor pen(invisible power) to working with his passive. As he levels it up, his passive gains bonus effects and he can apply stacks much easier now. It could go something like at rank 1 his passive would deal 10% more damage, rank 2 he applys 2 stacks of his passive every 3 autos to a certain champion within 3 seconds, rank 3 Darius gains sight of an enemy with 5 or more stacks on them(true sight is optional), rank 4 every auto now deals 2 stacks of his passive, rank 5 not so sure, probably increase the damage of his passive to 20%. This would take away some hidden power and make it more noticeable in more passive damage and allowing him to apply stacks much easier, this may make him overloaded but the general idea should be known: hones his axe to cut into his enemies easier.
His R is the big daddy of skills, the skill that defines Darius and makes people love and hate him, his Guilliotine. Ever since the reset got removed, Darius became half a champion, no longer able to shut down his lane opponent down hard and roam effectively to help his team crush the game early. This skill I feel should reset fully, but it would be harder to get the killing blow with it now since it will scale poorly. Say you have a cap of 12 stacks on your passive, the ult will scale by 100% with each stack capping at 1000% more damage. Whoa isn’t that a lot of damage? The damage scaling woud become something like this: 40/60/80 true damage(+.04 TotalAD scaling, .4 at max stacks) and caps at 1000% more damage(400/600/800+.4 Total AD). The Total AD scaling is there for the sole purpose of Darius needing to build tanky in order to succeed and getting his stacks, making the scalings on his moves bonus AD kills this purpose and forces him to get a high damage item to still be relevant in terms of damage. Alas there is just one more thing that must be done in order to make his ultimate thematic with his character. In his lore when he killed his captain it put fear in the enemy soldiers but inspired his own to fight more and eventually win the battle. I was thinking, what if when Darius killed an enemy with his ultimate, his team within say 1000 range of him gain a temporary movespeed bonus for 3 seconds? This would work thematically and would let his teamates want him to take the finishing blow so they can win the fight or have an advantage.
Darius has been my favorite champion since 2012 and I always love playing him but he’s currently not a whole champion. I hope this letter helps you with reworking Darius, I tried my best to show what I think what would make him a better and healthier champion in league. Sorry I didn’t handwrite this and for my poor grammar and spelling, English was my 3rd language and I’m still trying to fully learn it.
Yours Truly, XXXXXX
