Darius needs a mobility tool

Oakleaf Ranger·Sep 19, 2018·2 votes·1,686 views

Darius's game play and balancing pain points come so much from his lack of built in mobility.

If you can play outside of his range then the lane turns into a poke or farm fest and their is nothing Darius can do unless the enemy misplays. When Darius is strong, its usually when he is tanky or strong enough to brute force his way past that issue before getting the nerf bat again.

Kiting and mobility is the weakness of juggernauts yet all of them have some means to deal with ranged threats to some extent. Whether it be a ranged ability of their own or some sort of gap closer.

Without a similar tool like the rest of class, Darius will forever remain the only true Juggernaut that fits the description. A description that whenever true of a champion, will either get to play or afk farm depending on the enemy champion.

13 Comments

Critmaster GarenSep 19, 20186 votes

item 3078 item 3742 item 3800 help.

and the hook is a pretty strong sticking/engage tool.

the thing is, darius is a hyper carry. in larger fights, he needs support just like a ranged carry, only to be able to get into the enemy team or fight front to back, instead of keeping distance.

imagine him like a melee version of kog maw, who needs a team built around him to be 100% effective. but if you do that, he can hard carry your team. ideally he has at least a tank for him to engage.

the mistake that most teams (at low mmr) make is to assume that because they have darius on top lane, they dont need a tank because they already have a "tanky" character. so they pick shit like lee sin or assassins into the jungle, and the team ends up lacking proper engage and lockdown for darius to thrive on.

we have the same problems with garen and other juggs still above plat. though the upside with garen is, that the enemy teams tend to do the same, and you can punish these assassin heavy/low utility teams a bit easier with garen. there is a reason garens winrate dropped off when tanks saw a little bit more play.

Oakleaf RangerSep 19, 20181 votes

All those do help.

Except I said built in mobility...

redniwediSSep 19, 20183 votes

Juggernauts can't have significant built in mobility, so you're going to have to find an answer with an out of kit source.

Oakleaf RangerSep 19, 20181 votes

What do you mean by significant?

I agree but they do need something because every juggernaut has some means to deal with range champions. Aside morde and Darius.

redniwediSSep 20, 20181 votes

Mobility has classically been viewed as an ability like a dash, jump, or blink. Movement speed boosts have not been considered mobility by Riot, even though a large portion of the community views champions with high speed as mobile. Mobility, according to Riot, allows you to skip past walls.

As of right now there are only four Juggernauts that have a mobility skill, and I highly question Aatrox's placement in that class. The other champions are Illaoi (short range, targeted), Urgot (decent range, stops on enemy contact), and Shyvanna (good range, tied to ultimate). All other Juggernauts only have a small amount of CC, a movement speed boost, or both.

Back in season 5, when Riot started using the term Juggernaut and had their large Juggernaut update, they specifically said the design philosophy of a Juggernaut involves them being immobile and low on utility. Darius in particular is meant to use his pull and slow as his ability to stay in a fight. This makes him great against melee champions, and potentially fantastic against tanks, but the only option he has against a ranged matchup is to either roam or hope the opponent mismanages their distance to you.

Garen, the Juggernaut I have the most experience with, trades utility for speed. The only utility in his kit is a 1.5 second silence, and as a result he gets to be decently fast. This does help him get on top of some ranged champions, but once the speed boost wears off he has no tools for staying on top of that enemy. These types of issues are tightly bound with the identity of a Juggernaut, and you're supposed to rely on your team to cover these weaknesses.

Whether this design philosophy works well, or has aged well if it used to work, is a very long discussion that probably needs to happen, but as of right now I would think Darius would have to lose some of his utility if he was to get a small jump like Illaoi has. In the meantime abuse Phage as best you can, get a Dead Man's Plate, and pray that your team picks someone that can set up fights for you.

Oakleaf RangerSep 20, 20181 votes

Rito needs to update their defintion of mobility if they think rammus and janna are not highly mobile cause they can't move through walls.

Darius needs speed somewhere in his kit.

redniwediSSep 21, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Oakleaf Ranger,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EOAntikO,comment-id=000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2018-09-20T17:15:32.501+0000)

Darius needs speed somewhere in his kit.

It's going to cost him somewhere else in his kit then.

Mc TruckSep 19, 20185 votes

Darius with a mobility tool? It's a great idea, actually, but we are gonna need to trim his other abilities to fit the idea.

Q - make it a jump to his target, dealing some magic damage, so the champion doesn't scale too hard off AD builds.

W - keep it the same, but make it magic damge and scaling with AP for the same reason.

E - Darius focuses for a couple of seconds, blocking all incoming basic attacks. When the effect ends, he unleashes a battlecry, stunning all enemies around him an dealing some physical damage, scaling with AD and the number of attacks blocked.

R - Let darius passively strike a massive blow with his axe evey 3 attacks, dealing additional magic damage. I don't feel like he is tanky enough, so I would add an active that provides him with bonus armor scaling off AD and mres scaling off AP for like...7 seconds, as the new version of Darius will build a little bit of both.

Passive can stay relatively the same, but I feel like it would be more fitting to stack attack speed on himself, instead of damage on the enemy, to synergize with new kit better.

Upvote.

DarukongSrSep 19, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mc Truck,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EOAntikO,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-09-19T09:40:45.206+0000)

Darius with a mobility tool? It's a great idea, actually, but we are gonna need to trim his other abilities to fit the idea.

Q - make it a jump to his target, dealing some magic damage, so the champion doesn't scale too hard off AD builds.

W - keep it the same, but make it magic damge and scaling with AP for the same reason.

E - Darius focuses for a couple of seconds, blocking all incoming basic attacks. When the effect ends, he unleashes a battlecry, stunning all enemies around him an dealing some physical damage, scaling with AD and the number of attacks blocked.

R - Let darius passively strike a massive blow with his axe evey 3 attacks, dealing additional magic damage. I don't feel like he is tanky enough, so I would add an active that provides him with bonus armor scaling off AD and mres scaling off AP for like...7 seconds, as the new version of Darius will build a little bit of both.

Passive can stay relatively the same, but I feel like it would be more fitting to stack attack speed on himself, instead of damage on the enemy, to synergize with new kit better.

Upvote.

Lol that sounds like a cancer kit xD