Opinions on Darius changes? Simplified list in thread
Hemorrhage (P)
BUFF: Darius now enters Bloodrage for 5 seconds whenever an enemy champion reaches max Hemorrhage or dies to Noxian Guillotine. During Bloodrage, Darius gains 40-200 bonus Attack Damage and applies max Hemorrhage to enemies hit. BUFF: Bleed now deals physical damage instead of magic
NERF: Bleed damage reduced to 10-27 from 12-36 NERF: No longer grants Movement Speed per enemy champion bleeding
Decimate (Q)
BUFF: Darius now heals for 10% of his missing Health for each enemy champion hit by the blade (max: 30%)
NERF: Now has a 0.75 second delay before swinging NERF: Blade damage (outer circle) changed to 20/40/60/80/100 (+1.0/1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4 total Attack Damage) from 105/157.5/210/262.5/315 (+1.05 bonus Attack Damage) NERF: Handle damage (inner circle) reduced to 50% from 66% NERF: Enemies hit by the handle no longer receive a stack of Hemorrhage
Crippling Strike (W)
BUFF: Slow amount increased to 40/50/60/70/80% from 20/25/30/35/40% BUFF: Cooldown changed to 9/8/7/6/5 seconds from 8 BUFF: Mana cost reduced to 30 from 30/35/40/45/50
NERF: Damage adjusted to 140% total Attack Damage from 120/140/160/180/200% NERF: Slow duration reduced to 1 second from 2 seconds NERF: No longer slows Attack Speed NERF: No longer reduces base cooldown per Hemorrhage stack on the target
Apprehend (E)
BUFF: Cast time reduced to 0.25 seconds from 0.32 BUFF: Now briefly slows targets after being pulled in
NERF: Fixed a bug where enemies would be pulled in if they escaped the area during the cast time
Noxian Guillotine (R)
BUFF: No longer refunds Mana on re-casts, instead all re-casts cost no Mana BUFF: At rank 3, Noxian Guillotine no longer has a Mana cost BUFF: Upon executing an enemy champion, all nearby lesser creatures (non-champions) become terrified for a few seconds
NERF: Damage reduced to 100/200/300 from 160/250/340
STATS
BUFF: Attack Range increased to 175 from 125 BUFF: Attack Damage per level increased to 5 from 3.5 BUFF: Health per level increased to 100 from 93 BUFF: Armor per level increased to 4 from 3.5
NERF: Base Attack Speed reduced to 0.625 from 0.679 NERF: Attack Speed per level reduced to 1% from 4%
So. What do you think? Is this good? Is this bad?
Personally, I think that these changes massively gimp Darius's early game damage much too much. They make him much stronger in the mid game and late game if he can get his passive proc off, but ultimately it makes him a one-trick pony. He either gets destroyed by the enemy team before he can get his passive or he gets it and starts destroying them (unless they can burst him down fast enough after he gets it and then waits for his abilities to come off of cooldown). It seems unhealthy both for him and for the game in general. I expect his winrates to be very low for a while, with him eventually getting buffs that break him (by addressing his weaknesses/buffing his strengths, but not compensating or balancing the parts of him that would be crazy strong if he got those buffs). They then will likely continue to balance him until he goes back to being pretty mediocre (like the current Darius, but with a much worse early game and a situationally strong late game).
