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Darius May Be Balanced...

Dale Wardark·5/9/2017, 9:29:41 PM·1 votes·595 views

But he isn't exactly fun to play against. He has an amazing early game, decent mid game, and a somewhat worse late game. Out of all the Juggernauts, he was and is the most successful, but he just isn't fun to face. Play a melee laner, and you're basically screwed. Play a ranged laner, poke him down, hopefully dominate him and you can still lose to him mid game. I know there are a few counters to Darius, but I (and I'm sure others) don't find it fun to learn a counterpick for just one champion because literally 90% of the rest of the champion pool can't do crap against him. I'm not saying he's overpowered, but he does seem overclocked to me. Compare him to the rest of the Juggernauts:

Garen resembles Darius with his ult. While Darius has to stack his passive bleed to get the most out of his ult, Garen has to wait until his opponent is somewhat low, or his villain, to do anything with his ult. Additionally, Darius' ult unlocks at rank three, so as long as you get a kill with your ult (at rank 3), it automatically cools down. Garen has an opposite power curve than Darius: weak early game, passable mid game, and powerful late game.

Nasus The original Juggernaut's Juggernaut, Nasus has to take extra care farming and, unlike Darius, reaches his full potential late game. Also unlike Darius, Nasus has a nasty habit of losing early trades hard. In the current meta, he feels weak to me.

Skarner Objectively a failure. Skarner is a jungle Juggernaut that I find tons of fun to play, but just not that impactful. The spire minigame is interesting, but the counterplay is to literally stand on them. I feel as if the passive was swapped somehow with his W, Skarner would feel better.

Mordekaiser I see him complained about on the boards all the time. Not because he's overpowered, but because he's riddled with bugs, weaknesses, and has one of the slowest base movements in the game.

Of course, maybe my opinion doesn't matter cuz I'm a bronze casual, but that's just how I feel. TL;DR, It seems to me that, while Darius is balanced, he's not fun to play against at all, and the rest of the Juggernauts underperform in every way compared the poster-child Darius.

5 Comments

Wildstyle5/9/2017, 9:44:22 PM2 votes

I can name off plenty of champs i find not fun to play against

Big Lincoln5/9/2017, 9:36:47 PM1 votes

'fun to play against' does this really matter? i dont have fun in any match-up; i have fun winning them.

other juggernauts are simply bad. not bad compared to him, they're just bad. and they're usually undertuned for a good reason Garen Volibear Mordekaiser DrMundo are all horrible, archaic designs who im sure riot would dumpster if they ever became prominent in the meta

of the juggernauts Darius is arguably the most well designed next to Illaoi, possibly more well designed than her because he doesn't need a massive gold advantage to be able to teamfight. as far as im concerned Darius Illaoi Yorick are leagues ahead of their peers in terms of design

Joxcab5/9/2017, 9:40:00 PM1 votes

Who gives a shit?

If he's balanced, that's all there is to it.

Sujiren5/9/2017, 9:47:09 PM1 votes

Ilaoi is a juggernaut aswell and just as sucessful as darius. Also more like half the toplane roster counters Darius or goes 50/50 with him since his early game nerfs. Tank fizz hard counters darius, irelia counters darius, trundle counters darius, jax 50/50 lane and hard outscales you, kled, renekton 50/50 lane, fiora, ilaoi 50/50 lane and the list goes on, not even including all the ranged characters darius cant do crap against. The only champs i can see darius do well against are basically immobile, low damage tanks, everything that can get on top of him when he cast his q pretty much fucks him

EbonyBladeJ885/9/2017, 11:20:06 PM1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dale Wardark,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=OhcTcUeE,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-05-09T21:29:41.569+0000)

Garen resembles Darius with his ult. While Darius has to stack his passive bleed to get the most out of his ult, Garen has to wait until his opponent is somewhat low, or his villain, to do anything with his ult. Additionally, Darius' ult unlocks at rank three, so as long as you get a kill with your ult (at rank 3), it automatically cools down. Garen has an opposite power curve than Darius: weak early game, passable mid game, and powerful late game.

The reasons you list above for Garen is why Riot refers to him as "the Polar Opposite" of Darius. Now granted, that's just what THEY say, but the people who PLAY him get a different perspective. In the many games I've played (Both as a Darius vs an enemy Garen and vice-versa) Darius often does Garen's job, but better. That's why many people considered Darius's Juggernaut update to be the only one that was really successful.

I personally think the Might of Demacia could get some love (I'm assuming that's what you meant with your comments regarding him), considering he used to be one of my tried-and-true picks in the Top-lane (I'm a Top-lane main, FYI) and the changes made to him have vastly reduced his effectiveness. The Villain Mechanic, while working thematically, is rather gimmicky and unreliable in-game. When a Garen player is fighting the enemy champion marked as the villain, a kill could happen on the other side of the map, causing the killer to be newly marked as the Villain and then the Garen loses the bonus damage, sometimes with unfortunate results.

Really, I don't know WHAT to suggest for changes for Garen. At this point, I'm leaning towards a full-blown VGU as the only way to fix his many issues.