Here in this thread, let's discuss Darius.

IsIsGankedParis·Nov 2, 2014·3 votes·378 views

He is in a terrible spot, has good damage but will never get to use it late game because he gets kited incredibly hard, one of the most easily kited champs in the game. His ult being nerfed hurt him tremendously from what he was made to do, snowball games and end them early.

He needs to be reworked/buffed/rehauled in some way shape or form, his current form does not cut it.

Morello told us players if we don't like being kited as Darius to just play other champs with more mobility/not kited as easily, so he basically said play a champ that has been given insane mobility.

What should be done with Darius? How should be get changed/buffed?

Let's have a discussion on Darius and please for the love of all that's great DON'T bring your "Darius is op" or "Darius is fine" because he is NEITHER of those.

7 Comments

IsIsGankedParisNov 2, 20143 votes

No champ in the game should bully out one side and be shat on by the other(melee vs ranged) period.

Oh they picked a ranged champ, have fun doing anything as Darius.

redniwediSNov 3, 20142 votes

Melee vs Range is a matchup you have to learn, it's not something every champion can and should be able to do and it takes quite a bit of skill to pull off. Darius, if played well, is one of the few who can handle a matchup of this type.

SS EnforcerNov 2, 20142 votes

I think Darius is a double edged sword design-wise, because: In lane, he is stupidly strong, but in late i swear he falls of harder than any champion. I play darius pretty commonly, and it starts being less fun as you wreck your enemies on lane after 6, but in lategame, you are worth a slow, and a hook.

#RITO Darius PLS

redniwediSNov 2, 20141 votes

Exactly this. Darius isn't in a great spot, but he's in a good enough spot to be called fine. He has clear strengths and weaknesses that can both be abused.

Now, in my opinion any changes made to him should move some early/mid game power into the late game. Early on he destroys most melee champions in lane because of his CC. You simply do not have the items to either get away or survive getting caught.

On the opposite side of things he is very easy to kite or avoid if your items are on par with him. Darius really needs his team to set something up for him later on.

If I were on the balance team I would look into two changes, reductions to early base damage numbers and the slow. I think the slow should be reworked into a speed boost for Darius, perhaps only when approaching an enemy champion. Maybe even make his passive into a speed boost instead and make his W apply a DoT on hit instead. This would force Darius players to choose between scaling the DoT or his Q, instead of getting access to both.

A change like this would likely need some form of compensation elsewhere in his kit, but I'm not familiar enough with Darius to come up with a good place for it. I only ever play against him, not as him.

JacknifeNov 3, 20142 votes

I'll agree that Darius falls off pretty hard, but not nearly as hard as you seem to think. I play him a lot in Soloq, and wreck with him pretty frequently. Yes, he's very kite-able, which is why you have to build around it. Trinity Force helps him tremendously in this area, and combined with his pull makes him very hard to just walk away from. Honestly, the only changes I could ever see him needing would be to have the movement speed on his passive stack, but cut it in half past the first initial stack, and make his pull more accessible by lowering the cooldown. Do this and you'd see him a lot more. Also as far as melee vs. ranged in the top lane go, melee has to play pretty defensively just to not be poked out of lane. This is a bit harder for Darius, whose meant to be a bully, but one good pull and you take half their health in one combo. Now Vayne or Quinn are another story. God help you if you fight Vayne or Quinn...

l0l0l0l0l0l0lLOLNov 3, 20141 votes

Darius seems to have really bad late game because he has no escape for team-fights and everyone focus him because... well.. he's darius. So, he's a sitting kill if you slow him. There should be a rework aimed towards his team-fight potential. Such as a rework for his ultimate. Maybe something a little closer to reducing his mid game but increasing mobility so he's not a tyrant.

YoellaNov 4, 20141 votes

I'm going to be honest here, I hate Darius. I hate his huge AD ratios, I hate that his ultimate gets an instant 20 second CD on a kill, I hate his mass pull that's not much shorter that Blitzcranks but hits everything, I hate the stacking bleed and the huge range AoE axe that does 50% more damage if you're on the latter half of its range, I hate the slow, I hate that he naturally gets 25% armor penetration, I hate that his ultimate does true damage that increases exponentially when you're inevitably bleeding from every time he hits you, I hate the CDR on his slow depending on how much you're bleeding, I hate his +100% AD bonus damage and slow to his next hit, I hate that he naturally gets fairly tanky early in the game, I hate that he has the lowest skill level in the entire game of LoL and I hate that if he kills you in lane you might as well not come back post 6 because he's going to kill you 3 more times and take the tower anyway.

THAT BEING SAID: I do think he needs a rework.

If Darius get's a kill or two in lane then he almost always snowballs into an unspeakable demon of unlimited ulti death, but if top lane starves him of a kill then he often ends up sub-par.

Darius needs to have his early game weakened and his late game reinforced. How?

Lower the AD ratio of his Q, Decimate (the AoE) from 70% to around 40% but keep the +50% bonus damage if hit by the head of the axe. Don't forget that applies a bleed of <30% your AD as well. This will promote an actual required use of skill with Darius to land the 50% bonus damage. Before you QQ that's still <120% your AD with the 50% bonus at level one with a 9 second CD. Any other champion who even goes near there does so with a skillshot not a wide AoE.

Crippling Strike (W): Increase the slow from 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% to 20 / 25 / 30 / 40 / 45% but decrease the bonus damage on his already insane AD ratios from 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100% AD to 15 / 35 / 50 / 55 / 60% AD. Also change the CD from a flat 8 seconds (-1 for each stack of bleed on target) to 20 / 18 / 16 / 12 / 8 (-1 per stack of bleed on target). Why? This would weaken his early game while evening out his late game but simultaneously decreasing his likelihood to be kited because the extra slow would allow him a chance to kill the opponent first.

Apprehend (E): Keep the long range, but limit it to pulling the closest object only at level 1, then at each level beyond that you can pull one more object, maxing at 5 which is an entire enemy team and if you need to pull more than that into a melee slaughter machine then you just really suck at this game. This would increase the skill required to land pulls in lane, but shouldn't affect the late game unless you're really really awful.

Instead of giving him 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25% armor penetration on his, again, MASSIVE AD ratios change it to 5 / 7 / 9 / 12 / 15% Armor pen and 3 / 5 / 7 / 10 / 13% tenacity (resistance to stuns, fears, slows, immobilizes, CC in general) This would improve his mobility in a teamfight and make him less of a total nightmare to fight against. 25% passive armor penetration? Really? Who the hell gets that on top of having every AD ratio in his kit reaching 100% or above. Who gets that at all, few do even with items.

Noxian Guillotine (R): Darius's "dunk", his signature move. This is his ultimate so it should be powerful, but balanced. Which it currently is not. So what should be done? Change the bonus AD% from 75% to 110%, but instead of dealing massive bonus true damage per stack of bleed Noxian Guillotine deals 80 PHYSICAL DAMAGE per stack of bleed and consumes the stacks. Also make the ultimate deal 80% of its damage as True damage and the last 20% as Physical damage. It would be mixed, kind of like Ahri's orb. The Cooldown would also change from being instantly on CD to a 4 second timer before going on CD for 10 seconds. This increases his ultimates power while also providing some counter play. This adds some level of strategy to playing with or against Darius.