Darius' threat assessment
This is an analysis on new Darius, but since he's been out for three years now, his identity as a murderball has been long since established. His rework, though, has changed how you go about playing as him, which was a little disorienting at first, but now that I understand his rhythm... holy shit. This is a buff more than anything else.
Mobility: C Lane Clear/Push: S+ Mana efficiency: A Damage: S+ Crowd control: B- Tower Smashing: A+ Sustainability: B+ General required skill: C+ Durability: A
Yeah, he's still a murderball. His passive's damage change from physical to magical makes the Black Cleaver a must buy on him, as it means one hit from him will demolish a third of your armor. At early levels, though, even max stacks will not total up to be higher than most champions' base armor, so it ends up being a purely cosmetic effect. His ability to damage has been further concentrated at the cost of how fast he's able to dish it out; getting hit with the blade hurts like hell, and the windup is actually helpful for repositioning yourself to deliver the pain to the enemy (which also heals him, which is nice), and it allows the enemy to try and get out of the way instead of a guaranteed tenth of their health vanishing just by getting close to him.
His W is nice for last hitting minions, the attack cancel is much more important as his attack speed is slower now, and the slow is much more meaningful and devastating this time. His ult is simply terrifying, more than it used to be, and that's saying something. I've dominated two teamfights in the same game because I was able to ult away one of the weaker enemies into nonexistence, and then pull the rest two me and max out the stacks on all of them immediately and chomp away at them one by one. It makes him a super high priority target in teamfights.
Darius' weaknesses now are the same as his previous form, only more pronounced. He still has very little crowd control and zero mobility or escape powers, unless you W the enemy then run in the opposite direction, and he can be easily kited by anyone with speed or ranged powers, especially mages, who happen to be an extreme minority in the current meta. Crowd control is a nightmare for Darius; slows cripple him because of his lack of range and speed, and hard crowd control makes it difficult, if not impossible, to build up damage or stacks because of the windups and his slow attack speed. Even with his murderballing capabilities, he's not good at removing tanks so quickly. He deals his damage in short but powerful bursts, making it really good at foolish weaklings to wander too close to him, but not against a tank who will either outlast him or last long enough to escape or for reinforcements to arrive.
Darius is more powerful than ever, but there's more skill involved to get on that sweet gravy train. He's not without his weakness, but in the current meta of being the most fastest killfast assassin with zero crowd control or durability, he reigns supreme.