Darius Rework Feedback

Hi there! This will be my first post on the boards, please be gentle with me~

Okay, so first off people seem to be hating on Darius's laning phase now, "it sucks", "He's been nerfed to hell", "Riot wtf is this trash", well I'll toss in my two cents here. I'd say that Darius's laning phase hasn't exactly been nerfed but rather changed. Allow me to explain, before the rework your Q was your sole means of harass. It dealt a boatload of damage early and applied bleed regardless if they were in the inner or outer part of it. After you Q, the enemy would most likely turn back at you and have their while it was on cool down and you either may or may not take a bunch of damage back. You basically just walk up, Q, back off and try to farm, repeat. Your W would be used as an AA reset after you pulled them with your E and then you would continue to AA until you can go for one more Q as they're running away from you, bleeding out, and forced under tower. As you level up your job was to survive from the laner and jungler until you hit level 6 as it is at that point that you have your beastly R and can pretty much chop anyone in half.

Now for the reworked Darius laning phase. His Q was nerfed, there's no denying that. The base damage was significantly lowered, it has a .75 second delay (too much imo), the handle part of the attack no longer applies bleed and it only deals 50% of the blade's damage from the original 65%. On the plus side, it has a pretty darn good heal when you hit enemies with the blade of your axe, AD scaling is better than before, and it only costs 30 mana from the original 40 mana. The heal is the major change here, not the initial damage. In fact, the real damage dealer in your laning phase is in your passive. Both bleed and Bloodrage (temporarily increases AD from 40 - 200 based on level) will do all the damage you will need and this is what changes Darius's playstyle from "spam Q win lane" to "get stacks get strong." The heal is calculated by 10% of your current missing health for each enemy champion hit (up to 30%; 3 champions), the less health you have the bigger the heal. This quickly changes the tides in a early 1v1 a'lot more so than you may think. If someone is engaging you in 1v1 your focus will be getting that heal off and getting Hemorrhage stacks to 5. Initially, you will not do much damage and it looks like you may lose your fight, but the instant you hit 5 stacks is when the enemy regrets having ever go in on you. Take a step back for a Q heal if you need to and proceed to go all in with your Bloodrage buff. Ignite them when you see fit. By the end of it they should either be hugging tower, backing, or dead pre-6. In short, hp sustain + bonus ad = get rekt scrub.

Here are my thoughts on each current ability:

Passive: While the base damage that bleed does was in fact nerfed, the change to physical damage from magic damage made it more of a buff. This allows it to synchronize with Black Cleaver splendidly. Each tick of bleed procs Black Cleaver's armor debuff making each tick (5) hurt more than the last while providing a good move speed boost. Bloodrage more than makes up for the overall loss of damage in Darius's kit seeing as it just takes you to dunk city in team fights. If you want to win fights, make sure you get those fat stacks. As I see it, the passive is fine in its current position as it certainly aids Darius's late game.

Q: This thing is just hilarious. I've already explained it's use in laning phase (kite heals) but it gets really funny the moment you get a Dead Man's Plate. You can just kite a Garen for days from their base to your turret by spamming Q on him and running away. You got the move speed from boots, Dead Man's Plate, and Black Cleaver all in one! To top it off with a heal is just downright Darius. Again, the heal is the major change here, not the crappy base damage. It's what'll help you to survive ganks throughout the game when you don't have flash up. I HIGHLY recommend getting a Dead Man's Plate with this along with Black Cleaver. Overall I think it needs a bit of a buff , increase damage or reducing the delay would it some more justice or maybe even let him apply a stack of Hemorrhage on the handle (I vote delay reduction.)

W: A big nerf all around except for its mana cost and slow. The slow can you help get about 2 more AAs off which means more stacks which means you're closer to Bloodrage which means more damage which means that the top lane Teemo you're up against will regret ever blinding you the second you pull him in. I do feel that the damage should be increased however or maybe reduce the cooldown?

E: Not much here, the bug fix is a bit daunting to deal with since I've gotten so used to playing with it. Pulls definitely feel more difficult to land. The slow is a nice addition as it makes it easier to get an AA and then W for the AA reset.

R: Base damage nerfed, but yet again Bloodrage makes up for it. At rank 3 it no longer costs any mana (sweeeeet) and gains a full reset. Because this skill is heavily reliant on gaining stacks for extra damage I'd say it's in a good position at the moment. Not much else to say here

Aside from skills I think his built in attack speed is a tad bit slow but that's about it.

TL;DR - He is a teensy bit underpowered but not as bad as people make him out to be in my opinion.

Let me know if I did good for my first post :B