Darius changes are a pretty big nerf to jungle Darius.

Visigoth··5 votes·1,606 views

Literally every aspect is worse now. I literally just bought him, and being a jungle main decided to try it out, and I loved it. But the new changes do hinder it a bit.

Base Stats: Less attack speed means slower applying of passive and overall slower clear, although the extra AD should counter that.

Passive - Hemorrhage: Bleed does less base damage and doesn't scale as well, so less damage on one of his best clear tools. Also, based on the wording in patch notes, I guess the 5 stack bonus only applies to champions, although if it did apply towards large jungle monsters by any chance, his clear would be much better. Also, taking the movespeed away makes his ganks a little worse, but I think a Flash E into his new W will make up for it.

Q - Decimate: So god damn bad early game... Seriously, I don't think changing the scaling to total AD instead of bonus is going to do much, since Darius can't really afford to not buy tank items. And it'd be fine if his heal at least applied to large jungle minions, but of course season 5 was all about jungle diversity so why would they let another champion jungle?

W - Crippling Strike: With the attack speed slow gone, there goes the tiny amount of sustain Darius had; slowing a jungle creep's attack speed. And the cooldown reduction removal removes a huge clear tool Darius had since now he can't constantly W for damage. One the bright side, his slow is kinda better, if you consider that the slow itself is now more than twice the slow, but half the duration. However, don't forget there is a hard cap on how slow you can go, so they still won't drop below that. Overall not too heavy of nerfs, but his clears and sustain are hurt, luckily his ganks are somewhat buffed, which is what he excels at in the jungle.

E - Apprehend: Actually a pretty good change. Riot removed a bug, and also made it so champions can't escape after getting apprehended. Overall I'd say this change definitely helps, since his ganks will be more powerful, and his E isn't used for farming the jungle.

R - Noxian Guillotine: Lower damage makes me sad, but at least now in fights his new passive basically snowballs him in the middle of a fight, and I feel like this could actually make him a decent 2v1 fighter, or even be able to be assassin-like since the damage bonus would mean the enemy would get destroyed after you kill one person.

Overall I wouldn't say these changes are going to completely gut him in the jungle. On the bright side he doesn't need to max his W for CC anymore, and overall he kinda has more damage. And the changes promote my personal style of saying fuck it and building full AD. With a little bit of movespeed and attack speed runes/masteries, he should be able to actually gank better now since he can just get his 5 stacks and destroy someone. And now he has some nice CC. The only major drawbacks are his only sustain (W attack speed slow) is now gone and his base damage on Q is lowered and W doesn't scale up as hard. But, Riot does kinda promote building Darius extra damage-y and focusing on going for dunks and chaining them together in a fight.

Honestly, if his Q heal also applied to large monsters, I think he'd be perfectly viable, although I'm not sure Riot necessary wants Darius to be more than a top laner.

8 Comments

Lugg2 votes

If I ever saw someone pick Jungle Darius, I would dodge for sure.

The Bíg Ticket2 votes

So it made a borderline trollpick into a complete trollpick?

MetalGearTeemu1 votes

as someone who had to deal with Jungle Axeman I am a little sad.

Hurr hurr its a viegar in mid I can bully him.

Hurr hurr he missed his stun I'm just in the cage now I can still bully him.

OH GOD GET THIS MANIAC With THE AXE AWAY FROM MEDarius He's gonna apprehend me Jesus Christ.

ID x iKuma1 votes

but his Q does apply blade damage unlike the current live darius

Fadedpf1 votes

I thought that died along with all the dinosaurs when the meteor hit and we got season 5

Arcane Azmadi1 votes

I only used to play Darius in jungle, to moderate success. This rework makes me a sad panda because what was already an edge case is now as reasonable as playing jungle Sona. I hate Riot.

MaNwAxErR1 votes

I believe Darius is no longer a viable champ, not even in a specific team comp.

On paper his changes look fine, however in practice he is useless. First we have his Q which is his primary damage dealer. It now has a delayed cast time of around .75 seconds. Many may not believe its a big deal, but in Darius's case it destroys him as a champ, and let me explain. Within the time frame of .75 seconds a well practiced Darius player can land an AA and a W. However now you cant because of the delay. Even worse, if the enemy is not at the edge of your range it wont stack hemorrhage, meaning you need to distance yourself from the enemy to apply the hemorrhage stacks which are vital to him as a champ. now lets guess what distance from Darius means, no AA's and no W. Now you literally have to run away from your enemy, as a melee champ. you now need to distance yourself to get a fully effective hit. If you dont your damage is significantly lowered and you lose a stack of hemorrhage, which is crucial.

Normally you could get in an AA, Q, AA, W all within about 1.5 seconds if you time it perfectly and land 4 stacks of hemorrhage, which is one away from max ult damage. Now comparatively you can get in an AA, hopefully a Q and wait .75 seconds, W, then finally another AA. in the best case scenario (If you are in low ELO) you will have 4 stacks of hemorrhage yet dealt less damage than you normally would, with more effort. In most situations though you landed an AA and they got away, because for you to land it correctly you need to walk away from them when instinctively they did the same causing you to miss entirely, which then causes you to waste an Apprehend.

The overall changes to Darius are not bad numbers wise. IF he builds tanky his damage falls off making him less OP and building AD pays off the same as it did before, but now with the cast time on his Q it has turned a quick combo burst into one of the easiest kits to dodge in the game, purely because in order to hit with it you need to work against all the other mechanics that he has as a character. they game him an ability that relies on his mobility when he is one of the least mobile champs in the game.

So to summarize: these changes have killed my favorite character to play in League. His Q betrays everything he is as a champ and have taken him from a viable power house to one of the worst possible picks in the game. He no longer can fit in ANY team comp, and his Q has single handedly destroyed him as a champ.

Im done playing him. Until RITO removes the cast time of his Q they condemn him to be on the same playability level as Azir on release.

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