How Do I Beat Garen with Darius?

Howldoom·11/7/2014, 3:15:51 AM·1 votes·4,226 views

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1621058260/203289894

My last matchup with Darius against Garen. Every time I tried trading, he would use his whirlwind and Q to whittle me down. Sometimes he nukes me with his ult, but mainly he built Warmog's and out-sustained my harass. Any kills I got on him were with assistance from others, so those and some more farm meant we were roughly even, him being ahead by 1k gold.

Feel free to go through more of my match history; lately I've been doing poorly against Garen, Wukong, and Nasus (Nasus is more of a mixed bag).

7 Comments

Featherztorm11/7/2014, 3:21:04 AM1 votes

I have luck trying to trade early. Your bleeds out trade his healing. If you get ahead in Farm I usually get hydra and brutalizer then tankiness. You'll have the sustain, damage, and pen to out trade for the most part. Garen is rough.

Dunderflump11/7/2014, 3:23:47 AM1 votes

Fight 1-3 and use minion waves to help.

EndlessSorcerer11/7/2014, 5:13:27 AM1 votes

Looking at your build, I would recommend rushing Sunfire Cape instead of Hexdrinker against Garen. It gives you additional health and armor to reduce his damage as well as additional magic damage for fighting. If you are still laning at this point, I would get a Negatron Cloak or Hexdrinker (reduces ultimate damage, and their Elise and Katarina were AP) before building Randuin's Omen for more durability. At this point I would recommend a damage item (most likely Maw of Malmortius) if you need to supply damage or a Locket of the Iron Solari if you need to be tankier.

Laning against Garen, you mainly have to be careful to stop him from letting his passive heal him up safely. If he backs off to heal, I would recommend getting between him and the minions so that you can either 1) deny him gold and exp or 2)deactivate his passive.

During the game, I'd have positioned myself to defend your fed Azir. Just identify who was the biggest threat to him (likely Katarina or Elise) and murder them when they try to kill Azir. Graves had no Critical Chance and Janna makes it hard to dive, so I would have recommended you just focused on peeling.

Also, a bit more generally, Darius doesn't really have sustain in his kit, so I would recommend either getting two early Doran's items (2 blades or 1 blade + 1 shield) and running either lifesteal or health regen in quints. Darius excels in harassing people down, but you may lose extended laning without some sort of health sustain.

hOrnn11/7/2014, 5:26:14 AM1 votes

after the garen buffs its really hard, it used to be even, slightly in darius favor, best advice i can give you is get trinity force and than get frozen mallet, i know it cost alot of gold, but with this build u will tank, deal amazing damage, and he cannot escape you with Q.

but like i said, i played the match up alot pre garen buff, had no probs, after garen buff, huge swings in garens favor.

but dont get trinity first, you will get rekt, something like frozen mallet rush or sunfire cape is better, also get ninja tabi asap.

if your team just needs a tank, id say rush frozen heart, this item is amazing on darius, gives 100 armor, and with the 20% cdr, at lvl 16 your ults on a 60 second cooldown.

hOrnn11/7/2014, 5:28:42 AM1 votes

also dont W him until his Q's. if you are winning the trade, so he cant outrun your manly dunk.

hOrnn11/7/2014, 5:29:16 AM1 votes

heres my darius guide

http://www.lolking.net/guides/305411

few more things i can add, hex drinker is very solid vs garen, as his ult is magic damage, and sunfire cape/or frozen heart into last whisper can give you lane control.

TehNACHO11/7/2014, 5:05:13 PM1 votes

Stop trying to fight Garen while he has all of his cool downs. For reference, Garen's Q has an 8 second cool down. The moment you see him use his Q on a minion for example, that's 8 seconds that he can't use his Q on you. This 8 seconds is your window of opportunity. This is abusing cool downs, waiting for your opponent to use their abilities on minions before you start a trade. Correctly done, you are guaranteed to win any trade because Garen literally can't fight back with all of his abilities.

A more specific tip against Garen is to wait for him to blow his W. Early on, it only lasts for a really short time. After you grab him with your E, just auto attack for a few seconds and don't blow your Q and W right away. If he immediately uses his W, wait it out and then slam him with all of your abilities as it wears off. If he doesn't, go ahead and drop your Q early, wait one more auto attack to see if he activates it then, and then decide if you want to use your own W ability or if you just want to back off based on what happens afterwards.

Garen is a lane bully because his abilities shut down enemy trades. If you want to win against Garen, you need to work around his abilities.