How to deal with Darius?

ProcrastinatorL·Jan 11, 2015·5 votes·1,860 views

I'm a new player who almost exclusively plays top. My biggest issue, by far, is Darius. He's just... unbeatable, but everyone I ask says he's an easy win. How in the world is he an easy win? Let me explain my problems with him. 1: In the time where you don't have any items, if he uses Q on you, you lose 1/3-1/2 your health. And there's nothing you can do about it, unless you want zero CS. 2: After level 3, he can effortlessly kill you if you have at least 3/4 health. E, auto, W, more autos, Q, and you're dead. 3: After level 6, he can kill you whenever he wants. Period. Under tower? Doesn't matter. You're dead. Full health? Doesn't matter. Built a bunch of health? Still doesn't matter. Build a bunch of health, full health, and under your tower? Still doesn't matter. If he's willing, he will kill you. 4: Armor doesn't matter. His ult is true, his bleed is magic, and the rest has passive armor pen. And he just deals so much damage anyway that even if he didn't have the passive armor pen and you built armor he could still easily kill you. 5: He's never behind. Darius 2 levels behind? He's still on equal footing. Darius 0/3 because of early ganks and has 3 cs? Still can kill you with a combo and you can't do anything about it. 6: People yell at me when I lose to him :(.

24 Comments

StephenizgodJan 11, 20157 votes

Well there are a few ways to deal with him. First off, his Q deals 50% bonus damage if you get hit by the actual ax part rather then the handle, so try to stay out of range or close if you are trading. His ult does low true damage unless he has 5 stacks on you, just dont let him whack you so many times. If necessary flash away from him. He is weak to ranged and CC. His E has a long cooldown so when it is on CD, that is a good time to go in. If he is using his abilities to farm, then let him push and call for jungler. Believe it or not he cant kill you under turret below level 6 (unless he is incredibly fed...). Make him use his abilities and he will run out of mana quickly, then go in.

Now some champs that do pretty good against him from my knowledge:

Just sorta shits all over melee's without insta gap closers in general...
Kind of the same as Teemo, punks melee users easily, also her Ult > Darius' Ult.
Great ranged poke, great melee damage and utility, Jayce has got it all.
From my experience Garen is superior, but most people would agree this could go either way. His ult is faster though so be careful of close fights, he will win.
The once king of Top lane, im not sure how well he does now but im sure he can hold his own against the likes of Darius.
All have the potential to outplay Darius and to be outplayed by Darius. Depends on who is better with the champion most of the time with these 3. Rumble probably has the best chance since he can just sit back and poke if need be.
Hmmm... Either gets destroyed by Darius or destroys him... mostly gets destroyed... but hey if she does win she wins hardcore.
I have only seen this match up once and i was the Darius... most embarrassing loss ever. I could do nothing against her! She has everything needed to beat him -_-.

Mostly basic stuff really, dont let him get free hits on you, stay out of his range, let him push and farm under turret, call for jungler, etc. He is only a hard match-up if you dont know how to fight him, although i still will get curb-stomped by a good Darius every once in awhile... unless im Garen ;D.

YoellaJan 11, 20151 votes

I want to say one thing about Teemo, and add another hard counter to this list.

About Teemo: Keep in mind that your base speed is naturally lower than his, before boots or W. Also, you AA range is 500 and his pull range is 550, so you're not as safe as you may think. As Teemo is squishy Darius can really kill you quick especially after level 6. I recommend that you blind him with Q first, as that has 580 range and just barely outranges his pull, or try to bait out his pull altogether. Blind won't make his abilities miss, just his AA's.

Also Swain Swain will kick Darius's ass day and night. I know that he's generally played mid, but I play him top. Start Rod of Ages item 3027 , get boots, get rabadon's, get AP, and you can wreck him every time from level 1.

How to do this: Your E is basically an improved ignite that amplifies your own damage dealt to a target over 4 seconds. With its range at 625 and a CD of 10 seconds you can poke your opponent all day and all night without much worry of retaliation (none from Darius). Level it at level 1, then get W at level 2 (W is a fairly hard hitting delayed AoE root) so that you can easily escape him if he DOES get too close to you via flash or gank. After that put every point you can into E, and when you can't put a point in E you should put it in W (Save level 6, obviously, put a point in your ult). Ignore your Q for the first few levels, it SUCKS. Around level 8 or 9 put a single point in Q just for the combo/slow/tiny bit of extra damage. Then just max E and W before you touch Q again. If he pulls you, ult and run away while placing your W on him for the root/damage. This will let you damage him and escape at the same time.

Just don't use your R until you have to. After a few seconds it eats mana like nothing else in the game, check the wiki.

SloshMoneyJan 11, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I want to say one thing about Teemo, and add another hard counter to this list.

About Teemo: Keep in mind that your base speed is naturally lower than his, before boots or W. Also, you AA range is 500 and his pull range is 550, so you're not as safe as you may think. As Teemo is squishy Darius can really kill you quick especially after level 6. I recommend that you blind him with Q first, as that has 580 range and just barely outranges his pull, or try to bait out his pull altogether. Blind won't make his abilities miss, just his AA's.

Also Swain will kick Darius's ass day and night. I know that he's generally played mid, but I play him top. Start Rod of Ages , get boots, get rabadon's, get AP, and you can wreck him every time from level 1.

How to do this: Your E is basically an improved ignite that amplifies your own damage dealt to a target over 4 seconds. With its range at 625 and a CD of 10 seconds you can poke your opponent all day and all night without much worry of retaliation (none from Darius). Level it at level 1, then get W at level 2 (W is a fairly hard hitting delayed AoE root) so that you can easily escape him if he DOES get too close to you via flash or gank. After that put every point you can into E, and when you can't put a point in E you should put it in W (Save level 6, obviously, put a point in your ult). Ignore your Q for the first few levels, it SUCKS. Around level 8 or 9 put a single point in Q just for the combo/slow/tiny bit of extra damage. Then just max E and W before you touch Q again. If he pulls you, ult and run away while placing your W on him for the root/damage. This will let you damage him and escape at the same time.

Just don't use your R until you have to. After a few seconds it eats mana like nothing else in the game, check the wiki.

Fyi swain's Q is better than his w or e, as in it scales harder on AP than any other ability he has.

Higher dmg and slows. Against a melee who has to get in auto attack range like darius. Id max Q. You actually can get the full dmg and the slow makes it harder for darius to chase swain, considering swain has no escapes it can also secure your W if you are a bad player when it comes to time delayed spells like Swain's W or Veigar's W, for example. After you zone out somebody in top lane as swain, you can't be stopped cause most top lane mages run outa mana, but swain wont if you zone em out you get full dedication to hitting a mage's weak auto attack on minions.

YoellaJan 11, 20151 votes

Let's look at the facts bub.

Swain Q: MAGIC DAMAGE PER SECOND 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 (+ 30% AP), lasts up to three seconds, but is broken as soon as they get 900 units away from the tether (which is where you used the ability) so they rarely have to walk more than 300 units, which takes no more than 1 or 2 seconds to do so. The slow is also pretty minimal, 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%. Extremely low base damage and actual effectiveness makes for a horrible ability.

Tl;dr, unless the enemy ignores it like an idiot or you get dangerously close to them you're going to deal terrible damage with your Q unless they were rooted by W. This is just practical application.

Swain E: MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+ 80% AP) over 4 seconds, 8 / 11 / 14 / 17 / 20% bonus damage taken from Swain during the duration, and the bonus damage affects the DoT itself, making it actually deal 81 / 127.65 / 176.7 / 228.15 / 282 (+ 86.4 / 88.8 / 91.2 / 93.6 / 96% AP) damage over 4 seconds just by itself. Not only is this far more damage than Q, unlike Q you don't have to count on your opponent ignoring your ability entirely for full damage. It also amplifies damages from AA's, w, q, r, and any activated items. You can plop it and run. Seeing as Q and E have the same range and roughly the same mana cost, E is far better than Q ESPECIALLY early game.

I rest my case.

SloshMoneyJan 11, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Let's look at the facts bub.

Swain Q: MAGIC DAMAGE PER SECOND 25 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 (+ 30% AP), lasts up to three seconds, but is broken as soon as they get 900 units away from the tether (which is where you used the ability) so they rarely have to walk more than 300 units, which takes no more than 1 or 2 seconds to do so. The slow is also pretty minimal, 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%. Extremely low base damage and actual effectiveness makes for a horrible ability.

Tl;dr, unless the enemy ignores it like an idiot or you get dangerously close to them you're going to deal terrible damage with your Q unless they were rooted by W. This is just practical application.

Swain E: MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+ 80% AP) over 4 seconds, 8 / 11 / 14 / 17 / 20% bonus damage taken from Swain during the duration, and the bonus damage affects the DoT itself, making it actually deal 81 / 127.65 / 176.7 / 228.15 / 282 (+ 86.4 / 88.8 / 91.2 / 93.6 / 96% AP) damage over 4 seconds just by itself. Not only is this far more damage than Q, unlike Q you don't have to count on your opponent ignoring your ability entirely for full damage. It also amplifies damages from AA's. You can plop it and run. Seeing as Q and E have the same range and roughly the same mana cost, E is far better than Q ESPECIALLY early game.

I rest my case.

swains Q assuming you can get all 3 hits off on a melee like a darius, does same base dmg as swains E and scales 10% more off of ap. meaning if you have 100 AP with a lv 4 Q it will do 300 dmg. if you have 100 ap with lv 4 E it does 275 dmg. And as far as I know in season 2 or 3 they removed his E's ability to proc itself as well as ignite for bonus dmg. Then again I did take an 11 month hiatus so I have no idea if they repatched it to self E.

YoellaJan 11, 20151 votes

swains Q assuming you can get all 3 hits off on a melee like a darius, does same base dmg as swains E and scales 10% more off of ap.

That's exactly it. "Assuming you can get all 3 hits off". 4/5 times you won't do that because you'll plop it down and they opponent will say "oh darn I'm taking damage I should stop doing that" and break the tether. It's exceptionally unreliable and so I don't suggest it. Plus with E's bonus % from all of Swain's damage it becomes far better than Q.

And as far as I know in season 2 or 3 they removed his E's ability to proc itself as well as ignite for bonus dmg. Then again I did take an 11 month hiatus so I have no idea if they repatched it to self E.

Actually I know they removed the ability for true damage to be multiplied by abilities in general a while ago (Poppy ult + Ignite, Swain E + Ignite, etc) so the E + Ignite combo doesn't work anymore, but I haven't heard of Swain's E not increasing its own damage. I could be wrong about that but it still wouldn't change anything. E is guaranteed damage, Q is only going to deal max damage if the opponent walks right into it and stays for tea. The damage is roughly the same, E deals more with a single AA added in, and makes Q + W + R do far more damage too.

From a purely numbers standpoint Q has the potential to deal 10% more AP damage, but it also requires the enemy to stick around and be hit by it for 3 seconds. E deals 10% less AP damage, but takes a fraction of a second to assure 100% of it, delays their regeneration, recall, and amplifies all other damage from Swain considerably. You can pull off E 100% of the time, you can pull off a full Q maybe 20% or 30% of the time early on.

StephenizgodJan 11, 20151 votes

Well yea a bad teemo will stay in Darius' range, but a good teemo will blind then back off, hopefully baiting the grab. Once he grabs you it is done you are dead, but if you stay away from him then you win the lane very easily. Teemo does this to anyone who cant stun him or jump on him. But i never ever play Teemo so i cant give more advice on this, only that i hate fighting Teemo...

I forgot about Swain and Yorick, both do really good against Darius.

PikaCHU567Jan 13, 2015

Don't forget Ahri. The kiting skills are real. Ahri item 3089

StephenizgodJan 13, 20151 votes

Mhm but i was talking about normal Top lane champions :)

PikaCHU567Jan 13, 20151 votes

Ahri can be top. :3 But she can't do much so yeah you win. :(

ChexMexJan 11, 20153 votes

Darius performs poorly against champions who outrange him or can evade his grab with ease/fully face tank everything Jayce Garen Gnar Nidalee Lissandra

Darius absolutely crushes champions that have poor range or sustained damage Teemo Riven Jax

To play against darius, you have to either

Avoid the blade part and attack him face on, tanking his W and some Q damage
Avoid the blade part and dash away , not being hit at all and engaging later on.

Darius is weak when he doesnt have apprehend or decimate (E and Q). When you try to fight him and have a little skirmish, he will pull you back towards him, back off, and Q for massive damage. Dodge his Q or E before fully trading.

Darius does incredible damage after stacking 5 times with passive, avoid being dunked after reaching 5 stacks.

Darius that builds AD is weaker to ganks, Darius that builds tank has a weaker 1v1 but is more resilient to ganks.

Darius is weak in a 1v2 without his ultimate.

Don't underestimate his bleed+ignite damage.

AFK PushJan 11, 20152 votes

One of my favorite things to do against something like an early game high damage bruiser, is to play bruiser Rengar . His W allows for some "poke," while also giving you temporary bonuses, and the empowered version gives you plenty of sustain to stay in lane. His Ebola will make it hard for someone like darius to get close. Finally, your passive allows you to farm safely and to juke if necessary. My favorite thing about this though, is that with hybrid pen marks, item 3068 , and item 3078 , you do a lot of mixed damage so it is hard to build against bruiser rengar.

GrimspeakeJan 11, 20151 votes

play teemo, if he pulls u just blindin dart him and w away. or if your a melee champ, outsustain his mana, he runs out after 2-3 pulls and then hes useless. item 2041 item 2003

CLG FactorJan 11, 20151 votes

Darius Renekton is the reason people started the most rage inducing top lane meta ever

im talking about Teemo Ryze

Sirin GioroJan 11, 20151 votes

{quoted}

is the reason people started the most rage inducing top lane meta ever

im talking about

Vayne hi

DPRKSpyJan 11, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=hi im malaysian,realm=NA,application-id=WEuoGbmp,discussion-id=vJFbkJAM,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-01-11T17:45:24.328+0000)

hi

Kalista sup

Sirin GioroJan 11, 20151 votes

{quoted}

sup

Pretty sure if Kalista goes top everyone would be playing ADC top and tank/bruiser & support bot lane.

JJ H0GJan 11, 20151 votes

What you want to do is stay out of his pull range. it's 550 (same as your average marksman), so you can use that to kinda judge the distance. Also, his Q deals a lot more damage when you're hit by the blade, so if he pulls you before he Q's, then stay beside him till he uses it if you can get away with it. Finally, play a champ that can blink/dash/jump away from him after he pulls.

His biggest counter in lane is Draven Draven Draven Draven , trust me.

Captain AishiJan 13, 2015

actually played darius vs draven lane once, had to get thornmail as my first item to even be allowed to farm :(

ValtreousJan 11, 20151 votes

Pick a ranged champion and laugh at him as you poke the crap out of him. Take boots early so you can damage and then run out of the way of his damage, especially his E. Have your jungler gank early, he's super easy to gank

Jayce is great against him. Ig he grabs you simply switch to melee form and smack him away with E. Elise can stun in and run away or jump away in spider form.

Basically, just zone around his pull range and poke him down.

DPRKSpyJan 11, 20151 votes

Hey there, a Darius main here!

I can say from experience that just about any champ with range or decent sustain will ruin darius' day. I find I have trouble with riven as she can burst harder than I can - the fact she can shield herself with a no cost ability is pretty shitty for me. Generally champs with a movement skill have the edge over him since darius has to walk/flash every where. If you go vayne/kalista/Quinn top, you will absolutely shit all over him, all three have someway of escaping his grasp, which makes me die inside a little everytime it happens T_T.

Although he may seem like a brute, darius is actually pretty easy to outplay, given you have either sustain, range, or a movement skill. Bonus points for all 3!

In regards to the Darius match-up. From my experience it could go either way. A smart garen will take his time to recover lost health after trades and not try to power through Darius every time Garens skills come off CD. The best thing for D to do against G is to eat the Judgment and stack bleed on.

Spiritflare868Jan 19, 20151 votes

Darius was my main for several months and I agree on all your points.

@ OP - I first learned how to play Darius specifically so I could counter him, which is something I recommend doing for any and all champions that give you trouble.

Aatrox is a strong counter for Darius. Ranged poke, natural sustain, gap closer/escape, and heavy damage when he goes all in? Darius' worst nightmare. But if you play smart you can beat him. Same goes vs Darius. He may chunk you with every Q, but any champion can have sustain if you buy a flask and pots. Counter-pick him if you're playing draft, and if you can't then just be willing to play a bit more passively. Farm as much as possible, and punish him when he pushes too far or wastes his Q on minions.

Something to remember, if he's hit his E, whether or not the animation completed yet, he will pull you. And that means that even if you flash or Vayne tumble, or Aatrox jump, if you're in range when he E's then you're getting pulled back.