Darius

Detailed Tips

1. 01

   Respect Darius Bush Cheese - Darius level 1 is a lot stronger than Renekton, allowing him to utilise bush cheeses in combination with W/E start and ghost, to help him run down and kill his opponents with his passive. From level 1 we want to try and mitigate or remove these factors from Darius within the following ways: Warding our closest top bush to force minion aggro and spot out Darius, Avoid standing or walking towards pixel bush, and covering our side of the jungle to avoid Darius cheese attempts. If you can do all of these, Darius won’t be able to cover the laning power needed to get an early advantage.

2. 02

   Skill Abilities Accordingly - Darius has a number of ways to utilise his level 1, as he can practically skill every ability under the right circumstance. As good as this is for Darius, Renekton can also do the same and counter him accordingly. It should be noted however, that Renekton shouldn’t start his chosen ability first, as Darius can also counter accordingly. If Darius starts Q, we can also start Q to help us shove the wave and poke him back. If Darius takes W, we can take W or E, to help us trade harder in our damage or reposition away from him (I do recommend E vs W more, as if he has boneplating, we won’t be able to squeeze enough damage out to make W worth it). If Darius takes E, we can skill E to either dash instantly away, or use E2 after we try and disengage with E1. In the cases Darius does take E, we can typically know if his only incentive is to run past the wave and force a fight onto us, which in this case we can just try to avoid fighting and wait till the wave crashes.

3. 03

   Respect Darius’s Passive - Darius passive is one of his most important skill elements when it comes to the match up, as playing around his passive will provide all the success you need to consistently dominate the match up. Darius passive allows him to get up towards 200+ AD later on in the game, on top of also applying a DoT bleed to help out trade us in the fights. With that said, we never want to play to give Darius passive. Utilising our movement, dashes and overall feint playstyle to bait out abilities is absolutely essential for taking away Darius’s main strengths of the match up. Make sure that whenever you’re in a deep fight with Darius that you’re able to space correctly away from him keeping his passive stacks up, as Darius losing his passive stacks can be a giant disadvantage for him being able to win.

4. 04

   Avoid Darius’s Q - Darius Q is another aspect of the match up we need to play around, as hitting his Q can essentially be the decider in being able to win a fight or not. Darius Q provides him with a moderate amount of damage, increasing even more if he lands his outer blade, which applies a free bleed stack and healing based on the amount of champions hit. With all that said, Darius Q packs quite a punch and has so many variables to allow him to outsustain and win a fight, so we need to utilise ways to avoid his Q. Renekton can achieve this by using his movement to bait out Darius Q with short in and out clicks, or the ability to dash into Darius to make him miss all his additional variables. Dashing into Darius isn’t as scary as you think, as Renekton can abuse fast combos to safely get him in and out.

5. 05

   Avoid Overextended Wave States - Darius’s only real kill window is within his ability to run down his opponent within the lane, allowing him to easily obtain this with his use of slows, E pull and ghost activation. As Renekton, we want to always play waves on our side, as we’re able to safely trade into Darius, as much as being able to use enough room to avoid his overall strengths. Make sure to get your jungler to help you shove waves if you have a bad wave state, as this can also be a deciding factor into Darius snowballing.

6. 06

   Respect Darius E - Darius E is another annoying ability, as a poorly timed E from ourselves can be very detrimental for Darius to abuse. Make sure to always use your W before disengaging from Darius, otherwise he will be easily able to pull you within your E animation to prevent you from escaping. As long as you always W to disengage, Darius will never be able to pull you. It should also be said that you can Empowered W and AA right before you disengage to apply more damage onto him.

7. 07

   Quick Trades - E > Q > AA > W > AA > E Out / E > Q > W > E / E Q E - These combos allow for Renekton to get quick damage off in being able to keep health up and whittling his opponent down, use these to get your laner low and look for a low HP kill with flash.

8. 08

   Abuse Renekton's R Powerspike - Once you reach level 6 your ultimate will essentially help you consistently stat check and dominate any match ups you were winning or losing. Make sure to always wait for your R CD to help you make plays, otherwise it will lead you towards a major disadvantage in dueling your enemies.

9. 09

   Respect Darius R - In combination with max passive stacks, Darius R can deal a ton of true damage which scales overall with how many stacks he has from a target. Darius can also R execute a low HP target to also quickly gain his passive stacks, always making him a potential danger within the fights. Try your hardest to avoid giving him max stacks, on top of also avoid giving him a free R execute as these can entirely decide a teamfight and 1v1 within the side lane. When fighting against Darius, make sure you always have your R available too, as it will help you easily mitigate against Darius’s overall damage and execution range of his ultimate.

10. 10

    3 Points Q > W Max - I find this playstyle vastly great into Darius, due to the reason we can obtain a 7 to 4 second W, which will allow us to easily peel and out damage Darius in a 1v1. Abusing items such as Eclipse and BoTRK can also help us easily abuse W max to an even greater level, always leaving Darius at a total disadvantage. The 3 points Q also helps to provide early wave clear and poke against Darius, allowing us to have the best of all words when it comes to playability.

11. 11

    Build Plated Steelcaps, Eclipse, Black Cleaver or BoTRK - Go Plated Steelcaps if Darius rushes them to avoid being at a movement speed disadvantage. Go Eclipse for consistent power through mid game and damage mitigation with the shield. / Go Black Cleaver for additional CDR and other versatile stats for utility based gameplay. / Go BoTRK to one shot and snowball with a damage focused build.

12. 12

    Mid Game + Teamfighting Tips - Typically Darius struggles quite hard within the mid to later stages of the game, mainly due to his lack of mobility and his heavy summoner reliance. As Renekton, we can heavily play into Darius’s lack of mobility by utilising our W max playstyle to hard peel against him from our teammates. When it comes to side lane, Renekton can confidently fight Darius if he is even or ahead, as long as you’re playing by the overall match up tips. Making sure you kill Darius from fights is essentially if you want to take away his summoner strengths for team fights, or his overall ability to join the fights to help his team. When teamfighting vs Darius, try to avoid giving him 5 bleed stacks if he is focusing you and try to space away from him till it wears off. If Darius is focusing on an ally, try to hard peel your target with 5 bleed stacks as he is looking to obtain his mass stacks for heavier damage in his overall teamfighting potential.