Darius has long been a nightmare for top laners in League of Legends, known for his oppressive laning phase and brute-force playstyle. But now, the Noxian general is tearing through an entirely different role—the jungle.
The League champion fits in the Noxian season theme perfectly and seems among the top junglers for the current patch with his win rate around 55 percent, according to Lolalytics. Darius has seen a sharp rise in play rate, win rate, and even his ban rate in the last few days, and the champion has been rising across all the ranks in competitive matches, showing his massive impact in the jungle role.
With the Feats of Strength gameplay mechanic, the meta demands junglers who can do well in the early game to gain leads. Darius is already known for his aggressive approach in the early game. He fits perfectly in that role for jungle mains, who want to take early game objectives and get a few kills to secure a strong lead.
As a jungler, the champion mostly gets his sustain from his Decimate ability, and he can also use his Hemorrhage passive to stack his bleed damage and easily kill jungle monsters and enemies with high damage. He also has the Apprehend to pull enemies in to perform with combo with W and end it with his ultimate to secure multiple kills. Due to his bleed stacks damage, he is also good against tanks due to his high true damage.
The most obvious flaw with Darius’s kit is that he struggles to get in range with champions with high mobility. Players took Ghost as a Summoner Spell to help with their engage, but they still fell behind when it was on cooldown. The highest win-rate jungle build specifically tackles this problem to make him a very potent jungler.
The build takes Sorcery as the main rune route and opts for Phrase Rush, which helps Darius gain movement speed during fights to dodge attacks and land Decimate more often. Celebrity and Waterwalking enable the champion to become even faster, helping him clear camps faster and gank enemies in lanes.
Lastly, the Axiom Archanist rune has found a new home in the champion, allowing Darius to deal more damage through his Noxian Guillotine ultimate, enabling it to reset more often and even increasing its use by getting enemy takedowns. Bwipo explained how the rune made Garen relevant again in professional play and it seems that it might also revive Darius.
The synergy is further expanded by getting the Precision tree next, where Darius players take the Triumph and Alacrity to help with their skirmish power. The champion starts his journey by getting the Gustwalker Hatching, which also gives him enhanced movement speed while leaving a brush, making it easier for him to gank enemy champions.
In terms of items, players are building Youmuu’s Ghostblade, followed by Boots of Swiftness and Dead Man’s Plate, which take Darius’ movement speed to an absurd level. After these items, players build ability haste items to use more abilities to get the passive online faster and deal a heavy amount of damage.
Due to so much movement speed in his kit, which scales with his level, it becomes incredibly easy for Darius to always be in the enemy’s face and use his passive to obliterate them. The champion also doesn’t need Ghost and can simply take the Smite-Flash combo to set up plays and catch enemies by surprise.
In terms of counters, the champions like Nocturne, Vi, and others should be able to stop Darius in his tracks using their strong crowd control and high mobility. But if Darius manages to get a lead in the early game, it will be borderline impossible to stop him in your competitive matches.
With Fearless Drafts coming in the First Stand tournament later this month, don’t be surprised if Darius makes an appearance in the jungle.
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