Darius's Future, Preseason Balance, and What makes a Jungler

Posted on at 8:18 AM by Moobeat
Since today is New Year's Eve and 2012 is coming to a close, why don't we ring out this fantastic year with a red post collection?!
Continue reading for posts concerning Darius's balance, a reminded on preseason balance, Scarizard discussing his thoughts on what makes a jungler a jungler, and confirmation that Sivir is not the next champion to be visually updated.

The Future of Darius
CertainlyT took a little time to discuss some regrets   he has with Darius's kit and what the future may hold for the Hand of Noxus:
"... In Darius' case, I regret including an attack speed slow on Crippling Strike and making Hemorhage damage type magic. I did these things as last minute reactions to concerns from our live designers about his viability (at the time, Draven would just 1v1 him even in the rare case that Darius could get to Draven and Darius was considered hard countered by cloth+5pot starts). I should have just designed him in a way that was logical and let our player base figure out where and how to best use him."
He continued on, saying:
"... It's unclear what should be done to Darius. He's balanced, has clear strengths and weaknesses, and is much less matchup dependent than the average forum post would have you believe. Even if we remedied some of the specific complaints about him now, any bruiser that does not lean heavily on raw statistical bonuses to be successful will often generate a lot of frustration from their opponents. Raw stats tend to play out almost unnoticeably over time whereas abilities manifest their power in dramatically noticeable moments. Take Jarvan's Demacian Standard -- it's primary power is in the armor/AS boost it gives, but a good number of players don't even notice it exists.

I would say that, in the case of changing Darius' bleed damage to physical, be careful what you wish for, you might not like it."
CertainlyT finished by mentioning he plans to correctly the previously discussed problems of Darius toting around magic damage and an attack speed slow on his W, saying:
"I will get rid of them. It takes time to test changes and to assess what needs to be done to compensate for them. They also weren't possible prior to Season 3 when armor was ridiculously undercosted relative to its power.

It's worth noting that we have a lot of lane bullies, of which Darius is only one. If you straight nerf Darius, then people who want the lane bully experience will just play Garen or Renekton, champions that *actually* counters all other melee champions (Darius does not... a lot of melee champions have decent matchups against him)."

Issues with the Preseason Balance
When questioned about upcoming plans to "fix" the jungle, CertainlyT dropped off a small reminder to ease the minds of summoners troubled by the recent preseason changes.
"I can say that Statikk is still iterating on the jungle. Remember, this is the pre-season for a reason: the game is in a huge state of flux that will hopefully make it much more dynamic and interesting. If any Rioter promised you it would be perfect on release or that there would not be hiccups along the way, please direct them to me ;-)"

 What Makes A Jungler?
Scarizard, an associate live designer, chimed in on a thread about "what makes a jungler in Riot's eyes" and give his thoughts on what defines the role.
"I think something that makes a champion successful in the jungle is how much that champion values - and can thrive - being in Fog of War. In Rengar's development, we knew that he didn't have a competitive clear time, but he also didn't need it - his lane-ganking (with Thrill of the Hunt) or just basic sidelane ganks utilizing his passive along with Empowered Bola Strike made him incredibly strong there.

Kha'Zix, Elise, Diana, and Vi as well all had a significant number of jungle tests - even if we didn't expect that position to be their primary/popular roles, they are all champions that have strong dueling/cc and prefer to get the jump on the opponent.

Zed is a champion where i'm probably the most happy with how his jungling turned out - CertainlyT and i got to work very closely on Zed, and at the time he was a poor jungler at best. He was functioning as a solo laner just fine, mind you, but when he was only a laner (and balanced to be one) he was incredibly frustrating...on demand slow (at the time it wasn't tied to mimicked shadow slash) and potent ranged poke + super escape made laning against a Zed so frustrating some of us didn't even want to participate in playtests. However, opening him up to play in the jungle allowed us to not only drain some of the strengths of his laning, but also increase his mobility/trickiness across the board - the Zed player was casting W more often and jumping over jungle walls, and the opponents had specific windows of time they would be expecting him within the laning phase, which ended up just being more fun across the board.

Of the champions i've mentioned, i think their jungles are quite potent - but almost all of them have to skill/build/play differently to account for their new role. Elise forgoes a sustained damage build and prioritizes raw damage and approaches with rappel to hit-confirm a cocoon into instant-kill. Vi, Zed, and Rengar will all stalk opponents from shaco-esque angles of approach.

tl;dr IMO, the more a champion can make use of burst damage/mobility from the jungle, the more potent that champion can be played there, whereas heroes like Garen/Darius who favor accruing advantage over time and attrition-based combat don't get to exercise the full extent of their strengths. I believe junglers are less 'Can this person jungle?' and more 'Why do you want to jungle them?'"
He continued on to explain the thought process being creating new champions and how they don't start typically start the process by assigning a specific role, like jungling, to champions in development.
"I feel like T hit this one pretty well, but we don't just say 'Time for a jungler, guys!' Or 'We definitely want this person to go toplane!' We have things like 'fighter, mage, assassin' and all sorts of subtypes that influence the design, but other than 'AD Carry' i think they are all pretty open to lane assignments (Varus as well was playtested midlane quite a bit from what i hear).

It's usually more important to our champ designers to create an experience - get a cohesive kit down, then figure out where it fits into the grand scheme of things. Mages and supports (Mid and botlane) are often times interchangeable. Toplaners and junglers are as well, in a lot of cases. For Vi, i remember having lots of conversations with Gypsylord about her production and not really until the last month and a half did we sit down and say 'okay where do we 100% expect to see her?'

Sometimes we push boundaries, and sometimes we don't. Looking forward to the future, we have some really cool designs that, in a co-ordinated setting, could lend themselves to changing up lane assignments or working in different teamcomps, but i think we've always done that. The meta is the meta, and we don't really decide it. Xypherous i think did this really well with lulu and nautilus specifically, in that Naut is a tank/initiator and Lulu is a support/enabler no matter where they are played. Both champions can be played multiple builds and in multiple roles, but the kit defines what they do, not where they go.

Echoing CerT, having champions 'be good at one role' isn't always the best - Shyvana is my example. I wasn't around at the time, but that champion feels like she was designed to be a jungler through and through - which means her state of balance is binary. 'Is she good at jungling?' If yes, she's probably top-class due to her mechanics. If no, she has no place on a team.

We definitely have a lot of characters like this (usually one build/role) that can be balanced, it just means it's often times trickier than saying 'X mechanic/build is abusive, but at least they can still perform with Y build/in different role to compensate', similar to how Zyra players used her as support after the nerfs to midlane. She was still incredibly potent after the first round of nerfs, but the option for her to play bottom was still there as something alternative she can do if her pew pew gets nerfed."
While these two posts aren't extremely revealing or anything, I thought they proved quite interesting.

Sivir's Visual Update not next.
 Finally, here is a quote., from RiotAmes, saying that Sivir will not be the next champion to get a visual update.
"We will absolutely relaunch her at some point - but she's not next. The relaunch team ( and the rest of Riot ) are keenly aware of how poorly Sivir stands up next to our newer champions especially."

198 comments

  1. ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY NERF ULT DARIUS

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  2. If you straight nerf Darius, then people who want the lane bully experience will just play Garen or Renekton, champions that *actually* counters all other melee champions (Darius does not... a lot of melee champions have decent matchups against him).
    Can someone politely explain me this.. the Renekton part please

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  3. NOOO SIVIIR WHYY ???

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  4. Hey Riot.Plz do Sivir first.I want her to look good.Like nidalee.

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  5. ''be careful what you wish for, you might not like it." i got a bad feelings

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  6. Renekton can stun, deal damage from range, and is amazingly tanky.

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  7. Do any of you guys even lift? Check out my avatar picture to see my biceps.

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  8. Renekton will own the lane if he gets one kill on you. Level 1, he hits just as hard as darius, and has no resource. Renek will just auto attack and build up rage, Hit level 3 and if he hasn't killed you yet...Kill you.

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  9. no, but they can VERY CAREFULLY, seeing as how doing any nerfing or buffing is not simple xD

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  10. i still think that his ult shouldnt be insta CD upon kill :/ too broken

    itd kinda be like Voli's bite if it did the same thing

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  11. Talking about nerfing Darius' W when his ultimate is obviously the ability that needs a nerf.

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  12. I main Renekton and he is correct. Rens kit allows him to stun, life steal, dash 2 times (depending on if you've hit an enemy), and his ult does an aoedot that grants him up to 500 health. 1v1 Ren would beat almost any champ. Especially with the new items from preseason 3, really synergies with his kit.

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  13. Yay! Makes me happy that my post was the one this was posted on :)

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  14. "Darius does not... a lot of melee champions have decent matchups against him."

    So a Lv2 pull+spin+passive does not bleed half my health? Thanks for confirming that for me.

    Failing hard in lane as Darius? Np just roflstop 50%+ true damage with my ult anyway.

    Regardless of how much true damage olaf does more than Daruis, the issue is that Darius can simply walk in, underfed, and nab kills for simply playing like crap. Balance you say?

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  15. i think ppl cry again and said something like that " omg op passive darius NERF SOO MUCH DMG " soo darius is soo easy to kill him passive magic dmg its ok....

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  16. each tick now procs cleaver. Where is your armor now!

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  17. make darius ulti do physical damage !!!

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  18. We need Sivir reworks first riot plz.....

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  19. That's exactly what I was thinking :c would make him even more terror.

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  20. Fret not, he will be getting some of the nerfs from the last patch reverted a bit in the next patch.

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  21. Darius shoved me inside of a locker and stole my lunch armor. :c

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  22. And root himself.

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  23. Yep cause -30% armor with built in i think.. 25%(?) armor pen? My god.

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  24. They already said a couple of weeks back that they're hoping for early to mid january. Fingers crossed cause I'm one of the few players that understands how karma works right now. Truly excited for her remake :D

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  25. Force is meaningless without skill.

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  26. wtf are you talking about bruh.

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  27. Because Cho'Gath's ult doesn't do true damage that scales with Ability Power or anything like that.

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  28. It stops here, mister! This insanity ends in Metropolis!

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  29. I feel so special lol :P

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  30. Darius' ult does NOT need a nerf. TBH, It's not even that good of an ult; Darius players have to KS to make the most use of it, but continuous KSing will deny your team of gold. So, even though on the surface getting knocked 4 bars by a true damage ult is scary, Darius' ult IN PARTICULAR requires a lot of good judgement to use.

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  31. omg sivir is un BUG is HORRIBLE!!!! rework please... spectacular sivir is taric with boobs...and shyvana need a buff, is no efficient in jungle and has the worst gank

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  32. It doesn't bleed half your health. Unless you stay around like an idiot, which in that case any other top can sodomize you too.

    His ult doesn't do THAT much damage, TBH. If they stayed around to get 5 stacks of your passive up, they're usually dead anyhow. If anything, it speeds up the inevitable. You have to build AD on Darius for the OP dunksprees that you see in Normals, but in Ranked, you will get punished SO HARD for not building tank instead of damage.

    I cannot condone with your opinions. Considering four common tops, Teemo, Jax, Yorick, and Jayce completely shut him down, I think people can stop QQ'ing about an overrated champion who has weaknesses if you can exploit them.

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  33. Because Darius's ult doesn't refresh on kill or anything. Honestly, if it went to a 5 second cooldown on kill, it'd be fine.

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  34. "We will absolutely relaunch her at some point - but she's not next."



    Found this rather surprising to be frank.


    If I were to wager a guess on who is next now, I suspect it will be either Sion or Karma.

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  35. you're kinda retarded if you say that Cho's ult is the same as Darius. Not like Darius Ult has no cooldown and a double/triplekill is pretty easy if you dont have hard-cc.

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  36. Yeah, I feel as if an auto bc with 1/4 of your armor not mattering to begin with will hurt ever so slightly. Not to mention the dunk afterwards.

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  37. But Cho'gath's ult doesn't refresh when you kill someone... you can't just walk in and spam it like a douche to get a pentakill.

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  38. Just get as near as it needs to slice him with your axe, that will do 30% of his life at lv 1.

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  39. If you want to beat Darius, I give you a simple solution.... Teemo. Done.

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  40. Just make it normal instead of true-damage... cant be that a tank with 4k hp does 5x 1k damage ult.

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  41. If we get a Sivir rework, I might actually start playing her again.

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  42. I honestly don't think it does at all. There are many ways of wrecking Darius in lane so that you can stop him from farming and increasing the damage his R will do.

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  43. the sivir and taric part made me lol.

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  44. nope, just push R

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  45. oh yeah, waiting for my Karma-Bitch <3

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  46. I like the looks of Karma. Haven't played her yet but I'm certainly looking forward to it. And with an upcoming rework to make her better, I'm liking that idea a lot.

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  47. I can honestly agree with this. I don't think that the damage needs to be nerfed, just give it the same CD as Cho Gath's R or something.

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  48. Good judgment? Give that bitch 5 stacks of my ult, and slap 50% of her life away. While i feeld untouched, running around with 4k hp and endless armor

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  49. Rofl, what this guy said. The only time Darius hurts that much is when I've got my full AP Wizard Yi build going, and then its kind of moot when I hit 2 and can heal 100% of my health through his whole combo...

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  50. Ugh, the new items make me cry whenever someone plays Renek. Thankfully, no one really does.

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  51. Teemo is OP against Darius, however, with the whole Darius being "Decently mutual against other melee champs"

    No.

    Bleed stacks way too fast. If his W didn't refresh his attack animation, it'd be fine, but that would be "Unfair" since other champs like Kong and Nasus have an animation refresh. But the removal of the slow would be nice.

    The Magic damage on Darius is fine. Again, it's his ult... and a lot of people are saying Darius taking all the kills is bad, no it's not. He massive damages in team fights, bleeds everyone harder with more AD he has, + his tankiness. He permaslows everyone with Mallet, his W (Currently) and Omen. No one gets away. My only thought is..

    If his Ult became physical damage that ignored... say... 50% armor... or even Flat armor, I'd be fine with that. It'd still hurt like hell, but people would still have a chance to survive the ult.

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  52. lol u people complaining about a sivir rework while karma still hasn't gotten her rework

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  53. Hard CC Stops Darius Yes, so you have enough time to stun, hit and run, but a pull, Attack, once stack, instant W for attack refresh, 2 stacks and slow, which gives you a 3rd stack on autoattack, unless you're fast enough, which will will either A) Q just on the edge of his range, doing bonus damage and another stack (Being 3rd or fourth) Not hard to get stacks on Darius. Just know the combos.

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  54. I bought Shyvana 2 days ago and she is really terrible at ganking, I already tried, full damage, damage/tank, full tank, but I simply get it right, I also tried some guides.
    No cc, and her damage needs time to be effective, you get to the lane and the laner leaves easly, you can only gank if there is a Maokai or something in the lane to stun ^^
    But I'll keep trying, her strenght lies on Team Fights, Dragon Form = AOE damage and she is tanky.
    I'll try goin full damage now and maxing Q first, see if the ganks worth something.

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  55. Visual Remake only, her kit is good.

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  56. This is not true and I hate when people say Teemo counters Darius. Teemo can only win pre-6. After that, E,Q,AA,W,Ignite,AA,R kills him like kills anybody else. A good jungler will help Darius go ahead over any ranged bullies like Teemo or Jayce through ganking.

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  57. lol Zed jungler


    He is terrible at that.

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  58. I love Karma, I play her as support, and if you don't build full AP, you're useless.

    A support that helps dealing damage (o.O), a shield and a terrible slow.

    And another thing that pisses me off is her range, a squishy champion, support that has to in the middle of the fight to do something.
    __________________________________________
    She is the most unpopular champion of all ^^ accordin to LoLKing

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  59. Cho is first :' )

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  60. Daaaaamn, if not Sivir, then who?

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  61. Nico, surely u got your hands on him a lot ^^

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  62. No, I haven't.

    He already ganked me, he can jump into the river bush from inside the jungle, good mobility and damage.

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  63. ''I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly, but you have elected the way of pain.''

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  64. Well for me darius is another garen , the only difference between their ulti is the refresh part.
    The reason garen shouldn't have a refresh on his ulti is he is more tanki and does more aoe dmg.

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  65. Alright, you people are blinded by darius's abilities. His W is the broken part of him, not his q or ult. Let him q minions, then you fight him, not hard, his ultimate is mana costly and he is just a bruiser. Out of all the bruisers, you should be worried about Jax and vi the most rape facing your carries.

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  66. I liked the idea of 5 seconds cooldown on kill , but well i never saw darius as op , i also don't ban him at all because its a waste of ban for me.

    Darius or Cho , well darius doesn't have great CC like cho , cho is more useful in team fight , the only way to make darius viable is his ulti.

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  67. Darius is easily countered in the beginning game with good team work or just a ranged champ. I dont think darius needs to be changed because i believe if he is only two things would come out of it. he could either under powered and just a worthless champ or he could over powered and just dominate league all over again. If u think darius should have AD hemorage instead of magic damage then u just want him to be over powered because oh well idk HIS BUILD IS AD BASED!!!! And is crippling strike or his w well come on get real now a move called crippling strike why wouldnt your attack speed be slowed. Besides when i play as darius it a huge cluttered team fight i dont even know who to focus and I end up getting killed.

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  68. Do you take exhaust? she is not a ganking jungler, she is a buff control farming jungle, shyvanna should have atleast 100 cs at the 20 min mark.
    ps: shes a dmg tank.

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  69. I think they would see that, but without his w attack speed slow, his trades will be bad.

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  70. Jayce can beat darius pre 6 , and at level 1-2 don't be stupid and charge on him , his pull+Q will deal half your hp.
    just poke him and lower his hp then everything should be fine.

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  71. which tankiness dude ? tankiness means no more ad and most darius builds tank item because without them you won't survive to do a scratch.
    Shoes-Frozen Mallet-another tanki item-GA and if the match lasted you may get AD item.
    Also sometimes you don't have time to wait for 5 stacks , for me if they want to nerf his ulti then nerf the bonus% per stack , but well without stack darius is using olaf true dmg in an ulti which is stupid because olaf can spam it every few seconds.

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  72. now i just play zyra support with the nerfs :C

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  73. you need to get exhaust on shyvana or doesnt work, u picked flash or ghost? idk

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  74. Darius' W stacking with AD.....that sounds like a buff.

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  75. Karma is the next visual update (along with her rework) I believe, don't quote me on it though.

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  76. Sivir needed it badly. Her arms look like spaghetti I'm not even joking.

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  77. And this is why I use Shyvana as a solo top. Crazy damage and easy farm for late game tanky items.

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  78. In this thread. A bunch of 900 elo noobs crying about Darius. He's really not that good.

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  79. I wonder who will be the next for reworks then ... Annie?

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  80. You think Darius is strong now, just wait until i my prototype is finished.

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  81. Don't forget about Kayle

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  82. Before nerfing Darius we need to come to a conclusion about what the problem is,
    -Does he ult to much in teamfights?
    Remove the stacks on W and E, he'll actually has to peel and AA you for some time before making his ult do massive damage or increase the amount of stacks needed to for full damage ult, but lower passive damage.
    -Can he counterbuild-tank you in lane and snowball?
    Increase his mana costs, apply a mana cost-scaling on his Q, higer mana costs means he will have to build damage to do damage and not run oom (how many Dariuses have you seen with a mana item?)
    -His passive does to much damage?
    Again, decrease the number of skills that put stacks or, increase the amount of stacks, but lower the damage of his passive
    -His ult does to much damage and that son of a **** is to tanky?
    Decrease the flat amount of damage, increase the scaling.

    For me, Darius is all about his passive and his ult, his skills are just a way to get stacks, stacks are just to ult and then the ult is OP. Actually, the speed of the stacks are "OP", nerf the stacks, balance darius by increasing his skillcap, not blindly nerfing his abilities.

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  83. I agree, Shyvana got kinda useless with the new jungle. Madred wasn't a great item but it escalated so well with her passive, def+ad+as, just all she needed. I wish they could give her a cc of some sorts in her E, a small slow at least.

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  84. "He's balanced, has clear strengths and weaknesses..."

    If he is balanced, leave him alone...

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  85. remove refresh cooldown and maybe he'll be better

    whys he get to get an ultimate with true damage that does even more damage with stacks that refreshes and no one else does
    i still could never really understand how that would make someone balanced
    cant build against it and he has passive armor pen

    whys one of the strongest ultimates so forgiving is my question

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  86. The main problem with Darius, if he's fed, if he's played well, if he's fast enough (which is not quite hard to do actually), then there's absolutly no way of counterbuilding him.

    A fed Vayne is horrible to deal with, but you can reduce her attack speed, a fed mage can be counterbuilded with a lot of lire and mr.

    What can you do against Darius? Health? QSS to remove the blood stacks? No, he'll eat you alive, also forget armor.



    On another lighter note, happy new year everybody.

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  87. Dick where!:D

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  88. YUpp its not rly that hard to nerf darius just do simply this:ULti not refresable nerf his passive boom his balanced:)

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  89. http://elohell.org/?ref=100002321183711

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  90. Im sorry but mid and support are not interchangable, in most cases a support can mid but a normal mid caster needs quite a large amount of farm, AP items end up costing alot. There are a few cases that it may work like for Zyra

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  91. I see the game as in 2 sets of roles, your position... solo top, mid (mainly nuker) , support, jungler, and ranged dps. and then I see the roles that each champion has, ranged ad, melee ad, ranged ap, (rare) melee ap, and tank. then there are the sub roles like assassin and pusher etc. BUT for each posistion in the first set there should be at least one of each champion roles from the second one, the only one that gets caught up is ADC but thats why I changed it to ranged dps, notice the difference between dps and nuker. after that you can move to diversify each with the sub roles. IDK just a thought

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  92. I don't play Darius, I don't even like that char, but touching his ult would destroy him for 90%.

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  93. Next patch, or the patch after next patch.
    SOON.

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  94. Balanced but toxic.

    I hate thet ppl, who cry about Darius, Teemo etc...

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  95. Try SR top and TT jungle. :)
    TT is so fun... :)

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  96. It didn't taste very good. Can you bring mustard too next time?

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  97. Darius is fine in every aspect except for the passive, attack speed reduction on crippling strike, and the hemorrage stacking increasing the damage on his TRUE damage ult. inb4 people start saying bla bla bla he's easily kited l2kite noob, etc remember that if Darius's team is letting him get near you, there's nothing your front line can do to prevent that except for initiating. Darius, like Jax, forces you to focus him instead of the adc/apc or else he will eat your team as you're trying to get to their carries.

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  98. Not sure if srs or retarded troll.
    Darius already out trades any melee champion (except for Trundle and Renekton) because of the attack speed buff, without it, it would be a lot more fair as the slow & passive movement speed boost is more than enough to allow him to add more stacks of hemorrage to the target.
    He's lethal at melee range because of his passive, not nearly as much because of debuff.

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  99. Darius deals TRUE damage that becomes stronger with every stack of hemorrage. Meaning you can kill someone at 50% health as long as your hemorrage stacks are going. Not to mention his innate % armor penetration. Changing his ultimate would make little difference in his playability as the majority of his damage comes from his passive.


    So "touching his ult" would be the least of his problems.

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  100. You are forgetting Lee sin, NEVER foget Lee sin!

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  101. Her short range is compensated by her enormous shield. Build her tanky AP like Swain. Support Karma is bad as you will have no early-mid game pressure on your lane opponents until you get a chalice. Her heal is strong but her costs are not. Also, going full AP on a "support" is beyond stupid. You should be warding and stacking aura items to help you team. Good thing S3 made items with dual benefits for supports, but when you say "full AP" it just sounds like another 800 ELO person building first item RoA and Dcap on a support. Plain stupid. Karma is only strongly viable mid lane as her semi-support-AP-late game teamfight presence is similar to Orianna's.

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  102. Teemo only counters Darius if you let him. Darius (and all Melee champs without dashing gap closers) need to play passive and freeze lane under tower until they get a few levels in their damaging abilties. Darius Post 6: 1 Apprehend on Teemo is a guaranteed flash or kill if he decides to trade.

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  103. Garen, Renekton, and Trundle are the only melee champions that can out trade Darius. Jax wins post 6 (always does), and Yorick out sustains/out arasses

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  104. Someone just went full retard. A high damaging ult that refreshes on kills and without hard cc will destroy your entire team if you rush for their priority targets (apc/adc) ? Seems pretty broken to me.

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  105. She was the one who said that it was lunch!

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  106. How to balance his passive


    Remove 1 or 2 stacks now his ultimate is balanced.

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  107. Heimerdinger is getting the next visual upgrade, right?

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  108. I WANT THE NEW KARMA <3

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  109. i seriously don't get why darius is getting nerfed

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  110. the entire point of darius' ult is that it refreshes on kills. If they changed this it would be too large of a nerf and he would end up being a weak Garen

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  111. The other difference is that Garen deals percentile damage, while Darius deals a fixed amount of damage. Darius would theoretically fall off against people who build health - while Garen wouldn't.

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  112. Dude, I play Darius... RARELY. it's enough for me or anyone to know that Darius' ult ,is in fact, plays a main part of his play-style. His theme is literally "If no one can kill you, I will"!

    It's easy as hell to get beat Darius in lane, and only
    those cocky, stupid, or unaware enough would to try 1v1 him when he's
    lvl.6 (that's were you stop trying to zone him, and be passive), if you gotten a kill or more from him... back-off and just CS.

    Hemorrhage is indeed strong even without building damage as opposed to his ult which has potential to deal 1000 damage at max rank but only with an above-average amounts of AD with 5 stacks or hemorrhage on a target. Applying those stacks take time (unless you went the trolly AD Carry Darius, and even then you'll get blown-up way faster) and must take damage back to continue his pursuit due to being easily kited, also if he misused his ult, it has a LONG cooldown.

    TL;DR- The Ult is what makes the Darius we know, It's take too long to get the max damage out of Darius' ult and if you didn't use it to KS right, it take awhile for it to get off CD, nerfing hemorrage is a good start, it's easy to beat him in lane and quite easy to zone before he hits lvl 6.


    Nerf the Hemorrhage, not the Ult, otherwise Garen wouldn't need such a defective clone.

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  113. Dude... not just that, Garen's ult is a percentile-based execution ability dealing damage based on how much health his target is missing meaning the more health you have, the stronger Garen's ult is. Darius is based on how many stacks of hemorrhage he inflicted upon you, it's still flat true damage, so you have a chance of living.

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  114. Hoping one day Miss Fortune and Caitlyn get some visual updates...

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  115. Actually I wish they'd rework Taric. His outrageous face isn't really outrageous at all, and his effects are horrible. His hair looks like plastic. Damn Riot, your #1 male character should really look better!

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  116. Darius is balanced , it's just that some people do not know how to counter him properly in the lane :))

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  117. OH come on!
    Is it so hard to admit that only op thing in darius is actually his ultimate? Just change the god damn true dmg to physical or add cooldown even if he finishes the target! That's all there's needed with this champion.

    I wonder if they will nerf Garen anytime soon...but by what i see in thier logic it is probably not going to happen.

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  118. Hold it partner, that would destroy Darius and make him completely useless in lane

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  119. Sivir no next? She's the worst looking champion in game...


    About Darius - he's broken and we know it. But what is interesting ... "last minute" ... so what about 8 month developing?

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  120. Are they crazy?! The should make some changes to Darius and Garen ofc. For example W's marks you and if you kil someone with your ulti and he is marked only then the ulti should refresh. And yes they should make the bleed dmg physical ,so you can at least stack only armor and health. And Garen.... he is so op,I don't know why did they buffed him?!

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  121. Why no one ever plays Poppy?
    reduces Darius damage by half, melt down his health, Immune to him in Teamfights for 6 secs, has a animation refresh, stun and bonus armor.


    I have done this and it works

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  122. But he has to stack his passive to do a high damage otherwise its 300 damage.
    The point of your QQ is that you got owned by the entire enemy team and Darius just finished the work or your team were unable to kill a no armor low life Darius with no defensive skills.

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  123. i lol every time someone says darius ult does 1k true damage, its more like 800 with a real build that isn't purely ad, and by the way it takes about 5 seconds or less depending on cd's to even stack his passive, and thats to do a whole 800 ish whereas olaf with cdr could probs do 340 true every 3 seconds meaning in the time it takes darius to get a full ulti olaf has already done atleast 690

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  124. Olaf does more true damage than Darius that's the irony and they complain about his ult. Also if you actually build right it does only 800 ish on full stacks but that doesn't occur very often and your more likely to just do a finishing blow of like 600. You also have to time his ult right in order to get a refresh, whereas Olaf really takes no skill and just click the e button every time its up and in that way you already out damage a Darius ult. Darius is no more op than Olaf is.

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  125. Pls No Rework D:
    She is superviable atm!
    Karma top is able to beat renekton and lee sin in lane!

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  126. Can't leave him alone.



    It just goes to show, if you complain about something for long enough no matter how untrue what you're saying is, people will start believing it. It doesn't matter that Darius is easily kited and can't do anything if he can't get close to you, he's clearly OP because he has a definite advantage at close range when he should be completely unviable and never played by anyone because that's what me emotions tell me.

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  127. It's mostly the dot after the trade, and the initial burst from his Q that allows him to dominate against many melees if they do not play carefully - if they walk in when Darius is spinning his axe they get 'hit by the blade' and take increased damage. Few top laners rely heavily on attack speed (Jax, Irelia are the most common) when it comes to trading, the attack speed slow is mostly a late game tool against AD carries (and is fairly out-of-kit).

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  128. I just hope the Karma rework will do her current design justice :/

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  129. Because they need it that much..

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  130. In my opinion, Darius' ult should be like this:
    "If Darius kills an enemy champion with his ultimate, it goes on 5 seconds cooldown"
    Would be a lot more balanced. ;)

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  131. Is it bad that I feel Darius could just be left as is. He's a fairly balanced champion. So long as you don't feed him early game, he's pretty easy to take down. Sure he still packs one hell of a punch but he's so much fun as he is. I've never hated playing with or against Darius players because I know they are easily countered.

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  132. I couldn't understand this SR and TT's, I'm not american, well, after I lost 10 games in a row ^^ In Blind Pick I went to a Ranked Game and won with 3/2/20 ...
    In Blind Pick my teams was always loosing at the 3 lanes (o.O) even when I got there and got kills/assists, they managed to lose. When I was tanker, I couldn't even tank the support lol, everyone so fed.
    But at Ranked everything was completly different :D

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  133. Full AP = Buying Ward of course, no active items or aura shields, the only aura is the Will of The Ancients cause it's offensive.
    I have around 1200 elo I guess, 4 wins 3 losses, one of them was 4x5, I don't really play ranked.

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  134. The relaunch team ( and the rest of Riot ) are keenly aware of how poorly Sivir stands up next to our newer champions especially.
    that is why we arent going to do anything about her.

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  135. There is a typo in the title. Darius just gets an apostrophe: Darius' future.

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  136. Darius ult is true damage and gets stronger with his passive, meaning he can deal AT LEAST 680 TRUE DAMAGE to anyone, while he is building Armor/HP/Magic Resist, and he can kill all 5 in a team fight if his ult is the killing blow.

    He also has a freaking 25% armor penetrarion on his E making his other 3 abilities get stronger, again, with no need AD items.

    That means, he can go full tank and deal Tons Of Damage that BALANCED CHAMPIONS would only deal if they had strong items/fed.

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  137. he is balanced and his ulti is just fine, nuff said so many people can't get a finishing blow and i've seen that alot

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  138. I say change Darius' ult to refresh on kills with only a window to use it say you have 10 seconds after killing someone to use his ult again, if you kill another person again 10 seconds, this way its not always up in lane phase, its not always offcooldown and people can stop the QQ

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  139. nah, I can kill a whole team that is low HP with Riven's ulti. doing that to Darius would break any window for making some epic plays with (the moment before he died) and against low hp targets.

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  140. About the next Visual Upgrade... I bet it's Taric! He's the only one that needs it badly, even more than Sivir... mark my words!

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  141. Well, let's be all honest here, Heimerdinger won't ever get his remake...

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  142. If anyone has a moment, I'm all tangled up in the basketball hoop, post-dunking. :c

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  143. Ok, people darius ult is wat makes him. I play darius pretty much every game now, and i tell u, if ur a R noob that relies on it, just get out. Thats why u get an IE becuase IT FREAKING CRITS ON UR W FOR 600+ FREAKING 2 SHOT ADC. DO IT DAMMIT

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  144. And before u judge or comment, check LoL king......
    Look for Camandez NE

    then u can say its shit etc but who rly care XD

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  145. they should make a "new years eve" skin..

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  146. the problem with darius isn't the Ult, is the bleed, the slow and the speed boost that he gains with every enemy bleeding

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  147. Lol, I used to run the magic pen mastery on him on the S2 mastery. CDR into Magic pen. to abuse an already strong DoT, was pretty funny.

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  148. I haven't played Karma much, but as a player who enjoys support the most I'm very excited to see how she'll be soon(tm)!

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  149. (I've never seen a Darius play crapily and win, what elo are you in?)

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  150. your build is awfully lackluster, with that build you die in 2 seconds in teamfights. Remember darius has no escape abilities. Going full glass-cannon with a bit of hp is what most of fresh lv 30's do.

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  151. They sure need it, compare new Soraka and new Nidalee to Miss Fortune and Caitlyn.
    Miss Fortune is to look a bit sexy, she would be even better with a visual upgrade, and caitlyn skins would be more different from eachother.

    For an example: "cop cait skin, is to look sexy, in the art image it does, than you buy the skin, start to play and... :( "

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  152. why not make the stacks go from 5 to 4? ult does a little less damage by like 150 (assumed) and his hemorrhage doesn't do as much. Don't do 3 stacks though because then he won't do any kind of damage. He is a champion who can be dealt with by a lot of champs. You could remove the attack speed debuff though to even it out but other than that nerfing the champion in any other way will destroy this champion.

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  153. Did I get any buffs? I couldn't see.

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  154. This is so awesome to read. Keep it up, you lane/school bully you .

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  155. Better nerf Garen! This Idiot can spin longer then me, he can silence, can reduce incoming dmg and has the same ult like me without true dmg and cs reset. also his passive regenerates % life so pls shut p and obey me!

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  156. SR stands for "Summoners Rift" an TT for "Twisted Treeline".

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  157. "Darius already out trades any melee champion"
    Xin zhao and jax shits on darius.

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  158. Lunch money as in money FOR lunch as in money FOR BUYING lunch....

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  159. "Darius's" is correct.

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  160. Igor, care for a game of Basketball?

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  161. I think Paulius want to get dunked a bit more :D

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  162. I can 2v1 you no problem. >:D

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  163. Thanks, the roles I play the less is top and ADC, ADC I don't like because I'm used to using spells to deal damage, I feel strange well just letting the champ atk to deal damage xD

    And top, when I enter a game most of the people asks for top, so I don't even try so it doesn't disturbs the team lol

    But now I already know how to play her better. She is jungler that has to farms and counter-jungle, I only go for a gank when it's easy or the lane needs it. Then she destroys in TFs, and the ganking gets actually good later on because she can tank the turrets easly ^^

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  164. With the addition of League of bruisers meta @ mid lane,how about giving AP range top a try? I think morgana can beat darius up top with skill-moves which can stop darius from getting near to you(Bind+Soul shackles),hence no stacking blood.Not to mention,black shield to prevent from getting pulled towards him..

    But on 2nd thought...OOH WHO AM I KIDDING, LETS JUST MORPH AND EAT THEM!

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  165. "the more a champion can make use of burst damage/mobility from the jungle, the more potent that champion can be played there..."


    Soon, my potential will be recognized...(or the lack of it)

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  166. And then does absolutely nothing with that advantage.

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  167. if a darius starts autohitting a dodging jax he is just retarded... xin is pretty strong, but if a darius can manage not to get knocked up, he is also just easy...

    riven also has no chance and i don't see how renekton should be a counter :X slice in, stun me, dice back, get pulled, AA, W, Q, R, dead (short version ofc), easy for darius!

    garen and yorick are the only melee enemies that proved stronger than darius to me... as for range, well range, simply quite counters every toplaner^^

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  168. Hi, My name is Vladimir, I want a Darius to 1v1 me when he hits level 6. Bye!

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  169. Hi. My name is Vladimir, I want to 1v1 a level 6 Darius, I don't really care what level I am. I hear Fizz and Elise want 1V1s too, and maybe even Shaco and Zed.

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  170. Sivir isn't next in the Visual Update..........exactly what champion needs it more?

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  171. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_LIG1cbI8

    Soraka, it's bad enough you put a manly man like Udyr to shame. Do you even have any sort of mercy?

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  172. You have not earned victory this day.

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  173. I reckon the problem is in his armour pen passive of his E 25% is too steep at top level

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  174. and the Q bonus damage in the blade ring

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  175. Likely because Renekton can bait Darius' ult and live by ulting.

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