How to Counter Darius

Darius is a monster. He is the ultimate "noob thrashing" machine! But don't worry, I'll teach you noobs how to fight back!

Lets start first with our analysis of Darius.

Name: Darius
Champion type: Bruiser
Main damage type: Physical
Range: Melee
Play style: Cooldown Skills Harassment with Nuke Finishing Move
Teamwork: Not a team player; best at laning, ganking, and killstealing (KS'ing)
Escape skills: None
Weakness: Sustained damage with lifesteal (think Xin Zhao and Sivir)
Classification: Tough to beat 1v1

These are the more important features that I have found to matter most during laning phase. He's not very good in big team fights, so you can pretty much kite/ignore him and wipe out his weaker teammates as he's chasing someone on your team.

How to Lane Against Darius

You will notice that Darius is stronger against certain champions than others. Admittedly, he is strong against many champions. However, there are still champions which can wreck him in lane.

Note: we will assume that Darius will take top lane against you.

• Worst Champions to Lane Against Darius
• Melee DPS carries (Master Yi, Hecarim, Akali, etc.)
• Support types (Soraka, Orianna, Blitzcrank, etc.)
• Ranged champions with no escapes/disables (Ashe, Caitlyn, etc.)
• Pure tanks (Shen, Cho'gath, Rammus, etc.)
• Best Champions to Lane Against Darius
• Long range harassers (Teemo, Ziggs, Varus, etc.)
• Bruisers (Olaf, Maokai, Xin Zhao, etc.)
• Mages with harass skills and "damage over time" (Malzahar, Brand, Cassiopeia, etc.)

Darius has great harassment abilities, so he will do best when he is able to wear you down. But will you let him get the chance to do so? NO! Don't even let him get close! This is why champions like Teemo do so well against him; they can OUT-HARASS him to no end! Of course, you still need skills in order to keep it going without dieing yourself, so keep that in mind.

Bruisers do best against him because of his limited "sustained fighting" capabilities. I have found that Olaf, Maokai, and Xin Zhao are among the top counters to Darius. Olaf and Xin can beat the living snot out of Darius, while Maokai can wear him down from afar using Saplings (just remember to start with Doran's Ring and level up your Sapling [E] skill).

You can win easily before he hits level 6. Once he hits level 6, you will need to be more careful and also build more Health items to survive his nuke.

How to Gank Darius

Most Darius players grab ignite and flash/ghost.  This means that you will have to gank him more than once in order to successfully destroy him! The first gank should be to remove his escape summoner spell (just gank and he will use it to escape). If he sticks around, you should wait around for him to push again. Once he's beyond the river landmark, jump in and secure the kill!

How to Fight Darius in Team Fights

Darius is very poor in team fights due to many factors. 

• He has only one "area of effect" skill. 
• He has no shield to initiate with. 
• His attack speed is super slow.
• He has low Health base stats.
• His ultimate will not be used to initiate, so you can count it out of the first half of the battle.
• His skills have relatively high cooldowns, so you will be able to pounce on him and deliver damage before he can reciprocate.

There are two ways to fight him during team fights. You can either focus him with ALL of your teammates to just destroy him with one blow, or you can just ignore him and take out his teammates first. This part is your call because team fights are never the same. Kill him first only if he deals tons of damage. Save him for last if there is a bigger threat on their team! (Darius is terrible at chasing).

Conclusion

The term "overpowered" is used too often and without much proof. Just because the noobs with less than 1,000 wins lose to a certain champion doesn't mean that you (you're a pro, right?) will lose to that same champion as well! In this situation, it is the players who try to analyze and gather information about the enemy before engaging in half-baked battles who win out in the end. Best of luck, and stay GOSU!

Experience Advantage in Lanes

You might have heard that having a jungler on your team is a huge advantage. But why is that? Well, there is a distinct advantage to this: extra experience earned for the team. Extra experience means stronger early champions, which means stronger spells, which means stronger fighting ability! Although you can win games without the extra experience, it certainly would not hurt to be two or three levels higher than your opponents!

Here's a scenario:

The enemy team has a jungler, and your team does not. Your team has two champions facing just one enemy champion at top lane. At the six minute mark, the enemy champion turns Level 6, while your two champions are both Level 4. The enemy champion can now use their ultimate on you, while you cannot use your ultimate on theirs! The enemy jungler roars out of the river, suppressing you in place while their top lane champion unleashes massive attacks on the both of you! And before you know it, the both of you have fallen, and your tower crumbles into a pile of rubble.

And this is just one scenario!

I would like to ask you this: do you know exactly how much experience is earned by each champion for each kill? Read on!


Experience Earning Ratios:

After patch 1.0.0.113, the new experience gains are as follows:

• One champion gains 100% experience points from minion or champion kills
• Two champions each gain 55% experience points from minion or champion kills
• Three champions each gain 36.7% experience points from minion or champion kills
• Four champions each gain 27.5% experience points from minion or champion kills
• Five champions each gain 22% experience points from minion or champion kills

Prior to the new patch, experience gains were as follows:

• One champion gains 100% experience points from minion or champion kills
• Two champions each gain 50% experience points from minion or champion kills
• Three champions each gain 33.3% experience points from minion or champion kills
• Four champions each gain 25% experience points from minion or champion kills
• Five champions each gain 20% experience points from minion or champion kills

My advice to you with this upcoming patch: the rebalancing of the experience ratio system reduces the effectiveness of jungling; jungling will be a less powerful tactic to use in order to win games! Take advantage of the experience gain increases, and push lanes in which your lane of two are facing a solo lane of one. Play hard, and win fast!


You may find the official League of Legends Release Notes v1.0.0.113 here.


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How to lane against powerful early game champions

It has come to my attention that solomid is a popular place for a strong early game champion like Karthus to gain an incredible advantage. In the hands of an expert, solomid Karthus can shuttle your team to victory... or when he's on the other team, shut down your own team's carry.

When you're facing a strong solomid champion like Karthus, there are several things you can do. And there are several things that you should not do:


What to do against a solomid Karthus:

• Buy magic resistance and health potions, or a health item.
• Switch lanes with a more tanky champion (like Malphite), who can take the hits.
• Switch lanes with an anti-caster (like Kassadin), who may have an easier time against Karthus.
• Call for ganks often, even if your team does not have a jungler.
• Stay alive so that he does not get enough money for his core item! (i.e. Archangel's Staff).
• Let him push toward your tower so that your team can gank him or get tower hits on him.
• In ranked mode, choose a direct counter to Karthus (such as Soraka, who can heal everyone just enough to save her team from Karthus' global nuke).
• Wear him down with ranged attacks
• Later on, make sure everyone on your team has a Banshee's Veil

What not to do against a solomid Karthus:

• Do not stay in the lane against him as a squishy carry with no escapes (like Kogmaw).
• Do not "stick with your usual item build" and overlook the need for magic resistance.
• Do not stay in the lane with low health!

These are some great ways to lane against a strong early game champion. If you can shut down Karthus' early game advantage, you should easily destroy him mid and late game due to his lack of health.



Note: the picture of Karthus was taken from the following URL (courtesy of glodefunk): http://glodefunk.deviantart.com/art/LOL-Karthus-fsjal-164718697 


Thank you for reading my post!  Please don't forget to tell your friends about my website, Gosu League of Legends @ Blogger.com, or otherwise known as How to win League of Legends games!(http://gosuleagueoflegends.blogspot.com/)