Weird Pick #176: Jungle Darius

He was never going to get to your top laner anyway. Now he starts the game standing behind them.

Darius is the most feared laner in the game and one of the least feared champions in a fight that starts more than a screen away from him. Everybody knows the fix, which is to never let him touch you. Jungle is the role built around not asking permission.

So how does this work anyway?

Weird Pick #176

Jungle Darius

Off-Meta Build

How to Play Jungle Darius

Abilities

Q, E, W then prioritize R > Q > W > E

Summoner Spells

Flash

Smite

Starting Items

Scorchclaw Pup

Refillable Potion

Strategy

Clear the top half of the jungle, gank the lane that's already pushed, and treat every enemy who walks into a river bush as a kill rather than a skirmish

Core Items

Stridebreaker

Plated Steelcaps

Sterak's Gage

Dead Man's Plate

Death's Dance

Jungle Darius Runes Setup

Darius Jungle Runes

Precision

Domination

Precision: Conqueror, Triumph, Legend: Haste, Last Stand

Domination: Sudden Impact, Relentless Hunter

Shards: Adaptive Force, Adaptive Force, Health

When to Pick This

The case is a map full of lanes that shove. Darius doesn't gank, he arrives at a fight that's already happening on the wrong side of the river, and a jungler who needs the wave in his favor is a jungler who needs his laners to cooperate. Look at the enemy draft for champions who push by accident. There are usually two.

He's also a reasonable answer to an enemy jungler who wants to duel you at three items. Very few of them win that, and the ones who do have to come find you to prove it. Stridebreaker and Dead Man's Plate are a build about closing distance rather than surviving it, which is the correct thing to spend gold on when your entire kit already handles the surviving.

What kills the pick is an early invade you can't answer. His first clear is slow and he has no way to escape a jungler who shows up at his second camp. If the enemy jungle pick is one that opens by walking into your side of the map, take something else.

How It Works

He Was Always A Bad Laner In A Great Kit

The scary thing about Darius has never been laning, it's the ten seconds after he gets his hands on somebody. Top lane is just where that gets to happen the most often. The jungle sells the same product with a better delivery system, and it stops the enemy team from solving him by picking a ranged top laner.

The Reset Refunds Itself

Noxian Guillotine [R] comes back the instant it kills somebody, which means a gank that works doesn't cost the ultimate. That's the mechanic the whole pick rests on: a fight that goes well turns into two fights, and the second one starts with the enemy jungler wondering why the reset is still available.

Nobody Wards For A Melee Jungler That Fast

Stridebreaker on a champion who already pulls people toward him is a gap-close problem the enemy solves in about four minutes of the mid game and never before that. The first three ganks land because the person you're ganking has read the situation correctly and is still too slow.

Objectives Do Not Fight Back

He clears slowly and he takes a dragon quickly, which is a strange combination that works out fine because dragons don't kite. Get to the pit with a teammate and the fight over it is one your team wins by default, since the enemy has to come to you and coming to you is the mistake.

Potential Pitfalls

The Early Jungle Is Genuinely Bad

This is the real cost and there's no way to build around it. He clears slowly, he takes damage doing it, and he can't contest a scuttle crab against most of the roster before level four. Plan a route that reaches a gank early rather than a route that finishes the jungle, because the clear is never going to be where the value is.

Disengage Turns Him Off Completely

Anything that creates distance takes him out of the fight, and unlike a top laner he can't just farm and wait for the enemy to make a mistake. A team with two ways to say no leaves him standing in the middle of a fight he's contributing nothing to. Look for that in the draft, not in the game.

He Cannot Save Anybody

Junglers get blamed for lanes losing, and this one has no answer at all when a lane is already behind. There's no ranged crowd control, no shield, no way to trade a gank for a reset. If your bot lane dies at three minutes, you can't fix it, so play the side of the map that's still winnable and accept the other one is gone.

Jungle Darius Conclusions

It's the same champion doing the same thing from a role that gets to choose its fights. That's a real upgrade for a champion whose whole weakness is being avoidable, and it costs you the worst early jungle of any pick you'd seriously consider.

Play it on the games where the map is chaotic and both side lanes are shoving into each other, and don't play it as a comeback pick. If you'd like the historical version of this champion, we wrote about what old Darius used to be able to do, which is a different and much more alarming answer.

Suggested Tier: Tier 3

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