CertainlyT Laments About Designing Darius

After the release of Darius (and quite some time after) people have complained to a great degree about how anti-fun his kit is (for the people on the receiving end). While he does have his counters, they're far and few in between. Associate Game Designer CertainlyT (the man who designed the champion) took a few moments yesterday to discuss where it all went wrong:

Darius' Attack Speed Slow
Q: Darius deals both physical and magic damage, and also has an attack speed slow on Crippling Strike...really?

A: 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. Source

How to Balance Darius
Q: How will you balance Darius?

A: 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. Source

So...you want to nerf me eh? Say hello to my little friend...

Future Darius Nerfs
Q: Why don't u get rid of these things then? Especially the atk speed slow. You could consume the dot stats when you ult the person too. I mean there's plenty you could do to change him a little and make not so incredibly hard to lane against as melee. Nor can u build against him, free armorpen% & magic damage bleed & true damage scaling ad ult.

A: 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). Source

Note: The return of Garen and Renekton might even be kinda fun! (I'll probably eat these words in a few months)