After analyzing Jinx and Ahri, it’s time to look at the third of the five champions who will definitely join Project L. Again, this is primarily an exercise, and no real information, which will surely be revealed in the coming months. The Noxien’s LoL gameplay will first be scrutinized, before focusing on its specific spells.
Transposition of gameplay
On League of Legends, Darius belongs to the category of Juggernauts (colossus in French, even if the term juggernaut is more often used by players). These are relatively tough champions (second only to pure tanks), who can inflict huge damage but have reduced mobility. The Hand of Noxus should therefore be below the average level of movement speed in Project L. It will not have projectiles, but his gigantic ax should allow him to have a fairly good range on his normals, to compensate for the fact that some of them should come out slower than those of aggressive characters. Finally, juggernauts do exist in VS games. They are characterized by armored blows (i.e. the animation of the blow is not interrupted if the fighter receives a single blow during this one. Multiple hits can stop him, however), and Darius should logically recover some of them.
In order to stick with his tough nature in LoL, his health should be a bit above average. He would be vulnerable against zoners, having no options at very long range. Catching nimble and fast characters will likely be difficult for him, but he should be able to literally blast their health bar with a few combos. Darius would therefore be a relatively slow fighter, with good range on his normals, but no mobility or ranged options.
spells
In Summoner’s Rift, Darius’ first spell (A/Q) is a 360° sweep with his axe, which heals him based on the number of enemies hit. Healing mechanics being generally rare in fighting games, and often uninteresting, it is logical to imagine that this spell will be modified a little. The sweep idea could be kept, while allowing Darius to move forward a bit. This blow could be armored, or else have immunity to projectiles, which can both serve as an option against his last, allowing him to approach without taking damage. He could even punish in certain cases a character not having launched his projectile far enough.
The second spell (Z/W) is an ax blow given in close combat, which slows down the enemy. VSThis spell is an excellent candidate for an armored move, which could potentially serve as a reversal if the opponent is stuck on Darius (but only in this situation, because it would remain static). It could be used to finish combos, with a fairly heavy takedown. The other interesting option would be for the shot to become an anti-air, where Darius would hit upwards. This assumption is based more on the first images of the game, than on its gameplay in LoL.
The third spell (E) is the most interesting, potentially giving the heart of the Hand of Noxus gameplay. This is a grab, which is used to start a combo in LoL. In Project L, it could become a command grab, but instead of dealing high damage/heavy takedown, it would be a juggle (a blow that serves to throw the opponent in the air). Darius would use it to start a combo, as he could chain his opponent once in the air. The command grab side is not necessarily to be kept, but the idea of the juggle echoes its mechanics from League of Legends.
Darius’ ultimate (R) is a raw damage spell (which ignores all forms of reduction aside from invulnerability), whose damage depends on the bleed effects the champion puts out with his attacks and spells. The idea of raw damage might be nice to keep in a fighting game, as long as what should be his Super does less damage than a regular Super before damage scaling. For those unfamiliar with this term, in fighting games, the longer your combo, the less damage your hits do, to prevent a player from dying in a single combo. If Darius’ Super is not affected by damage scaling, so it should deal more damage with than the average character after a full combo, but less damage if used directly for balancing purposes. Another interesting theory (but which implies that we have just in this article, which is very unlikely), would be that Darius can cancel his special moves between them after a command grab (his E in the previous theory) , and his Super doing more damage based on the amount of special moves performed in the combo. This could give a route like this: command grab (E) > anti-air to bring the opponent back (Z/W) > top (A/Q) > Super. Of course, it will surely be possible to optimize it by adding normal moves to it.
This would therefore make Darius a character more used as an anchor (the last character of the team) who would return once the Super bar was full in the hope of achieving a devastating combo. With his armored moves, he could have an interesting assist, but should suffer given his low mobility against two characters.
In more than ten years, the lore of League of Legends has been modified in abundance, so that the stories surrounding all the characters of Runeterra have expanded, thus weaving a real narrative web. However, there is a champion who, in this regard, has largely been overlooked…