A lot of people say Darius falls off as the game goes on but I find in most of my games that this isn't true. I'm not in a super high elo, just low emerald but it feels like Darius is always useful. Enemy team comp makes it difficult for you to go into fights later? Just peel for your carry. Darius doesn't have heals, shields or as much CC as some characters for peeling but he is a ticking time bomb. Even if the enemy team has a lot of answers for him, the longer the fight goes on, higher chance he'll just fuck on everyone.

Most of the trouble I have in team fights is in the mid game when I don't have any defensive items. I had a game where I was struggling against Mordekaiser after the lane phase but as soon as I got force of nature, he wasn't really able to hurt me enough for it to matter.