Diana Build Guide by Sorbique

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my Diana guide. This is my first guide I'm doing here on Mobafire so please don't go too hard on me. This guide will show you how I play Diana, this does not mean you're supposed to play her like this, rather I'm just trying to share my opinion and builds on her. I'm also willing to receive feedback from you guys so if you have any feedback / suggestion on how to build / play her please comment.

Well let's get started shall we?

Positives and Negatives

Positive points.

+ Amazing burst assassin.
+ Rather tanky with her Pale Cascade.
+ Can win a lot of trades 1 vs 1 with her low cooldowns and her Pale Cascade.

Negative points.

- Rather squishy early game.
- No real escape mechanism.
- CC will kill her.
- Will get focused fast in early / mid game teamfights when fed.

Masteries

Offense Tree:

Mental Force For the extra AP
Sorcery For the extra CD reduction, as we all know CD reduction is always nice to have ^^.
Arcane Knowledge 10% more Magic penetration = more damage.
Havoc Damage increased by 1.5%.
Blast 18 AP at lvl 18 'nuff said.
Archmage 5% increased AP this combined with Rabadon's Deathcap will boost your AP a lot.
Executioner I mean hey, we're an assassin ain't we?

Defense Tree:

Summoner's Resolve For some extra gold when jungling.
Hardiness For a little bit more armor when jungling.
Tough Skin Reduces the damage that jungle creeps do.
Durability 108 extra health at Lvl 18, just some more survivability.
Veteran's Scars Just some more health.

These masteries are my personal preference, if you think something else works better please inform me about it ^^.

Runes

My runes aren't the most common runes you'll see on an AP, but I'll explain my choices here.

Greater Mark of Attack Speed - These runes will help increase your jungle speed since they scale extremely well with your passive Moonsilver Blade.

Greater Seal of Armor - These runes will give you some more Armor, more Armor = Less damage ^^.

Greater Glyph of Ability Power - These runes will give you 10.71 (11) AP, since you are an AP you will need this. But your passive Moonsilver Blade also scales of AP so it also increases your jungle speed.

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power - Even more AP, as for the rest same story as above.

Summoner Spells

For summoner spells I use Smite and Flash.

Smite for obvious reasons: I'm jungling, also since I put one point in Summoner's Resolve so that I get 10 more gold for every time I use Smite.

Flash Is a great gap closer or an escape mechanism, use it to quickly engage an enemy with a Flash -> Lunar Rush combo, or just Flash over a wall.

I don't really have other viable choices, maybe you could use Exhaust instead of Flash but as I said, this is how I prefer to play Diana.

Ability's

Moonsilver Blade - (Innate): Diana gains 20% additional attack speed. Every third strike cleaves nearby enemies for 20 / 25 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 / 125 / 140 / 155 / 175 / 195 / 215 / 240 / 265 / 290 (+0.6 per ability power) additional magic damage.

//Great passive for jungling, every 3rd strike cleaves nearby enemies.
//Has a decent AP scaling ratio (0.6).
//Some AS / AP builds could be formed around this passive, maybe I'll try this out later.


Crescent Strike - Diana unleashes a bolt of lunar energy, dealing Magic Damage: 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 (+0.8 per ability power) in an arc. Crescent Strike afflicts enemies struck with Moonlight, revealing them for 3 seconds.
Base CD: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 seconds
Cost: 55 mana
Range: 830 max
Radius AOE: 50 (estimate)

//Great nuke spell with a low cooldown.
//Gives vision of the target, so if you hit a target behind a wall with Crescent Strike you can Lunar Rush over a wall. Also works for escapes in the jungle.
//Kinda hard to hit at first, but you'll get used to that later.


Pale Cascade - Diana creates three orbiting spheres that last up to 4 seconds and detonate on contact, dealing 20 / 36 / 52 / 68 / 84 (+0.2 ability power) per orb to all nearby enemies. She also gains a temporary shield that absorbs 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 / 155 (+0.4 per ability power) damage. This shield is refreshed if all three spheres detonate.
Base CD: 10 seconds
Cost: 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 mana
AoE radius of sphere: 200 (estimate)

//Great skill for jungling, the shields absorbs quite a lot of damage, and it refreshes when all 3 orbs detonated.
//The AoE damage of the orbs also help with your jungling speed.
//I put in an early two points to be safer when jungling.
//Your shield scales off AP


Moonfall - Diana draws in all nearby enemies and slows them by 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 % for 2 seconds.
Base CD: 26 / 24 / 22 / 20 / 18 seconds
Cost: 70 mana
AoE Range: 450

//It's a great skill for ganking, if the enemy tries to run away, you just pull him right back in.
//This is also a great skill for teamfights if you have a AoE nuker in your team. Just flash into the enemy team, use your Moonfall, use your Pale Cascade or Zhonya's Hourglass if you have it and let your AP carry burst them down.


Lunar Rush - Diana becomes the living embodiment of the vengeful moon, teleporting to an enemy and dealing 100 / 160 / 220 (+0.6 per ability power) magic damage.
Lunar Rush has no cooldown when used to teleport to an enemy afflicted with Moonlight, and will consume all active Moonlight debuffs.
Base CD: 20 / 16 / 12 seconds
Cost: 50 / 65 / 80 mana
Range: 900

//This is your main skill to initiate, use it well.
//No cooldown on this skill if you hit the target with Crescent Strike first.
//You may be able to pull off some escapes when used correctly with Crescent Strike.
// Lunar Rush + Lich Bane will do some nice damage.

Skill Order and rotation

Skill Priority:

Crescent Strike is your main poke / harass / nuke skill so we max this first.
Pale Cascade is maxed second because it gives you a nice shield and some damage.
Moonfall is maxed third because one early point is enough to secure the kill. it does not do any damage and a pull + 35% slow is good enough on lvl 1.
Lunar Rush is maxed last because it's your ulti so spend those points on lvl 6, 11 and 16.

Combo's

Nuke / Harass
Crescent Strike >> Pale Cascade >> Lunar Rush.
Now we have 2 options:

1) if the enemy tries to run away use Moonfall to pull him back in. so the combo goes:
Crescent Strike >> Pale Cascade >> Lunar Rush >> Moonfall >> Crescent Strike >> Lunar Rush.

2) if the enemy flashes away either use Flash and Moonfall or use Lunar Rush and Moonfall so the combo goes:
Crescent Strike >> Pale Cascade >> Lunar Rush or Flash >> Moonfall >> Crescent Strike >> Lunar Rush.
---
Jungle
Pale Cascade >> Crescent Strike >> auto attack untill Crescent Strike / Pale Cascade is off cooldown >> Repeat.

Jungle Route

Jungle route

My video to show how I gank, all footage take from one game.
I start at wolves at 1:40 ask your teammates to help you damage the wolves a bit.then move on to blue buff at 1:55 ask your mid to pull it for you, pop 1 health pot and smite blue.continue to wraiths and kill them.You can now either go to red or do golems first. I did red first, pop a health pot and kill red.Smite the big golem and kill them both.Head back to wraiths or wolves, kill them and you should now be lvl 4 and ready to gank.


Just continue jungling from this point on and look for potential ganks ^^.

Teamfights

In teamfights you'll have to position yourself behind the enemy team, so that you can melt their squishy's quite fast.
Be carefull though because if you do it wrong you're dead. Also wait for your tank to engage first because i've had it countless times that i was fighting, died and then the tank engaged.
So how you play Diana is:
1) Position yourself behind the enemy team if you feel like a teamfight is comming up.
2) Wait for the fight to start and locate high priority targets.
3) Dash in, nuke the targets and get the hell out of there and wait for your 2nd round of burst.
4) ???
5) Profit.

The places I often position myself in is bushes or behind walls. I usually don't hide in the river bushes near mid because that's way too predictable, and if I know that all five members of the enemy team are on mid I just walk around.
Go to their side of the jungle and wait, this way might someone of the enemy team try to escape I can either chase him down because teams often tend to spread out when running away. But if they do decide to fight I just dash over the wall with my Crescent Strike + Lunar Rush combo, if they are not near the wall I will reposition so that I can hit my combo.

Tips and tricks

// Use Crescent Strike to check bushes.

// When running away through the jungle you can use Crescent Strike on a creep camp and Lunar Rush over the wall if there are creeps there. I will put some images from the points of which you can do the Crescent Strike -> Lunar Rush combo in the jungle:


// You are the jungler when you have some gold left over buy Sight Wards, it really helps your team a lot.

// You could try to counter jungle, if the enemy jungler starts with blue his blue spawns at ~7 minutes you can either take his blue or try to gank him there. same goes for red buff, but i assume that red buff spawns at ~9 minutes

Items

Starting items

I start with Boots of Speed and 3x Health Potion, so that i can gank faster after i cleared my jungle. 3x Health Potion Should let you survive long enough throughout the jungle route. I often have 1 Health Potion left over after red buff.

Core items

After I've done some jungling and ganking I will get my first item after Boots of Speed, this item is usually a Catalyst the Protector + some Sight Wards for some more HP and Mana, and the Sight Wards to help out my team and securing my own jungle.
After that I will get my Mercury's Treads for some more magic resist, tenacity and some more movement speed. Then I'll finish my Rod of Ages to get a bit more tanky and start working on my Rabadon's Deathcap for some extra damage output.

Mid-game items

The reason I have both Frozen Heart and Zhonya's Hourglass listed here is because it depends on my team what I'm building. If our tank builds Frozen Heart I'm building Zhonya's Hourglass. And if our tank is not going to build Frozen Heart I will pick it up.
At this point you either build Nashor's Tooth or Lich Bane.
Nashor's Tooth gives her some nice attackspeed, AP, CDR and mana regen which fit her quite well because of her passive.
Lich Bane however is also pretty good on Diana because it gives her movement speed, magic resist, AP, Mana and some nice extra burst from the passive.

End-game items

The item choice here really depends on you, if you don't die that much I recommend getting a Void Staff to burst even harder. But if you do keep getting focussed I would recommend getting a Guardian Angel for some extra magic resist and armor, aswell as the unique passive to revive.

Alternative items

I recommend building a Hextech Gunblade when you're also building a Nashor's Tooth, the spellvamp and lifesteal really give you some more sustain and in combination with Nashor's Tooth you will have about 1.2 attackspeed, enough to proc your passive a lot and deal some solid damage when your abilities are on cooldown.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter is also a great item on Diana although I don't really use it that much on her. The extra health and AP give you a nice boost, also the build-in slow can secure some kills for you.
Sunfire Cape is pretty amazing because of the damage uptime you can achieve between your Moonfall and Lunar Rush you can usually stick to targets for about 8-10 seconds which is a fair amount of damage. Thanks to Capncowbell for this.
Get Banshee's Veil if you get killed by Karthus' Requiem a lot and feel like blocking it, this item gives a nice spellshield, some health, mana and magic resist. Not that bad of an item ^^
Force of Nature is a really great item, it gives you movement speed, health regen and a ton of magic resist. You should get this if you get melted pretty quickly.
Abyssal Scepter Gives you some nice AP, MR and not to forget the unique passive that reduces magic resist of the opposing team when they are near you, it's a good buy if you're tanky enough to take some hits and stay close to your targets.

Ending note

Thanks for reading my guide, I hope you liked it. I would like to thank JhoiJhoi's for her guide on how to make a guide. and the League of Legends wikia for the information it provided me.

If you have anything you would do different etc etc, please leave a comment and I will look into it.

Thanks

Sorbique

Changelog

8/8/2012 \\ Finished the guide, now waiting for mobafire to update the website with Diana so I can publish my guide.

8/8/2012 \\ Added images and cleared up the jungle section a bit. Also added images at the tips and tricks section. Changed masteries: took 3 points from Havoc and put them in Butcher and Demolitionist (thanks to Starls)

9/8/2012 \\ Switched out Lich Bane for Nashor's Tooth in the first build, added some alternative items. thank you guys for commenting so i could try it out ^^ also added a video of the jungle route. Currently I'm uploading a video of how I gank with Diana, I hope it'll be done soon so I can add it to the guide ^^.

9/8/2012 \\ Added my ganking video and added some information about teamfights.