Hello everyone,


First of all, this is my first guide, so I would really appreciate your feedback (no matter if it's a bad or a good one) so I can improve myself and learn from my mistakes.

Now since that thing has been said, let's move on a little. I'm not the best, but not the worse player. Three months ago, I've started thinking what should I master, where is the best place for me... The answer is the middle lane. I simply love it.

Since Diana came out, I've bought her and did my best to learn her tricks, to find out where she fits the best and what items help her the most. My tips may be not the best, but I'm pretty sure that this guide is going to help you a lot in mastering Diana- Scorn of the Moon.

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Diana is a an ability power based champion. She is a nice fighter because of her Pale Cascade shield and tanky constitution. Because of her high mobility with her Lunar Rush ultimate, you can burst down important individual targets in a few seconds - she is a great assassin.

Even through Diana seems to look like a great jungler, I find her much better in the middle lane (or even top lane). This will help you to farm even more than in the jungle and to do what the champion does the best: burst down a single target just in a few moves.

In this guide, we will be discussing about her ability to own the middle lane. This is the way I'm playing a successful Diana, if you don't feel her like this, just don't follow my guide. These are the runes, masteries, summoner spells, skill sequences, items and strategies that I use. Feel free to change anything and try new things out until you will find your best options out there. Good luck and have fun!

+ Easy to farm, even if melee + Incredible burst damage starting with level 6 + Amazing carrying potential + Fun to play, sexy champion & animations

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- May take time to master - Can be mana hungry - No real escape tool to retreat

For runes, we have:

• Greater Mark of Magic Penetration Marks - These will boost up your damage output especially in early game, before grabbing Sorcerer's Shoes and some ability power
  
• Greater Seal of Magic Resist Seals - These will help you near Pale Cascade to sustain for a longer time in your lane
  
• Greater Glyph of Ability Power Glyphs - These will boost up your damage since the start of the game
  
• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power Quintessences - These will boost up your damage since the start of the game

• The offense tree will help you deal tones of damage, being a really ability power carry.
• The defense tree is set up to give a slightly advantage in the early game, with some nice extra hp and magic resist so you can sustain in your lane for much longer

I strongly recommend you to go for Ignite and Flash

• Ignite will give you some good extra true damage (and five ability power while on cooldown because of Summoner's Wrath point we took early on in masteries) and the ability to secure a kill, finishing down an enemy from a far or just shutdown a mad healer (like Swain)
• Flash is certainly a must-have spell on Diana; it helps you get out from really bad situations or to chase down yours enemies

If you feel like changing them, here are other good summoner spells you might consider:

• Ghost is for some extra mobility, can be used for both run away or chasing
• Cleanse if you are facing a full crowd controlling team, this might be an option; although I recommend grabbing a Quicksilver Sash rather than Cleanse because of its low cooldown and the extra sustain it gives
• Teleport is a nice option even for mid; you can disappear for a second and move anywhere you want to, double ganking with your jungler or helping out a team mate in trouble

For the Skill Sequence we go like this: Lunar Rush > Crescent Strike > Pale Cascade > Moonfall





Sure, but why?

• Lunar Rush - This is your awesome ultimate - blink and burst damage tool
• Crescent Strike - This is your main damage tool; it's also amazing for the vision it grants to the hit enemies and for the Moonlight that refreshes your Lunar Rush cooldown
• Pale Cascade - Is great not just for its damage, but for its defensive shield that gives you the ability to farm easy when facing an aggressive ranged enemy, helps you to better survive fights and to fallback from bad situations
• Moonfall - This spell is awesome, it helps you keep your enemies in range for some extra basic attacks and maybe an Moonsilver Blade buffed hit; in the mid and late game, it also helps your team, as it is a great and easy interrupt for channeling skills and also holds your enemies in place

I usually end up with a very similar build every time, but things can change. This is the main build we'll use.

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If you already mastered Diana, you got good farm and also feel that enemies will fall down apart, then before or after the Hextech Revolver, grab a Mejai's Soulstealer. If you will get some kills and assists, you will snowball really-really hard and fast and there will be nothing to stop you. I've finished many ranked games with 20 stacks, so yes, this is actually possible.

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If you find yourself in problems farming due to a really aggressive enemy or even jungler, consider rushing a kage's lucky pick before anything. This will help you to deal some more damage and will eventually give you back the gold you lost. If the game is going well after that, consider upgrading it into Deathfire Grasp, this will massively boost your burst damage.

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If facing strong ability power team:

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If facing strong attack damage team:

Always consider buying Mercury's Treads and Quicksilver Sash
(both are really good against a hard crowd controlling team)

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If the enemies are stacking magic resistance

• Abyssal Mask - gives some nice extra damage if the enemy started to build up some magic resistance; also great if you got other ability power champions in your team
• Void Staff - gives you amazing burst damage to melt your enemies, even they've stacked magic resistance

For some more burst damage

• Deathfire Grasp - gives you nice stats and a cool passive that will help you to one-shot pretty much anybody
• Lich Bane - if you already have lots of ability power, this is just great, its passive will hurt so much your enemies

Situational ability power items

• Zhonya's Hourglass if you get hardly focused and you got no way to escape, its passive will save you until your cooldowns are back, then boom!
• Morello's Evil Tome very good active to ignore mad healers

Farming is not that hard as Diana because of her truly amazing passive: Moonsilver Blade - granting you bonus attack speed that makes last hitting much easier and a buffed 3rd hit which will help you to keep up in farm and to devastate your enemies.

Pale Cascade will be really useful while farming, because of its shield. If you are getting harassed, just activate your shield, get some minions, fallback a little and do it all over again without losing any hp.

In the mid game, your Crescent Strike and Pale Cascade combo will clear the whole minion wave.

Never push, don't over extend. Keep in mind that you are still a melee, it's really hard to farm under your enemy turret or around it. It's also very dangerous. So, again, don't push unless you want to leave your lane for some reason (taking the blue buff, the wraiths, helping your jungler or ganking another lanes)! Last hitting is everything.

As I said before, if you find yourself in troubles farming because of a reactive jungler and an aggressive opponent, grab kage's lucky pick as fast as you can. This will boost your damage a little and will help you to keep up in gold. Also Health Potion(s) are very important in this worst case scenario.

Always keep an eye on the map. Map awareness is everything. You are the mid lane player! Wake up, you gotta be reactive, help your team mates, your jungler, gank all the lanes every single time you can. That's the way to snowball really fast and carry your team at the same time!

These are the spots you and your jungler should ward. Remember you don't have to place a new ward every time the old one expires, you got to adapt yourself to the game. If their jungler isn't ganking so much, if you are not pushing at all, then there are some moments when you just don't need vision. You still got to be with your eyes on the map every moment!

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Note that you don't have to ward both sides, just one. Let's call it your "safe side". You got to hug this one, to stay there so that if somebody will gank, you will either see him coming or he will be far away. In both cases you should have enough time to run.

As for the team, Diana is an awesome champion.

• she can easily engage team fights, catch out of position enemies and kill them within seconds
• holding your enemies in places with Moonfall will also help you and your team mates grabbing some kills

Try to always burst down and take out of the fights squishy targets first (like attack damage and ability power carries). Even if you die after taking out the main two damage dealers of the enemy team, it's a big win.

As a tip, you should not engage a fight with your Lunar Rush - don't put it on cooldown from the start. It will dramatically reduce your damage and utility. It is much more better to wait for a good Crescent Strike in order to cast it three, four or even five items. If you can't reach an escaping or out of position enemy, you can take your chance and dive in with your Lunar Rush ultimate (especially if you got Rylai's Crystal Scepter for the slow) and keep chasing him with the Moonfall.

Basically, all your actions should go like this:

• Crescent Strike over your enemies
• activate Pale Cascade
• immediately Lunar Rush on the marked enemy (you can actually use it on all of the hit enemies, but this is not always smart)
• activate Moonfall to keep them in place
• until your skills are back from cooldown, land as many basic attacks as you can; your Moonsilver Blade will deal massive area of effect damage
• if an enemy is escaping and you still don't have your Crescent Strike back, you can anytime put your Lunar Rush cooldown to finish him
• Crescent Strike followed by Pale Cascade and Lunar Rush now should end the fight

Hope you liked my guide and that I've helped you in mastering Diana.

Look forward for you feedback, guys... Meanwhile, good luck & have fun!

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Last update: 05 September 2012
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