Diana Build Guide by ThaFenix

Introduction

A huge thanks to Inku for the awesoem banner!

Hello ladies and mentlegen, i proudly bring to you my second guide here on mobafire. This time im doing my guide on currently the newest champion and also my newest favorite Diana.

Just to point out that i am not the best Diana player... yet, but i did play her alot when she came out on the beta servers.

Anyways, enough of me yapping on and on about how awesome i think she is, lets get right in to the guide.

Btw, if you have not seen the champion spotlight by Phreek, let me save you the trouble :) .

Runes

I did alot of testing and mixing and mashing with the runes, some failed, and some failed even more but here are the ones that i think fit AP Diana perfectly.

• Greater Mark of Desolation-These are just the standard AP caster runes, i really find nothing better to replace them with at the moment. Anyways, they give you tons of damage at the start to even enemies with magic resist, a great boost to have.
• Greater Seal of Replenishment-These i find the best for Diana because she is quite manahungry at the start of a game .
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist-Your enemy is most likely going to deal magic damage if you are going to the middle lane, so these runes help you alot at the start to block some of that damage that they dish out.
• Greater Quintessence of Ability Power-These are just for the extra damage at the start and they mix nicely with your Greater Mark of Desolation, overall great quints to have.

• Greater Seal of Vitality-For more health and survivability.
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power-If you want more damage, get these babies.
• Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction- Diana has quite long cooldowns at the start, so if you want to use her abilites more often, these runes are good too.

Pros/Cons

Masteries

As you can see, i run the good ol` 21/0/9 masteries, nothing to really explain here since it is so common on AP casters, i run the utility tree because of the buff timer increase. But by all means, if you have any questions about the masteries, please go right ahead and ask.

Items

♦

Sorcerer's Shoes-It gives great magic penetration, works well with your Greater Mark of Magic Penetration and Void Staff.

Rabadon's Deathcap-What can i say, a huge AP boost, not only do you get 140 AP, you get freaking 30% more, definately one of the best item for magic damage dealers.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter-Another great item, gives you AP and slows enemy champions by 35%, thats like a red buff. Great for catching up to enemies.

Void Staff-Gives you some more AP and a huge 40% magic penetration bonus so you could blast your spells right trough the enemies magic resistance.

Will of the Ancients-Gives you some AP, has 20% spellvamp so you can sustain in lane longer, and a buff that helps out your entire team, a very nice item.

Lich Bane-I save this item for the last, because you have alot of AP when you have all 5 items already, so this item is just the icing on the cake, amazing passive, some magic resist, mana and alot of AP, just perfect.

Starting Items/Situational Items

- I always start out with these items. The boots give you good mobility to dodge the enemy´s attacks and the potions give you good lane sustain. - Anoter good item to start out with. Gives you some health, some AP and some mana regen, but you will lose that mobility and are pretty slow. But still, a good item to start out with. - Good items to start with as well. This is just for that AP steroid for the start. The bad thing about this is that you will lose the mobility and only get AP. The potion would give you a little bit better sustain, and it would be easier to later build to your Hextech Revolver but other than that i would not really recommend starting with these items when you are new to Diana. - If you want more of that tankieness, get this item. You will lose some AP, but the health and mana you get is pretty nice. I suggest replacing this with Will of the Ancients because you get some health and mana back each time you level up. - A very nice item to have. It gives you quite a lot of AP, some magic resist, and mana regen. This item is not really worth it at the end, but in the mid game it is pretty good, because you have some mana problems then. Just buy this and that problem is pretty much fixed. - Another good item, some AP, mana regen and CDR so you could use your abilites more often. It has a very good active too, a good counter to supports with heals like Soraka. This item is not really worth it at the end as well because you have quite a lot of mana and you dont have long cooldowns. - Another good item to maybe swap out. Gives you AP and CDR and has a good active to counter against tanks like Shen.

Skills

-A great passive to jungle and to lane with. A 20% attack speed increase and each third strike deals bonus AoE magic damage, sounds good to me. If you get some attack speed you can really get the AoE damage very easily, it applies on turrets aswell so its pretty easy to bring a turret down with the damage from the passive.-This is your main harrass skill and your main damage skill, it deals TONS of damage and its AoE, what more could you ever want. It scales well with your passive and its very easy to farm with this ability, it doesnt cost much mana too and it has the lowest cooldown out of all your abilities, so make sure to use this ability alot.-This ability is just meant for jungling, always take this first when jungling with Diana. It creates 3 orbs around you and they explode on enemy conctact, each of the orbs deals magic damage AND the shield is automatically refreshed after the 3 orbs explode, now that is awesome. You can use it on many occasions besides jungling, like when you are engaging an enemy, escaping from an enemy or tanking the dragon/baron. The shield is based on your AP so it can absorb alot of damage when you have all of your items.-This ability is also AoE, it has a great slow, and is perfect for killing enemy champions who are trying to escape, it does no damage though.The range of this ability is accually very decent. The problem about this ability is that it has quite a long cooldown.-This ultimate is AWESOME. Sure it looks like Akali´s ultimate but it does have its own twist to it. Whenever you hit your Crescent Strike and use your ultimate the cooldown is immidiately refreshed and can be used again, but if you dont use your Crescent Strike and just your ultimate its ok, because it has a very short cooldown for an ultimate + if you have blue buff its even shorter.

Summoner Spells

Possible Lane Matchups

Now this is still a work in progress and i`ll keep adding more here as i face different champions in middle lane.

Difficulty:Hard
Holy poop, one of your worst nightmares in mid for sure. A good Xerath will always use his/her Mage Chains on you for the stun, then Arcanopulse and Arcane Barrage you to death. He/she has way better harrass than you and way longer range as well. Try to avoid Xerath as much as you can in middle.
Difficulty:Easy
Ryze is not a big threat for you in middle, you can harrass him more easily and you have more range than him. Just be a little bit careful with his Rune Prison, other than that you should be okay, just keep harrasing him with your Crescent Strike.
Difficulty:Medium
An harrass fest, you both have quite the same range and you both have shields. Watch out for his ultimate Chaos Storm and his stun from Gravity Field.Try to land your Crescent Strike after he has used Death Ray and move away when he casts Gravity Field. It all comes down to who can harrass better.
Difficulty:Medium
While you do have more range with your Crescent Strike you have a big weakness that a good Annie will instantly cheer about, you are melee.Yes, that means that she will quickly get her Pyromania up and just burst you down almost instantly. So only harrass her when she does not have her Pyromania up yet. When she does then just stay back and harrass with your Crescent Strike. Other than that you should have no problems with her.
Dfficulty:Medium
Well well well, may the best Diana win. There is an easy way to dodge her, just wait until she does her combo and then try to do yours, trial and error pretty much, nothing more to say.
Difficulty:Medium
Quite the annoying big devil. He has alot more range than you and his ablilites deal almost as much damage as yours. When he is rolling his Barrel Roll try to run towards it, not away from it, it has a slow reach time and it does not explode on contact. He has great sustain with Drunken Rage but it has a long cooldown, so try to take advantage of that. When he uses his Body Slam use your Moonfall to pull him right back in. If he uses his Explosive Cask activate your Pale Cascade. Attack him when his Barrel Roll is on cooldown.
Difficulty:Easy
Oh you AP Master Yi. Basically it´s his funeral when he comes to face you at mid. His only harrass tool is Alpha Strike and nothing more. He does have great sustain with Meditate but it wont help much because you will just burst him down again. A really easy matchup that you will rarely lose.
Difficulty:Medium
A very annoying little girl to go up against. All of her ablilites have great range. She can just burst you down with the Light Binding, Lucent Singularity and finales funkeln combo. Wait for her to use her Light Binding and Lucent Singularity combo, then its your turn to attack and give her some pain.
Difficulty:Easy
While katarina has high mobility and can escape a gank or a fight with ease, she doesnt have any CC and its easy to shut down her ultimate, Death Lotus.She does not use mana so she can spam all of her abilites as much as she wants and this is a little problem, but only a little problem. You can counter her abilites easily. When she uses Bouncing Blades on you just hit your Pale Cascade, when she uses her Death Lotus just hit your Moonfall and cancel it easily.
Diffiuclty:Medium
Well this little evil mage is certainly very evil, and deals alot of damage. His passive, Equilibrium is like a mini Chalice of Harmony which means that he has great sustain in lane. The most dangerous thing you should worry about is his little box called Event Horizon it just traps you in and if you try to get out, you get stunned. This is where veigar gets dangerous, when you are stunned excpect a nice little Baleful Strike, Dark Matter and a Primordial Burst combo. He is very squishy though, and you can take him out very easily when his abilites are on cooldown.
Difficulty:Hard
Quite annoying matchup once again. He has more range than you with his Thundering Shuriken which means that he can easily harrass you. The thing you have to really watch out for is his passive Mark of the Storm. Whenever he hits you with one of his spells you gain one of the marks, get hit 3 times and you are stunned for a second. Kennen also uses energy, meaning that he can pretty much spam his spells as much as he wants to. Whenever you try to chase him down he will just use his Lightning Rush and gets away. While he does have long range, he is not impossible to defeat in lane. Try to avoid his Thundering Shuriken and attack whenever his abilites are on cooldown.

Summary

Oh look, it looks like my guide has come to an end.
I really hoped you guys enjoyed this build, it took me quite a while to make but i hope its worth it, thanks for having the time to read this trough, have a nice day!

Oh yea, i almost forgot to thank jhoijhoi for the awesome banners :)

Well, i guess thats about it...and if you have any questions about the build please feel free to comment or send me a PM and i will try to answer it as best as i can :)

Changes i have made
13/08/12
I removed the jungle guide completely, i realized what a mistake i had made, and thus, my guide got a bit shorter, but i hope that it is ok because i do know mid Diana :)