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Diana Build Guide by

Dirty Diana - Leona Must Die (Jungle and Mid Guide)

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0 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Primordial Rain

Diana Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion More Diana Guides

Choose Champion Build:

Jungle
Mid

Spells:

Smite

Flash

Items

Standard Start

Rush

Ending Laning Phase

Preference Items

Pick One

Example Final Build (Jungle)

Example Final Build (Mid, See other Build)

Ability Order

Diana Passive Ability

Introduction

Welcome to Diana

Diana is an exceptionally strong champion in the current Meta of Season 3, with recent Nerfs/Buffs to her name in the last couple of months i feel that she is definitely in a good position right now. With strong initiation, great damage, hard CC and a gigantic gap closer, her kit i believe is almost perfect. Although a very similar champion to i believe her to be superior in many situations.

While she can work in 3 different lanes (Top, Middle, and Jungle), This guide will focus on her jungling capabilities, as i feel other guides have top and mid covered well enough. However, most of the guides on mobafire either don't focus on her jungling, and if they do they are outdated, so i will do my best to provide everyone on the site with a comprehensive guide.

My name is Primordial Rain, most of you probably can't pronounce it, nor do you know what it means, but that is irrelevant! I am an avid League of Legends player, and huge Diana fan. Over time i fell in love with Diana and played her constantly, coming closer and closer to what i believed to be the optimal build. In this guide i will share with you my tips, and the information that i believe will make you successful at playing the champion that i love.

As an aspiring YouTuber, i love feedback, so thank you for reading my guide, and please be sure to let me know what i can do to improve. If you downvote it, please let me know why! I will work on introducing my six thousand odd YouTube Subscribers to the world of League soon. As most of those come from other games i would kindly request that you let me know if you would be interested in League of Legends videos from me, so comment below and let me know. (For Curious souls, you can find my Youtube Here)

Without further ado, enjoy my guide to

Pros / Cons

Pros

+ Low Cooldown Ultimate
+ Extremely Good Gank Post 6
+ Naturally Tanky AP
+ Sustained Damage (Via Passive)
+ Can Assassinate Carries Easily
+ Refreshing Shield
+ Shreds Structures thanks to

Diana hits a huge power spike at level 6 thanks to , her ability to instantly gap close 2 times is extremely strong and makes your ganks extremely scary, while at the same time it makes extremely mobile. Her Passive provides a large amount of damage even when your other abilities are on cooldown, which makes her a much stronger duelist than most AP's. She can and jump to the back line of the enemy team with and assassinate the carries while CC'ing the whole team with , all while being protected by . This can set your teammates up for some nice combos, such as 's + , 's or 's

Cons

- Weak Pre-6
- Mana Hungry
- No Escapes (Unless an enemy minion is nearby)
- Melee
- Easily CC Locked
- Must Fully Commit To A Fight

Diana's main weakness comes from her early game Pre-6, without the use of she is unable to close gaps and gank effectively unless the lane is extremely pushed. She is extremely mana hungry and will most likely deal with that the entire game if you dont get the blue buff and decide to give it to your mid laner (which i recommend). While she does have good ranged poke in the form of she must fully commit to a fight in order to deal the majority of her damage, making her easily focused, CC'ed to death and melted in a matter of seconds. This is why i prefer to build tanky, by stacking health you make it much harder to be focused out of teamfights and this allows you to deal your full amount of damage in a long encounter.

Runes And Masteries

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: More damage is always a good thing, and with Diana jungle you will be building Hunter's Machete and Spirit Stone before any AP Damage Items. AP quints helps you with early game damage as well as a faster clear time due to your passive, Moonsilver Blade.
Greater Mark of Attack Speed: Attack speed will allow Diana to proc Moonsilver Blade much more often (especially in the first few jungle clears). Since she is an AP jungler, you need this passive in order to effectively clear camps.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: Diana needs to be tanky in order to survive most teamfights, magic resist will allow you to better survive other AP's burst and will let you walk away from a lot more close encounters than you might think. Life is good, so don't die.
Greater Seal of Armor: These help greatly to keep your health up in the jungle, and make you take less damage from jungle monsters. Again, it also makes you deceptively more tanky, and will let you go toe to toe with AD bruisers early game.

Masteries

With this build you only get to 30% CDR, the extra 4% doesn't go over the 40% cap and lets you spam your abilities all that more often, For all AP reliant champions this is extremely important

More damage, please

Even more damage? Yes please

I could jokingly just say "More Damage" here, but in all honesty this skill is extremely valuable. Magic pen is a stat that isn't given by any of the items in this build (Unless you opt for ) and it is something that you definitely need, so don't even think about going on the fields of justice without it

Flat AP is good for early game, so take full advantage of it

Considering that 's passive relies off of AutoAttacks, this will increase your damage output while doing something you would normally do anyways, Take it.

With an effect similar to that of (just not to the same extreme) who would pass up the chance to multiply your damage output?

Helps you to secure kills and clean up fights, is an assassin that should be jumping on low health targets to burst them down, an essential mastery for sure.

You could arguably put this point into more flat armor, but the extra 10 gold every time you use smite stacks up. In the average 30 Minute game, you will probably use somewhere around 15 times, granting you 150 Gold (Enough for 2 sight ward)

When it comes down to it, 100 extra health at level 18 makes a huge difference, living longer is always a good thing as it allows you to deny gold to the enemy team and deal more damage

This is an essential mastery for Jungling, Don't take it if you want to have a much harder time clearing in the early game

Helps greatly with early game clear, Make sure to take this so you can get to level 6 faster and start making the game changing ganks!

30 Health at rank 1 is a lot, and considering you'll be taking quite the beating from jungle monsters, it helps a lot

Summoner Spells

: While some people say you can jungle without smite it definitely hurts your clear time, as well as your other lanes. Having no smite forces your mid lane/ top lane to give you a smite-less blue, making them miss valuable CS in lane. Without this summoner, you also have no way of securing Global objectives such as and (Barring having a with on your team) and you run the risk of having them stolen from you. Avoid your teammates saying "GG noob jungler" and just take

: Oh Flash, how you have saved my life so many times. Whether it lets you get out of a sticky situation, Gap close even more, flash the wall of the and get a smite steal, this is definitely the best summoner spells in the game. definitely has a great way of getting into a fight, but getting out is another story. This is your "get out of jail free" card, so don't even think about using anything else unless you're just completely suicidal. It can be used by almost any champion in the game to great effect, so don't question its utility and usefulness.

: While i like this summoner if i'm playing in Mid lane or Top Lane, you absolutely must have Flash, and you must have smite to jungler, so there isn't much freedom when it comes to summoners sadly. If you want to play in a lane consider this or , but in the jungle, don't even think about it. While you can pressure global objective, and do in lane ganks through the use of a cleverly placed sight ward the amount of times this will save your life versus isn't even comparable.

Items

Item Sequence

This is your first main damage dealing item, and part of your core build. While it is also extremely useful for clearing jungle camps thanks to the Attack Speed + it also adds a decent amount of AP, and most importantly Cooldown reduction. Overall a great item on because it allows her to proc her passive more often while giving her much needed CDR and some damage.

Although this item isn't necessary on a 6 item build , it helps greatly with early jungle clear, gives much needed mana regen, sustain through spell vamp and even more CDR while being extremely cost efficient. If the game goes on long enough for you to get to 6 items however, i would recommend selling this and buying an item with more damage. and any of the other "Preference items" i listed above would make for good choices.

Any of the Boots listed above can all work for different situations, but i find merc treads the most usefull. is extremely vulnerable to being CC locked in a teamfight, so the tenacity is extremely helpful. More MR helps her to survive against AP opponents and its overall a solid choice. Opt for if the other team doesn't have much CC, or go for if you want to make your ganks more deadly, and more frequent. will help against a heavy AD team, so against the likes of or it would make for a good investment

has mana issues, lets face it. helps to alleviate this issue while providing some much needed Ability power and health. Pick it up early for time effectiveness, and make sure you do get it, as it contains everything you need in one item.

The Rylai's passive, how i love it so. Along with providing a great amount of durability with 500 Health, you get 80 AP and passive that stacks well with . 's passive and will proc rylais' and you will be able to stick to your opponent while autoattacking, letting you chase and deal immense damage with . Again, never underestimate your passive's damage, it is one of the best in the game.

Lich bane provides legendary burst and goes along with and . Autoattacking as is always worth it, and this will make that even more true. The extra movement speed, AP, and mana all complement diana well, and lets her chase a down a target with continued use of +

Preference Items

These Items can be built if you prefer them over any of the ones i suggested. Again, all of these can work in the right situation and would be great to build on .

Giving a massive 50 armor and 120 AP, what else could you ask for? Not like its active is extremely useful or anything. Remaining in an invulnerable stasis is extremely good with as you have to dive into the entire enemy team to deal the majority of your damage. You can dive in, use to pull everyone together, and use the zhonya's active to let the enemy team waste their skillshots on you, and let your team wreak havoc. This synergizes well with heavy AoE Spells, such as those listed in the pro's and cons section.

A lot of people will probably criticize me that i didn't put this in my core items, and while i find it is extremely strong on i simply prefer building health and burst items early, and if the other team starts stacking MR i will go to this. It is a great item for sure, but usually the game doesn't last long enough, or the other team doesn't build enough MR to make this a necessary buy. To each his own i guess.

If you want more damage, go with this. Sacrifice some durability and go for straight offense if you're just that fed.

If there is a high priority single target that you need to assassinate (such as a fed AD carry or AP Carry), this is the item you want. Jump in, assassinate the carry and if you have it. The single target damage is unparalleled and if they're really that much of a threat, you may need this.

Abilities, Skill Sequence And Explanation

Ability Explanation

moonsilver blade: Don't underestimate its damage, ever. 's passive is half of the reason she is so strong as a champion. Most AP casters and junglers are useless without their abilities off of Cooldown, is the exception. At later stages of the game, this hits like a truck, and it the reason why you build as a core item. An extra 500 Magic damage every 3 auto attacks can't hurt. Oh, did i mention it shreds towers?

crescent strike (Q): This is 's main form of damage, as well as her only ranged harass. Landing it can be tricky at first but hitting it at crucial times can make or break a good player. Learn how to use it well and you can start chaining your to become an incredible gap closer. Another amazing part of this ability is that it reveals targets hit, making so you can leap to targets in brush, or jungle camps that are currently not in vision. I've had plenty of blue buff/ red buff steals because of this ability, and even one instance where i stole baron with a blind Q. Its unique path is easy to dodge, so make sure you learn how to lead targets so you don't miss.

pale cascade (W): This skill is amazing, there is no other word for it. A shield that does damage, refreshes and scales off of AP is incredibly strong and it makes you deceptively tanky. You can soak up a lot of damage, deal AOE to jungle monsters and tank hits for your teammates. (Im looking at you )

Moonfall (E): This ability is what makes your ganks so scary. Not only can you close the gap with + , you can use this to stick to your opponent and proc your passive while at the same time allowing your laner to land a bunch of free attacks. If they decide to away from you, simply + again for the kill. In teamfights you can use this to set your team up for some crazy AOE decimation. Just imagine diving into the whole team and combining this with , , , , , , or . The Possibilities go on and on.

Lunar Rush (R): You thought you could get away? Think again! This ability is what makes such an exceptional assassin, you can gap close to the squishy targets and burst them down almost instantly. The fact that it is on a zero second cooldown if you land only makes it better. Use it twice and the cooldown is extremely short anyways, use it to jump over walls to jungle camps and speed up your travel time.

Ability Sequence Order

> > >

As with all ultimates take whenever possible, it is definitely one of your best damaging abilities and the lower cooldown helps a lot when you have to use it on an enemy not afflicted with moonlight. Next, take your as it is your only ranged harass and you must have a low Cooldown on it in order to make complete use of your ultimate. Take next for the upgrade in damage and shield strength. Save for last as it doesn't do damage, and upgrading only lowers its cooldown. It never gets to a low enough cooldown where you can use it twice during a gank, so don't even try to upgrade it second or first.

Jungling

Jungle Route And Other Jungling Information

If you are new to the game, or simply don't know what jungling is, it is a role that consists of taking the neutral monster camps around the map instead of actually spending the majority of your time "in lane". Most junglers either start on wraiths/ wolves depending on which buff they are taking, and take blue or red buff with the help of their laners. Having a laner or 2 help is called "Leashing" and lets the jungler get off to a much faster start. Some junglers prefer to go for a "smiteless" start, and save their for the opposite buff, but this requires the player leashing to be late to lane, it's a personal decision or not that you'll have to make with your team.

Invades/ Invading

Some well coordinated teams may decide to "Invade". This consists of grouping with usually 4 or 5 members to go and attempt to steal the enemy junglers buff, setting them extremely far behind and gaining a buff, and experience for a few memebers of your team. If you get lucky, or the other team is unaware of your invade, you may even get 1 or 2 kills off of it, depending on how much CC your team has, or if the enemy has flash. Teams with a lot of CC at level 1 are considered good invade teams, and if you notice that the enemy has champions like or , you might want to guard for the invade.

Guarding for the invade usually either consists of a few players lining the riven entrances to your jungle, in order to assure that no on is coming. Other alternative methods include using and sight ward to grant vision of the enemies movements. Some invades might just be to place a ward at the enemy buff, so that they can get vision on the enemy jungler, and predict ganks.

Jungle Route

's Jungle route is pretty straight forward, depending on which side you start on (blue or red), take Wolves/ Wraiths first with the help of you mid, top, or bot lane, and then take Blue Buff with the same person(s). From there, move to the Wraith/ Wolves camp that you didn't clear previously and move to Double Golems. Take Red Buff after this, Back to base, and start ganking. Some people prefer to take red buff earlier, but i like to take it later so i can gank more effectively and for a longer duration due to the red buff's slow.

The Different Jungle Camps are Shown Below

For an easier explanation, Refer to this list

1: /
2:
3: /
4:
5:
6: Return to Base To Buy
7: Begin Ganking other Lanes with Red Buff

Ganking

Ganks are one of the main reason why the role of the jungler even exists. It forces laners to buy wards to warn of the junglers presence, as a sudden 1 vs 2 will most likely never go your way. Without a jungler, laners would push all the way to the tower and constantly zone, without any fear of having someone come from behind to kill you. The jungler exists to stop other lanes from pushing to the turret the whole game, and to help a laner that is having a hard time. Bot Lane is the hardest to gank, as a 2v3 is easier to pull off than a 1v2, although if executed properly, you could end up giving your lanes a double kill. Always do your best to give your laner the kill, it lets them snowball their lane so they can have an easier time against an opponent, and it makes it so you can concentrate on other lanes. Top lane is generally a snowball lane, and it is in your best interest to help this person get as fed as possible. Having a 10-0 Riven will most definitely turn the battle your way, and regardless of whether this person is nice or not, it's impossible to deny that a fed top laner is a bad thing. Mid is the easiest to gank, as you can pass by it most often.

The general concept of a gank is to secure a kill that normally 1 person would have trouble doing alone. Whether this means providing a huge amount of burst damage, or simply CC'ing the enemy for long enough that your laner can get the kill, a successful gank will either result in a burned , a ton of damage being put on the enemy, or a kill.

Getting behind the enemy in their lane, and forcing them to run to you to get back to your tower is often your best bet, but "in lane ganks" (usually sneaking up into a front bush without the enemy noticing, and surprising them when they facecheck or pass by the bush) are also quite effective.

Do your best to never reveal your location to the enemy team, if the other team has a ward, try not to walk by it, as this will tell the other lanes " is in bot lane, so we can push mid and top freely or have our jungler come top for a gank]]. Ask your teammates to warn you of ward positioning and time the wards. sight wards last for exactly 3 minutes, so turn on timestamps in chat and type away. The goal of this is to always have map presence, if the enemy doesn't know exactly where you are they can't push the lane to the tower or they risk getting attacked from behind.

Encourage all of your lanes to ward, as it will prevent unnecessary deaths due to the enemy jungler.

Counter Jungling

If your team has absolute map control, you might decide to go invade the enemy jungle after the first 2 minutes are up. This will set the other jungler behind even more and will be especially important if you can deny the enemy mid laner their blue buff, or an ADC their red. However, clearing smaller jungle camps and just leaving the small creep will not allow the camp to respawn until the last minion has been cleared. This is a common tactic used, and it forces the enemy jungler to go clear a camp for little to no reward. Practice it often if you dont fear getting caught behind enemy lines.

Using Smite

Whether you believe me or not, knowing when to use is key. It is true damage nuke to any minion or monster and will allow you to secure objectives such as , and other buffs. When in doubt save your smite! Mouse over the smite icon on your screen and it will tell you exactly how much damage smite does. If you left click a monster, it will tell you how much health it has. Do the math here and smite it as soon as the monster is below the damage threshold. You can prevent your buffs from being stolen, and also steal objectives that your enemy did all the work for, causing them to yell at their own jungler "NO SMITE?!" (Plus you get a nice 10 bonus gold with the Masteries i have set up, so spam it if you know no global objectives are up).

Jungle Timers

Remember what i said about saving your ? If no global objectives are up, feel free to spam it to clear jungle camps faster or for the 10 Extra gold. If you plan on doing this however, you absolutely must know jungle timers. The most important to time are and , but Blue Buff and Red Buff are important in their own right. Jungle Timers are as follows.

Wraith Camp - Spawns at 1:40 and every 50 seconds after the last creep is cleared

Wolves - Spawn at 1:40 and every 1 Minute after the last creep is cleared

Double Golems - Spawn at 1:40 and every 75 seconds after the last creep is cleared

Ancient Golem (Blue Buff) - Spawn at 1:55 and every 5 minutes after the last creep is cleared

Lizard Elder (Red Buff) - Spawn at 1:55 and every 5 minutes after the last creep is cleared

Dragon - Spawn at 2:30 and every 6 minutes after being slain

Baron - Spawn at 15:00 and every 7 minutes after being slain

Teamfights and Skill Combinations

Teamfight Positioning and Skill combos

is one of those champions that only really has one way to teamfight... Diving straight in. While you may not be with , you have different tools at your disposal. First of all, decide whether or not the teamfight is winnable before you go balls deep and get yourself killed. Throwing away kills to the enemy team is never a good thing, so if you know you're going to get CC locked and instantly killed, wait for your teammates to get a good initiate before you jump in with + . Something like 's or 's should do.

You can poke with while sieging towers, or in a situation where no one wants to make the first move. has a good form of initiate with + + palecascade + + . This will allow you to be right in the middle of the enemy team without taking any damage at all. Your shield should last for long enough that you will have time to + without taking damage. Hopefully, the enemy will burn all their skillshots on you while you're invulnerable which will allow your team to follow up your valiant effort with enough damage and CC to make sure that you wont be focused as soon as the Zhonya's active wears off.

If your team isn't on the same page as you however, let your team initiate, as your way of doing the same job is extremely situational. In a 1v1 situation, a gank or in a chase, will have a much easier time, and won't have to rely on her team to know what to do.

Ganks Pre-6

Normal Gank

+ + AA + + AA +

Agressive Gank

+ + AA + + AA + + AA +

Ganks Post 6

+ + + AA + + AA + + + + AA + +

If you miss any of your 's you should still have the ability to use 1 more time without it going on cooldown. If you don't miss your Q however, you will have a jump everytime the 3.6 Cooldown comes up again.

Ranked Play

Solo/ Duo Queue

is an exceptionally strong pick in the world of Solo queue, not only is she able to single handily carry games, she is also extremely versatile as she can go in 3 different lanes. The enemies might try to counterpick assuming she is going mid, leaving someone at the bottom of your team to counterpick their mid. Jungles are notoriously hard to counterpick against, so if you're top of the queue have no fear.

In solo queue you can't always (Scratch that, you can never) rely on teammates to know what you're planning to do, so make sure you say "going top" or ", come get blue". Don't just ping all day and then yell at your teammates, they may not have known what you were planning to do.

As a general rule of thumb, never rage in solo queue, it just makes your whole team do worse, and as frustrating as a 1-8 Mid lane might be, just always assume that for as many times as you get a bad player on your team, there will be a bad player on the other team. The same goes for AFK's and DC's. As much as we all hate them, how many times has someone on the other team done the same thing and given you an easy win? It may feel like it's always on your team but as long as you ignore it and improve, you should be able to carry yourself out of an ELO bracket.

If a lane is losing horribly, judge for yourself whether or not its worth ganking them. If the other laner is so fed it could just result in a double kill for them. Usually giving up on an 0-5 pantheon to focus on other lanes is for the better. If you can snowball an in mid, you 2 can carry the game even with a 5-0 on the other team.

Champion Complements

Champion Combinations

Some champions just go exceptionally well together, here are a few that all almost always a great thing to have on a team.

+ - There's nothing better than having 2 crazy bursty assassins jumping on your carries in a teamfight. This almost assures that all the main damage sources will be out of a teamfight in an instant. 2 Huge gapclosers from both champions lets you chase and clean up a teamfight, and the sight of these 2 chasing behind you is truly scary.

+ - With to pull everyone in, it guarantees that will hit a good number of the enemy team. This combination absolutely melts people. If lands a you can immediately follow up with and . It guarantees thats you'll land your q, and the amount of damage you 2 can put out is absolutely insane.

+ - Diana has plenty of ways of getting into a teamfight, but no way of getting out. Thresh gives you the ability to dive in for one target and instantly get out. He can also pull someone out of a group for you to instantly jump on and assassinate. If you want to peel one member of the enemy team, this combo is amazing.

+ - relies on people being within range of her ball. She can use to shield so she can jump in and take less damage. Follow this up with and + and you have AOE destruction.

+ - as much as hates leona, you cant deny this combos effectiveness. 's passive amplifies 's damage output, and she can lock down targets for to assassinate. Stun after Stun after Stun and the enemy really can't do much to stop the assassination. The Sun and the Moon do make a truly outrageous combo.

+ - Although is most commonly played jungle, she can Mid or Top. The combination of + is extremely scary. Lock down a target and take them out.

+ - This is simple, Jarvan uses dives in = Dead carry.

If you have any more that you would like to be added to this list, please leave a comment.

Other Roles

I will work on including a Mid and Top guide in the near future, once i get some practice with it and feel comfortable. Right now, Jungle is the only lane i feel comfortable teaching others about, and spreading bad information is never a good thing. Write comments telling me to finish the other builds and maybe i will.

FAQ

Frequently Asked

Answers

Q: How Do we know that you aren't terrible with ?

// Anyone could think that i'm terrible, and many would probably argue so, but here's my stats with from the last 3 weeks in ranked.

My Current KD with her is around a 6 and i have a 70% win rate in ranked. Judge for yourself.

Q: Why do you like so much

// She fits my playstyle well, i love bursty champions that are capable of chasing people down. She just has something about her that screams PENTA

Q: Will this guide make me the best NA?

// Absolutely not, no guide here will make you the best at anything, it takes time and practice to perfect the game mechanics, and learning one champion fully can take an extremely long time. Keep working on it, and hopefully you'll see progress!

Q: Why didn't you include a mid or top build?

// I prefer playing in the jungle, while i main AP Mid, i find that her melee characteristics allow her to be zoned easily by long range casters like and . Her great ganking ability allows her to influence all of the lanes for a the better, and i feel that it is the best role for her to play.