Diana Build Guide by Sinople

Introduction

Hi guys, welcome to my Diana guide - Eclipse Time.
As it is my first build and not in my mother-tongue, please give me constructive feedback about the things you will read in it !

In this guide, I will try to teach you how to build and play Diana - The Scorn of the Moon as a jungler.
I hope you will read my entire guide and try to master this incredible champion which can lead your team to the victory !

Champion Spotlight

Pros / Cons

PROS: + High speed cleaning jungle. + High mobility and surprising damage for ganks. + Gap closer and slow, perfect for your job. + Tons of damages if fed. + Pleasant to play.

CONS: - High mana consumption. - Hard to gank effectively before level 6. - Crowd controls will annihilate her burst. - Can be easily destroyed if she jumps in the ennemy team impulsively, you're an offtank, but not indestructible.

Abilities

MoonSilver Blade:(passive) A small AOE passive which allows you to clear quickly and effectively the jungle, it scales well with your ability power and is a great part of your damage in team fights. Moonsilver Blade is activated after two auto-attacks, meaning that your third will deal extra damage. Easily noticeable as Diana starts shining with moon energy.

Crescent Strike: An hard-to-use skillshot at first, but with practice, you will almost always hit your target. This spell damage all ennemies it go through and can be casted at your feet to finish up minions or monsters at melee with you. This spell is your main harass and damage spell, but as a jungler, it will work in combination with your ultimate as a gap closer / nuke combo.

Pale Cascade: A shield that creates three orbs of light, each one dealing aoe damage to any unit which collide with them. If the three orbs explode, the shield refreshes. This spell makes Diana more tanky than she seems to be. While laning, it can be cast to deal instant damage to minions you would have missed. -This is a great spell to jungle, as it negates most of the damage you would take, and dealing damage at the same time, improving your jungling speed.

Moonfall: This is one of the most important skill of Diana in my opinion, it allows you to drag all nearby ennemies to your location, slowing them at the same time. Using this will allow you to keep ennemies at auto-attack range while chasing them. -Perfect for ganks, just click on your E to bring back that little running Teemo to you and your allies.

Lunar Rush: Your ultimate skill, a terrible gap-closer which has no cooldown if you hit a target marked with Crescent Strike's moonlight. -This is your initiating/escaping tool, use it wisely.

Runes and Masteries

Greater Mark of Attack Speed are the marks I almost exclusively use with my junglers, since they give you the ability to clean your jungle quickly, and this way to gank earlier than expected.

You can also choose Greater Mark of Magic Penetration for more damage during gank and lategame.
However, your early jungle will be harder.


Greater Seal of Armor gives you armor, for more survivability.


Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist since you don't need magic resist against the neutral monsters and it's very valuable mid to late game.


Greater Quintessence of Ability Power to boost your damages, clean your jungle easily with her good AP ratios.

Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed are also valuable if you want to bet the game on early successful ganks.



Offense tree:

• Fury stacks well with Moonsilver Blade and your Greater Mark of Attack Speed
• Sorcery 5% cdr is great for spamming your spells.
• Mental Force gives you 16AP at level 18, why not.
• Arcane Mastery gives you 8 ability power more, a great mastery for a big starter.
• Executioner allows you to deal extra damage to champions below 50% health, that's a great tool to make an ennemy very low while ganking.
• Archmage increases your ability power by 5%, a must have since you will not always get a Rabadon's Deathcap
• Dangerous Game is really awesome, how many times i was killed with the last damage from Ignite after killing an ennemy, this will never happen again !
• Arcane Blade works well with Moonsilver Blade
• Havoc increases your damage by 3%, good to have.

Denfense tree:

• Enchanted Armor gives you an extra 5% armor and magic resist, perfect!
• Tough Skin allows you to negate some of monster's damage in the jungle.
• Veteran's Scars gives you 36 health at level 1, always good to have.
• Bladed Armor burn the jungle's monsters when they hit you, allowing you to be faster in your jungle.
• Juggernaut gives you 3% maximum health, just awesome!

Summoner Spell

Abilities Tips and Tricks

Moonsilver Blade:

Crescent Strike

Pale Cascade

Moonfall

Lunar Rush

Combos

Jungle

Here comes the main part of this build, in this part, i will explain to you the basics of jungling, the importance and the use of the buffs, your role as a jungler, and how to have a good map awareness.




The jungle is the part between the lanes, where neutral monsters live. They are quite hard to kill so you need a character which has a lot of survivability like shields, spell vamp or life steal.

Among these monsters, you can find important ones, the buff monsters, the Dragon , and the Baron Nashor .
Those 2 last monsters are common goals for both teams and will create lots of fights.

Let's check the map:

Initial Spawn: 1:55 Respawns in 5 minutes The ancient golem grants crest of the ancient golem for the one killing it. This allows the jungler to clean fastly his jungle, and later on, it allows your AP carry to get insane DPS while all his cooldowns are lowered and his mana regeneration buffed.

Initial Spawn: 1:55 Respawns in 5 minutes The lizard elder grants blessing of the lizard elder when killed. This is the buff you want for your ganks, as it slows the ennemy while dealing true damage over the time. Later, you want to give this buff to your AD carry, allowing him to deal more damage and to slow the running ennemies.

As some of you already know, the jungler is oftenly criticized, and they are right !
Everyone knows that you are failing your match against this basterd Teemo because of the jungler.
You will often read "maokai ganked 5 times and you 0", "OMG this jungler", "Why stealing all blues ??". And you don't have to care about these messages !

And by the way, i invite you to read this excellent guide, and every player in the game will thank you for reading it, so please


As a jungler, it is true that your role is to gank, but you can't gank 3 lanes at the same time 24/7 just because they can't deal with the ennemy.


So what can you do to avoid this ? Nothing.
But the only thing i can say to you, is to use your own JUDGEMENT. Don't gank a lane because you were asked to.
The best thing to do is to practice, to learn what you and your character can do, then use your best judgement to do the best possible gank.



A “gank” is to create an advantage against a certain situation. So by going to a lane that your laner is still in, you are ganking that lane (the advantage is now 2v1 or 3v2, an extra person in the lane).
Surprising the ennemy and inflicting him hard CC to take him down or to make him use summoner spells.

If you come in lane and make the ennemy flash away, DO NOT STAY IN THE LANE. The champion in that lane needs the gold and experience if you want them to be effective late game.
Moreover, nobody can stand a jungler who comes up, fails a gank and then steals all the minions.
If the ennemy used his flash, your job is done and you can return to your jungle and let your ally in a strong position.

If you suceed your gank, you may want to hit the ennemy tower, this will help you progress in the game.






Do you feel like your jungle isn't enought ? That you are stronger than the ennemy jungler ? That you want to screw his jungle ? Try the Counter Jungling !

How ? By going in the ennemy jungle to steal his buffs/camps, and even killing him while he's jungling.

This seems great, but all rewarding things are risky, and by going in the ennemy jungle without a good map awareness, knowing where the ennemy is and without escapes is really dangerous !

Start putting wards at the buff you want to steal, make sure his allies doesn't see you, outsmite his buff and GTFO of here ! Doing so, you will steal his experience, money and gank potential. Which is a great advantage for ALL your team.
You can also clean the camps if you see the ennemy jungler trying to gank somewhere or if you know he's at base or dead. Always leave ONE monster that gives the lowest experience, the timer of the buff you just steal will only beggin when this little monster will be killed. This is a great way to slow the ennemy jungler.






I will teach you a great lesson today, warding isn't only the Support job ! Yes my fellow laners, just because you want to buy that Long Sword instead of your Boots of Speed and one ward, sure you will deal more damage, but when the ennemy jungler will be on you, you'll have to assume your mistake.

All lanes should be warded to counter ennemy ganks and protect objectives.

As a jungler, you are roaming everywhere on the map, and this is your duty to put wards where the laners can't go without losing lot of experience and golds.

• Important wards: These are the wards to cover the Dragon and Baron Nashor, try to always keep them in sight with a pink ward to unward ennemie's.
  
• Defense wards: These wards are mainly used by the laners, to protect themselves against the ennemy jungler, you can also help them if they are really in trouble with money or just stupid enought not to buy wards.
  
• Situational wards: Usually, these wards are used when the ennemy is dominating you, or when you are expecting invasion or a lane gank.
  
• Invasion wards: I told you in previous chapter that you had to ward the ennemy jungle to counter it, these are the locations of the wards you want to put to steal buffs.
  
  
  And if you want more details about warding, here is a great guide for you: Click on me !
  
  
  
  • MAP AWARENESS:
  
  
  This is the most important chapter for you, my fellow junglers ! Your most important duty, more than your ganks, and here is why you're one of the most important role in League of Legend.
  
  
  I know that your Diana is a beautiful champ, but i will ask you not to stare at her all the time. I know it's hard but, the thing you have to check the most of is your minimap in the right corner of your screen.
  This map is guiding you, telling you what you have to do, and you have to listen to it, all the time !
  
  
  Here is a test for you, look at my jungling phase.
  
  
  
  
  
  Was it nice ? I knew you would like it !
  
  But did you see the ennemy Vi coming at my botlane to gank it?
  That's the kind of things you HAVE to see and share with your mates, while you're not focusing on last-hitting or continuously fighting against an ennemy, you have all the time you need to check your minimap and predict ganks.
  
  Seeing the ennemy jungler can mean two things:
  • If you're near to the ganked lane : Inform your team and help them as soon as possible, abort all your jungling stuff and save your allies.
  • If you're far to the ganked lane : Inform your team and go for some counter jungling or ganks as you know where the ennemy jungler is.
    
  
  Knowing where the ennemy is is one the the most important things in League of Legend, you and the support are the most efficient roles to ward, predict and inform your team on the enemy location.
  
  
  
  
  For more information about jungling, you are very welcome to read those guides which are really good:
  
  
  
  • Hahano's General Jungling Guide
  • Xenasis's Jungling 101 Guide

Leading Your Team

As I said in the previous chapter, the jungler has a good map awareness and map control, he's scouting, ganking and invading everywhere he pleases, am I right Dr. Mundo ?

This makes you able to lead your team to take objectives whenever it's possible to.
This works for every objective in the game, but be careful, your allies are trusting you, don't bring them into a trap !

Moreover, as Diana, you are able to dive, engage and spread panic into the ennemy team, you must abuse from this !



And if you want some more informations, please check this out : Raising Morale And Leading Your Team

TeamFights

Your initial role as an assassin is to quickly kill the ennemy AD or AP carry.
But since you're playing in the jungle as an AP offtank, you have two ways of dealing with teamfights.

• You can play as an assassin, positionning yourself behind the ennemy team, waiting engagement from your tank and going in, bursting down the ennemy carries.
  
  
• If your team has a lack of engagement, you can also do this job, just Crescent Strike them, Lunar Rush in, Moonfall the entire team and Zhonya's Hourglass, waiting for your team to deal massive damage as the 5 ennemies are slowed and regrouped.
  When your Zhonya's Hourglass ends, your goal is to melt squishy targets, if they're still alive.
  
  Make sure your team is aware of what you're doing, don't jump in impulsively without saying anything, it would just be a suicide.

Items

helps you a lot during your early jungling phase.

X5 should allow you to clean your jungle and staying almost full life for your first ganks.

will allow you to to clean an early ward for free, instoring fear into ennemy's spirits, huehuehue! And allowing you to earn some money too.

allows you to roam everywhere and make impressive ganks.

gives you a good sustainability while fighting with the spell vamp and when not fighting with it's mana and hp regeneration per 5. Also gives you some AP and extra golds when killing large monsters and ennemy champions.

for decent amount of AP and armor.

gives you a good amount of AP and armor, and the active will save you a lot of time !

is one of the best items on Diana. As you're a melee champ, the magic resistance reduction aura will always be used. Also the magic resistance and ability power are really good for you !

gives you an insane amount of AP, you can buy this item if you are really dominating your game. Remember that you role here isn't to be damage dealer.

is a really nice item for you, good AP, cooldown reduction, great attack speed and passive which scales perfectly with your Moonsilver Blade. When this item is in your pocket, all the jungle starts to fear you.

has to be done only if the ennemy team stacks a lot of magic resistance.

isn't that good anymore on Diana with its nerf.

gives you a lot of survivability while engaging the ennemy team, plus, when they will see your amount of health, they usually want to change their focus and forget that you also deal good damage against their squishy targets.

is great since you're always in the middle of the teamfight, this and your Moonfall will greatly slow the entire team.

Only buy this if the ennemy team has a lot of magic damage.

is good if you want to stay in the melee and deal great auto-attack damage, also gives you a good survivability with its passive.

is also good, giving you both AP and health, in my opinion the passive isn't that great, especially with nukers as Diana.

almost gives you the same health and mana regeneration as Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, a gold generation which isn't really interesting at this point, but principally, it allows you to speed up all nearby allies by 40% for 3 seconds.

gives you a nice amount of AP and the ability to damage and slow one ennemy and allies around him by 50% for 2 seconds.

Conclusion

Well, thank you for reading my Diana guide, I hope it will help you a lot.
Please send me your feedback about the guide, comments and feelings !

Doing this guide was really interesting and if you like the way I built it, please share this with me and feel free to ask anything if you want !

Thank you again, enjoy !