Diana Build Guide by AllyZero

Introduction

Greetings, Summoners!

Welcome and thank you for taking the time to read my guide on Diana, Scorn of the Moon! This is my second attempt at a guide here on MOBAFire. I hope this helps out some summoners who want to try out Diana, as she is an extremely underrated champion in my opinion. I have also included a jungle build as she is very capable of doing so, but it has slightly different items and masteries. Anyway, as stated, this is a mid lane Diana guide, so I will be focussing on that. Any questions, ideas or suggestions, I'd love to read them in the comments!

PS: At the moment of writing this (26/02/14), I'm predicting that Diana will make it back in to the LCS soon, and I'm conviced that xPeke will be the first to pull it out. Let's see if I'm right ;)

Pros / Cons

PROS
+ HUGE burst potential
+ Very good at farming/pushing
+ Ranged harass
+ Has a shield
+ Has an interrupt
+ Soft CC
+ Good ganks

CONS
- Relatively squishy
- No sustain
- Situational escape
- Not a lot of teamfight capability

Notes on Diana's skills

Moonsilver Blade (passive)

• Gives you AoE damage every third autoattack that scales with AP
• Permanently gives you 20% bonus attack speed
• Helps you push and clear very quickly
• Helps in trades

Crescent Strike

• Your ranged harass
• Low cooldown and mana cost, so spammable
• Is also AoE, so helps with your waveclear
• Helps you set up your engage - burst combo by afflicting Moonlight (see below)
• Not the easiest skillshot to master because enemies can see it coming

Pale Cascade

• Gives you a small shield when you activate it, and it doubles if all your orbs connect
• Scales with AP (shield and damage)
• Do not spam this early game because it will drain your mana
• Always activate it when initiating or diving in to a team fight
• You can use it later in the game to help you waveclear, mana permitting

Moonfall

• Pulls enemies in it's range to you and slows them
• Breaks channeled abilities (ie. Death Lotus, Requiem, Absolute Zero,..)
• Is considered a knockup (for Yasuo)
• Always use when initiating
• Using it in the middle of an enemy team and popping Zhonya's Hourglass is a powerful engage

Lunar Rush

• Powerful targetted dash to an enemy champion
• If you dash to an enemy afflicted by Moonlight from your Crescent Strike, the cooldown is refreshed giving you a second dash
• Part of your engage - burst combo (see below)

Early Game

Pick up a Doran's Ring, a Health Potion and a Mana Potion (don't forget your trinket!) and head to lane. Cover for your jungler and help him with blue/red if you have to, but ask if it's ok if you can immediatly head to your lane: Getting to level 6 first is your main priority.

Try to avoid harass as much as possible. It's ok to harass and lasthit with your Crescent Strike once in a while, because it doesn't cost that much mana. Ward well and only use Pale Cascade defensively if you absolutely have to. It will drain your mana very quickly. If your jungler comes to gank, try to get in melee range and use your Moonfall to slow them. The first item you want to build for is Sheen, and build that in to a Lich Bane as soon as possible. The exception is if you're against an AD midlaner (like Zed), then you may want to build a Seeker's Armguard first.

I can't stress this enough: Do not play aggressively if you don't have to. Be patient, get your farm, harass them if they get too ballsy, wait for level 6. At level 6 you should be able to kill anyone if you do it properly. Here's your combo:

Crescent Strike -> Pale Cascade + Lunar Rush -> Moonfall + autoattacks
When they run you can hit them with another Lunar Rush + Ignite

Mid Game

There's really not much to say that is mindblowingly new, it's pretty standard.

Try and push the mid turret as fast as you can. Once you get Sheen and Lich Bane, you will do very decent damage against objectives. Keep an eye on the minimap, communicate positions to your team, roam and gank if you can. Rotate and take objectives. Ward well, it's not only the support's job, it's everyone's job. You're not very teamfight-oriented, so try to pick off opponents that are wandering alone by themselves.

If you get caught out by yourself, you don't really have an escape. You can use your Pale Cascade to shield a bit of damage. Your only other option is to use Crescent Strike on jungle creeps and then Lunar Rush to them over a wall to get out.

Oh, and communicate with your jungler. Ask for blue buffs, you'll need them.

Once you've picked up your Lich Bane and your Sorcerer's Shoes, build a Zhonya's Hourglass. What you build after that is sort of situational, we'll cover it in the next section.

Late Game

As already stated, you don't have huge teamfighting capabilities. Generally, you're going to want to dance around in the back line, poking with Crescent Strike. Wait for an enemy to get in to your range and then use your burst combo on them. Don't underestimate your damage, you will absolutely DELETE a squishy champion. Be careful not to dive in to an enemy team with no backup or peel from your team, because you yourself can get deleted pretty easily. Let your team engage and be the cleanup crew.

The only other option you have if your team is relying on you, is to wait until you get as many enemies as close together as possible. Then Crescent Strike in to Pale Cascade + Lunar Rush in to the middle of the enemy team, pull them all together with Moonfall and then pop your Zhonya's Hourglass. This will set up the enemy team for follow-up damage and CC, like Solar Flare or Cyclone.

So what about your last three items?

First off, I'd recommend another AP item to increase your damage:
Rabadon's Deathcap is a no-brainer and synergizes beautifully with your Lich Bane.
Deathfire Grasp is great if you're good with active items and give you HUGE single-target damage.

Secondly, something against enemy magic resist:
Void Staff would be the logical choice.
Abyssal Mask is also a great item, especially if the enemy team does a lot of magic damage.

Lastly, a defensive item:
Guardian Angel is a great choice to survive if you get caught or focussed.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter is also an excellent choice for the health and slow.
Banshee's Veil if you desperately need the magic resist.

Counters

DIANA IS STRONG AGAINST...
Champions with channeled ultimates. You can interrup them with Moonfall. Examples are:
Katarina
Karthus
Twisted Fate

Diana is also a hard counter to one of League's most annoying champions: Fizz. You can negate a lot of his burst with your Pale Cascade, you can poke him down easily with Crescent Strike, and you can finish him off with your burst combo. Remember to bait out his playful/trickster first, though.


DIANA IS WEAK AGAINST...
Champions that can easily out-harass you as you try to farm, while being relatively tanky and sustainy. Examples are:
Swain
Mordekaiser
Cho'Gath
Kayle


Pretty much any other champion is a skill match-up. With enough practice, you should be able to do well against almost anyone, including the feared Kassadin, Akali, LeBlanc, Gragas,..

Final Thoughts

As I stated before, I find Diana to be an extremely underrated champion. I find it puzzling that she isn't played more. She has extremely high damage potential, powerful dueller 1v1, great clear and pushing ability, utility,.. and she basically has no really hard counters that are high-priority champions except maybe Kayle.

Anyway, I digress. I realize that this is a very squishy build and not capable of sustaining damage in teamfights, and I acknowledge that a lot of people would prefer some more health or armor in their build. While it's something that I can appreciate, I prefer the straight-up damage of the BOOM-you're-dead build. :)

If there are requests for it, I can expand the section on counters to go more in-depth on specific midlaners that are commonly picked in the current meta.

So, if anyone has any questions, ideas, suggestions, advice,.. let me know in the comment section and I'll do my best to answer them. Thank you for reading!