Hello, and welcome to my Diana guide. This is my first guide I'm doing here on Mobafire so please don't go too hard on me. This guide will show you how I play Diana, this does not mean you're supposed to play her like this, rather I'm just trying to share my opinion and builds on her. I'm also willing to receive feedback from you guys so if you have any feedback / suggestion on how to build / play her please comment.

Well let's get started shall we?

Positive points.

+ Amazing burst assassin.
+ Rather tanky with her Pale Cascade.
+ Can win a lot of trades 1 vs 1 with her low cooldowns and her Pale Cascade.

Negative points.

- Rather squishy early game.
- No real escape mechanism.
- CC will kill her.
- Will get focused fast in early / mid game teamfights when fed.

My runes aren't the most common runes you'll see on an AP, but I'll explain my choices here.


Greater Mark of Attack Speed - These runes will help increase your jungle speed since they scale extremely well with your passive Moonsilver Blade and with the mastery Spellsword .

Greater Seal of Armor - These runes will give you some more Armor, more Armor = Less damage ^^.

Greater Glyph of Ability Power - These runes will give you 10.71 (11) AP, since you are an AP you will need this. But your passive Moonsilver Blade also scales of AP so it also increases your jungle speed.

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power - Even more AP, as for the rest same story as above.

For summoner spells I use Smite and Flash.

Smite for obvious reasons: I'm jungling, also since I put one point in Summoner's Resolve so that I get 10 more gold for every time I use Smite.

Flash Is a great gap closer or an escape mechanism, use it to quickly engage an enemy with a Flash -> Lunar Rush combo, or just Flash over a wall.

I don't really have other viable choices, maybe you could use Exhaust instead of Flash but as I said, this is how I prefer to play Diana.

Moonsilver Blade - (Innate): Diana gains 20% additional attack speed. Every third strike cleaves nearby enemies for 20 / 25 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 / 125 / 140 / 155 / 175 / 195 / 215 / 240 / 265 / 290 (+60% of ability power) additional magic damage.

//Great passive for jungling, every 3rd strike cleaves nearby enemies.
//Has a decent AP scaling ratio (+60% of ability power).


Crescent Strike - Diana unleashes a bolt of lunar energy, dealing Magic Damage: 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+70% of ability power) in an arc. Crescent Strike afflicts enemies struck with Moonlight, revealing them for 3 seconds.
Base CD: 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 / 6 seconds
Cost: 55 mana
Range: 830 max
Radius AOE: 50 (estimate)

//Great nuke spell with a low cooldown.
//Gives vision of the target, so if you hit a target behind a wall with Crescent Strike you can Lunar Rush over a wall. Also works for escapes in the jungle.
//Kinda hard to hit at first, but you'll get used to that later.


Pale Cascade - Diana creates three orbiting spheres that last up to 5 seconds and detonate on contact, dealing 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 (+20% of ability power) per orb to all nearby enemies. She also gains a temporary shield that absorbs 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 / 155 (+45% of ability power) damage. This shield is refreshed if all three spheres detonate.
Base CD: 10 seconds
Cost: 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 mana
AoE radius of sphere: 200 (estimate)

//Great skill for jungling, the shields absorbs quite a lot of damage, and it refreshes when all 3 orbs detonated.
//The AoE damage of the orbs also help with your jungling speed.
//I put in an early two points to be safer when jungling.
//Your shield scales off AP


Moonfall - Diana draws in all nearby enemies and slows them by 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 % for 2 seconds.
Base CD: 26 / 24 / 22 / 20 / 18 seconds
Cost: 70 mana
AoE Range: 250

//It's a great skill for ganking, if the enemy tries to run away, you just pull him right back in.
//This is also a great skill for teamfights if you have a AoE nuker in your team. Just flash into the enemy team, use your Moonfall, use your Pale Cascade or Zhonya's Hourglass if you have it and let your AP carry burst them down.


Lunar Rush - Diana becomes the living embodiment of the vengeful moon, teleporting to an enemy and dealing 100 / 160 / 220 (+60% of ability power) magic damage.
Lunar Rush has no cooldown when used to teleport to an enemy afflicted with Moonlight, and will consume all active Moonlight debuffs.
Base CD: 25/ 20 / 15 seconds
Cost: 50 / 65 / 80 mana
Range: 825

//This is your main skill to initiate, use it well.
//No cooldown on this skill if you hit the target with Crescent Strike first.
//You may be able to pull off some escapes when used correctly with Crescent Strike.
// Lunar Rush + Lich Bane will do some nice damage.

Skill Priority:

Crescent Strike is your main poke / harass / nuke skill so we max this first.
Pale Cascade is maxed second because it gives you a nice shield and some damage.
Moonfall is maxed third because one early point is enough to secure the kill. it does not do any damage and a pull + 35% slow is good enough on lvl 1.
Lunar Rush is maxed last because it's your ulti so spend those points on lvl 6, 11 and 16.

Combo's

Nuke / Harass
Crescent Strike >> Pale Cascade >> Lunar Rush.
Now we have 2 options:

1) if the enemy tries to run away use Moonfall to pull him back in. so the combo goes:
Crescent Strike >> Pale Cascade >> Lunar Rush >> Moonfall >> Crescent Strike >> Lunar Rush.

2) if the enemy flashes away either use Flash and Moonfall or use Lunar Rush and Moonfall so the combo goes:
Crescent Strike >> Pale Cascade >> Lunar Rush or Flash >> Moonfall >> Crescent Strike >> Lunar Rush.
---
Jungle
Pale Cascade >> Crescent Strike >> auto attack untill Crescent Strike / Pale Cascade is off cooldown >> Repeat.

NOTE: The images are outdated I'll try to update them this weekend.

Jungle route
My video to show how I gank, all footage take from one game.
I start at wolves at 1:40 ask your teammates to help you damage the wolves a bit.then move on to blue buff at 1:55 ask your mid to pull it for you, pop 1 health pot and smite blue.continue to wraiths and kill them.You can now either go to red or do golems first. I did red first, pop a health pot and kill red.Smite the big golem and kill them both.Head back to wraiths or wolves, kill them and you should now be lvl 4 and ready to gank.


Just continue jungling from this point on and look for potential ganks ^^.

In teamfights you'll have to position yourself behind the enemy team, so that you can melt their squishy's quite fast.
Be carefull though because if you do it wrong you're dead. Also wait for your tank to engage first because I've had it countless times that I was fighting, died and then the tank engaged.
So how you play Diana is:
1) Position yourself behind the enemy team if you feel like a teamfight is comming up.
2) Wait for the fight to start and locate high priority targets.
3) Dash in, nuke the targets and get the hell out of there and wait for your 2nd round of burst.
4) ???
5) Profit.

The places I often position myself in is bushes or behind walls. I usually don't hide in the river bushes near mid because that's way too predictable, and if I know that all five members of the enemy team are on mid I just walk around.
Go to their side of the jungle and wait, this way might someone of the enemy team try to escape I can either chase him down because teams often tend to spread out when running away. But if they do decide to fight I just dash over the wall with my Crescent Strike + Lunar Rush combo, if they are not near the wall I will reposition so that I can hit my combo.

NOTE: Images are outdated I will try to update them this weekend.

// Use Crescent Strike to check bushes.

// When running away through the jungle you can use Crescent Strike on a creep camp and Lunar Rush over the wall if there are creeps there. I will put some images from the points of which you can do the Crescent Strike -> Lunar Rush combo in the jungle:


// You are the jungler when you have some gold left over buy Sight wards, it really helps your team a lot.

// You could try to counter jungle, if the enemy jungler starts with blue his blue spawns at ~7 minutes you can either take his blue or try to gank him there. same goes for red buff, but i assume that red buff spawns at ~9 minutes

Starting items

I start with Hunter's Machete and 5x Health Potion. 5x Health Potion Should let you survive long enough throughout the jungle route. I often have 1 Health Potion left over after red buff.

Core items

After I've done some jungling and ganking I will get my first items Spirit Stone and Boots (750g total), + some Sight Wards to help out my team and securing my own jungle.
After that I will get my Spirit of the Spectral Wraith for some more AP, Spellvamp (sustain) and cdr / manaregen this is a great item for Diana jungle. Next I'll get my Sorcerer's Shoes. After my T2 boots I'll start building my Rabadon's Deathcap and my Abyssal Mask.
Rabadon's Deathcap just increases your damage overall, while Abyssal Mask increases your magic-resist and decreases theirs within a certain range. Luckily you're Diana so you'll most likely stick to your target.

To finish it all off I'll get an Frozen Mallet, why a Ad-Melee item on an Ap-assasin you ask?
well Frozen Mallet gives you a bunch of hp, and some attack damage, As Diana does have a lot of attack-speed with her passive and her Nashor's Tooth she will benefit from the AD also, she can jump to her target and just stick to get if needed, and her basic-attacks do mixed damage now.

// Changelog:

15-02-2013 Guide added to mobafire.

//

Thank you all for reading my guide, if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment. And if you have something you would like to add, feel free to tell me what I should do different (: