Diana was one of the first characters I played in League of Legends. I liked her dark character design and the concept of her kit, so I decided to make her one of my first purchases in the game. Unfortunately, what makes Diana's kit so awesome, also hurts her overall viability in the game. Diana is melee, with a melee passive, but her moves resemble an AP assassin type character. Diana has a good mix of damage and health but does not excel enough in either of the two to be picked over comparable champions. Most assassins have some sort of escape, dash, or ability to hop to a ward - Diana has none of the above. On the tank side, most tanks have buffs, spellvamp, health regen, speed, or perhaps a passive that helps their tanky-ness in game - while Diana does not.

Recently, Riot has acknowledged these problems and memntioned they are going to work on an update to help define her role and improve her play-style in game. Personally, I have a few ideas that I think would help make Diana more viable:
One of the following:
- Allowing Diana to Ult to a Ward, giving her more escape potential
- Adding an extra ability to her "E'. Right now it only slows and brings characters towards Diana, which is not useful when trying to escape. It also has a high cooldown adn costs 70 mana. Some Ideas could potential be: Reducing CDR/Mana costs, Adding damage, Enemy Magic Resist Reduction, or creating a shockwave where people who are close to Diana get pulled in and slowed and those farther away are pushed away with the blast.

Pros:
- Q is great for poking, CSing and dealing Damage.
- W has a lot of utility providing Damage and a Shield
- Diana's Ult can be reset if her Q is used on the enemy before hand
- Due to her Q + Ult, she has high burst damage
- Naturally tankier then most assassins.
- Can be built various ways, which helps fit into and play against various team comps
- Surprisingly fast jungle clear with passive and W

Cons
- No escape
- No hard CC or silence, "E" slow is ineffective at times
- Her build path usually leaves her deficient in another area.
1) Building full AP makes you vulnerable with little health or escape
2) Building Tanky leaves you with less burst potential
3) Building hybrid AD/AP is very item dependent and takes a long time to build
- Hard to gank or have kill potential pre-6
- Very reliant on ability management for cooldowns and mana

When done successfully, Jungling Diana is very rewarding. Diana has great clear with her "W" which also keeps her health up while clearing camps. Diana's passive is also great for Jungling because of the damage that is done to surrounding enemies on every 3rd auto attack. In my opinion, I feel like jungling Diana allows you to get your initial items and level to 6 with less danger. Diana needs time to level and build up her items, so if your lanes can survive in the early game you can have a very strong Mid and Late game with Diana.

Building Spirit of the Ancient Golem may seem counter intuitive, because you are delaying AP on Diana, but I designed this build to work around her weaknesses and give her more of a chance for success. Building Ancient Golem will ensure that Diana has enough health to survive fights and when built with AP items that also have health, she ends up scaling nicely into Mid and Late game. Items like Rod of Ages and Rylais are essential on Diana - Not only do they provide health, which scale with Ancient golem, but they also provide utility and AP. Rushing a Catalyst will ensure that you have health and mana while leveling and jungling. This allows you to stay in the jungle longer and also visit any lanes that are in trouble without feeling too vulnerable. The Rylais follows nicely because of its slow and amount of health/AP. Now that we have her damage and sustainability covered, her last glaring weakness is movement/escape. This is where boots of swiftness or mobility come in handy. They allow you to get around the map to gank or to escape when necessary - the choice between the two boots depends on matchup and personally preference. Lastly, it is always important to use flash sparingly when playing Diana in the jungle; but I will speak about this more in the summoner skill section. Basically, DON'T use flash unless you really have too!

Diana can effectively start at either buff (red or blue). Personally, I like to start on the side towards bot lane with the ADC, Support and Mid lane to get a strong leash. Right now in the current meta this is acceptable, however gameplay is forever changing in league so pay attention to the latest trends in laning and jungling. In my opinion, when you are jungling it is useful to ask for a ward on the opposite buff from where you are starting. For example, if you are starting Blue towards the bot lane, you should ask the top planer to ward Red around ~1:40 seconds to ensure it is not invaded.

You always want to start "W" when leveling Diana. It is helpful to bring out the Lizard or Golem while attacking before activating your W so they damage your target with the most health instead of hitting the smaller members of the camp. Diana's passive and AoE damage from her Q will help clear the rest of the camp quickly.

I would also suggest taking a camp, either wolves or wraiths in between your buffs. This will allow you to level another skill quicker and take the second buff faster - While you do this extra camp, do not use smite and save it for the second buff! This is extremely important while jungling and should be something you are aware of for the entire game. If you know either a buff, dragon, or baron will be spawning shortly, you should save smite to ensure the important camps are taken safely and as fast as possible.

Pre-6

As mentioned previously, Diana has very little gank potential pre-6 - However it is possible! Depending on what is happening in your lanes, you should take "E" at either 4 or 5, if you plan to help a lane. An ideal scenario for this would be the following: You are level 3 and taking the wraith camp - Normally, you would level up and probably take another point in Q or W, but you see that mid lane is getting pushed in by the enemy mid laner. This is a great situation to take an early point in "E" and and attempt to gank the lane. Try to angle yourself as best as possible to get behind the enemy champion and attack. As the enemy attempts to run away you can use your E and hope that your mid laner has enough follow up to get the kill or at least put down a significant amount of damage.
Pre-6 be very careful choosing to gank, it could end up just wasting your time and delaying level 6.

After level 6

Once you unlock your ultimate it's time to go HAM - Diana's Ultimate gives you options in how you want to approach ganking in various situations. Ideally, you would like to hit your "Q" and follow with an "R" - However,sometimes you should use your ult to get into position because the remaining abilities and autoattacks require Diana to be near the enemy champion. Here are two common scenarios that arise while ganking:

- Scenario 1 (Mid lane) The enemy champion has pushed your mid laner into their 1st tier tower, and you are position near the river brush. Because the enemy champion is so far up, I would suggest saving your "Q" and approaching with your "W". As you make contact with the enemy champion you will simultaneously melee and set off the "W" balls doing damage and granting you a temporary shield. The shield will help if you the fight becomes a dual and if the champion tries to escape you can use your "E" to ensure that all of the "W" balls deal damage. Meanwhile, you should continue to autoattack to build towards you melee passive on the 3rd strike. After the "E" slow or if the enemy flashes away use "Q", if successful you can ult the target and reset the cooldown. Then depending on the scenario you can immediately Ult again, putting it on max cooldown or wait for you "Q" to repeat the process.

- Scenario 2 (Mid lane) The enemy champion is in the middle of the lane but the scenario seems ideal to gank. Again, coming from the brush, line up your "Q" and hopefully hit the target. Immediately active your "W" and Ult to the enemy. (even if you missed your "Q" you can still do this, you just won't get the reset). Once you are on top of the enemy, continue to melee and use "E" to bring them closer to you and slow the target.

In both cases, if coordinated with your laner, this should result in a successful gank or at least a blown flash. Obviously, the champion match ups play a huge factor in ganking and your success rate. Diana has a better chance ganking a lane if your teammate has a slow or CC ability. On the other hand, Diana struggles if the enemy team has similar abilities.

Surprisingly, I have found that Diana can hold her own while getting invaded or countering jungling the enemy. Due to Diana's Q which grants vision and her W which provides a temporary shield she has potential to counter jungle as long as your Flash is available. From my experience, Diana can bully enemy junglers who are assassin based and struggle clearing camps early on. A few examples of this would be: Master Yi, Rengar, Evelyn and Kha'zix (although he does have an good escape).

You want to be careful when playing against junglers who are very mobile or tanky, because Diana does not have enough escape or damage to effect these champions early on. A few examples of this would be: Lee Sin, Jarvan, Dr. Mundo and Nautilus