Champion Select — Diana, Scorn of the Moon

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Shadows cast by moonlight have a disquieting life to them. They whisper of secrets and hidden horrors, lurking beyond the threshold of comforting vision — perhaps revealing, by chance, a glimmer of secret amid the shadows, leading to a trove of condemned secrets and ancient shame.

The night hides a multitude of secrets within its dark veil… including justice, furtively executed. Where the all-burning light rules tyrannically, it is only through the shadows that the righteous may work.

In the name of the moon, Diana will punish you.

DIANA’S ABILITIES

Moonsilver Blade (passive) – Diana has a constant 20% bonus to her base attack speed, and deals additional area-of-effect magic damage with every third strike.  Moonsilver Blade’s bonus damage scales with both level and ability power, making her both an excellent jungler and AP-based melee bruiser.

Crescent Strike (Q) – Diana fires off a curved skill-shot nuke, striking all enemies it passes through and afflicting  them with Moonlight, revealing them for three seconds. Because of the curved area of effect, it is somewhat difficult to hit, yet rather difficult to dodge in turn. Whereas straight skill-shots can be easily juked with sidesteps, muscle memory will be in conflict with Crescent Strike’s safe zone.

Pale Cascade (W) – Diana shields herself with three orbs of moonlight. If a sphere comes in contact with an enemy unit, it will explode and deal AOE damage in a small area around that unit. If all three orbs are consumed, her shield is refreshed and will protect her for an additional 4 seconds, giving her a maximum of eight seconds of protection.

Moonfall (E) – Diana summons the gravitational force of the moon, pulling in all enemy units in a short radius around her and slowing them for two seconds. Because the radius of the ability is only somewhat larger than melee range, Diana is required to be up close to an intended target for full effect.

Lunar Rush (R) – Diana dashes to an enemy, causing an explosion of magic damage. If the target is afflicted with Moonlight, the debuff is consumed on all targets and Lunar Rush’s cooldown is refreshed, allowing Diana to teleport to another victim without waiting for the full cooldown.

ANALYSIS

Between Pale Cascade and Moonsilver Blade, Diana can be considered one of the first true AP junglers since the jungle remake. Her clear time is incredibly quick and relatively cheap on mana usage, making her difficult to successfully counterjungle.

While her initial clear is great, it is a bit tricky for her to transition into ganks before level six. Moonfall is her only ganking tool before then, and its short range requires her to run right up to the enemy to be effective. As her damage is high, she synergizes well with a CC-heavy team, where her lack of utility is not a handicap.

Once she hits six, Diana becomes a major threat. Diana becomes a tanky, jungle-capable Akali, hitting with Crescent Strike from behind walls to tackle victims with Lunar Rush. Unlike Akali, she’s more than willing to initiate fights – the shield refresh on Pale Cascade grants her an impressive amount of survivability, and the area of effect on Crescent Strike makes it difficult to keep her off the enemy carry.

Landing Crescent Strike is the most difficult aspect of her kit. While it’s a great skill on its own, dealing a lot of damage and setting up for an incredibly powerful burst, smartcasting it may not be a great idea, given its inconstant width and tapering. To make best use of Crescent Strike, aim it somewhat counterclockwise of the enemy position, relative to Diana.

Beyond the jungle, Diana’s mobility and damage exerts a strong presence in mid lane. Crescent Strike’s long range and target-piercing mechanic is great for harassing, and her passive lets her push turrets easily, setting up for ganks or steals on the enemy Wraith camp. The range on Lunar Rush is roughly equal to Crescent Strike. Her mid lane gameplay after level six should play like LeBlanc, suddenly appearing from halfway down the lane to blow up unwary casters the moment she lands her Q. Unlike LeBlanc, however, there’s no danger of accidentally hitting a minion instead.

However, against opponents with hard CC, she might want to hold off on charging in. As with her lore counterpart Leona, Diana’s all-in gameplay leaves her extremely vulnerable when disrupted. While Pale Cascade offers some wiggle-room, bad positioning and rushed initiation will leave her just as dead as she intends her target to be.

There are two ways to build Diana. The Glass Cannon build, incorporating Lich Bane and Rabadon’s Deathcap, maximizes her burst potential. Assuming all else goes well, a mid- and late-game Diana can dive enemy carries at will, taking them out in half a second. Alternatively, because of how well her autoattacks scale with both AP and attack speed, she can build for a strong split-push with Abyssal Scepter, Sorceror’s Shoes and Wit’s End or Ionic Spark, maximizing her attack speed and magic penetration to quickly push turrets and rip through minions, as well as deal respectable mid-game damage in fights.

While it might be tempting to go the attack speed route as a jungler, minimizing your clear time, Diana’s lack of an escape mechanism makes her split-push risky. You should only ever use this build when Teleport is a viable option: while laning.

THE NIGHT WILL LAST FOREVER

Good tankiness, good base damage values and AP scaling, and one of the fastest jungle clears in the game: Diana absolutely reeks of power. While she’s mostly stuck farming prior to her ultimate, every gank afterward is game-changing. Once you’ve mastered Crescent Strike, you’ve mastered the art of blowing up enemy carries.

The low cooldown on Lunar Rush is especially unfair. Given her great dueling passive and shield, she is almost guaranteed to force a Flash out from her target, only for her to loop back in just half a minute with both Crescent Strike and Lunar Rush off cooldown.

The lack of any real risk for using Lunar Rush without Crescent Strike makes her incredibly difficult to counter.  As it is, with some cooldown reduction and max rank on Crescent Strike, she’s able to hop merrily through an entire fight while keeping Lunar Rush off cooldown. While having the skill to do this should be rewarded, Pale Cascade’s refreshing shield lets her get away with too many mistakes.

Tags: diana, featured

Category: Champion Select