Hi, welcome to my Diana guide. I'm Yamikaze, a Challenger Talon player. My peak rank is around 30 on the NA server and I ended rank 100 Challenger in Season 8.

Why Diana Masteries & Runes Summoner Spells Abilities

Ability Sequence Item Build Gameplay Conclusion

Conqueror - Diana quickly stacks Conqueror and can stay in fights easily with Nashors and passive autos. Would recommend running this unless you prefer 1shot Electro/Phase rush Diana.

Triumph - I think Triumph is slightly better for Diana as I find it more useful than Presence of Mind. Presence is good as well though.

Legend: Alacrity - More attack speed for dps. Tenacity is good as well if you prefer a more AP build or enemy team has a lot of cc.

Last Stand - I personally run Last Stand > Coup De Grace for all champs (Conqueror champs especially). I think it's a much stronger rune. Coup is fine as well if you prefer.

Taste of Blood - Gives 1-2 health pots in lane and goes up to ~1-2k by the end of the game. Easy for Diana to proc with Q. Sudden impact is fine if you prefer.

Ravenous Hunter - Gives you insane healing numbers and synergies with the rest of your runes/kit.

Run Flash/ignite for kill pressure (e.g. melee matchups or in skill levels where people don't respect Diana all in) and TP for harder poke matchups where you think you'll lack kill pressure. Take whichever you prefer depending on your playstyle.

Diana permanently has Attack speed icon 10% − 40% (based on level) bonus attack speed. After casting an ability, this bonus is tripled to 30% − 120% (based on level) for 3 seconds. Diana's basic attacks on-hit grant a stack for 3.5 seconds. At 2 stacks, Diana's next basic attack on-hit additionally cleaves nearby enemies for 20 − 250 (based on level) (+ 40% AP) magic damage, consuming all stacks. This damage is increased by 50% against Monster icon non-epic monsters.

A classic 3hit passive where you want to try and weave as many 3hit autos (or just 1-2 depending on dmg required) between your abilities as possible. Also makes it really easy for you to clear jungle camps between waves if the lane allows.

Diana unleashes a bolt of lunar energy that travels in a counter-clockwise arc before exploding at the target location, dealing magic damage to enemies hit and afflicting them with Moonlight for 3 seconds, revealing them for the duration.

Diana's bread-and-butter ability. Use this ability to clear waves and poke the enemy laner at the same time when possible. Since Crescent Strike comes out of Diana's RIGHT arm, we want to position ourselves slightly to the LEFT of the minion wave in order to maximize minions hit when pushing the wave. Similarly, we want to stand on the RIGHT of the minion wave if we DON'T want to push the minion wave with Crescent Strike. The hitbox of Crescent Strike expands to a larger circle at the end of its cast, so you'll generally want to aim this portion at the enemy laner. When casting this ability at melee range, make sure to swing it slightly past the enemy target as the hitbox fizzles out if you cast right on top of someone you're melee range of.

Diana shields herself for up to 5 seconds and creates three spheres that orbit her for the duration, detonating upon contact with an enemy and dealing magic damage to nearby enemies upon detonation.

Another important ability for trading as Diana. Pale Cascade allows for Diana to walk up and farm early in the lane without taking much harass from the enemy laner. Further, each orb can help you both secure last-hits and damage the enemy laner if they get too close. Some tips to remember when using this ability are: When last hitting under tower in laning phase, if you need to use Pale Cascade to secure a last-hit, be sure to cast Pale Cascade, auto-attack the minion, and step back before the next orb hits the minions. The next orb will damage the other minions of the same type (caster or melee) and prevent you from last-hitting them as the tower begins to hit those minions. If using Pale Cascade as part of your Lunar Rush combo, use it right BEFORE you reach the enemy. Since Lunar Rush puts you on top of the target, all of the orbs will instantly hit your target. However, if you activate Pale Cascade too early, some or all of the orbs will hit minions or other enemies along the way. Pale Cascade's cooldown begins after all the orbs disappear (either from hitting enemies or expiring). Thus, if you want Pale Cascade up as soon as possible, be sure to let all of the orbs hit enemies to put the ability on cooldown.

Diana Dash dashes to the target enemy's location, dealing them magic damage and consuming Crescent Strike Moonlight from all enemies. If the target is within 400 range, Diana will dash through their location.

Your primary engage ability. Usually you want to use this right after Q in a combo (you can start dashing when your Q is around ~70% of the way to the target). Try to save the last E use (that puts it on cd) for the end of the fight, but use it for dmg if necessary.

Reveals, draws in, and successively slows all nearby enemies for 2 seconds. If Diana pulls in at least one enemy Champion icon champion, she calls down a beam of moonlight after 1 second, dealing magic damage in an area around her, increased for each champion pulled beyond the first.

Your primary all-in cooldown. Gives rly good solokill pressure w/ the cc and damage so you can stay on the target and you 1v9 teamfights easily with a good r. Usually you want to q-e into a good r position in a teamfight and look for r-f whenever possible (cast r then flash right after). General rule is 2+ is a good ult, 3-4 is almost always fight won unless rly far behind or you get cc locked fast. Good to use hourglass after hitting a big ult if you think they'll burst you before it goes off. Also want to try and have conqueror stacked before ult for the heal.

Starting Items

We want to start Doran's Ring into every matchup. Diana is particularly mana hungry early on and Doran's Ring will solve this as well as provide excellent stats for laning.

Early Game

I usually buy my 2nd dorans ring on first back for early tanky + dmg in lane. Can skip or even go 3 dring if you prefer.

Rush this for damage and kill pressure in lane. Once you finish this item, you should be able to kill most mid laners from ~60% hp in 1 combo.

Buy these whenever you have spare 300 gold. You don't really need these but it's nice to have into poke matchups.

Core Items

I generally rush protobelt every game as it's a fast powerspike and you can be relevant in the game asap. Another viable build is Rod of Ages rush into the same rest of the build but it takes longer to scale and I'm not a huge fan of hoping your team doesnt feed until you come online.

Buy this second almost every game. It's your core teamfight and splitpush item and synergizes really well with your kit. 20% cdr is always nice to find early as well. Try to build Codex >> stinger as components as stinger isn't a good component to sit on.

Actually a broken item. Build this for tanky + insane item efficiency as a 3rd item almost every game (unless you're fed and wanna go dcap).

Buy this 3rd when ahead and you 1shot the enemy team. Hard to build when behind though as you lack the economy for the 2x large rods. Build this 4th in most games.

Good item versus AD assassins or general ad heavy teams. Also really strong in teamfights because you can R-hourglass to guarantee the damage without getting bursted down.

Boots

Usually your go-to boots unless you need defensive boots. Helps you snowball fast and gives you tons of burst. You will usually want to upgrade to tier 2 boots in general after Hextech Rocketbelt.

You want to buy these boots against burst AP mids with lots of CC (crowd-control, basically just disables) like Syndra or Ahri. Also good into CC heavy teams in general (think Nautilus, for example.)

Buy these into lots of auto-attack based champs (like ADCs, Yasuo, Riven, etc.). Also good into full AD teams.

Late Game

Buy this if multiple members of the enemy team are stacking MR (or if one high priority target is stacking MR). This usually happens either when you're really far ahead or when your team has lots of magic damage champions.

Buy these if the enemy team has lots of magic damage champions or has a very fed magic damage champion (think a fed Fizz or Syndra). Also great against poke heavy comps like Ezreal.

I sometimes buy this if I have a spare 1050g and a dark seal if I'm fed and feel like I can carry the game. Very cost effective but be careful about suiciding for kills or dying in general.

Laning Phase

Generally, Diana wants to farm in lane vs most ranged champions. Although Crescent Strike is a strong lane trading tool, you will lose most fights if you walk up to a ranged champion, as they will simply kite back while hitting you. Thus, we can simply use Pale Cascade to last-hit melee minions and and Crescent Strike to last-hit ranged minions. Play safe until level 6 or if you get a jungle gank. If you need to initiate a jungle gank, consider using Moonfall - Flash. This will almost always guarantee a kill if your jungler is in position.

However, against melee matchups, Diana wants to play more aggressive due to the trading strength of Pale Cascade. You can take a second point in Pale Cascade level 4 versus melee matchups as the point in Pale Cascade is more effective than Crescent Strike against melees. However, we must be wary of the enemy power spikes. For example, never try to trade with Talon at level 2 and respect a Pantheon's Spear Shot and Aegis of Zeonia range. By stepping back, farming with Crescent Strike, and avoiding trades when the enemy laner is strong and taking trades when you are stronger (usually level one and three, when you put points in Pale Cascade), nearly every melee matchup should be a breeze.


Approaching Teamfights
You will want to start every teamfight flanking both teams. A flank behind the enemy team is preferable but you just have to make sure the enemy front line isn't between you and the enemy squishies. Once the fight begins, watch and wait for the enemy frontline to use their CC (like Maokai's Twisted Advance or Malphite's Unstoppable Force). Once this has been used, watch for backline CC being used by anyone who can peel for the enemy squishy (usually a support, such as Janna's Monsoon. Although you can go in before the backline CC is used, it will be harder to kill your target. However, never go in before the frontline CC is used, as they will just use that CC on you and you will instantly die.


Target Selection as Burst Diana
Here's a hypothetical situation: You've made it past all the enemy CC. Now you can use your full combo to delete one squishy from the teamfight. Do you kill the 10-3-5 Ryze, the 2-3-8 Lucian, or the 0-1-10 Janna? Well, even I couldn't tell you which one to go for. Your mistake was not picking a target before the start of the fight.

Before a fight starts, you want to first consider which enemies you can even 1-shot. This list will usually include the enemy mid, bot, and support. From this list, you want to find the biggest threat to your team. This is usually the enemy that does the most damage but could also include the Soraka that keeps the whole team alive and makes it impossible for you to 1-shot the enemy carries.

Now, you've narrowed down your list of targets to 1 or 2 (in our hypothetical situation, this would be Ryze and Lucian). First, check for items like Guardian Angel, Stopwatch, or Zhonya's Hourglass. This is incredibly important as a well-timed stopwatch or hourglass often decides a fight. If your target has one of these items, reconsider whether it's worth burning all your cooldowns to pop either the GA passive or force the hourglass. So, let's assume Ryze has a completed hourglass. If you judge that forcing the 10-3-5 Ryze to stasis for 2.5 seconds is worth more than a kill on the 2-3-8 Lucian, then go for Ryze. However, if you judge that killing Lucian then going for Ryze as a team is the better option, go for Lucian.

Another factor high elo players consider are summoner spell cooldowns. This can be a bit overwhelming if you're newer to the game, but timing summoner spells are incredibly important once you get to around Diamond 1 or above. It's actually pretty simple. To do this, make sure to have your chat timestamps enabled. For example, if the enemy Syndra flashes, click on the flash on the scoreboard (lets say, hypothetically, she flashes at 13:30). Then, when you're walking to lane or backing, simply add 5 minutes to the flash timestamp. Afterwards, type something like "mid f 1830," with 1830 meaning 18:30. You can do the same with heal (4 minute cd), barrer (3 minute cd), teleport (5 minute cd), ignite (3.5 minute cd), and etc. Remember that Unsealed Spellbook and CDR boots reduce summoner spell cooldowns.


Diana's Combos

NOTE: In this section, AA stands for auto-attack, Q W E R are abilities, 2AA is two auto-attacks on minions before the combo for a Moonsilver Blade proc on the next auto-attack, and Wait2.5 is wait 2.5 seconds before using Lunar Rush after landing Crescent Strike to buy time for your next Crescent Strike to come up.

Combo #1
Standard Trading Combo
Note: This combo is your standard trading combo in lane with ult. Use this when you want to trade with the enemy laner but you don't have the damage to kill them with an all-in combo. Further, if you don't have any minions nearby for the Moonsilver Blade proc, keep in mind that your combo will do reduced damage. Make sure your Crescent Strike is at least halfway to the enemy target before you use Lunar Rush. Then, use Pale Cascade as you approach your target. Once you reach the target, auto-attack to proc Moonsilver Blade and then back off. Use Moonfall and continue the trade if you're post-6 and looking for a kill.




Combo #2
Maximum Damage All-In Combo for Lane
Note: This combo plays out very similarly to the combos previous. However, we hit a Crescent Strike on the enemy target before the engage, wait as long as possible for the cooldown (the mark lasts 3 seconds, so we want use Lunar Rush in at 2.5 seconds), then go in, auto-attack a few times, then Crescent Strike into Lunar Rush, auto attack a few more times, and finish them off with the final Lunar Rush. This combo will often give you just enough damage to kill a higher health enemy. Further, the last Lunar Rush can be used to follow the enemy Flash.





Combo #3
Fast Burst For Finishing Off Lower HP Targets
Note: This combo is used to finish off low health targets in a teamfight or skirmish. Simply use Lunar Rush onto the enemy target and Pale Cascade mid-dash. A few auto-attacks or R after this combo may be necessary to finish off targets.





Combo #4
Fast Moonfall Cast
Note: The way this “combo” works is if you cast Flash right after Moonfall, then Moonfall cast will center around where you are AFTER the Flash, not before. Use this to set up large ults in teamfights or to catch out of position enemies in lane.

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