Introduction
I recently transferred from the Jungle to Midlane, and when I was in the Jungle, Diana was my secondary Pic behind Kayn. In the Jungle, Diana is a decent champ, because Jingle XP and Gold help alleviate a lot of her problems, but in Midlane the full scale of her issues dawned upon me, and I decided to come up with a Diana Kit Rebuild. Nothing major is changed, instead it adds and modifies things so that Diana would hopefully be in a better place, both in Midlane and Jungle.
So what is Diana’s Major problem? Well Diana is part of the Diver class, which itself is a hybrid of the Fighter and Assassin classes. The AD counterpart to Diana is Jarvan. Both have a Shield, both have empowered Autos on their passive, both have a teamfight Ult and CC, and both have really good mobility. But Jarvan always specs into Bruiser or Tank items, because AD Bruiser Items are good, but AP Bruiser Items are nonexistent. So Jarvan is a Diver who specs into Bruiser because he can, and Diana specs into Assassin because she has to. Alright, on the surface level that’s fine. Realistically that’s an issue with Items, but thats outside the scope of this.
The second issue is that Diana is an all or nothing champ. By definition, Assassins are high risk, high reward champs that they to kill the carry, at the cost of getting obliterated if they do not. Diana embodies this sentiment, as her full damage combo is some form of E < Ult, with the rest of her item actives, skills and Passive thrown in there. Once she goes in, she has to kill somebody, otherwise she will get obliterated and die with no result. The issue comes into play, in that like Jarvan, she has Bruiser capabilities and characteristics. Unlike Jarvan however, she can only go in and fight her way out, she has no escape. Bruiser will always have lower AD/AP Ratios because they make up for it by having defensive abilities so that they can sustain that damage, but where Jarvan can make use of that with a way to gwt out of danger and disengage, Diana does not. Assassins sacrifice this utility and defensive capability for mobility and raw damage. What this means is that Diana as a champ is forced into an Assassin Role, forces onto Assassin Items, but with Ratios and Abilities that she cannot use effectively, because her Bruiser level Ratios and abilities are just not enough.
So why does Bruiser/Tank Diana not work anymore? Well the first thing is that the build path is extraordinarily Gold Hungry and only comes online at about 3 items. This means that on Mid it’s functionally impossible to do this, cause your income is not enough, and you sacrifice priorities and lane control. Jungle on the other hand has the Gold and XP to make it work, but you sacrifice objective control in the early game, and that’s means relying on your team which is dicey in SoloQ, and in coordinated play you want early game prio. Beyond that, there is one more big issue. Remember how I said that Divers are a mix of Assassin amd Bruisers? Well with Bruiser abilities and Ratios, Diana is also saddled with Assassin like health. This is because her Ult is a damn good teamfighting ability, and if your team is even a little coordinated, then it can become a blistering engage. So to balance that out, she has Assassin levels of health. Where Jarvan can make up for that with Bruiser items like Goredrinker and Black Cleaver, Assassin items typically do not come with health, which is good we should not make Assassins that are safe to play. But Diana hasno way to get the health and resistances that come with Bruiser Items. The durability update helped, which is why Sunfire Diana was viable for a while, but Sunfire got obliterated and the Durability Update on its own cannot carry all the problems of Diana.
In total, Diana is a champ that’s half Assassin-half Bruiser, can only use her her Assassin half, and has no way to access her Bruiser half, nor the tools/stats she needs for a viable Bruiser build. Not to mention that CDR is completely pointless on Diana, but that’s a separate can of worms. So where does this leave us? Well, for now we have to spec into Assassin, so this kit Rebuild is going to skew her more towards Assassin and away from Bruiser.
Rework:
Passive:
- Every third Auto Attack deals 20-220 + 50% AP > Every Auto Attack deals 10-75 + 20% AP OnHit.
Q:
- 60/95/130/165/200 + 70% AP > 60/95/130/165/200 + 90% AP to first enemy champion hit, reduced to + 65% AP on subsequent enemies hit
W:
- New Effect: Enemies hit with an Sphere have 10% Reduced Magic Resist for the next 3 seconds. This effect can stack multiple times on the same enemy.
- No longer doubles Shield if all 3 Orbs are detonated
E:
- 50/70/90/110/130 + 60% AP > 60/75/90/105/120 + 75% AP
- New Effect: Diana can dash to allies.
- New Effect: Takedowns within 3.5 seconds of the casting of this ability refreshes its cooldown.
- Cooldown 22/20/18/16/14 seconds > 20 Seconds at all ranks
R:
- Damage triggers after 0.5 Seconds instead of 1 second after pull in.
Analysis
So now lets breakdown what each change does in depth, and how/why I think they would help push her into a more Assassin-like role.
The Passive change is a buff. After 3 Autos, the net Magic Damage OnHit is 60% AP instead of 50%. Whats important however, is that you do not need to wait for the 3rd Auto to unleash all that damage. Right now, you build AP, but your passive means that the majority of Autos will be doing jack shit because AP has no effect on Auto Attacks. By giving her Magic Damage OnHit, it means that she can constantly be putting out Magic Damage, and therefore when she goes in for a Dive, she does not need to tank 2 tower shots + enemy damage before her Burst comes out. And again, we buff her AP Ratios to a net 60% AP, which is a nice damage boost in conjunction with all the other stuff she is going to get.
The Q change is mostly a damage tweak. Honestly, her Q is fine as is, but I wanted to skew her more towards single target Burst, so this change makes her Q stronger against the first enemy champion hit, but deals reduced damage to all other enemies. This is basically a raw damage buff, but I figure that a an Assassin she does need Damage, and this was a good way to make sure she is not throwing out absolutely nuclear strikes every 10 seconds. Not much to say here, beyond that its a damage buff
The W change is what I revolved a lot of her kit around. Right now, her Shield id being used exactly for the shield. Its a Bruiser ability, but it also can deal minute amounts of damage. With this change, it pushes it away from a defensive ability and towards offense. The Shield doubling capability is removed, as it was a nice feature but not really that impactful, and in exchange each Orb now reduced a target’s Magic Resist by 10%. This in addition to the damage buffs, gives a large amount of burst to her. In addition, it is not 30% Unconditional Magic Penetration, because all 3 Orbs can hit different targets, which means that against isolated enemies, yes it will sting but Assassins are designed to obliterate isolated squishies. In a 5v5, you cannot guarantee that they will all hit the same targets.
The E buff is a damage change, but the new effects are the keys to the castle. As I mentioned above, a critical flaw that Diana has, is that not only is she stuck in a hybrid design, but that unlike other Assassins or Bruisers like Jarvan, once she goes in, she cannot get back out, which sucks when her ratios are this bad. By giving her the ability to dash to allies, it means that if she goes straight into the enemy team, she can get back out, at the cost of her E being on a 20 second cooldown. Now, to fit more with her Dive nature, I would give her an ability refresh on takedowns, which would give her access to more mobility, which Assassins are known for and kinda need, but also a way to get out of dodge. Right now, if you go too Bot Lane and Tower Dive, you might get a kill, but you will also be blasted by turret shots and enemy damage. With these changes so far, you can get your kill and get out without having to tank 5 turret shots.
The R change is a QoL change more than anything else. Yes, you should be able to force a flash in exchange for Ulting, but with the increase in Mobility, the delay means that if you are not an ADC or Immobile Mage, you are not getting hit by this ability. Having enemies be able to waste your Ult with the cast of a singular ability type sucks, especially when a potential engage in a 5v5 team fight just results in you dashing in, ripping everything, and all for nothing to happen. By decreasing the delay, you can still force Summoner Spells, but the reaction window is decreased, and therefore only the more precise timing can dodge the damage.
Summary:
So this is kinda it. Because the AP Items that Diana can build heavily skew towards Burst, I wanted to rebuild her into a full on Assassin. As you probably read, i took a lot of inspiration from Jarvan 4, as they feel like AP and AD Counterparts to each other. Let me know what you think about these changes, cause as much as I love Diana as a champ, it has been a looooooonnnnnngggggg time since her glory days.
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