How I think Diana should be reworked
[This is a throwback to a thread i did on GD.]
Let's help the moon lady. I'd like to drastically change her kit while making her play-patterns similar to live. I went for a bruiser-like pattern, focusing on sustained damage rather than burst, and giving her strong AoE CC for teamfight scenarios.
Additionally, i want to make more interaction with the Moonlight debuff and add an additional debuff.
Keep in mind, I specifically kept the rework with as little numbers as possible, because this is about the design aspect, not the balance aspect of her kit.
Without further ado, let's go.
Passive - Moonsilver Blade
Every third attack against the same target, Diana cleaves targets around her, dealing magic damage to all of them. Targets who have been affected by Moonlight receive additional damage based on their current health (or just flat damage) and are applied the Moonlight debuff again for 3 seconds. Applies the Moonstruck debuff for 3 seconds on the primary target. Diana also has additional attack speed.
Now, this is new. This locks some of her power into her Moonlight debuff. You may be thinking that since her QR removes all Moonlight debuffs, she may never have access to it. Read on.
Q - Waxing Strike
Diana launches a projectile that arcs to her right. Enemies struck by Waxing Strike take magic damage and are afflicted with Moonlight, granting sight of them for 3 seconds. In the next 3 seconds, Diana can cast Waning Strike at no cost.
Q - Waning Strike
Diana launches a projectile that arcs to her left. Enemies struck by Waning Strike take magic damage and are afflicted with Moonlight, granting sight of them for 3 seconds.
The combined damage should be slightly higher than live. Like, first cast doing 50% of live values and the second one dealing 75% of it. This gives Diana more access to Moonlight debuffs, which interact with all her other skills. it's her primary source of moonlight debuffs, aside from her ultimate, which we'll get to later.
W - Pale Cascade
Diana gains a temporary shield and creates three spheres that orbit her, both for to 5 seconds. The spheres detonate on contact with an enemy unit, dealing magic damage to enemies around Diana. If all three spheres detonate, the shield is reapplied and the duration is refreshed. This second shield stacks with the original shield. This second shield's strength is increased by a set percentage for every Orb detonation that damaged an enemy afflicted by Moonlight.
Another interaction with Moonlight. This is gonna be a thing, y'know. This gives her more strength when going balls deep and less strength at general shielding from poke. What it essentially does is make it a battle shield, making it the most powerful when you play aggressive. I may change it to "every champion or big monster" from "enemy" so you don't get the bigger shield while just generally faffing about in the middle of a minion wave that you recently Q'd.
Additionally, makes the explosions centered on Diana, not on the sphere
E - Lunar Rush
Diana becomes the living embodiment of the vengeful moon, rushing at an enemy afflicted by Moonlight and dealing magic damage to it. This applies the Moonstruck debuff for 3 seconds on the target and removes every Moonlight debuff that's not on an enemy champion Diana cannot use Lunar Rush on a target afflicted by Moonstruck.
And now we have the tie-in with the passive. Basically, you can only dash to targets who have Moonlight on them, but don't have Moonstruck on them. This means that if you just QE'd someone and start bashing away at them, you don't lose your damage from Passive if Moonlight just happens to run out (because it prolongs it), but they are still able to disengage without you immediately being able to E them to make their retreat moot. E has no cooldown, since it can only be used on Moonlit targets, it's just roundabout to give it a reset. It also doesn't remove all Moonlight debuffs anymore.
IDEAS:
- How about it applies onhits, therefore applying one stack of passive and all of her other onhits? Dunno, just a thought i had.
R - Eclipse
Diana draws in all nearby enemies to her location, slowing them for 2 seconds afterwards. Each enemy champion pulled that has the Moonlight debuff on them grants Diana a small amount of resistances for a brief time. In the next 8 seconds, Diana can cast Moonfall at no cost.
R - Moonfall
Diana stabs her blade into the ground, sending a shockwave in a cone in front of her, knocking back and damaging affected enemies, additionally applying Moonlight on them for 3 seconds.
This removes the slow from Eclipse. This gives Diana a second way to apply Moonlight. The extra resists on ult may be too much. It should be a Thresh-like knockback, as opposed to a Janna-like knockback. Basically a ~100 unit nudge, rather than a full-length push. Basically i wanted to lock her ult damage to a skillshot, but not change her pull shape.
EDIT For reference sake, I imagined her Q dealing moderate damage, W and E being on the low end, and R being moderate-to-high (being her only real burst). How i saw it when i wrote it up, i saw her using her passive as the axis of her damage. Everything else merely enables her to apply her passive via sticking to a target or survive while doing it in her W case.
