Diana: Runes and items?

DW Diana·Apr 20, 2018·1 votes·1,249 views

Hi all,

So last season I used to play a bit of diana, and had a fair amount of success, so with the nerf to mages and the age of the assassin coming in I felt it might be time to dust off my old assassin/diver.

My problem is there seems to be a huge variety of builds being used, with items like roa, nashors tooth, protobelt, lichbane and gunblade being rushed first, and runes varying from electrocute to phase rush and even unsealed spellbook.

Just wondering if there's anyone out there who can advise of the best rune/item choices, their reasoning, and matchups that it works best against.

I'm looking for people with EXPERIENCE not people who can use Google and quote random statistics.

Cheers!

Loki

4 Comments

VerðandiApr 20, 20181 votes

I wouldn't recommend playing Diana at the moment, there's a bug with her Q hitbox that makes it really wonky and unreliable. As someone who's player her a ton over 4 years, it was very very disorienting to use, and feels bad at the moment.

Hopefully Riot will pay some attention to her though, and get this sorted out.

But just some Information from personal experience. Diana is deceptively tanky, so if your going into a comp where you need to survive for a few seconds, I tend to go R.O.A's into defensive items such as Zhonyas(for example, a team that can go untargettable, or invulnerable for a few). People underestimate how tanky you are, so it catches people by surprise. If you want to snowball just right away, and play hyper aggressive, rush a hextech item, or ludens. There's a argument for Sheen, if your good at timing your passive with sheen procs. I only recommend this against people you know you can avoid get poked out of lane with early on, such as most melee matchups. You have to survive laning phase with Diana, otherwise your almost useless the rest of the game(though I've had luck building bruiser after a bad laning phase). If you miss your powerspike window at 6, and don't catch up, you have to try for ganks elsewhere, usually bottom lane.

Look at your team comp and see what you need, Diana can double as a engage with a R.O.A and a defensive AP item(around 20 minute mark, if you managed to build a ROA fast enough), so if your lacking a tank, try to help the team and pick up some resistance to get that Dive going. Her E is great for pulling people off carries to, if you want to try and bodyguard a bit for your hyper carries, don't be scared. Remember it's a team game, help your teammates, and they'll help you...hopefully.

Runes is really up to how your team is built. I tend to use Sorcery aery and Scorch if i'm going hyper aggressive with Q pokes. If it's someone I can't poke easily or often, might try domination(added burst when you DO get to them), or phrase rush(safe disengage or sticking power if you get to them). A argument can even be made for Fleet footwork, but i'm not a huge fan of precision tree on Diana. Don't underestimate resolve as a good secondary tree, all of it helps mitigate some damage to you, to win trades, or survive in the middle of a team dive.

I've been struggling on Diana lately though with the Q issues, she's usually my go to mid laner, especially as a first or second blind pick. So I'd say stick away from her for now. Hope this helps a bit though.

DW DianaApr 21, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I wouldn't recommend playing Diana at the moment, there's a bug with her Q hitbox that makes it really wonky and unreliable. As someone who's player her a ton over 4 years, it was very very disorienting to use, and feels bad at the moment.

Hopefully Riot will pay some attention to her though, and get this sorted out.

But just some Information from personal experience. Diana is deceptively tanky, so if your going into a comp where you need to survive for a few seconds, I tend to go R.O.A's into defensive items such as Zhonyas(for example, a team that can go untargettable, or invulnerable for a few). People underestimate how tanky you are, so it catches people by surprise. If you want to snowball just right away, and play hyper aggressive, rush a hextech item, or ludens. There's a argument for Sheen, if your good at timing your passive with sheen procs. I only recommend this against people you know you can avoid get poked out of lane with early on, such as most melee matchups. You have to survive laning phase with Diana, otherwise your almost useless the rest of the game(though I've had luck building bruiser after a bad laning phase). If you miss your powerspike window at 6, and don't catch up, you have to try for ganks elsewhere, usually bottom lane.

Look at your team comp and see what you need, Diana can double as a engage with a R.O.A and a defensive AP item(around 20 minute mark, if you managed to build a ROA fast enough), so if your lacking a tank, try to help the team and pick up some resistance to get that Dive going. Her E is great for pulling people off carries to, if you want to try and bodyguard a bit for your hyper carries, don't be scared. Remember it's a team game, help your teammates, and they'll help you...hopefully.

Runes is really up to how your team is built. I tend to use Sorcery aery and Scorch if i'm going hyper aggressive with Q pokes. If it's someone I can't poke easily or often, might try domination(added burst when you DO get to them), or phrase rush(safe disengage or sticking power if you get to them). A argument can even be made for Fleet footwork, but i'm not a huge fan of precision tree on Diana. Don't underestimate resolve as a good secondary tree, all of it helps mitigate some damage to you, to win trades, or survive in the middle of a team dive.

I've been struggling on Diana lately though with the Q issues, she's usually my go to mid laner, especially as a first or second blind pick. So I'd say stick away from her for now. Hope this helps a bit though.

That's great, thank you for taking the time for this very well thought out reply! I have discovered the same issue with diana's q in the last couple of days, and have also reverted from Bloodmoon skin to Dark Valkyrie to be able to spot this out much easier (though it does slow down my q r combo as I kind of have to wait till q hits before using r unless I'm feeling very safe.)

I've always liked how tanky diana is, with her W giving so much shield, and have been running her with bone plating and chrysalis secondary. I've also tried starting dorans ring and backing early for another and a dark seal to improve my early tankiness, though tbh i've found a ruby crystal and amp tome tend to do more for me as they build well into most things.

Funny you should say about being behind, I was 1/8 in my first game back on her (I know! Midlane feeder but at least it was a normal :P), yet once i finished gunblade, sorc boots and an oblivion orb I was able to do almost true damage and could 1 shot their fed carry and mage support in one q r e w combo. Still lost (couldn't carry our bot lane) but finished 11/10 which i felt was pretty good considering my horrendous start! xD

I do like the idea of roa for the tankiness, especially if you get ahead and want to invest in the midgame, but how worthwhile is serephs and nashors tooth on her?

Thanks again for all the help, much appreciated.

Dead flag bluesApr 21, 20181 votes

item 3157 item 3115 item 3100 item 3152 item 3089 / item 3135 glass cannon (Lich can be replaced by void, it's not a core item)

item 3001 item 3157 item 3025 item 3115 (or item 3091 ) item 3068 juggernaut / battle mage

DW DianaApr 21, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Dead flag blues,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AM9Faq45,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-04-21T10:12:50.882+0000)

/ glass cannon (Lich can be replaced by void, it's not a core item)

(or ) juggernaut / battle mage

The first one seems similar to my s7 build (though i tended to get liandry's over protobelt for the magic pen), the second one i've never seen before so will have to give a try. Thanks :)