The status of Diana and what's great about her

I've been watching Scarra's stream and I was really pleasantly surprised to see him playing Diana. However, I was also filled with a bit of shame, because I realized I had stopped playing this champion who I used to love so much because of her playstyle and IronStylus's devotion, just because of how odd she feels to play in this meta and in her current state. I just wanted to write my current thoughts on her and see what other people were thinking, maybe even get some news on her supposed update.

Last I heard, the direction that designers were taking with Diana was to make her more of a persistent-DPS bruiser. I actually support this, but let's start off with Diana in her current iteration as assassin. Comparing to other champions of a similar bent can be dangerous because all champions are created differently, but let's try to find what makes Diana compelling in the way she's currently played!

In her initial release, Diana's power came from her absolutely stupid damage. However, that's not really what her concept emphasizes. What sets other assassins apart - what makes them unique? For Zed, it's his outplay potential through zone control, mobility, and the potential to dodge damage. Talon has AoE damage and stealth (and he used to have a quite defining silence, but that was obviously unhealthy). Akali has resets and an energy system that allow her to snowball like no other, and Ahri has some of the best pick potential in the game, and again, high mobility.

Now the thing about Diana is "high mobility" actually isn't one of her defining traits; sure, she goes in, but coming out again isn't really what she's about. Although her ult-Q interaction is compelling, it's her shield and Moonfall that really define her as different from other assassins. If we take that in conjunction with her Q, we can see that out of all the assassins, Diana's AoE impact is actually one of the highest, and perhaps most importantly, she can actually engage. In addition - and I have to stress that I really do love the ult mechanic - it's those skills, not her ult, that are the most related to her character as a living vassal of the moon.

Now, what does this mean? Well, there's a few different ways to approach this. The first is to keep Diana as an assassin, and in that case she needs to be tuned more towards damage because it was her inherent bulkiness that made her so powerful in the first place. Suggestions towards that could include W or E applying Moonlight - probably overpowered as hell, but just thinking - or reducing her Q's cooldown at later ranks.

But I'm of the mindset that emphasizing what makes a champ unique is what creates more textured gameplay, and while it is painful to say goodbye to Diana as an assassin, its her bruiser aspects that really connect with her as a character. Her W is in a perfect spot, but E is what has so much room to add to and really defines her. I said I was watching Scarra - well, one thing he said about his problem with Moonfall is that it feels weird to have it on such a long cooldown for just utility. I'm personally against increasing the strength of Moonfall on just one cast - Assassins with long cc can feel frustrating to play against, as Talon and LeBlanc proved. What is a potential adjustment is drastically reducing the cooldown of Moonfall. This further emphasizes Diana's unique strengths as AoE and an engager, and would make interesting gameplay where what's dangerous about her is not her damage, but rather that every so often she has an AoE disable. Of course, the damage on her other skills would have to be drastically reduced, but not necessarily the mechanics - now the point of hitting your Q-R combo is to reposition for a maximum impact Moonfall the next time it's up.

This is super disorganized and it's just something I jotted down mainly because I want to hear other people, so feel free to rip it to shreds! That said, I'd love it if a Rioter involved with Diana could possibly tell us what's going on with her right now.