she's legitimately a monster up there.
i run her with Grasp, Shield bash, bone plating, and revitalize. first point in w and max w first. she is an instant trade god. at level 1 you can pop shield on them for 80 dmg, with another 70 added in from shield bash+auto. the best part? you can time this on your 3 hit passive along with grasp of the undying.
57 ad + 60 magic damage, 30 shield bash, 80 from shield, and % health with grasp in one trade is nuts.
it works cuz no one is expecting to play vs diana top. as soon as they know and can counter pick it or pick accordingly so on it wont be as big of an advantage
hence why off meta works sometimes
it used to be a thing. maybe it is good but no one does it. if its good just keep doing it.
pros just copy what others are doing (usually koreans). rare they make their own unique strat. Pyke top was an EU thing for example and taric/sona bot same thing. just no one really tried.
Horrible base stats and is beat by every other meta top laner, I’ve tried
This is just a guess but...
She's mana dependent. She lacks escapes. She has not built-in sustain. She doesn't have reliable Crowd Control for disengaging enemies.
There are many top lane champions that fit some of those categories, but I doubt any of them have all of the problems I just listed.
And her kit is designed to all in a priority squishy target so that even if she falls behind in lane, she still has the option of roaming from mid to bot or even mid to top to acquire much needed kills elsewhere whereas positioning her top limits her options even further.
i used to do that when diana wasn't atrocious
Easily gankable. Cant 1v2 has mana. breaks team comp meta- not by much, but by enough to matter once late game comes around.
Shes about as good as Nocturne top, they function in the lane, but they are easy to gank and dont fit well into team compositions later on. Which leaves you being impactless
As a Diana 1-Trick since her release, I've run her top for years. I tend to run Mid/Top(Though for a couple seasons I actually ran Top/Mid quite often). It totally CAN work, but with the current toplane meta she just gets smacked more often than not. She can be an amazing splitpusher/Late-mid game beast, but in that long unsafe lane it can be a real problem to get her there.
It can work great, it's just not ideal especially due to the current toplane meta. Back before the mage item changes/Diana number changes/etc when she could rush RoA into Abyssal Staff or Zhonya's to become a good bit beefier I loved running her there though. Lately I've been considering running jungle or even botlane as my second role though. Too many bad matchups top.
(Though, she can be an amazing botlane carry. Pair her with a support who can play safe until 6 and has some good hard CC and it's nasty. Just gotta play super super super safe until 6, and definitely won't work in some matchups.)
