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So, Diana. In what world is she balanced? None?

Niyumi··3 votes·1,535 views

I REALLY do not understand in what world Diana is even remotely balanced. THE MOMENT she hit level 6, she instantly killed me. The match before, I was against a Veigar, and I could kill him relatively easily, since I landed everything on him with Syndra. Playing against Diana as Syndra, my MAX RANK Q did maybe 100 damage to her, whereas everything she had hit me for over 300 (the more MR I built, the harder she hit, too, while I did less and less damage to her) -- and it's all targeted / non-aimed.

  • Stupidly high base resists that make harassing / poking her meaningless, 'cause you do no damage anyway.

  • ABSURD damage that's even more ridiculous because of how simplistic her kit is and how passively tanky she is.

  • Incredible stickiness for no good reason.

  • A shield that gets stronger if she's in your face (which is always)

  • Zero counterplay to her kit, minus staying out of range of her R (Oh, just CC her or throw her back! Yeah, until she pushes R again and flies at you yet again).

Can anyone explain to me how Diana is balanced? At all? I'd love to know, really. I just had a Diana go 11/1, her ONLY death being where THREE PEOPLE on my team ganged up on her and CC chained her for a good 10 seconds (she lived that long), and we all had to blow every CD we had, and I even had to use Ignite.

So, please, enlighten me. Tell me how she's balanced.

On that same note, Vayne. She is still broken as hell -- but at least you can hurt her.

24 Comments

Angry Monster7 votes

You need to look at your runes and masteries compared to dia's.

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2027754008/228953398?tab=builds&participant=2

lets start with the fact your runes are a mess and need to be fixed. Then your mastery page is horrible and page 3 would of been better (best one out of what you have made). You are running bandit in the mid lane so you can get 1 gold every time you miss a CS and are not taking the high scaling AP burst materies. In game you rushed a tear on syndra and had 0 damage boast till 15 minutes, GREEDY PLAY. just so you know deathfire touch is a poke mastery and dia does not want to play that game.

What dia does correctly. She has the correct rune page and masteries. She takes the cunning tree for flat pen into thunderloards so she can burst you. She also has the merciless mastery to amp up her damage. Dia went back for early power to roll the early game ( 2 doran rings).

You are playing syndra wrong and do not understand the match up at all for dia. The reason you did no damage to her is that you did not build damage. Dia went for a snowball start and abused your extremely greedy/passive build.

Dia is not OP you just need to study up a bit more. You do not understand what you are doing and the consequences that those decisions have.

Niyumi1 votes

Way to come up with reasons that sound somewhat convincing to make the masses to protect your freelo. Good job, there. ^^

Second, I've been complaining about Diana FAR, FAR longer than preseason. She has been absolutely broken for as long as I can remember; taking zero amount of effort or thought, yet winning nearly every fight she gets into.

There is not one champion I've ever beaten Diana with, minus Azir since he can poke from outside of her Q range -- and even then, she lands one Q and I'm instantly dead if I don't have my R.

She is not balanced by any means. Her kit has zero counterplay outside of stay out of her R range -- cause, honestly, she doesn't even need the second R to kill you.

Cremepie2 votes

That's like complaining that darius is OP because you failed to dodge his hook and let him hit you with everything. ALL you have to do to beat diana in lane as a poking champ is dodge her 1 skill shot and not walking into AA range like an idiot.

She has high base stats because she HAS to land her combo to kill you. Not only that but once she goes in she must commit to the fight because she has near non existent escape.

Even if you don't feel confident enough to dodge her Q you could just play passive and build a slightly defensive AP\AD item with HP or MR and crush her after lane phase ends.

I will admit its easy to play diana, against idiots. item 3070

BadmoonBC5 votes

Lol of all the crap that is broken right now we get another Diana nerf thread.

1)awful laning phase pre 6 2)has to hit a skill shot q to go in or otherwise can't even assassinate the target. 3)no escape

I see why people complain about Leblanc, Ahri, Lux, Fizz, etc; but I don't get Diana haters. She really is a balanced champ. Just because "OMFG I INSTA DIED AT 6" it's like yea man you died at 6 cause she's a fucking assassin.... When zed hits 6, he can kill you too, same with fizz, ahri etc etc

Niyumi1 votes

See, here's the thing though: I can fight back against LB, Zed, Fizz, any of them. Diana literally has no counterplay, and if she EVER lands a Q, you die again - doesn't help that the hitbox is enormous and moves so fast that you have to know what she's going to do to reliably dodge it.

BadmoonBC2 votes

{quoted}

See, here's the thing though: I can fight back against LB, Zed, Fizz, any of them. Diana literally has no counterplay, and if she EVER lands a Q, you die again - doesn't help that the hitbox is enormous and moves so fast that you have to know what she's going to do to reliably dodge it.

Ok define counter play then? Cause Diana actually has PLENTY. Pick any early game champ, pick any long range champ, keep her at bay, poke the shit out of her pre 6, zone her. And you said her undodgeable q? Lol, dude it's a hook shape, just stay to her left side/your right side and dodge it, bait out her q, once she throws the q and misses then go in on her and punish her. Did she use her ulti without qing first? Punish her. In team fights focus her first. She CANT get away. And until she builds zhonyas she's fooked. Especially now that zhonyas costs an arm and a leg.

Diana has plenty of counter play

alasarcher4 votes

You see, Diana is an assassin. Syndra is imobile mage. Assassins > mages. Diana is balanced, since she has balanced strengths and weaknesses. She countes some champions and she has counters. But, if Syndra is more skilled than Diana, she can utilize her long range spells and avoid Dianas Q, as Diana relies on her ultimate reset to assasinate someone. You probably encountered more skilled player than you who happened to play champion that counters yours if plaed properly.

Niyumi1 votes

See, here's the thing: I never missed one ability on Diana. Not one. But, as I said above, even at low levels my abilities did next to no damage to her. I could do 300+ to a Volibear with a Visage, but I did maybe 120 to Diana. I'm thinking something is literally broken about Diana.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Considering you had poor runes, masteries and rushed a Tear of the Goddess (building no AP until 15 minutes into the game), why are you surprised that your abilities dealt pretty much no damage?

Moon Mom3 votes

You played the match wrong. I'm a Diana main since her release with 400k Points on her (little ranked experience, so please don't bring that up)

An experienced Syndra will use her balls to peel Diana away from her / zone her. Zone mages / Tanky mages / sustain / AD bruisers counter Diana.

List of counters:

  • Brand - Creates zones where Diana can not enter without taking a ton of damage. Brand has large AOE abilities, and Damage over time (Deathfire touch synergy)

  • Malzhar - Malzahar can autopush the lane from his tower, he can lock Diana down with his ultimate. His combo of / Q / W / E / R Will drain her health and kill her instantly. (Deathfire touch synergy) (A side note for malzahar, Diana can interrupt his ulti with E if timed properly, requires skill / good reflexes on when he will ulti)

  • Swain - Too much sustain for Diana to burst through. Swain can root her in place and slow her after her engage. He also has strong damage over time with the new synergy of deathfire touch.

  • Chogath - Chogath can Silence Diana mid combo and knock her up. Diana can't do anything to re-engage until the silence has worn off. Diana also will take tons of damage when she Cs's through chogath's E. You also have to account for his true damage and innate sustain.

  • Lux - Zone control mage, she can place an E near a wave of Diana's cs. This will force her to either waste mana via Q to cs, or W to shield some of the damage for cs. Lux also has a shield which blocks a nice chunck of dianas burst. She can also snare her in place for an easy E ulti combo, leaving Diana at low levels of health.

  • Syndra - Zone control mage. Syndra can peel Diana off of her with her E-Q combo, and keep her distance until the cooldowns are back up. She can EASILY bully Diana pre 6. Make sure you have the correct runes and masteries for vs AP's.

  • Anivia - Zone control mage (do you get the theme here?). Anivia can use her ultimate to clear waves outside of Diana's safety range, also can harass her well pre-6 due to Diana being melee, and Anivia having long AA range.

  • Lulu - Bullies Diana easily, can silence and knock Diana up. Lulu can also shield and get a ton of HP back instantly to prevent her from dieing to Diana's burst.

List of skill matchups:

Azir: Unless Diana knows how to use her RQ combo to quickly move around the minions after azir positions his soldiers, she's going to take a lot of poke damage.

Ekko: Proper setup allows for Diana to be stunned in place while taking damage. Ekko has great dueling power in extended fights vs Dianas bursty nature.

Ahri: Diana only has 3 dashes to Ahri's 2. Baiting one out with a quick RQ combo + stormraiders surge allows Diana to easily dodge her charm, and follow up with a quick R Q R combo when Q is back off cooldown.

You'll notice in the skill matchups that I list she needs to have extensive combo knowledge usually, and not bothering with a level into her E ability until level 8 / 10 for extra power spikes.

Ways to counter Diana in lane / General

  1. Dodge her crescent strike. Walk counterclockwise to dodge when you see the animation go off. It'll never hit you.
  2. If you are unable to dodge her crescent strike build MR; do not rush pure mana / damage items. (tear large rod etc)
  3. Play an AD bruiser mid (irelia, Riven garen etc will go to town on her. They have too much innate tankiness and cc that stops Diana from using her combo (garen silence, riven knockup / stun, Irelia stun / true damage) These champions usually rush armor pen, meaning if the Diana rushes resistances she will still die very quickly.. If you aren't confident, build a hexdrinker to help survive her burst.
  4. Tahm kench. Fuck that guy XD
  5. Play around her cooldowns. A Good Diana will use her shield whenever possible to go all in with, as it's an extra .6 AP ratio damaging ability + helps mitigate some damage
  6. use your range. If your playing a long range mage, use your maximum range to your advantage, save your cc after her dash.
  7. Watch her build path - If she goes defensive, grab some pen to help cut through it.
  8. Quicksilver sash will counter her Q-R-R combo and her R-Q-R combo if you have good timing+ remove moonfall slow.
  9. Bully the fuck out of her. Her pre-6 is utter garbage unless vs melee assassins. If she's shoving keep the wave frozen close to your tower, She's free food for your jungler due to no escape + no sustain outside of shield.
  10. Wait out her shield. Easy way to counter-engage her, without her shield she IS SQUISHY and the cooldown is fairly long.

As an avid Diana main I've provided you counterplay. Review the other comments for runes / masteries issues.

Keep in mind she's an all in champ with no way out, She's going to do damage because without it she's nothing.

On another note, if anyone wants to learn how to practice Dianas RQR combo message me in game :) I'm happy to help with any Diana tips.

Punkkee1 votes

yea usually boards and me would downvote qq threads but diana really shuold be looked into. She can start shield and push entire waves early game, while negating damage simaltaniously and attacking her causes minions to attack you, so she also indirectly harrasses you. her counters on championselect.net are laughable

Niyumi1 votes

I've been complaining about Diana since I first saw her in a game. She's just ridiculous. But balance doesn't really matter to Riot, I suppose, just skin sales and money.

alasarcher3 votes

{quoted}

I've been complaining about Diana since I first saw her in a game. She's just ridiculous. But balance doesn't really matter to Riot, I suppose, just skin sales and money.

You cant really say that skin sales matter, as Diana havent got a skin in a long time. People are literally crying for skins for Diana. You are first person in months that complained about Diana in "op " context. Can ya show me match histories of other times you played against Diana as Syndra?

Also your AP runes are very weird. Instead of going full magic penetration on marks, you run attack speed aswell. Also whats the point of 2.5% CDR. Either go full CDR or full Magic Resist.

RogueWill1 votes

On lane she is really mana hungry, like uber kinda of thing so as long as you dodge her Q she won't be able to do any damage to you and will slowly drain her mana.

Pre-6 she is really weak to poke champions, there is no much she can do since her shield will cost so much of her mana so she is easily harrasable, bear in mind that if you are playing a poke champion that is your only chance of beating her since once she hits 6 a single Q might mean dead. Post-6 you gotta dodge the Q, 90% of the times she won't go in unless she hits a Q since she needs the reset to achieve enough damage to kill you, if you get hit by a Q retreat before she is able to R you until the debuff disappears. Mobility also hurts her since she only has 2 posssible dash at any given time, Ahri can outplay her pretty hard with her triple dash so does Akali (skill match) Nidalee is also pretty hard to catch and odly enough Azir since Her ult won't pass though the wall.

Diana is as balanced as akali is, you play her exactly as you play agaist akali but she is tanky instead of sustain and can run out of mana (which akali shouldn't unless she is bad)

Punkkee1 votes

what. are you low elo all dianas start shield and push level 1. push lane hard and back off. rinse and repeat until 6. go back, buy, teleport and kill. You can't just say dodge all her Q's because noone is that skillful, you're bound to get hit by one and when you get hit by that tricky skillshot you'll lose. Diana wrecks akali idk what you mean. a real skill matchup would be diana vs ahri, if diana can cancel ahri's ult, diana easily outtrades.

RogueWill1 votes

{quoted}

what. are you low elo all dianas start shield and push level 1. push lane hard and back off. rinse and repeat until 6. go back, buy, teleport and kill. You can't just say dodge all her Q's because noone is that skillful, you're bound to get hit by one and when you get hit by that tricky skillshot you'll lose. Diana wrecks akali idk what you mean. a real skill matchup would be diana vs ahri, if diana can cancel ahri's ult, diana easily outtrades.

I'm gold and I play Diana quite a lot, so i think I know what her weakness on lane are. She only starts shield against melee champions, she starts Q with ranged because the shield is easily bait-able and unless they have a slow moving projectile by the time you get your shield you opponent lvl 1 burst is done.

As for dodging her Q, if hug your right side you will have a much easier time dodging it due to the weird way her skill shot is shaped on. You basically will only have to worry about the little circle at the end of it, which you can see the direction thanks to the animation giving you plenty of time to dodge.

Akali wrecks diana if you have insights on how to play and are around the same HP. Most trades are going to start at level 6, then you just wait for a Q and ult before it hits you effectively reducing her burst by around half (Q+porc of R) at this point all she has left is a shield and a proc of R before waiting on CD, that's plenty of time for akali to burst her down and use her stealh to disenagage. If akali can't kill Diana on a single burst she has to disenagage because if she prolong the match until Diana skills are back she is going to get wrecked.

Ahri is a skillmatch pretty much against anyone due to her lack of significant weakness, but ahri will wreck diana everytime she has ult.

Death by Glamour1 votes

Lets just say before the adc and mastery changes she was one of the highest banned champions for a reason.

Diana usually builds abysal in combination with magic pen which usually results in close to true damage to squishies unless you yourself get some mr

Leblancs Boob1 votes

Syndra is one of Diana's hardest counters. Time your E properly and Diana can literally never get on top of you.

Niyumi1 votes

Well, I could E her after she first dashes to me, but then she'd dash again and end up behind me, so I'd miss my E if I ever had it up. I thought she was supposed to dash in front of you, not behind you.

Moon Mom1 votes

The first dash puts you in front of your opponent. The second dash, if used in MELEE. Yes. MELEE range will put you BEHIND them.

ìnsane1 votes

I'll just say, a good syndra can and should bully the shit of diana in lane. Its considered to be one of her hardest matchups in the midlane (besides azir). Theres no way diana kills you with a single r in her 'full combo' especially when still in laning phase where she is still weak against the likes of midlane bullies like syndra (she is extremely item reliant along the likes of jax irelia and co., IF she wants to go the full dmg route) unless you were already chunked by q's beforehand or got in melee range(?!?!) of her , in which case gj...you completely deserved the full wrath of the lunar queen.

I will add though, if there was a nerf she could use, its probably the mr/lvl she gets just from lvling. Most mages I can think of (with exception of galio and maybe fizz) don't start AND end with any base mr, unless they bought mr items/runes/masteries, heck I remember rito even removing kass's mr/lvl just cause how oppressive he can already be against mages via his anti-mage passive. Most diana's will build abyssal anyway and already have the base stats to shut down their usually squishier opposing ap midlaners once they have a few lvls in their belt, but for the few/the ones that snowball and decide not to build abyssal, maybe removing the mr/lvl will help her opponents and force her to build some mr?

edit: BTW,to counter an abyssal champ that can pose a threat, you generally want to build an abyssal of your own to counteract theirs...you bought that negatron waaay too late. and not sure why you went the seraphs route that game. probably shoulda gone athenes or roa (the latter is secret freelo item after the recent buffs btw)

Niyumi1 votes

I mean, I think I'm good at Syndra, and I can land all my abilities and combo effectively (I went 5/0 against a Veigar today, 7/1 against a Yas earlier, 6/1 against a Zed, so on. So I know I can play her.). I know how to protect myself with E (I know how every champion works, so I know when to use it) and all that... but this Diana was just ridiculous. She walked into lane with 57 MR, and it just kept going up and up. So by the time I was ~10, my Q (max rank with ~200 AP) did maybe 150 damage to her, but 300+ to everyone else. When she hit level 6, she actually did just instantly kill me the second she landed a Q (minion block ftw). I would E her, but she actually teleported behind me with her second R, causing it to miss. So whenever she combod me, I'd die. : /

I do think she needs her defense nerfed. She has a TON of offensive potential, but she's also incredibly tanky just by default. She needs her base HP cut way down (I had ~700 and she had something like 1200), and she needs her armor and MR reduced. If she was squishy, it'd be fair for her to have all that damage (and her W makes up for losing all that defense anyway), and it would be a fun lane since I actually stand a chance at hurting her.

This Diana wasn't building an Abyssal though, she was just stacking AP and rushed a Nashor's. But, you know, I've actually thought about building a ROA on Syndra now that it was buffed. I'd lose some AP from the AA, but I'd get just as much mana, and a lot more health than I usually have. I'll have to try it out and see how it works.

PapaGreg211 votes

Your main problem is that Syndra has been terrible for all of season 5. You picked a champion with no bully potential against an assassin that you need to bully before level 6. I have played this matchup several times and have done little to no damage on Diana while hitting almost all my skillshots. Syndra needs a buff more than Diana needs a nerf.

Ashenvall1 votes

Runres are pretty weird. Buy ap/lvl, hp/lvl, armor/magic pen. Build archangel, I think is a waste of time. You don't build no CDR object O_O. You built 1/4 void staff => all time I don't see any rabadon.... In my opinion, it's least relevant to buy all time zhonya than rabadon.

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