Diana is literally a badly optimized Orianna, yet you call her toxic, but Orianna a marvel of design

Baned by Snu Snu·Aug 16, 2014·19 votes·13,249 views

Diana has worse base damages and ratios than Orianna in every single of her spells.

Diana's E is literally the utility portion of Orianna's ultimate and Dissonance. Only that she doesn't have the luxury of being able to do it from a safe 825 distance that Orianna's Q allows. The slow also lasts 1 second less and the knock-in effect is a bit weaker.

Diana doesn't have an AoE MS boost for her team.

Diana's shield is restricted primarily on herself and doesn't provide armor/MR. In fact, it even has a similar built-in function that allows her to do damage with the shield as well, bringing the total skills that can do damage to 4 instead of 3. (5-4 respectively if passives are included)

At level 18, Diana's passive equals to 83+0.27/AP on each hit. Orianna's passive equals to 70+0.18/AP when stacked. Diana's passive is the ONLY thing that slightly goes ahead due to being AoE and having a small AS boost. (close to irrelevant due to Diana having bad base AS, because somehow you enjoy giving a champion a specific power and then taking it away from base stats, like what you similarly did to Lissandra with her passive and base mana regen.)

Even then, let's not forget that Orianna has the benefit of being ranged over Diana being melee, so her passive is arguably better in the end, if relative safety of applying it is taken into account. It also has immediate impact from the first hit, which is always bonus points.

And after all of these, you have nerfed Diana a total of 5 times, whereas at the same time you have continuously promoted Orianna as a marvel of character design, despite Diana having MUCH more expoitable weaknesses, like having to commit to a teamfight or die, being melee, etc.

This is pure favoritism and hypocrisy.

64 Comments

RiotPhreakAug 16, 201422 votes

Just as food for thought, devil's advocate, and whatever:

Reliability is actually a really big part of that. Orianna Q-R'ing you versus Diana R-E'ing are very different, and Diana's is much more reliable. I can Valkyrie away from Ori's combo. I have to Flash away from Diana's. Additionally, the cooldown on that combo is significantly better for Diana as well.

To address random other points you put in:

The number of times a champion has been nerfed is irrelevant. The history really doesn't matter. If Caitlyn got nerfed by 8 AD one patch, versus being nerfed by 1 AD eight patches in a row, the end result is the same. I'd urge you to not include things like that in the future: It clutters your message.

Base stats vs. passives, siphoning power, etc.: It's a gameplay thing. We're not trying to say, "Yo guys, Diana is THE attack speed champion!" We're not saying, "Lissandra is THE manaless mana champion."

Rather, we're saying, "Hey, Diana should feel like she attacks pretty fast all the time. Her passive should always feel useful." So rather than say, "Okay, you start pretty fast, and then go SUPERSPEED" we flattened it instead and say, "You start as literally the fastest-attacking champion in the game, and get a little bit faster in the end, pretty close to everyone else too." Now you could make the argument that Diana should be a more AS-focused champion, but taking out base stats and placing an equivalent in an ability is not about cheekily nerfing and buffing a champion, it's about crafting a specialized experience.

As another, really clean example, Miss Fortune has incredibly low base movement speed, but the highest out-of-combat movement speed in the game. There's a real sense of power in Strut.

In the end what it comes down to is that reliability is a really powerful stat. In the past Diana was basically one-shotting people with no recourse. How do you outplay RWEQ from Diana? It literally can't miss, and she casts it from out of range of anyone's basic attack. My understanding of our eventual direction for Diana is to make her more about the Passive/W. Make her the tankier moon-knight, less of an assassin. It was her being a "I one-shot you assassin + great team fight engager + really good bruiser" that just seemed to give her no real weakness. I believe we will be shifting her to maybe 1.5 of those.

Best answer I can really give you. I'm not a designer. Hope it was helpful though!

Baned by Snu SnuAug 16, 20146 votes

I can Valkyrie away from Ori's combo.

Valkyri-ing away from an Orianna combo doesn't mean you escaped, because it's targettable, it only means you went deeper into your death, unless it's a very specific situation where you run across a creep wave while escaping. That's not more reliable than "place ball" -> profit.

I have to Flash away from Diana's.

The ball can't be stunned, slowed, peeled off or anything else, so once again, your argument falls flat. No, you don't need to flash, you only need to stun or slow her and walk away, then kill her because she is melee and peeling make her useless. Whereas for Orianna, it's no big deal, she will just reposition her ball again in less than 3 seconds.

Additionally, the cooldown on that combo is significantly better for Diana as well.

No, she doesn't, because the combo is not something Diana can do freely without consequences, like Orianna does when she repositions her ball. Diana either goes in and everything goes well or she goes in and dies. You either do it correctly and at the right time or you get punished for it. Orianna is not punished for it, because even if she blows her R for nothing, the safety of her range means that nothing was lost and she will casually go back to farming her lane in order to get that 300 cs and be able to insta-gib 3 people with a couple spells.

Calling Diana more reliable when Diana has more ways to be stopped available for the other team is an overstatement at best, if not slightly of a joke.

The number of times a champion has been nerfed is irrelevant. The history really doesn't matter. If Caitlyn got nerfed by 8 AD one patch, versus being nerfed by 1 AD eight patches in a row, the end result is the same. I'd urge you to not include things like that in the future: It clutters your message.

Also, don't go pulling deductive fallacies in order to excuse, you are very much aware that ALL of Diana's nerfs were considerable and she was left an empty shell with no valuable assets to bring to a team.

You're acting as if all of those nerfs were justified, even though they clearly weren't and went overboard, yet there is no sign of willingness to do anything about it.

Release Diana, sure, broken as hell, no objections there.

2nd wave of nerfs, fine, let's slide along with it, you just destroyed her assassin identity, let's say she wasn't supposed to snowball that hard. Not everyone can have everything they want.

But in no way can you justify the nerfs after that point, where you also destroyed bruiser Diana, with sunfire cape/abyssal scep..

You could say you don't want her to be an assassin,fine. But if afterwards you guys come out and say that you don't want her to be a bruiser either, something is wrong with you.

Oh, and something else:

Base stats vs. passives, siphoning power, etc.: It's a gameplay thing. We're not trying to say, "Yo guys, Diana is THE attack speed champion!" We're not saying, "Lissandra is THE manaless mana champion."

Why not? Didn't you guys say that you want your champions to have defined strengths and weaknesses? Wasn't that the reason given behind avoiding nerfing Lee Sin for so long?

How do you outplay RWEQ from Diana?** It literally can't miss**, and she casts it from out of range of anyone's basic attack.

Not sure if serious ...I'll just leave this here then in case you are though. Syndra

In short, you said reliability is a big asset. But saying that Diana is more reliable is kind of a hollow argument, because she isn't when you take into account how easy it is to stop her and peel her off. You're only taking 1v1s into consideration and not actual teamplay, which is supposed to be the core of the game.

Edit: Don't take parts of the post personally, I know you ain't directly responsible for balancing, it's just being part of the company, you know how it goes.

Best KhaZix VoidAug 16, 20145 votes

That's a funny picture of Akali , is it a new skin or something?

Baned by Snu SnuAug 16, 20143 votes

I got to admit, I gigled.

But then I cried when I remembered that Diana paid the price more often than Akali for the same reasons that both of them were accused, while missing much of the things that can potentially make Akali obnoxious, like invisibility, being resourceless, free spellvamp, etc.

GhostStalkerAug 17, 20142 votes

The only thing that Diana has over Akali is initiation. Everything else is equal. Now-a-days Everything Diana does is crap EXCEPT initiation. And even then it's bad now because they nerfed moonfall really hard.

Orianna in general is super reliable BECAUSE She's super safe and does great damage to boot.

RiotPhreakAug 17, 201422 votes

Your replies tell me you don't want to have a discussion about Diana. You're hell-bent on saying, "No, Diana's shit and Orianna's broken." You're cherry-picking individual weaknesses and strengths and ignoring counter-examples. I tell you the cooldown on Diana R-E is lower than Orianna's Q-R (which is factually true) and you immediately reply with "no it isn't." That's not helpful to anyone.

So I'm going to stop talking about Diana's merits, but I'll talk about your other design questions.

As far as direction on champions goes: It's something we improve on over time. Some champions have too many roles. Some don't have one. Kassadin, for example, is the epitome of mobility. The rework, and all the subsequent nerfs/buffs, have only helped him move around really quickly and swiftly. He pays a price for that, for sure (High mana costs, among the lowest base damages in the game). I don't think we'll ever go back and say, "You know what, forget Riftwalk. Kassadin is something else. He's an immobile tank now!"

For Diana, we're pretty confident her theme works really well as in-your-face moon knight. We may learn more later, but one thing I think we do very well right now is dedicate ourselves to identifying a specific reason this champion is cool and push on it.

As for defined strengths and weaknesses, let me elaborate:

Lissandra's passive and base stats say, "Defined strength: If you show temperance with your spellcasts and land your skillshots, you literally cannot run out of mana. Weakness: However, if you spam haphazardly, constantly looking for poke and missing you will run out of mana very rapidly and it won't come back." And this is differentiation as well from someone like Ziggs, who doesn't have these types of rules. We see it work, too. We've seen Lissandra rush Deathfire Grasp or Zhonya's Hourglass, while Ziggs always starts Chalice or Tear.

Diana's passive pattern isn't specifically "Create a defined kiss/curse." Not every ability or change is, "This is the epitome of Clarity, the shining example" or "This is the epitome of showcasing massive strengths and weaknesses." Sometimes it's just "Gameplay." There's lots of things to consider with any given design. In this case, Diana's passive is Gameplay choice:

Diana has relevant auto-attacks. Extremely relevant ones, since the passive damage is quite high. She doesn't need to be the "I am the fastest auto-attacker" champion. I don't think that will ever be her role. We have champions like Master Yi and Tristana who fit that role better, IMO. Diana's more methodical. So I don't think she needs really high AS per level. She doesn't need a crazy high Base AS either. She has a ton of level 1 bonus AS because she is designed to have relevant autos all game, regardless of whether or not you itemize for them. That's the strength. That's the gameplay. Not "I am the auto-attack queen."

And you can dodge Syndra Q-E.

Baned by Snu SnuAug 17, 20147 votes

And you can dodge Syndra Q-E.

Then you can dodge Diana's Q which is the requirement for her to follow up with anything else. You nullified your own argument.

We see it work, too. We've seen Lissandra rush Deathfire Grasp or Zhonya's Hourglass,

If you think that Lissandra was forced to rush DFG because she didn't have mana problems, then you are right, I don't think we have much to discuss here and I'm starting to seriously doubt whether the team responsible behind these thought processes deserves their pay check.

I'm sure Lissandra was rushing DFG because she has a mana related passive and not because she was given dirt tier base damages and ratios and had to somehow make up for it.

I also find it offensive including Ziggs and Lissandra in the same paragraph, as if they are anything close to each other in balance.

I tell you the cooldown on Diana R-E is lower than Orianna's Q-R (which is factually true) and you immediately reply with "no it isn't." That's not helpful to anyone.

That's not what I said and I'd rather you didn't resort to fallacies once again. I'll repeat it so that it's clear to you:

Diana can't spam Q-R-E either, because she doesn't have the luxury of doing it until she gets it right. If she does it at the wrong time, she is dead. Orianna doesn't have any severe consequences other than a cooldown, on a game where CDR is available as a stat and on a champion who can wave clear and stall as good as Orianna.

You saying that Diana has R-E available more often assumes that Diana is able to it without consequences, something that is not true.

Once again, I didn't say that Orianna doesn't do it less often, I said that Orianna has no grave consequences for doing it wrong, something that impacts the amount of reliability on actually doing it.

So please, refrain from fallacies. You call me hell bent on proving that Diana is shit. Meanwhile, you guys aren't hell bent into keeping her completely useless just because the community victimized her, completely disregarding her as a champion.

Yes, she is useless compared to Orianna and yes they do have similar functions. But the community thinks that she is toxic and that Orianna is the tears of Jesus objectified to a champion and you guys are just playing along with it.

Only your balancing team can prove me wrong, but they don't seem to want to. Better buff Lucian. Sorry, I meant nerf.

RiotPhreakAug 17, 201416 votes

No, I said RWEQ is undodgeable, which it is. You don't have to land Q to land R.

aceofsweenAug 17, 20144 votes

Phreak,

I'm glad that you're taking the time to talk about these things, but you're really only identifying the problems with Diana. And that's great and because the OP has really focused around making this a discussion about Diana vs. someone-not-Diana. But that's not particularly beneficial to Diana players. Most of us (at least the level headed ones) realize that Diana's kit doesn't promote healthy gameplay.

What we find frusturating is that Diana has been "Olafed" and there are no visible plans to actually address her.

ggambinoAug 17, 20143 votes

To the best of my knowledge Riot Vesh was diggiing around a couple weeks ago looking into design ideas from the public. But Id guess that since hes working on soraka right now, Diana has been tabled till after that champ rework is released, at least.

Kao AtlantisAug 17, 20142 votes

It was IronStylus. Here is the post.

Kao AtlantisAug 17, 20142 votes

IronStylus did post this for the community to discuss changing Diana. So I would say it is very much on their minds.

Fifth SchemeAug 17, 20146 votes

And you can dodge Syndra Q-E.

Then you can dodge Diana's Q which is the requirement for her to follow up with anything else. You nullified your own argument.

We see it work, too. We've seen Lissandra rush Deathfire Grasp or Zhonya's Hourglass,

If you think that Lissandra was forced to rush DFG because she didn't have mana problems, then you are right, I don't think we have much to discuss here and I'm starting to seriously doubt whether the team responsible behind these thought processes deserves their pay check.

I'm sure Lissandra was rushing DFG because she has a mana related passive and not because she was given dirt tier base damages and ratios and had to somehow make up for it.

I also find it offensive including Ziggs and Lissandra in the same paragraph, as if they are anything close to each other in balance.

I tell you the cooldown on Diana R-E is lower than Orianna's Q-R (which is factually true) and you immediately reply with "no it isn't." That's not helpful to anyone.

That's not what I said and I'd rather you didn't resort to fallacies once again. I'll repeat it so that it's clear to you:

Diana can't spam Q-R-E either, because she doesn't have the luxury of doing it until she gets it right. If she does it at the wrong time, she is dead. Orianna doesn't have any severe consequences other than a cooldown, on a game where CDR is available as a stat and on a champion who can wave clear and stall as good as Orianna.

You saying that Diana has R-E available more often assumes that Diana is able to it without consequences, something that is not true.

Once again, I didn't say that Orianna doesn't do it less often, I said that Orianna has no grave consequences for doing it wrong, something that impacts the amount of reliability on actually doing it.

So please, refrain from fallacies. You call me hell bent on proving that Diana is shit. Meanwhile, you guys aren't hell bent into keeping her completely useless just because the community victimized her, completely disregarding her as a champion.

Yes, she is useless compared to Orianna and yes they do have similar functions. But the community thinks that she is toxic and that Orianna is the tears of Jesus objectified to a champion and you guys are just playing along with it.

Only your balancing team can prove me wrong, but they don't seem to want to. Better buff Lucian. Sorry, I meant nerf.

I hope you are remembering that we are all playing a game here, and that while engaging in debates over champion design and balance is well within your rights as a player to address, disrespecting another human being by calling into question their talent, skills, job position, and all of their colleagues is absolutely not okay. I hope that in the future you realize how disrespectful you are to engage with. You are lucky Phreak, someone who is not at all in charge of balance or champion design, is knowledgeable enough on the topic to provide you with detailed responses. He addresses you with the respect of someone who deserves to have their inquiries answered, and you treat him and his entire being with utter disdain and contempt - over a video game.

Discussions are meant to be fun, productive and heated; heated not with the anger of feeling hurt over your own ego, but because there is a mutual understanding between parties that they have agreed to engage in a debate of intellectual merit and that their passion will dictate the heat, not their egos. You seem to have abandoned all sense of an intellectual debate to rally your own cause; something politicians and salesmen do all the time. Don't bring this down to that level, please.

Baned by Snu SnuAug 17, 20142 votes

First of all, I've already established that I'm aware Phreak is not responsible for balancing and that the overall tone is not towards him personally.

Don't take parts of the post personally, I know you ain't directly responsible for balancing, it's just being part of the company, you know how it goes.

Second of all, being disrespectful is not something that happens by default. Yes,I will question their talent after 3 years of waiting for something to change to a positive direction.

I respect actions and deeds more than hollow words that seem to have no correlation to the final result.

Kid FreljordAug 17, 20145 votes

First of all, I've already established that I'm aware Phreak is not responsible for balancing and that the overall tone is not towards him personally.

Don't take parts of the post personally, I know you ain't directly responsible for balancing, it's just being part of the company, you know how it goes.

Second of all, being disrespectful is not something that happens by default. Yes,I will question their talent after 3 years of waiting for something to change to a positive direction.

I respect actions and deeds more than hollow words that seem to have no correlation to the final result.

Saying "Don't take this personally" is not a magic spell. If you're being offensive, you're being offensive. Does it not count because you're insulting his friends and not him directly? Like that makes it all better?

RiotPhreakAug 17, 201417 votes

Well we're partially having different discussions here. You're very dead-set on balance, and comparing who's better than whom. Like, you literally refused to talk about the design pattern of Liassandra's passive because you're caught up on her damage being less than Ziggs, and saying we can't have a discussion because of that. Of course Diana is a worse Orianna than Orianna is: One of these is Orianna an the other isn't.

I'm more interested in contrasting differences in approach and capabilities. Arguably Diana puts herself at greater risk to achieve her objectives. She's also much more durable in kit and item build. She has more base damages to access. These are all unique advantages and disadvantages. And that's the right way to go about it. I would never want there to be a "worse Orianna" in the game. I'd rather there be a Diana.

Ultimately, balancing a game is really difficult. Because while a champion like Orianna may be overpowered, you can still at least play around her: She dies if you catch her. She's squishy. She can miss her shots and you can dodge them. If she's overpowered, at least there's recourse. Unfortunately the same isn't true for Diana. If she's OP, you just die. You can't dodge. You just fall over if she's in range. The same thing happened with LeBlanc multiple times. Same thing happened with Support Annie. Even if they're not the literally best champions in their role, there's just so darned little counterplay available that if they're OP at all you just sort of have a horrible experience.

This is why we want to push Diana's role more toward fighter (last I checked). She'll probably still dash at you, put up a sweet moon shield, and all that jazz, but she's more about the long fight. It's easier to get away from someone like Shyvana and Dr. Mundo than it is Akali, where if she's ahead you just... die. And it's why we're having a hard time figuring out how to do assassins right.

Kao AtlantisAug 17, 20143 votes

Please don't remind me of the support Annie days. x_x As an ADC main those were brutal, brutal times.

On a serious note though, I really enjoy reading your insight on these things. You are an incredibly well written person with a lot of mechanical knowledge and it would be cool to see you post more often.

One of the things I love about Katarina as an assassin, is that there is a lot of solid counter-play to her (unlike Akali, as you mentioned). When you play her, keeping track of your enemies CC is a challenging but rewarding experience. And the same is said when she is on the enemy team, holding onto your CC for her ult is something that you always have to be aware of.

I really like Diana, she is a really uniquely cool looking champion, and I hope improvements can be made so that she fits better into the assassin or fighter role, so that she can have counter-play but not feel underpowered.

A lot of people had some awesome input about Diana on IronStylus' post two weeks ago, so obviously both Riot and the community are very passionate about getting her back into the fray.

cwcrinerAug 17, 20142 votes

"get away from someone like Shyvana and Dr. Mundo than it is Akali, where if she's ahead you just... die. And it's why we're having a hard time figuring out how to do assassins right."

Honestly this is THE PROBLEM. Burst mages just throw down a large amount of damage, an Assassin is supposed to kill in one rotation. One problem, Riot doesn't want assassins to do that, so they end up either OP, or not good at all. Why is Talon good again, because everyone got nerfed to not function as well as Talon can. The design team needs to decide if they actually want assassins in the game at all.

lojicianAug 17, 20141 votes

Talon spiked in popularity because tanky characters (which generally counter assassins) are bad and adcs are god, not because other assassins all got worse in the last couple months.

Pinky27Aug 17, 20141 votes

Short lore comment -- If Diana becomes a true fighter please keep her focused more on damage than on tanking. Leona builds to tank and cc and protect her allies forever whereas current Diana aims to quickly strike down her foes with brutal hit-and-run trades or deadly all-ins. The opposition of their kits and styles suits them so well that I'd hate to see it removed completely.

CuixAug 18, 20141 votes

We're having a hard time figuring out how to do assassins right.

Why keep assassins around as 100-0 burst mages, then? Really, assassins are split into two portions: fantasy and utility. The assassin fantasy is to instakill, which is obviously super toxic. The utility, though, is turning fights into 4v5s, and that's actually workable (if they fail, it's a 4v4 or 5v4). Some "assassin"s could be more about control and disabling, instead of sheer burst damage.

MAZZ1M0Aug 17, 20144 votes

First off, thanks for actually replying to the thread, but I feel your argument holds little water.

I love Diana. She's one of my favorite champs and is really fun to play, but she's also the least-used champ in my roster -because she sucks. (I understand that's really generic, but give me a moment.)

It seems most of your arguments revolve around laning phase gameplay. This, I will agree with. Taking Diana toplane, I dominate almost every matchup. I have a much harder time midlane due to the varied kits and range of AP casters, but she's effective there as well in many matchups. Even those who gripe about Diana's state in the game can't argue her laning phase is still solid if you're good with her. The issue comes in the other 2/3 of the game. The laning phase is a small portion of the overall game -while important, it is small, and if your champ can't handle well beyond that point, it will hurt the team.

This stems from her identity crisis. As you said, she was good at too many things. The problem is, in her current state, she doesn't do anything well beyond the laning phase. She excels in laning phase as an assassin. Because of that, people typically build her for AP burst. The problem with that is her insane mana usage. While Q, R, W, Q, R and some autoattacks kill most champs, you'll run out of mana before you can pick off the next champ. This is usually the result of going into a fight without having full mana, but often times you won't. And wasting gold on mana regen lessens her burst which she needs to stay somewhat relevant. Compared to an Akali or Katarina who don't have those issues, rather, excel in those departments, who would pick Diana unless you're just chillin' with a champ you haven't played in awhile? Diana can't consistently maintain the output of other assassins. That is not to say I haven't done well with her, but I there is a noticeable difference and I always feel handicapped with Di as she cannot reliably do what you expect from an assassin. She can't sustain. And going for burst, her defense is too low to fight for prolonged periods. She gets burst instantly even if you build Zhonya's and Rylai's. It's not exactly hard to wait out the invincibility and 400 health and 50 armor isn't anything really by midgame.

So then there's the idea of building her as a fighter. Waiting for a third-hit spellblade -no matter the AS, is always going to lose to better fighter-type such as Yasuo who has 100% crit and a death sentence for an ult, or Riven, who can shred even tanks like butter (with a shield,) or Fiora, who can repel all of Di's attacks and finish her off with an untargetable ult (probably wouldn't need it,) or Jax, who can dodge her autoattacks and dish out consistent damage with status effects, or Kayle, who can ult and take it while hammering away with her sword strokes of doom, etc. Also, half of them don't require mana and their abilities scale off their AD so auttoattacks on first hit are effective. Diana's aren't, she requires the third hit of AP if her abilities are to do anything.

No one comparing champs for effectiveness would pick her as a fighter. Her R is best for assassination, and without high AP which will be hampered by the defense, you'll have to build so she can survive duels and teamfights. She'd have to chase runaways down. R and E use would drain her mana too quickly to stay in the teamfight for long. Then there's also the fact that chasing is more often than not, the dumbest thing you can do in a game. It leaves you far too open to get ganked, or you run beyond the reach of your teammates in a teamfight. It's almost never a good idea -and to maintain damage output on par with other fighters who can dish it out much faster with less itemization, you'd have to chase, or be smart and assist all game never having a meaningful impact in teamfights until you R at the end. Even other assassins, though squishy, can do insane amounts of damage in the thick of a teamfight. Diana can't on that scale, nor can she keep up with other fighters reliably. She's unreliable.

BroreliaAug 17, 20142 votes

Orianna has been a high priority pick in both season 2 and 3 worlds and has not been nerfed in any meaningful way so yes we are in a way saying orianna is broken in a premade team setting.

Even with the base AD nerf she is still a safe early game champ while being a nightmare late game champ because of both her damage and CC without having to be in real danger to use it. Kinda like nidalee before her rework.

Her ult is not hard to get off when someone on her team is able to go in be it wukong, shyvana or even nidalee after landing a spear/someone steps on a trap as a few examples. Orianna boosts reasonably good playing so much that even if the other team is playing better it is overall not as rewarding as it should be.

Orianna will be picked again in worlds and will be banned a lot because she provides to strong of a impact compared to other champs while not having to be in much danger doing so. I can feel confident in saying this since Orianna has not been harshly changed or nerfed since season 3 worlds.

When Orianna is not overly impactful in the LCS and at worlds she will be healthy for competitive play but her current kit is balanced for solo Que and overbearing in competitive play.

Diana on the other hand is underwhelming currently and doesn't even have a niche to justify her being picked over other champs.

Phoenix Kotori Aug 17, 20142 votes

Diana has relevant auto-attacks. Extremely relevant ones, since the passive damage is quite high.

Except it's a joke especially early game.

Diana gets 20 + .8 AP at lvl1 for 3 autos, while ori gets 36 + .54 during winded up, or 42 + .63 post wind up for autos.

Even late game, Ori gets 180-210 + .54-.63 per 3 autos vs 250 + .8. Even Lulu's autos have better scaling at lvl1 and 18.

So I don't think she needs really high AS per level. She doesn't need a crazy high Base AS either. She has a ton of level 1 bonus AS because she is designed to have relevant autos all game.

She doesn't need crazy high, but you could give better than the practically worst AS base (outside of 3 champs), and you act like the 20% AS is a huge deal, it isn't. Why can't she be given a decent base AS like most melee?

nınthAug 17, 20143 votes

Any chances we'll see a moon-knight Diana skin, in terms of just recreational content for Diana? Would be cool to see her a little more heavily armored, or without the massive forehead/oddly shaped hair. Not that you'd be the guy to ask, but not many reds like to talk about Diana it seems.

In terms of gameplay, I'd like to see power shifted away from her Q, as right now the only thing stopping me from playing her 24/7 is this whole feeling she has of "miss your Q? Stand there and do nothing until it's back up", which isn't necessarily true in the least -- just the feeling she gives off, at least to me. I think W proccing a single moonlight could be neat (as long as it didn't stack with her Q moonlight for a triple ult...somehow...this is why I'm not a designer yet) but it'd make her hard to deal with for melee opponents. Or maybe if her moonlight wasn't ALL absorbed from one ult? Like she could go from target to target? That'd make for some cool gameplay.

Really, I wish there was a place we could just chat with Rioters about champions and how they feel internally about them/if they're being looked at and what Riot wants to change about them. Seems like no one gets discussion until it's too late, sometimes.

Prof NekkoAug 17, 20142 votes

As far as direction on champions goes: It's something we improve on over time. Some champions have too many roles. Some don't have one. Kassadin, for example, is the epitome of mobility. The rework, and all the subsequent nerfs/buffs, have only helped him move around really quickly and swiftly. He pays a price for that, for sure (High mana costs, among the lowest base damages in the game). I don't think we'll ever go back and say, "You know what, forget Riftwalk. Kassadin is something else. He's an immobile tank now!"

does this mean you may revisit some of the previous reworks and such you did to rectify some of your worse mistakes when it came to reworking? For example Karma... Who was completely stripped of her identity and playstyle in favor of being made into something bland and generic?

Old Karma: Front Line Utility Mage who uses allies and crafty positioning to maximize her damage output.

New Karma: RE to initiate, then mash Q until your finger breaks

Or at the very least you could be willing to open up discussion about it to the people who manage multiple 100+ page threads on it and just sit there hoping and praying that ANYBODY from Riot will stop by and say just about anything

lojicianAug 17, 20142 votes

The number of times someone has been nerfed doesn't determine their current power level but I don't think it's completely irrelevant to the discussion like you imply. It's not a perfect correlation presumably, but it suggests that riot is focusing more on that champion and thinks it's more of a problem. Which seemed to be op's point.

"In the end what it comes down to is that reliability is a really powerful stat." I agree nerf ryze. And tristana. And kayle. I don't know why riot is so ready to trash targeted skills on champions that at least have to make decisions and put themselves at risk by moving forward but makes no effort to add counterplay to champions that do it from ranged safety.

BastileanAug 17, 20142 votes

I don't think comparing her to MF is a useful comparison. MF is an ADC. She is supposed to have the lowest movement speed because most ADCs do have 325 movement speed. When her passive kicks in it feels great.

Tristana is a great example for a counter argument. Yes she has higher innate AS at level 18 than Diana, but she also has Rapid Fire. Because she already has one of the highest innate AS Rapid Fire feels really good.

Another example of very high innate AS is Vayne who was just buffed recently to a similar place as Tristana. She has a every 3rd attack prock like Diana and it doesn't allow much defensive counter play AND that counter play has been getting nerfed (FH and RO).

Another example Yasuo gets a crit dmg nerf, but its minor and nobody would say boy I wish I didn't have this passive and had regular critting. Diana is literally slower AS than champions without a steroid and that doesn't feel right. Yasuo also has two passives too. If Diana had a passive that doubled bonus attack speed but Riot reduced her Moonsilver damage that would feel great.

To be perfectly honest, to set this to bed, Diana's AS boost has always confused me. I don't understand why she has it. It would be relatively easy to boost her shield base damage or her Q. Having a small ineffective passives doesn't feel good.

TLDR: Diana's proc feels great. Diana's AS feels like it falls off hard and it does. That makes her passive AS boost feel bad.

PS. I agree that her combo isn't counterable without strong CC or a flash however like many of the posts I have read here I also agree that she isn't as bad as Akali by any range of the imagination (3 ults every 45 seconds without CDR or kills). Diana takes a lot of straight risk to employ her combo and doesn't have good risk mitigation like other assassins like Fizz, Akali, katarina, etc. Diana has a lot of counter play.

PSS. I also like the idea of moving Diana further towards a fighter. Wouldn't improving her AS help with that (benefiting her after her wombo combo is dried up and tankiness is kicking in)?

PSSS. Has Riot considered giving different ranges to Diana's ult dependent on whether she lands her Q? It would be nice if her Q gave her more range. I am looking forward to seeing the rework ideas Riot comes up with.

Thanks for talking about Diana. I think you make some valid points and I like where Riot is aiming on this. I call it the Rengar treatment.

PHoToS999Aug 17, 20141 votes

Phreak

My understanding of our eventual direction for Diana is to make her more about the Passive/W. Make her the tankier moon-knight, less of an assassin.

Vesh

Diana is definitely on the board for changes, and it seems from the many threads like this that have been made in the past that people are fairly opposed to a bruiser direction. The key will be pushing her more towards the light fighter/assassin pattern in healthy ways which means not just going Q->R->R and mudering a guy.

Source.

It appears someone's understanding is incorrect, and I'm hoping it's yours and not Vesh's.

That being said, what if Diana had more chances within her kit to utilize her passive via instant procs and aa resets? If that were possible, then you could very easily reduce her sources of ranged damage, being her Q and R. In which case, she would be somewhat like an AP rengar that doesn't need bushes. Not only that, you could even increase her ability to use her ulti more, so that she feels even more powerful.

ShadowKnight1224Aug 16, 20147 votes

Orianna doesn't have a resetting, damage-dealing gap-closer, though. She's fairly immobile and her only mobility boost is her Dissonance speed boost. Diana is far more mobile, and mobility is a skill-dependant attribute in League. The more skilled a player is, the more they shine with a highly mobile champion. Orianna is probably still better than Diana, but that's simply a matter of waiting until Worlds gets dominated by her again. Then Riot will get the hint and nerf her insane range.

Baned by Snu SnuAug 16, 20149 votes

Orianna doesn't need a gap closer because her damage is from a very safe range.

And Diana's R can't be used as an escape, so in fact Orianna has much higher escape potential due to having an MS boost that Diana lacks.

So Diana isn't exactly more mobile than Orianna actually. She is more mobile than Orianna into diving a backline, but Orianna doesn't even want to do something like that in the first place, because her damage reaches that backline without having the need to be right inside of it in melee range.

It's like calling Leona "mobile". And I don't think anyone calls her that.

Orianna's damage source is the ball, whereas Diana's damage source is Diana herself, with everything being done in melee range. So in that regard, Orianna's damage source is actually more mobile than Diana's, since the cooldown of Q is much smaller and is also not limited to single targets.

ShadowKnight1224Aug 16, 20142 votes

Diana's ult works like a watered down version of Akali's, and there are plenty of clips in youtube showing Akali nimbly dodging a lot of damage simply by jumping from enemy to enemy. Now granted, Diana can only do this twice (unless she has max cooldown reduction and can throw her Q around every 3 secs in order to get constant ult resets), but it's still enough to dodge a significant amount of damage in a teamfight. Plus, when Diana is dove by a tank/initiator, she can easily dive the backline instead, which Orianna has a problem handling. Orianna needs to avoid being dove, or else she's pretty much dead.

You're pretty spot on though, though. Orianna's safety is a little too much. Perhaps if she had a mechanic where she lost health if the ball wasn't on her? And lost more health the further away the ball was? It'd make her range a lot less safer for her.

67chromeAug 16, 20141 votes

The more skilled a player is, the more they shine with a highly mobile champion.

I'm pretty sure it's the other way around.

Well - skilled players shine with every champion, but mobility usually serves as a handicap to bad players that make several positioning errors. Mobility is also much better in 1v1 situations than team-fight situations, or in chases and other common yolo-queue adventures scenarios. Which is likely why so many people complain about mobility in LoL. It disproportionately helps bad players were good players can often work around it.

Kog'Maw is shaping up to be the #1 ADC in the tournaments going on right now, and you basically never see a Master Yi in the pro scene. Or, at the very least, champions like Syndra that have no mobility can hold their own against champions with amazing mobility like Kassadin, where in Yolo Queue mobility tends to win out.

ShadowKnight1224Aug 16, 20142 votes

And yet you see Lee Sin and Zed played in the competitive scene all the time. The reason champs like Master Yi aren't seen that much is because the pro scene is about teamwork rather than individual glory (which is what soloq is all about). Lee Sin is a highly mobile champion that brings a lot to a teamfight and can coordinate with his team for impactful plays.

The reason immobile carries are favoured at the moment is because they have a numerical advantage that can turn the tide of a teamfight provided the rest of the team coordinates to protect them. Kog'maw is ridiculously vulnerable to highly mobile assassins, yet the coordination and teamwork prevent this from being a problem.

FiskAug 16, 20146 votes

Diana's burst is easier to land if you are alone. Also her burst WHEN she gets ahead is (well maybe was) ridiculous. She could in a very literal sense, one shot your carry. she hit Q+R+R zhonya bai bai carry. Also she scales relatively well with tank so you can just be the invincible carry one shotter was a vacuum on her E. Also her FULL combo can come up 2 times during a fight if you build cdr so you can now delete TWO people. That WAS diana. Very toxic anti fun carry raper that when ahead destroyed you and when behind (as if old diana got behind LOL) you get one shot when diving since you have no defense. Now since her nerfs she is mostly just a champ that gets insta killed whenever she tries to kill someone BUT she is much more toxic than ori (when she wins) because she just kills your carries, vacuums your team (cc train time) then instantly the zhonya's and lets her team follow up. Ori I agree is over powered but her game mechanics aren't toxic. Her scalings are all somewhat meh so she will never kill you flat out without follow up, she depends on good team work pretty heavily, she can't engage or sustain so you can poke her down. She's squishy and vulnerable to cc and all in since she has no real escape besides a movement speed buff, her ult is easy to dodge and hard to land. While she is op because she just wrecks you from afar, her ult is stupidly strong if their team uses it correctly, her utility is INSANE, her roaming ability is great and her burst damage mid game and late game (even tho it won't kill you out right its easy to chain her entire combo and its ALL AoE so your team will feel it hard). She will most likely get a nerf somewhere but I wouldn't expect it to be to major honestly. Probably just a little tweak to her damage on her W I would imagine.

Baned by Snu SnuAug 16, 20143 votes

Also her burst WHEN she gets ahead is (well maybe was) ridiculous.

Diana has worse base damages and ratios than Orianna in every single of her spells.

I was clear enough. And Diana is melee.

Ori I agree is over powered but her game mechanics aren't toxic.

That's the point, IF Orianna is not toxic, then neither is Diana, because Diana literally has 80% of Orianna's kit almost to the letter, only with more limitations as well.

If Orianna is not toxic, then Diana can't be toxic, because she does less than Orianna, in a harder and more dangerous way.It's that simple, you can't call the champion that does the same things worse toxic and the superior in all ways "meh, she's a little over the top, but she's fine".

FiskAug 16, 20142 votes

Idk where you are getting diana's scaling info but her passive does 250 damage + EIGHTY% of her ap. also, her ult hits the target twice so thats 440 damage plus 120% of her ap. then her shield can do up to 210 damage+60% of her ap. then her q does 200 plus 70% of her ap. add that all up and thats 110 base damage with over 300% scaling she can land instantly. I'm gonna tell you now thats more than ori. But its single target. But say bye bye to your adc if she lands her q.....

FiskAug 16, 20142 votes

You say her passive is 83+27% of her ap. But that's not how it works. Its burst WHICH DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Ori passive has to be stacked meaning you have to go up and auto them over and over which isn't realistic. Diana's is up front helping her instakill someone. Something ori can't do

FiskAug 16, 20142 votes

PS. Diana's scalings are better across the board

Baned by Snu SnuAug 16, 20143 votes

Diana: 0.8 passive+0.7Q+0.6W+0.6R. Total of 2.7. 3 AoE, 1 single target. 2 of them require melee range. 3 of total skill require melee range.

Orianna: 0.18 passive when stacked twice+0.5Q+0.7W+0.3E+0.7R. Total of 2.38. 4 AoE, 1 single target. Minimum range of 525 for her AA proccing her passive. Everything else available from up to 1000 range.

And you're also not taking cooldowns into account, where Orianna's Q has a 3 second cooldown, whereas Diana's Q has 6. If Q was to be scaled within the same time frame, then it's much stronger as well.

Additionally, you are forgetting base damages, let's go there, shall we?

Diana: 250+200+210+220=880

Now, since I included diana's burst from passive, it's only fair to include 3 auto attacks from orianna, right?

Orianna: 50+60+70+180+250+180+300= 1090

Which means that in order for Diana to do more damage than Orianna, she needs to surpass 656 AP.

So no, she doesn't do more damage. And that's with her being melee and easily peeled, whereas Orianna still has her range safety to apply that damage.

PS: Before you try to justify anything with some scenarios that will be favorable for your argument, let me repeat that Orianna has more AoE and lower cooldown on Q, so you don't want to go into scenarios where more champions are included or extended time periods. Don't even bother with that.

Edit: Actually, scratch that, I don't even need to go into scenarios. Diana is melee, Orianna is ranged. That alone nullifies any argument you might try to throw. It's her biggest asset and Diana got nerfed unfairly for having similar functions in a much healthier pattern that 1000 range nukes after farming for 30 mins without much way to stop her.

FiskAug 16, 20143 votes

ult hits twice broski and if you arent hitting it twice there is 0 reason to play diana in the first place.

Maximum NidaderpAug 16, 20143 votes

And Orianna is AoE and if you aren't hitting at least 2 of them you shouldn't be playing Orianna in the first place.

Diana is NOT fine and if you think she is, then I can only assure you that I'd get over 1000 chat restrictions if I was to express what I think about you.

FiskAug 16, 20142 votes

Read the whole post. Diana is weak no doubt but her snowball and burst potential is much better than ori's

FiskAug 16, 20143 votes

Trying to explain why diana's mechanics are toxic compared to ori.

Baned by Snu SnuAug 16, 20144 votes

Whereas Orianna being completely safe to reach insta-gib status by afk-farming is healthy for the game.

OK.

I guess killing your opponents and snowballing in any way is considered toxic nowadays. This is what the lol playerbase is.

FiskAug 16, 20142 votes

Whereas orianna takes a lot of skill and team work to land most of her damage diana can become someone that has no counter play if she gets ahead by instagibbing anyone that gets Q'd at any time with no cd's to punish her. She has issues with her snowballing now but when she IS strong she is toxic.

Maximum NidaderpAug 16, 20142 votes

Orianna takes more skill than Diana is what you're saying then?

I don't think I can continue having a discussion with you if you don't understand why Diana takes three times as much correct decision making than Orianna. If you think you can Q and go in for the win with Diana, then by all means, try it.

Diana has much more weaknesses for an enemy team to exploit and thus by definition has more counterplay and requires better decision making in order to utilize.

If we're taking only the scenario of Diana being 50/0 in 30 minutes as a balancing point, then why not say something moronic like "Orianna will kill 5 people together if she snowballs"?

HiphoppopatomusAug 17, 20145 votes

If the only argument is that Diana is not toxic if Ori is not, then I can somewhat hop on this idea. I won't argue that Diana does more or less damage, since she is a burst assassin while Ori is a much more rounded damager (low cooldowns with moderate damage). I simply believe Diana needs adjustments to her kit.

Orianna definitely lacks a strong sense of counter play, in that she does almost everything (Shields, Hard CC, ranged poke, strong wave clear, decent pick potential), and with her movespeed buff, decent shielding (240 + .4 AP), and ranged attacks, she definitely seems like a top-tier pick for the mid lane. I am not an avid Orianna player, but from an outside perspective** I can't really name a glaring weakness** that she has.

Diana , as has been mentioned in a lot of other posts, seems to lack a solid healthy identity. A lot of her damage is almost guaranteed if she is able to ult to you, her dash is much faster than an Orianna ball (I don't have exact numbers on Diana's ult projectile speed but it seems faster), and her burst scales better with AP. Meanwhile, she is melee, she does not gain defensive stats (WHICH ORIANNA DOES!?), and her combo is interruptible (Thresh could flay her mid Ult and theoretically nullify almost all of her damage). Because Diana's initiation is interruptible and requires her to go all in, it means she is not a reliable initiator for teamfights or picks, and since she has no reliable escapes (she requires a target in her escape direction) unlike Lee Sin who also has an escape that can be used on wards, she lacks a strong tank presence because once her ult is nullified she can almost be ignored or easily kited. Most currently viable initiators have either a relatively safe ranged pick potential (Elise, Morg, Orianna, Syndra, Lee Sin, Ryze, Mundo?, Rengar?) , or unstoppable/highly reliable initiation with decent beef (Vi, Maokai, Alistar, Evelynn) .

As a tank Diana is unreliable and lacks the inherent beef (No passive defensive stats other than her decent base stats) given to most tank-like champions, in addition, her shield at max rank costs 100 mana (Which is a lot because she has borderline Sion levels of mana); and without putting herself in danger, only blocks 100 + .3 AP (200 + .6 when able to proc the second half). It's hard to compare her shield to others since she is the only melee tank/assassin where the shield itself does damage, unlike Nautilus and Sion where the shield must be maintained to do damage, Diana's damage comes with the act of activating the shield. But generally, this move is used as an attack spell rather than a defense spell, because when comparable defensive shields are nearly free (Rumble, Shen, Lee Sin, Riven) or scale with health in some form (Vi, Malphite, Nautilus), hers seems to be a mismatch of ideas, causing a mediocre spell with only one viable use case: to attempt to kill someone with it. With such a high cost and low shielding without going in, Diana is forced to engage to gain a reasonable shield or simply forgo wasting the large amounts of mana and take harass. As a melee champion I feel this severely handicaps her abilities in lane and limits her decision making. I understand this may be the type of character Riot was originally designing Diana as (Hyper all in), but in terms of balance I feel it doesn't work as well as it could.

Maybe Diana's shield could start with the max shield, and if the bubbles pop give her an Armor/MR bonus? Possibly lowering the base damage on it and tweaking the scaling while lowering the mana cost to make it more usable in lane.

As an Assassin, Diana's damage is uncounterable without a displacement, meaning if she is ahead, you will die, similar to fizz, akali, or talon, but fizz, akali and talon have an escape for trades and losing situations in lane. I really don't have much else to say on Assassins because to be honest, melee assassins are unreliable in nature.

I'm no pro on either of these champs, I'm just sorta rambling for fun.

Baned by Snu SnuAug 17, 20142 votes

Thank you for the time you invested for that, it's really accurate in a lot of things and I agree.

Meanwhile, despite Diana having all those inherent weaknesses a person can exploit, she is called toxic, whereas Orianna a perfect design.