Boards›Concepts & Creations

Diana Reworked As Skirmisher

PoriPoriPrisoner·3/1/2019, 4:23:31 PM·1 votes·1,091 views

First off, I'd love to hear any and all feedback you guys have!

The primary goal for this rework was to strengthen Diana’s class identity without altering her champion identity too much. The secondary goal was to reduce her feast-or-famine nature and balance improved counterplay with improved utility, hopefully making her less oppressive when ahead and less useless when behind.

To achieve the first goal, I decided to make nail down Diana into a Skirmisher, as that’s the only class I could find that is able to build both the Bruiser and Assassin items that Diana is currently split between. Her new E is most helpful to this end as its improved mobility and pseudo-lifesteal give her the strong damage-mitigation options Skirmishers need. Her Q and W remain mostly the same, giving her that massive damage, while her new ultimate is an incredibly powerful offensive initiation tool.

The second goal ties into the first a little bit. With the new ultimate, she can bring utility even if she’s behind, and her sustained damage can be a threat even if she’s not fed enough to one-shot. On the flip side, her damage has been loaded more into the spell-auto-spell-auto pattern, meaning her burst is somewhat lower.

Overall, with this kit she’d allow for more skill expression from both sides, and she’d fall somewhere in the middle between oneshot assassin and sticky bruiser, lying squarely in the Skirmisher camp.

{P} Moonsilver Blade

After casting an ability, Diana gains (30-70)% attack speed for her next 3 attacks.

Diana’s abilities apply Moonlight to afflicted enemies, granting True Sight of them for 3 seconds. Diana’s basic attacks against enemies afflicted with Moonlight will deal (50-250 + 90% AP) magic damage in an arc before her, restoring (15% AP) mana and purging the Moonlight from them.

These changes should make her stronger as a mixed autoattacker-ability weaving skirmisher. Her damage is now somewhat front-loaded onto her Moonlight attack.

{Q} Crescent Strike

Cooldown: 8-6 Mana Cost: 55

Diana sends out a wave of light in an arc stretching up to 900 units that deals (60-200 + 70% AP) magic damage to all enemies hit, ending in a circle that deals the same damage. This ability applies Moonlight to all enemies it damages.

No changes

{W} Pale Cascade

Cooldown: 14-8 Mana Cost: 60

Diana summons three orbs to rotate around her. Each orb deals (20-50 + 15% AP) magic damage. Orbs pass through enemies affected by Moonlight.

Changes to decrease her single-target burst/shielding in exchange for synergy with the new passive. 3 Orbs means she gets 3 seperate Moonlight attacks.

{E} Lunar Rush

Cooldown: 12 Mana Cost: 40-60

Passive: Triggering Moonlight with a basic attack will grant Diana a shield for (10-50)% of the total magic damage dealt by that attack and refund this ability’s cooldown.

Active: Diana dashes to the target enemy afflicted by Moonlight, dealing (30-100 + 40% AP) magic damage upon arrival.

The passive gives her deceptive survivability, especially if she catches multiple targets with her Moonlight attacks. Her old R moved to her E should give her a little bit more earlygame strength. It also no longer allows dashing to non-Moonlighted targets, which decreases her burst and adds a bit more counterplay. The reset ability remains but procs with her empowered attack, giving her much more mid-fight mobility if she can weave those spells and attacks.

{R} Moonstrike

Cooldown: 90/75/60 seconds Mana Cost: 100

Diana targets a point within 800 range and flickers out in a surge of moonlight, becoming briefly invulnerable and untargetable. After 2 seconds, she flashes back down to the earth 125 units away from the point in the direction she cast from. She stabs her sword into the ground, dealing (50-150 + 30% AP) magic damage in a circle radius 500 units centered on the point and yanking enemies up to 400 units in towards the point, applying Moonlight to all of them.

Greatly strengthened E moved to her R, giving her a more typical ultimate. Combined Malphite-Orianna ultimates, but with more delay/counterplay and weakened somewhat.

1 Comments

Immaterial3/1/2019, 11:30:47 PM1 votes

I've been playing Diana for a pretty long time and I'd say shes my favorite champion lore and concept wise. Personally, yes I think she could use an update in terms of her kit being very easy to predict. I like that you're thinking about it as I have been too.

As for her class, she is a Diver. And as a Diver she is able to effectively purchase a wide variety of the items including the items that she is "caught between". So, she doesnt need to be locked down as a Skirmisher as she is in a good class for those items in the first place. She's just an oddball as she's the only champion in her class that has the primary role of Mid. XD

In terms of her Feast or Famine nature that you are talking about. (Where she is either super far ahead or "useless".) From my experience, the only instances of me being super far behind to the point of being useless is if I feed to the point where the enemies are just that much farther ahead than me. Which happens to every champion. It's just more noticeable on Divers (Diana), as they have to enter into enemy territory to do their purpose.

That being said,

• Passive: Moonsilver Blade

Tying the cleave to a mark is pulling her away from being a skirmisher IMO. It forces her to need her skillshots to land to be able to deal her damage. If you wanted to push her towards being a skirmisher, I would capitalize on the need to basic attack to proc her moonsilver blade. Note, this is also why she gains attack speed after using an ability. :) Riot does indeed think a lot of these things through.

This could be done by leaving the passive as it is but auto attacking a champion affected by your new moonlight allows her to proc it faster. like instead of the 3rd strike, its is now on the second.

Another thing about tying the cleave to abilities is the mana gain upon cleaving. If you tie it to an ability, you NEED to spend mana to gain any sort of mana back. This is like putting 55 mana cost on an ability that states "gain 15 mana"

• Q: Crescent Strike

Yup still the same. XD

• W: Pale Cascade

Taking the shield off of her W is taking away her lifeline. It is her reason for being able to farm in lane against ranged match-ups (practically all of them). And her reason for being able to jungle safely as well. If you must take away the shield, you also need to give something back. Especially so if you leave the damage at 20-50 (+ 15%) with only 1 sphere being able to deal damage. If I read that right... (o_o)

This could be anything from, moving her old E to her W when the 3rd sphere explodes, to something like, she heals for a % of the damage each sphere deals.

Also, If I did read that right, and only 1 sphere can deal damage to each enemy, the ability doesn't offer anything but a single stack of moonlight on an enemy.

• E: Lunar Rush

First, I'm fine with the shield being given from a different ability, but it shares the same problem when tying it to your abilities landing. Miss your Q or if your W is on CD, she has no way of getting the shield.

Second, I'm also fine moving the Dash to her E but, there's a strong possibility that it will go the way of rakan. (Rip rakan W. You were my second favorite champ...) The speed at which you travel to the target will most likely get nerfed to give room for "counterplay".

Third, tying it again to moonlight takes away its availability.

• R: Moonstrike

I love the idea of giving her an actual ultimate. However the numbers on this feel like there is a LOT of buildup for almost no change to the game. In fact, more often than not, I would see this ability missing or not changing the course of the game much.

I like the idea of casting at a point, and utilizing her old E but maybe not a 2 second cast time blink to get the ability off.

Personally, I would like more of a "Sister" method to leona. Where Diana callsl forth the light of the moon (casts like viktor laser) and it comes crashing down at an angle knocking all enemies in the aoe to one direction and dealing a large amount of damage. Or maybe a medium amount of damage but on a shorter CD.

So, all in all. I like that you're thinking about making Diana better. I love the champion as a whole and want to see her grow.

TLDR - Don't tie her passives to her skillshot abilities landing when those passives appear to be 90% of her kits damage/survival ability. W is weak. E will most likely get nerfed causing her effectiveness to drop drastically. R is a lot of time invested for very little reward.