A slightly different suggestions for Diana

Riot,

So, I know everyone has been throwing out Diana ideas and the reaction to the recent changes was voluminous and grouchy to say the least. I also know that Riot Zhanos said that they weren’t looking for new mechanics. But I want to post a few suggestions for two reasons:

Firstly, most suggestions either arbitrarily tweak numbers or else change the entire kit so it looks/plays completely differently. I hope for this kit suggestion to stand a bit between the two.

Secondly, Diana’s ult. Diana pays a lot for the ability to insta-kill squishies in the early/early-mid game. So I look to sacrifice the ability to insta-kill squishies until the very late game in exchange for the tools to make a longer kill-time work and rewarding Q-R-Q-R chaining with some ideas that I haven’t seen anyone suggest.

Ult: Most of the power loss comes out of the ult.

• Scalings and bases removed.
• Ult now does percent max health magic damage, 10/15/20%.
• Ult is now unstoppable.
• After Ult lands, Diana gains 12/24/36% omnivamp for two seconds.

Passive: Buffs designed to help the passive be more important in terms of damage output and help integrate with Diana's combo-based engage.

• Bonus attack speed now scales from 30-90% (moved E passive attack speed).
• Cleave on third attack now scales with 50% AP and 20% Bonus HP.

Q: A little bit of help to maintain Diana’s signature waveclear in generally lower-AP builds. Also helps distinguish durability from damage-oriented builds.

• Now scales +90% AP.

W: A reset mechanic and buffs.

• W cooldown is now reduced by .5/.5/.75/.75/1 seconds every time an enemy champion/large or epic monster is damaged by the other abilities.
• W shield is now (per orb) 55/35/75/95/115 base, +.3 ap, +.1 bonus hp.
• W damage is now (per orb) 22/34/46/58/70 base, +.15 ap, +.1 bonus hp.

E: Now Named Eclipse, the draw and slow is augmented by a grounding/slowing zone thrown out in an arc about one side of the draw-zone (player-controlled direction). The end result looks much like Diana's symbol/the logo for her passive.

• Slowing/grounding zone slows for 30/40/50/60/70%.
• Grounding/Slowing field persists for 6/6/7/7/8 seconds after cast.
• Hardcore MS paint skills here:

And that’s it! Now a few paragraphs of discussion as to how this changes the playstyle and champion identity.

This concept changes the core of Diana's play pattern from the hand-grenade of “faceroll to kill or die” to a more calculated “engage, fragment, and kill.” Instead of using raw damage to force carries to play in black and white, new Diana would specialize in forcing enemies to react to engages in specific ways.picking one member of the opposing team and dividing them off via the slowing/grounding zone of the new E. Think of all the uses you've seen from Cass's Miasma and imagine that being dropped into an enemy team from within at the speed of moonlight.

I think one of the cores where Diana's gameplay and lore overlap (aka: where her identity is strongest and most loved) is in the determination of her kit and character. Lore Diana does not retreat. She did not seek out conflict, but when driven to it she went all in and fought to the other side. Game Diana does the same (except for not seeking out conflict part – we all pressed “find match”): when she fights she lives or dies, no retreating or running away. No free escapes, shrouds, return blinks, or untargetability. The enemy might run, but lore Diana won't and game Diana (usually) can't. New Diana does the same, but new E gives her more than one way to approach a fight. She can QR to a tank that steps a bit far forward and then E to cut them off. Or she could QR to a tank and then immediately R to a carry, drop E to separate away the nearest help, and threaten the carry directly. Or maybe she could RE on the enemy engage and trap their divers with split-second fingers. Or she can build tons of AP to do an old-Diana and come from fog of war to make a 5v5 into a 4v5. New E makes her engages infinitely more variable and skill-expressive. Diana will still kill or be killed, but now she can control her fights with more flexibility.

Current Diana is an ever-expanding circle of death. Take one-step inside Q-range and you die. If she’s fed enough R-range is the limit. But there’s a second half to this power-fantasy: aoe. Lots of assassins have abilities that can hit several enemies at once, but Diana’s E into W into Q into Passive combo is signature. The goal of this rework is to downplay the single-target no-reaction burst part of the power-fa ntasy while giving more tools to the aoe destruction power-fantasy. New Diana can’t kill a carry with three keys, but she can near-instantly appear in the middle of a team with aoe destruction and ground anyone she doesn’t feel like killing right now.

I hope these ideas are useful. Cheers, DQD

ed: someone pointed out that in editing down the length I accidentally cut the bullet point removing the bases and scalings on the ult.