League of Legends champion profile: Diana, the Scorn of the Moon

Ability Description

Passive (Moonsilver Blade) – Casting an ability grants Diana bonus attack speed for her next 3 basic attacks. In addition, every third basic attack within 3.5 seconds cleaves nearby enemies.

This is what makes Diana so powerful in the jungle, as the extra attack speed and the cleave (extra damage dealt to the surrounding units) helps her clear immensely. In mid lane, though, this can be a nice little tool when she goes for a trade. Unfortunately, she’s often unable to trigger this in the early game, especially into ranged matchups.

Q (Crescent Strike) – Diana unleashes a bolt of lunar energy that travels in an arc, dealing magic damage to enemies hit and afflicting them with Moonlight.

One of the most unique skill shot abilities in the game, Diana’s Q flies out in a C-shape doing damage to all enemies it hits. You don’t have to aim it around units because it won’t stop at the first enemy hit, but you can use it to hit an enemy from a weird angle.

This is Diana’s primary harass tool in lane and gives her the ability to farm from range. When she goes into the aforementioned ranged matchups, she’ll rely on this to get last hits.

W (Pale Cascade) – Diana shields herself and creates three spheres that orbit her, detonating upon contact with an enemy and dealing magic damage to nearby enemies upon detonation.

Another great tool for Diana to clear the jungle, this ability does AoE damage and also grants her a shield, which allows her to clear healthily. On the other hand, in lane, Diana will largely use this shield to block incoming damage when she takes or when she eventually goes for that all-in (usually once she gets her ult).

E (Moonfall) – Diana draws nearby enemies toward her location, slowing them afterward.

This is Diana’s only crowd control ability in her kit, but it’s fairly weak unless she gets right into the enemy’s face. It’s a short pullback like Thresh or Pyke hook, but in a circle around her, so it’s a great way to stop or interrupt multiple dashes if you’re in the right spot. Early on, however, it’s only useful because increasing E’s rank will boost up the bonus attack speed you get from your passive (Moonsilver Blade).

R (Lunar Rush) – Diana dashes to the target enemy, dealing magic damage. If the target is afflicted with Crescent Strike Moonlight, the effect is consumed on all enemies and Lunar Rush’s cooldown is reset.

A point-and-click dash that does massive amounts of damage once you get enough AP, this is how Diana dives in. Because it’s point and click, it’s very much so a “go-in” button without a lot of tools to “get out” unless there’s another minion or unit you can dash out to.

The big thing to keep in mind is how this ability interacts with your Q (Crescent Strike). After you hit an enemy with your Q, you’ll see an indicator on them for a few seconds. If you use R on one of those targets, it’s cooldown will be completely reset, and you can use it again instantly. 

The R has a long cooldown to compensate for this (25 seconds at rank one) so the only way you’ll be able to use it more than once in a fight is if you use it on a target with Moonlight on it. Your basic combo is therefore to Q an enemy, R to them (with your W up), and E to drag them back to you if they try to escape. If they flash or dodge your E, you’ll still have the second charge of the R to get back on them and finish off the kill!

Types of Scaling

Passive – AP
Q – AP
W – AP
E – none
R – AP

Crowd control

Pull-in and slow on her E

Game stage power

Strength in early game/laning – low
Strength in mid game/skirmishes – medium
Strength in late game/team fights – high

Diana is a champion that is heavily reliant on getting to level 6, as this gives her a window to go in and dump all of her damage. Unfortunately, because she is a melee champion, she’ll tend to get shoved in or poked down in the lane by ranged mages in mid. Similarly, in the jungle she can’t gap close or execute ganks very easily until she gets that level 6 dash.

Once she gets items, though, Diana will be able to easily dash onto and blow-up any enemy. She prefers the small skirmishes to the teamfights, since she can easily get CC’ed and blown up herself in extended team fights. However, she scales so hard – and her Q>R will be off cooldown so quickly late game if she uses her R properly – that she can isolate and kill several targets.