League of Legends: PBE changes will make Diana a dominant jungler

Diana is getting some big changes to her kit on the PBE, set to drop with League of Legends Patch 9.24. Here’s why those changes could make her a jungle menace.

For most of her life in League of Legends, Diana has struggled to find a solid identity in her primary role of the mid lane. As a melee assassin, Diana would have the typical range disadvantages against mages while also lacking the mobility to abuse their squishiness on all-ins like some of her brethren like Fizz, Talon, or Zed. Gated by not having access to her ultimate until level six, she was relegated to farming passively and biding her time, hoping not to lose too much of her health pool before that level power spike.

Some players have attempted to mitigate this weakness by taking Diana into the jungle role, where she would be able to passively farm to that level spike. While jungle Diana has certainly been at least viable in the past, it’s always been a telegraphed play style as she has little room to gank or skirmish over early objectives. During Season 9, with its focus on early game dominance, Diana jungle struggled.

However, a recent batch of PBE changes may have given life not just to Diana as a champion but could be poised to set her up as a dominant jungle force going forward. What is happening to Diana in Patch 9.24 and why is this change so big?

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The changes

On PBE, Diana is essentially having her E – Moonfall and R – Lunar Rush swapped, but Moonfall is getting an extra bit of “oomph” to the previously-lackluster spell. Now, if Diana pulls in an enemy with Moonfall, moonlight will crash down onto her after a one-second delay, dealing massive AoE damage increased the more enemies she pulled in.

In addition, her Passive – Moonsilver Blade is being changed to now simply give a flat attack speed bonus that is tripled for three seconds after Diana casts a spell. Previously, Diana only got the attack speed bonus after casting a spell and it only lasted for her next three basic attacks on-hit. She gets less attack speed overall, but she will have it active for longer, and she will retain the AoE cleave on every third auto.

Why this matters

Diana has always been gated by her lack of early mobility both in lane and in the jungle. Swapping her Lunar Rush onto a basic ability means that she has access to her dash at level three rather than level six. This means that she has multiple gap closers (the cooldown still resets if it’s used on a target she hits with her Q) to abuse squishy laners in mid or chase down jungle ganks.

She is losing her only form of hard CC (the pullback on Moonfall) until level six, but in most Diana mains seem to be okay with that tradeoff especially when it unlocks her to actually have an early game. In addition, the changes to Moonfall also give her much more team fight presence since she no longer just wants to be picking enemies in 1v1s.

As for the passive changes, this does, unfortunately, mean that Diana’s early wave clear is now more reliant on her spells than getting that cleave up often to damage full waves. However, it also gives her attack speed more often in the early game. And this is crucial to her potential success as a jungler.

Why she’ll be a strong jungler

Right now, Diana is actually a decent spot as a jungler thanks to the Patch 9.23 jungle meta changes. Specifically, the fact that the jungle monsters respawn more frequently and the fact that catch-up experience has been removed incentivizes the farm-heavy style that current Diana prefers in the early game.

Not only does she already want to full clear with her current kit, but Diana’s kit also allows her to have a very healthy clear thanks to the damage and shield on her W – Pale Cascade. Combined with the fact that she has that AoE cleave from her passive, Diana clears those bigger jungle camps like Raptors and Krugs better than most single-target assassin junglers (like Kha’Zix, Rengar, Master Yi, or even Xin Zhao).

The fact that she now has a gap-closer at level three not only helps her early jungle pathing (because she can Q>E over jungle walls) it also unlocks her gank potential early. Laners will have to be scared that Diana could actually be waiting in a brush, potentially able to dash twice onto them with some huge burst. Even with less CC, her ganks should be far more threatening than ever before.

In short, Diana’s new kit will allow her to clear the jungle faster (potentially, the numbers could mean that she’ll get more attacks overall with the current iteration of her passive) when she already has a fairly fast, healthy clear in a jungle meta that incentivizes hard-farming. Add onto that the fact that she can now actually gank and contest Scuttle Crabs early and the fact that she brings almost an Amumu ult to her level six ganks, Diana has all the tools in her kit to become one of the strongest junglers in League of Legends.