“A new moon is rising.”
Following her recent rework, Diana became one of the strongest mid lane champions in League of Legends season 10. Although she has been played in the jungle, Diana’s changes have made her burst damage and ability to finish enemies extremely simple in a one-on-one laning situation. She can hold her own in a variety of situations she may find herself in such as duels, teamfights, and split pushing for her team.
Much like the other champions in League, Diana will utilize a variety of items to suit different situations she may find herself in during the game. While this is the case, Diana has some core items that best compliment her kit and will help bring out the best results.
Runes
Precision
Conqueror: Diana is going to use abilities chained together quite often to keep enemies at a distance while she farms or to secure takedowns. This rune is going to see every ability and basic attack that deals damage to enemies generate stacks of Conqueror that will grant Diana adaptive force. Once fully stacked, the rune will grant her healing for 15 percent of the damage dealt to enemy champions.
Presence of Mind: Using her abilities is going to quickly drain Diana’s mana and the last thing the player wants to worry about it running low on mana while pursuing a takedown. Presence of Mind restores 20 percent of Diana’s mana after successful takedowns, allowing her to get back into action. On top of this, it will also increase Diana’s maximum mana up to 500 at max.
Legend: Alacrity: With this rune, the more Diana is involved in takedowns, the more she is going to gain attack speed. The bonus attack speed is only going to benefit Diana by increasing the number of basic attacks she can land once she has dashed in on an enemy.
Coup de Grace: With her ability to dash on targets and secure kills, often Diana will find herself being the team member to finish fleeing enemies. Coup de Grace will make this quick as she will be able to deal bonus damage on low health enemies.
Domination
Taste of Blood: As a melee champion, Diana will often find herself taking damage just to get in range of her enemies. Having Taste of Blood means that the champion will be able to heal back some of her health once she deals damage to enemy champions.
Ravenous Hunter: Ravenous Hunter will heal Diana by a percentage of damage dealt by her abilities. Because she is such an ability-based champion, this can be a substantial amount of healing.
Bonuses: +9 Adaptive Force, +9 Adaptive Force, +15-90 HP (levels 1-18)
Starting items
Doran’s Ring
Starting the game with extra ability power is going to assist Diana in having a fairly powerful early game. Doran’s Ring is going to grant Diana a boost in AP as well as bonus health and mana regen. This extra mana regeneration will allow Diana to use her abilities more freely to deal poke damage to the enemy mid lane champion. Once Diana is able to get within range, she can often deal devastating damage early in the game against enemies who might not have the right items or kit to defend so early.
Health Potion
A common choice for most champions at the early stages of the game, a health potion offers Diana a way to heal from damage she may sustain in lane. Being melee-based, ranged mid lane champions often will be able to deal poke damage to Diana while she is farming minions. Health potions offer a quick way to heal from this damage by granting 150 health over 15 seconds. After purchasing the Doran’s Ring for 400 gold, spending the remaining 100 on two health potions is a great way to start the game.
Core items
Hextech Protobelt-01
The most important item to complement Diana’s kit, Hextech Protobelt-01 offers some hefty stat increases that will make Diana dangerous once acquired. These boosts include 300 health, 60 ability power, and 10 percent cooldown reduction.
This extra health is going to grant bonus durability for Diana while the ability power and cooldown reduction are going to increase the damage and frequency of her abilities. One of the reasons this item is so effective for the champion is due to its active ability. This item will allow Diana to dash in a direction launching missiles that will deal damage to enemies in their path. More so than the damage, this added mobility combined with the champion’s dash will allow her to get in range fast and deal devastating damage to enemies.
Nashor’s Tooth
This item grants Diana more bonus ability power and will increase the strength of her abilities, as well as offering some bonus attack speed. The real strength of this item for Diana comes in its unique passive. Not only will this reduce cooldown times by 20 percent, but it will also deal 15 percent of the champion’s ability power on-hit with basic attacks. Due to Diana being a melee champion who dashes in on her enemies, combining abilities and basic attacks, this is going to see an impressive increase in damage output.
Lich Bane
Lich Bane is a great item for Diana because it will increase her damage output while granting her 250 bonus mana to facilitate more abilities. Much like Nashor’s Tooth, after using an ability Lich Bane will grant bonus damage to Diana’s basic attacks equal to 75 percent of her attack damage. The item boasts further stat increases of 80 ability power, 10 percent cooldown reduction, and seven percent movement speed.
Late-game items
Zhonya’s Hourglass
Diana is going to need Zhonya’s Hourglass when the game trends towards teamfight situations. Having this item is not only going to dramatically increase her damage due to the 75 bonus ability power and 10 percent cooldown reduction, but the armor supplied by the item as well as the passive ability to become invulnerable for 2.5 seconds is going to make engaging on groups of enemies much less risky.
Morellonomicon
As the game progresses, Diana is going to want to reap the benefits of a Morellonomicon. This item will grant her 70 ability power as well as 300 health but will also increase the champion’s damage since abilities will inflict Grievous Wounds on enemy champions, reducing their magic resistance greatly and increasing the damage from Diana’s abilities.
Rabadon’s Deathcap
The most powerful ability power item in the game, Rabadon’s Deathcap will grant Diana 120 bonus ability power as well as extra ability power equal to 40 percent of her current amount. This is going to incredibly boost Diana’s power and make her extremely dangerous due to her burst ability playstyle.