Diana is receiving a major overhaul on League’s PBE

Riot Games has targeted Diana on the League of Legends Public Beta Environment, drastically changing her gameplay in time for the 2020 season. 

It isn’t technically a rework, but after Riot switched around her abilities and reshaped her identity, she’s practically a new champion.

Diana was originally intended to be a hybrid AP bruiser with her release in 2012, but her mishmash of skills and her counterintuitive kit made for an all-around lackluster experience. Since her inception, she’s rarely seen playtime in competitive and has sunk down into the lower rankings of solo queue. 

She has her niche capabilities with her high burst damage and her ability to assassinate squishy targets, but overall, she leaves much to be desired. 

The new changes directed at Diana will help reshape her as a champion, giving balance to her laning phase. She would often fall behind in the early stages of the game due to her lack of mobility and kill potential. The changes to her kit should fix that, though.

Riot’s first major overhaul is to Diana’s Moonfall (E) and Lunar Rush (R) abilities, switching the two around and making them suitable for their new roles in her kit.

Lunar Rush is almost the same, with its changes primarily based around tuning. It still makes Diana dash toward a target and deal magic damage, but its pre-six accessibility will give Diana the room to maneuver. In turn, she’ll have more survivability, allowing her to sustain herself in the early game.  

Diana’s new Moonfall ability “gives Diana a new tuning lever to hopefully make her more enjoyable to play both as and against,” according to Riot. It deals additional damage, has a much beefier slow, and allows her to teamfight effectively. 

The second notable change to Diana’s kit is her passive. She now gains a flat 10-percent bonus attack speed. When she casts a spell, the effect is tripled. Additionally, similar to her previous passive, she also deals cleave magic damage every third strike.

“Diana’s passive had a lot of rules and mechanics that were put in for specific reasons to tune her lane or her jungle respectively, and after taking a look at them we decided that we could afford to clean them up and simplify the passive back down while instead making adjustments to her base stats and mana costs to make her feel better overall,” Riot wrote in a blog post.