This game was an exercise in hilarity. I was able to stay in bot lane until around thirty minutes in with just a Doran's Blade. Finally went and recalled after a team-fight at bot, which left a level 18 enemy Nasus and myself with no mana and a tower at 1/3 health.
I had 233 farm, 3/0/0 score and 9100 gold when I finally recalled. Infinity Edge, Bloodthirster, Berserker's Greaves and a Zeal. Went back to lane and triple killed Twitch, Janna and Nasus, barely missing the Quadra on Mundo when Amumu tagged him. Got another seven kills and two assists(including a relatively close 1v2 against Kass and Twitch at bot), but only forty-four more farm by the end.

Sure it wasn't my best score, but it was just hilariously amusing, and my Alistar support really did his job well, with the occasional Amumu presence. Mundo came around quite a few times, and once I was baffled to kill twitch when I was forced to Flash and Net Shot away from a Mundo gank and my Net Shot randomly killed Twitch without me even thinking of him.

All in all, hilarious for my team to watch.

 

I've been fooling around with jungle diana churchey and your right. Her first clear + early ganks do feel mediocre. I feel its a cpmbination of as being a bit too low and the mana costs of her shield being too high even with blue. That was maxing shield first tho. You'll want 1 rank in shield first then max her q I think. Try that tomorrow.

Thats only a couple games with her tho, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

I did 2 levels in shield before maxing Q first, E at level 4. It worked fine, but the enemy mid Diana was stronger by an order of magnitude, even though I got first blood+2 assists in a level 1 team battle.
Lee camped our Karth mid, around 10 ganks in 6 minutes, to let the enemy Diana freefarm. Karth didn't die too much (if at all, I don't remember) to the ganks, but once Diana got 6 she just started shitting all over Karth and killing him at whim.

Meanwhile, in the jungle, I don't have the income to get the damage I need. We still won it, and I was able to take the enemy diana 1v1, but she definitely excels mid. Her Q might get nerfed just because of how easy it is to farm with. A flat 55 mana cost ability that is only 25 damage and .1 AP away from being a gragas barrel is soooo strong. It lets her harass and farm like gragas or ori while being able to burst like akali at 6.

I think the jungle is just too limiting. It really favors champs who are get all their needs from their kit, not their items. Still, jungle diana is a good pubstomp pick.

Tried a diana top game. They had blitz so I called they were gonna invade, we knew it was going to happen, but they refused to group, so it was a 2-1 trade in their favor. Poppy got FB and came top with philo stone+4 pots. My boots+4 pots couldn't stand up to it, and poppy probably has an easy time standing up to Diana anyway. I think the build could work though, because even against a fed enemy team the metagolem stands up on any character. The problem was Poppy's metagolem>my metagolem, so every engage would be poppy killing my team faster than I could kill theirs.

 

Diana definitelly dethrones Fizz as my favorite mid champ, and I find she has much better results mid than jungle. While her early game is weak, her mid and late game are ridiculously OP. The scaling of her skills and passive is insane. Early game, I try to focus on farming rather than harrasing, but after I get my Deathcap, I go apeshit. Has yielded me scores like 11/0, 9/0 etc.

For mid, max Q whenever it is up, pick up one point in E on level 3 for ganks, and max W after Q.

 

Have you two tried jungling Diana starting Doran's Ring? Boots 3 is mediocre, and just not that good. Starting Doran's Ring, you can get to level 6 at around 7 minutes with 1.3k gold, and start ganking well after you go back to buy. Start with W first and max q, and there is no need to go back at all until you want to.

 

How do you gank at all with a dorans start?

 

I'd imagine you don't, you just farm your jungle and scare mid a little and hope your lanes are competent enough to farm for 5 minutes on their own. I know it's asking a lot but I imagine that's the idea.

As for Diana, had a couple of obvious high ELO/smurfs come into normal games and stomp the team I'm on with her, she doesn't seem so bad outside of her Q being monstrous late game. Thank god I was playing Sivir and could spellshield it, otherwise I'd have been wrecked by her double ultimate.

 

Picked LeBlanc in a normal and ended up laning against Diana. Not a fun matchup. She was more than tanky enough to survive my burst combo while the range and damage on her Q allowed her to harass and push the lane like Orianna. And she was being babysat by Amumu. Incredibly frustrating.

 

Just played a game where Diana was involved as the enemy jungler. Zero map presence until 6, and even then Diana's map presence was spotty at best, appearing once every two or three minutes, usually at bottom lane.

I dunno, man. I want to play her and see what she's like, but at the same time I don't want to support this shit that Riot's doing where every single champion they've released for the past five months, barring very few exceptions, can go into the jungle.

 

But thats more because of the new jungle and not because of the new champions.
Most champions can jungle now, and quite a few of them can do okay.

 

Speaking of Diana, I expect they'll nerf her soon, like Zyra. I think straight AP Diana is very OP, able to bust out enemy Assassins much faster than they do, while shielding herself at the same time.

My most recent game as Diana, along with an example of my usual build:


And some examples of my match history as Diana:


Many of these deaths are only because I get too cocky and tower dive one time too many, killing the enemy but dying to the tower in the proccess.

I'm quite enjoying Diana, fingers crossed they don't nerf her (but they should).

 

I do certainly agree that her burst is higher than many, and her shield can give her some surprising durability. That said, I have managed to, perhaps not decisively, but still consistently, defeat her while playing Akali at least. It could be a carry over of relative experience with the characters, Diana being new as she is, but still... I'm not going to lie and say that 60-70% Spell Vamp doesn't help though, hah.

That being said, I'm still not completely sure off the top of my head if Moonlight reveals stealth. I know it reveals for three seconds if they run into a bush or out of sight-range, but I'm sure that I've entered my Shroud with Moonlight on me, and been as 'ignored' as I would otherwise, despite them practically standing on top of me. Of course it breaks Eve's new stealth, but that's another issue entirely .

:EDIT:
On a semi-related note, I was playing a game with Merrill, Shezza and Deakyvia earlier(plus a random), and managed my first Pentakill with the new Evelynn, which is pleasing since I had two with the just-previous 'gimped' Eve.

It was quite pleasing, considering the game was a bit of a shame otherwise. While I admit it's probably best that I wasn't top versus a Diana, our random took Rammus(despite me initially calling top in Champion Select), and took him top to go double-Doran's Shield start, and feed their Diana(and give First Blood to their Jungle Jarvan). Of course, aside from pinging once, or twice(?), he never spoke a single word in chat.
Merrill as Diana Jungle did decently enough at 2/3/10. Shezza's first-time Gragas versus Ahri went well to start as he, I quote "didn't feel threatened" for much of the beginning, although it didn't hold out as solid when we got into team fights. Bot went surprisingly well as Eve and Zilean versus Viktor and Sivir.
Came out of laning phase with 5/2, but after that Penta and a following Triple, I was 13/2/6 and they suddenly surrendered.
Even Merrill told them in all-chat "WTF? You should have held out longer. Our Rammus is retarded."

 

Basically what BSuper said. I'm not sure if you've had better success, but Diana's ganks pre-6 are pretty bad. Only time they can work is if the enemy is horribly overextended, and at that point, the gank will probably be successful with or without boots (provided your teammate follows up). Her ganks at 6 are pretty strong, so it works out to get to that level quickly (similar to Akali jungle, but stronger). Still, there is no problem starting boots+3 , I just find Doran's Ring start to be slightly stronger.

 

Not really any worse than most junglers. "Horribly overextended" is a vast exaggeration, because ganking top is super easy vs a ton of tops if they even get close to the river brush. I would rather have the displacement over Shyvana's speed, olaf's skillshot, cho knockup, or udyr stun in some cases. Her gank is plenty strong with her E, but you need the boots to get in range to use it. It only takes a few hits to get a kill at early levels.

I think the biggest thing I have a problem with is waiting till 6 to gank. Even if your ganks arent successful, waiting until 7 minutes to gank relies too much on your allies not getting killed, which will be a longshot if their jungler is ganking. You have to show some presence in the game if you are the jungle.

edit: My main build with Diana mid has been my fizz build, which (ideally) is boots-->dorans-->sheen-->deathcap-->lichbane. I'll try out a pure AP build with a deathcap rush, and also a dfg rush to compare.

Not going boots/3 on a jungler without a gap closer is wasting 2:30 of red buff. With boots, you can force a flash just by showing up in a vaguely out of position lane. Without boots, you can be outrun by everyone else in the game who started boots (aka 3/4 people in the lane).

 

That's true too, getting top with red buff and E is pretty easily to force a flash. However, what level are you getting E at though? If you get it any sooner then level 4, I feel as though her jungle clear speed just suffers for it. The "Horribly Overextended" only applies to mid lane and bot lane tbh, and without a gap closer, those lanes are near impossible to gank. With top lane though, if the enemy is even a little past the river (or just anywhere besides next to turret if you have tribush), there should be no problem forcing a flash, regardless of whether or not you have boots. (Unless they have some sort of escape, and in that case it will be difficult to catch them even with boots, unless "horribly overextended").

Honestly, I find the best jungle gankers to be the ones with a gap closer, and a cc they can use afterwards. Notable exceptions are the ones with enough early damage that just having a gap closer is enough. Cho, Shyv, Udyr, Olaf definitely have ways to get closer to a target that is at a range. (I would argue that Shyvana is not that great of a ganker either, besides in top lane where anyone with the mildest cc could do so). Diana, on the other hand, literally have to walk up next to them. And while E is great at this point, her inability to easily get close to her target is what makes her an average ganker at best.

Nonetheless, you are absolutely correct that going boots+3 will make it easier to gank. I only put Doran's Ring as a pretty good alternative to quickly reach her strongest ganking phase, and also eliminates any need to ever have to go back to heal until you wish to do so.l

 

Level 4 is standard, although sometimes I do level 3 if I'm finishing a camp as I need to run mid/top/bot to countergank or see someone very ripe for the gank.

And the I honestly don't think you can gank anyone top without boots unless they actually do horribly overextend and/or don't start boots themselves. With boots, you just have to set course for collision and problem solved. Without boots, your course has to be super precise or they will get away without needing to blow flash, not to mention how much easier it would be to just run circles around someone without boots with the juking available between the two brush+3 paths to safety (tribrush by enemy tower, river brush, through lane). Also if the enemy gets a flash off, you can flash after to get the kill if they aren't at tower yet. If you don't have boots, there's a good chance that they will outrun you after the flash.

On mid diana news, I tried a rylais rush, didn't like it. Since you rely on getting a Q before ult to really have the burst you want to 100-0 someone with a flash, the rylais slow is kinda unnecessary. Dominated a TF mid but the enemy jungle diana was being fed by our vlad.

Mid game, vlad had kages, hog, chain vest, boots, amp tome :facepalm
However, even with double gp5 and the feed, she didn't have the same strength that I had in mid with the cs and exp farm. Even with 11 kills to my 5, she couldn't 1v1 me and we ended up getting a baron for the comeback because she attempted to.

 

Hmm, still levelling and just played my first game as Sona, interesting support to play though I went down the pure damage road in terms of skills (maxing q first) and punished the enemy Corki/Sona lane for it (my carry was Caitlyn).

Wasn't too pleased with my performance (finished 4/2/32 with something like 40 CS) as I wasted my Ult once or twice and I felt like I was doing something wrong in engagements somehow even though I was spamming q and e whenever I could and using my auto-attack for the extra damage whenever I could in terms of q. The confusing part was in her passive, I'm assuming all her chords bonus ability are activated by auto-attacking the enemy in question? If so, that would explain a lot and why I felt like I was doing a pretty poor job in engagements.

Definitely prefer her to Soraka currently, though I've yet to try out Janna, and should really buy Nunu given how stupidly cheap he is.

 

Movespeed Quints and the movespeed Masteries in the defense/utility tree go a long way towards making ganking without boots more effective in my experience. In fact, if I can reasonably do so, I like to run 0/21/9 simply because having additional movespeed, even if it is only 2%, makes ganking (and running) so much more effective.

 

How is Diana's survivability in teamfights, if she goes ap mid? Building her assassin just seems like a big no-no, since she doesn't really have a reliable way to get out. I thought about Rylais and Gunblade, and have her similar to Akali, but I feel like it's probably just not necessary at all. I was thinking Athene's as a pretty good item though, simply because of her large mana consumption when spamming QR's, and getting to 40% cdr seems pretty important (So that you can use Q quickly again once moonlight runs out).