Hi there, I'm CrimsonFlood and this is my third guide on this site. I've played well over 2000 games and
Diablo is my 2nd most played character. I'm well aware that he has his troubles right now, but I still wanted to make him work, so here's what I came up with (and also had some success with, I daresay)
First of all, remember that Diablo is NO TANK. He is a ganker and plays much more like a
Kerrigan - you jump into a lane, you flip people around, you kill stuff. You can't poke or go in half-heartedly and then take 3 minutes to regen back to full, you have to lead your team to victory or death!
Also note that the new Kerrigan is propably better at doing this - Diablo's Advantage is his huge health pool and AOE damage. You will want to combo him with another warrior, though, and maybe even with Kerrigan or
Jaina or
Tyrande and form a roaming squad with him early game. Diablo does NOT work well in Pub games, as he requires a lot of coordination and people still think of him as a tank. And I'm sure that a lot of people have already tried to build him tanky - with little success. It just does not work atm. On the other hand, his damage is quite formidable, so why not work on his strenghts instead of his weaknesses?
As I said, you'll want to roam between lanes earlygame. There's some combos you have to get into your brains.
1.
Shadow Charge +
Overpower
Use this when you come into a lane with a partner to reach the enemy before he has time to react. Ideally, A friendly Tyrande is following you and landing her stun right on the overpowered target. From then on, use Firestomp and try to bodyblock him so that the rest of your team has more time to deal damage. It should be a safe kill on everyone who is about half-way out the lane.
Later on, you can initiate a teamfight with that. Just be sure that you initiate on a Squishie and DO NEVER target the enemy tank with that combo, as you only help the enemy team that way! Your team is likely to focus down whatever you overpower, and you don't want to waste their damage on the enemies' most tanky hero.
2.
Overpower +
Shadow Charge
Use this whenever you have someone in reach. It's hard to initiate a teamfight with it, but if you manage to, you'll get one secure kill at the very start, so the rest will be easy.
3.
Fire Stomp +
Shadow Charge +
Overpower
This one is only useful from 13 on, when you have the returning waves, and only useful on targets that are already in melee range. The idea is the following: You use your
Fire Stomp, then Q someone and overpower him. In the meantime, the fire waves are about to return, so nearly all of your returning fire waves will hit the target. This combo is not so well known, and it MELTS squishies, but it's not always possible to pull it of, as your CC might be needed elsewhere^^
That's basically it. Guess I don't have to note that you should fire your
Fire Stomp after every successful combo. Another thing you can do is overpower enemies that chase your squishies to save them, but that's not really a combo, more like an important move all along^^ As Diablo, just try to keep the enemy squishies in the midst of your team as often as possible, by using your skills AND your huge model to bodyblock them. A Diablo that cannot bodyblock is a worthless Diablo!
Level 1
+
Soul Feast
This gives you at least some health regen. Block is only worth it when you have less than ~40 souls, and you get 10 souls per hero-kill, so you should basically have enough souls most of the time. Also, you will take most of the damage while ganking, so this talent will help you to sustain a little longer even without constant heals. At level 20 and with 100 souls, you regen about 60 HP/s
~
Devil's Due
Propably is a little more useful when you have to teamfight a lot, as you can ressurrect faster. You'll definitely need it then, though - as you lack regen.
-
Block
Soul Feast is just plain better, in every occasion, but especially against an ability-damage-focused enemy.
-
Overwhelming Force
Thing is - this is a nice talent for the laning-and-ganking-phase, but has absolutely no use in teamfights. You'll charge too deep into the enemy team for your team to follow up, and you'll lack regen.
Level 4
+
Fire Devil
There's not even a question here. This adds to your damage after your combo, and damage is all you need on diablo! It also helps with waveclear and jungling.
-
Demonic Strength
This one might be okay... but why should you slow someone when you can just kill him? If nobody of your team plans to go for executioner at 16, this talent is not really useful.
-
Soul Catcher
a wasted talent. You generate souls with kills, not by idling, and this doesn't increase your killing power.
-
Essence of the Slain
Would be ok if you could solo-jungle from early on, but you can't - you just lose too much health in the progress. Also, it doesnt't give you damage.
Level 7
+
Battle Momentum
This is so essential to Diablo now that you just can't pass on it. It decreases your cooldowns for your CC and damage in Teamfights. It gives you a ridiculously low cooldown on your ult. And you want to attack stuff all the time anyway, as
Diablo has very high attack damage - his ability damage is even higher, tho.
-
Soul Steal
Not useful in this build, or even in general. The fact that this is the most-picked talent on Diablo just shows that people don't know how to play him. Diablo already has a ****tonne of health, that's nothing he needs more of. It's already hard enough to heal him up ever since he lost
Amplified Healing. So, giving him even more health is just pointless. PLUS the health bonus is quite insignificant. At lvl 20 and with 100 souls, this talent gives you about 600 bonus health. That's two auto-attacks from Raynor or Valla.
-
From the Shadows
Not useful enough. Instead of a 0.75 stun, you get a 1.25s-stun - but only IF you charge an enemy against a wall. Which happens maybe 30% of the time.
-
Devastating Charge
Kinda pointless, too. Sure, you want to stay in the fight and damage people and use skills, BUT the enemy won't use much CC on you, they'll try to use it on your squishies. CC on a tank is wasted CC, and people still see Diablo as a tank. If you get CC'ed, just be glad that they were stupid enough to waste those abilities on you and not on the rest of your team.
Level 10
+
Lightning Breath
Definitely the better ult for a damage-focused Diablo. Use it when in the midst of the teamfight, while everybody is close. Else the enemy will just run away from it - so don't ever use it to engage!
You can also use it for camps sometimes. Together with
Battle Momentum, its cooldown is similar to Kael's Phoenix.
-
Apocalypse
Not the ult for a damage Diablo, and also way harder to use. You might consider this one if you have another Warrior with a better damage ult, or if you can combo it with Void Prison or Starfall or something. But in most cases, you should just get another warrior who provides a CC-Heroic.
Level 13
+
Firestorm
Clear Choice here again.
Firestorm adds SO MUCH damage, and with
Battle Momentum you can fire it two to four times in every teamfight. Especially effective against Illidan. Note that the flames follow you on return, so you get the most out of it when you move around your main target a little.
-
Life Leech
I've experimented with this, and think that it's just a bad talent. You might want to go for it when you have to tank and the enemy has a lot of tanks themselves, but on the other hand your attack speed is kinda too low for this to be useful.
Firestorm adds way more damage.
-
Spell Shield
No. You'll want to outdamage the enemy, not outsustain him.
-
Siphon the Dead
Might be useful when you have to play as a tank, but even then it's not really relevant as you lose that health again way too quickly. Totally useless when you try to go for damage.
Level 16
Now this is where we can vary a bit.
+
Rampage
Great talent. Not only does it give you additional movement speed which will help you to reach a target you want to flip (activate
Fire Stomp when close to a mounted enemy to dismount him and then overpower him), but it also increases your attack damage by 50%. That's 108 additional damage per attack at Level 16!, and you sometimes even get two attacks out while it lasts.
-
Continuous Overpower
Just not as good as everything else here. Used to pick it back in the days, but whereas this one is a pure utility talent, Rampage offers utility AND damage. And if you really look for more CC, I think that
Domination is the better choice.
~
Domination
Tried it some times and it's actually not that bad if you need more interrupts. Together with
Battle Momentum you can
Shadow Charge in,
Overpower your target and at that point, you can already use another
Shadow Charge to push the victim back into your team. Also not bad against those jumpy Illidan and Sonya players that constantly dash around the battlefield. With this, you can follow them long enough to kill them :3
~
Imposing Presence
Take it if you have to (against
Raynor,
Valla, AD-Falstead,
Sgt. Hammer ), but don't take it when the enemy doesn't deal much autoattack damage. It's one of those talents that you don't really want to use, but you might have to. Against Butcher i recommend more CC instead of this, btw. A stunned butcher can be killed, whereas a slightly slower attacking Butcher still kills you right back^^
Level 20
+
Hellstorm
More range and duration for your already-good ultimate. If you manage to do the engaging and not get engaged, this helps a lot in dealing a ****load of damage and makes the enemy run - or focus you and your huge health pool, both should be fine. Just remember to use it in the midst of a fight, when the enemy is close. And try to aim it on the squishies, not the tanks.
~
Lord of Terror
Not as good as one might think. The problem is its radius, which is not that large - you'll propably only get 2-3 people into it. And when you do, they won't heal you for much - unless they're tanks. And then you shouldn't go after them. The damage of this ability is neglectible, your ult improvement serves you better
~
Bolt of the Storm
Not as good anymore since it got nerfed, but still worth a try if the enemy kills you too quickly. In that case fire all your abilites and then blink away. Don't use it to engage - Diablo is too squishy to stand in the midst of the enemy team for long.
-
Dying Breath
One of the worst Lv 20's in the game. You don't want to die, and this skill only does something if you do. In case you took apocalypse, go for Lord of Terror or Bold.
Thanks for reading! Pls let me know what you think of this guide in the comments! Some final tipps for that playstyle of Diablo:
1. If you want to try this strat, get at least one buddy to form a roaming squad with. When solo-queuing, all of this is incredibly hard to pull off.
2. Let your team know that you plan on roaming rather than staying in lane all the time, at least early on.
3. With the
Fire Stomp-Damage, you make quite a decent Jungler from Lv 13 on. Also, you powerspike at 13. From then on, you are really a threat damagewise, so use that and be even more agressive from there on.
4. This Diablo doesn't work as well on the 2-lane-maps, as you tend to clump up early there and ganking doesn't happen that often.
5. Have a
Shadow Charge ready to interrupt channeling abilities in teamfights. Nobody can do that as easy as Diablo. Also note that the enemy is stunned slightly longer when you charge them against terrain.
6. You can actually use
Shadow Charge to get over terrain. Can rarely be used to escape, BUT when you use
Fire Stomp to reveal that an enemy is doing a camp, you might be able to charge into the camp and steal it!
7. Did you know that you can gain souls even after death as long as you contributed to the kill? So, as long as you don't die in vain, you will get some startup souls from your last fight :)
8. Moshpit is no longer interruptable as you get stunned while charging in.
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