Honor of Kings’ Diaochan is one of the best Mage/Assassin right now in this meta. We can easily consider her an S-tier pick. She has crowd control ability, the ability to blink, and a massive amount of damage, which can delete the enemy team’s carry or squishy heroes easily. This hero mainly relies on her combo, so the difficulty level is a bit higher because once you cast the wrong skill, you will get caught by the enemy easily. In this Honor of Kings guide, we will take a look at the skills, and best builds, including tips and tricks to dominate every game with Diaochan.
Skill Analysis
Diaochan is a hero that has four abilities which are one passive and three active. In this Diaochan guide, let’s see what are her abilities in Honor of Kings, and when you can use which skill to get the best out of her.
Passive – Explosion of Fragrance (Damage, Crowd control)
This is a very interesting passive for Diaochan, because every time she hits an enemy with her skill, this will leave a floral mark on the enemy (capped at 4) for the next 8 seconds. At the highest stack, the mark will activate, recovering 120 HP for Diaochan, and dealing 180 (+43% Magic Attack) amount of true damage while slowing them down by 50% for the next 1 second.
Skill 1 – Returning Lotus (Damage)
CD – 5 seconds
Mana – 40
This skill is the main damage-dealing skill for Diaochan. Upon casting, she releases a lotus orb, which will deal 2-way 180(+57% Magical Attack) Magic Damage/220/260/300/340/380 to the enemies on its way back and forth.
Skill 2 – Petals in the Wind (Damage, Blink)
CD – 10 seconds
Mana – 45
This skill is very unique and can basically be used as a flicker for Diaochan. Upon casting, Diaochan can move towards a designated direction instantly and launches 3 lotus orb petals at the nearby enemies, while each petal deals 140 (+28% Magical Attack) Magical Damage/155/170/185/200/215 amount of damage to enemies.
After each successful hit, skill 2’s cooldown will be reduced by 4 seconds. So, use it very carefully to deal damage spontaneously. While casting this skill she is immune to all attacks
Skill 3 (Flowery potential) (Damage, Buff)
CD – 40/35/30
Mana – 80
This skill is the main secret to Diaochan being an assassin. Upon casting, she creates a buff zone around her while dealing 210 (+50% Magical Attack) Magic Damage and 245/280 Magic Damage twice (appearance and disappearance). Use it wisely in front of enemies because it has its own passive ability that can help you reduce your skill 1 and skill 2 cooldown times when she is in the zone.
Best Arcana build and Spells for Diaochan in Honor of Kings
Arcana Build
The best Arcana Build for Diaochan in the mid lane is:
Harmony (V), Compassion (V), and Nightmare (V)
Where Harmony will help you to boost your maximum health and movement speed, Compassion will help you to reduce cooldown, and lastly, Nightmare will increase your magical attack and magical pierce.
Battle Spells
Though she has many advantages, her main weakness is CC. Once she gets caught by a hard crowd control ability, she cannot escape from that situation. So, Purify is the best spell for her on the battlefield. Upon casting, she can instantly cleanse all debuffs and crowd control effects, but use it only when necessary because its CDR is 120 seconds. This is the only spell that will help you escape from the tricky situation with skill 2.
Best Builds for Diaochan in Honor of Kings
One can try many builds on Diaochan. All one needs to do is to just follow the enemy’s pick and then decide the role on the battlefield. We have set out the following template in our guide to try out with Diaochan on the Honor of Kings battlefield considering her role as a midlane mage.
- Boots of Tranquility: This boot is mainly known as a CDR boot. It will help you reduce the cooldown time (15%) of your skills, but note that it will not work if the skill cooldown is less than 5 seconds.
- Insatiable Tome: It will grant you a +180 magical attack, +10% cooldown reduction, and +1000 max HP, and it’s unique passive will increase your magical lifesteal by 25%.
- Augur’s Word: This is a very important item for Diaochan. This item will grant +140 magical attack,+500 max mana, and +800 max HP, and its unique passive will increase physical and magical defense by 40%(capped at 250) and restore 20% HP and mana within 3 seconds while leveling up.
- Tome of Wisdom: This item also comes under a must-buy magic item. It will grant you a +400 magical attack, and a +10% cooldown reduction, and its unique passive enlightenment will increase damage dealt by 0.8% for every 100 magical attacks (capped at 12%).
- Twilight Stream: This item we personally suggest in the late game will surely give you an advantage. This item will provide a +140 magical attack, +10% cooldown reduction, and +500 max HP. Its unique passive twilight will increase the magical pierce by 14–28 for the next 4 seconds (capped at 10 stacks), which will greatly work with your Arcana Nightmare.
- Savant’s Wrath: This is the last item for Diaochan. This item does basically one thing- increase your magic attack in two steps. First, it will grant a +240 magical attack, and then its unique passive will add a +30% magical attack.
- Splendor: If the enemy team is too strong and you cannot escape from the ganks, you can replace one item above and buy splendor to gain temporary invisibility from its passive moon guard. It will also grant you a +160 magical attack and a +10% cooldown reduction.
Honor of Kings Diaochan Gameplay Tips
According to Diaochan’s skill-casting abilities, we can categorize her as a hard-to-play type hero. She is very strong in team fights. According to her gameplay, we can break it down into three phases. Our Honor of Kings Diaochan guide includes the perfect game plan for the early, mid, and late games of the game. However, a player must have a good understanding of the map to get the most out of any hero.
Early Game
At level 1, unlock your first skill and purchase basic boots. Try to go in the middle lanes; it will help you rotate fast in the top or bottom lanes. Or else you can go to the gold/farm lane. Clear your first wave of minions. But try to avoid farm lanes if a proper marksman is present.
Clear the first or second wave, then try to gank enemies in the top or bottom lane. Do not just sit idle in the lane. Poking enemies and delaying their farms. Additionally, players can keep spamming the following skills:
Skill 1 + Skill 2
Mid Game
Use Skill 1 to harass enemies; she has a long-range, so poke your enemy in the laning phase. After unlocking Skill 2, you can perform a small Skill 3 + (Skill 1 + Skill 2) combo. Diaochan is very fragile in the early stages, so don’t extend the fight. Instead, try to help your allies farm or wait in the bush for a successful gank. Focus on invading instead of only farming.
Try to cast your ultimate on the enemy to deal double damage and spam skills 1 and 2 more often. Keep an eye on your minimap and try to secure Tyrant and Overlord whenever the jungler is trying to secure them; the bot will give you a gold and experience boost. Not only that but slaying overlords will also help you push the lane. Players can additionally use this combo, to gain an upper hand on the battlefield:
Skill 1 + Skill 2 +Skill 3 + Skill 2 + Skill 1
Late Game
In the late phase, keep repeating the process to dominate the battlefield. During a team fight, always aim your ultimate and Skill 1 at the damage dealer to make sure that you hit the right target. Do not hesitate to do 1v1 or 1v2, because at this stage you will gain a massive lifesteal.
Whenever you press Skill 3, watch out for enemy suppression; otherwise, you will get caught or end up by the enemies. Try to cast Skill 3 first to spam skills 1 and 2 more frequently. And if possible, try to secure the tempest dragon, but do not engage it directly; instead, try to hide in a bush or attack from a safe distance so that if the enemy appears suddenly, you can escape or finish them with your combos.
Heroes that counter Diaochan | Heroes Diaochan can counter |
Chemist | Angela |
Eternal Sage | Solarus |
Nuwa | Breezy |
Ata | Fireraiser |
Diaochan can be very vulnerable to hard CC heroes, so using the battle spell is very important, but if she is doing 1v1 with a mage or marksman, the enemy team will surely learn a lesson. There is no particular counter for Diaochan, but beware of stun and hard CC heroes. Mastering Diaochan is not very easy at first, but once you learn the combos, it will automatically become your favorite mage.
Final Thoughts
Additionally, Diaochan is also marked as an assassin too for her massive damage output, so if you want to play her as a jungler, you can do that too, cause skill 1 will help you to restore HP while jungling. There is no massive change needed in the item section, but if you are the only jungler present, then pick Smite instead of purify, or else the enemy will easily steal your buffs.
An excellent pick for rank games, Diaochan is definitely a good pick for the current meta. These tips will surely help you to guide easy wins with Diaochan in Honor of Kings. You can also refer to our latest tier list to know more about the revamped meta heroes in this current season.
That’s all for today’s Honor of Kings Diaochan Guide. Do you prefer to use Diaochan in any other way? Let us know in the comment section below!
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