Diaochan: Nuclear Winter

Build and Guide Diaochan: Nuclear Winter

Cheat Sheet
Quick Level:

Chilling Frost

Blizzard

Diamond Dust

Talent: Purify

Items: Rhea’s Blessing, Enchanted Kicks, Boomstick, Hecate’s Diadem, Holy of Holies, Soaring Aura

Arcana: Violate, Devour, Hex

Introduction
Diaochan is the classic ice mage, freezing her opponents in place with Diamond Dust and dealing large amounts of burst damage with Chilling Frost and Blizzard. Like most mages she’s a glass cannon: incredibly squishy, with few ways of escaping a bad situation.

On the surface she’s a very straightforward long-ranged spellcaster. Freeze ‘em then nuke ‘em. She fills the roles of both ranged DPS and a crowd controller, though most likely she won’t do quite as much damage as a dedicated marksman.

Because her freezing skill has a nasty cast time she can be a challenging hero to learn. Even trickier, her ultimate skill Blizzard must be channeled, and is limited to a radius around her. Yet once mastered she can dominate an entire team with a few well-placed casts.

Skill Build
Chilling Frost (Diaochan attacks with frost, dealing magic damage to enemies in the target area and slowing their movement speed by 50% for 2 seconds. She also places a Mark of Frost on target for 5.5 seconds. When marked targets are hit with Chilling Frost again, they become rooted for 1 second). Leveling increases damage.

Chilling Frost is your go-to spell for most situations. It provides good damage for generic long-range poking. It’s much quicker to cast than Diamond Dust and slows targets, making it easier to freeze with Diamond Dust. It’s your primary damage dealer, so level it up ASAP.

Chilling Frost comes with a secondary root effect if you can land it in quick succession. It’s difficult to pull off early on but if you stack stack some +% Cooldown reduction items, it’s a nice additional lockdown bonus to have.

Thanks to Diaochan’s Passive, Chilling Frost is best used vs enemies whom you have just frozen via Diamond Dust. She’ll do massive amounts of burst damage against the helpless enemies.

Chilling Frost can also be used to effectively clear waves and push lanes, particularly if you combo it first with Diamond Dust. Watch you mana levels and don’t stick your neck out too far. You’re a juicy target for an ambush.

Diamond Dust (After a short delay, Diaochan freezes and deals magic damage to enemies within the target area. Frozen enemies take additional damage). Leveling increases damage and reduces cooldown.

The ‘short delay’ is about two seconds, an eternity in a MOBA. You have to consistently predict where your opponents are moving. Nailing the moderate AOE spell is the biggest challenge to overcome to effectively use Diaochan.

Diamond Dust does some damage but it scales relatively poorly compared to Chilling Frost. Its main goal is to freeze your targets, allowing you to follow up with both Chilling Frost and Blizzard - both will do bonus damage thanks to her Ice Queen passive.

Frozen targets are completely immobilized for about three seconds, which usually spells complete disaster for them. If you find yourself in hot water after freezing them, use the opportunity to put some distance between you. Diaochan rarely fares well once enemies engage her in melee.

Blizzard (Diaochan summons a Blizzard, dealing magic damage to enemies within target area and slowing their movement speed by 30%. She also gains 600 armor while channeling. It has a maximum duration of 5.3 seconds. Moving or casting another ability will cancel Blizzard). Leveling increases damage and reduces cooldown.

Blizzard is strange at first glance, affecting enemies in a sizable radius around Diaochan, and it’s a channeled spell that lasts over five seconds. Yet as a mage she never wants enemies to get in close. But don’t overlook one very important statistic: she gains massive amounts of armor while channeling.

Always try to land Diamond Dust on at least one opponent before activating Blizzard. Your damage output vastly increases against frozen targets, and Blizzard will continue to tick Ice Queen’s passive every time it hits. That should be your primary combo in every mid and late game fight.

The temporary armor gain doesn’t exactly turn her into a tank, and she’s still incredibly vulnerable to crowd control and stuns. Yet Blizzard can and should be used defensively. Without a reliable means of escape, if an enemy closes in activating Blizzard is often your best course of action.

PASSIVE: Ice Queen (Frozen enemies take extra magic damage).

Simple and straightforward. Diaochan should always try to land Diamond Dust first before her other abilities to gain the bonus damage.

However, often it’s easier to cast Chilling First first to slow them down, giving you an easier window to cast Diamond Dust. Then activate Blizzard ASAP to catch them in your icy wake.

Recommended Items
Rhea’s Blessing (+140 Ability Power, +10% Cooldown Speed, Unique Passive - Life Shield: Gains a shield that absorbs damage when HP falls below 40%. The shield lasts 4 seconds and has a 75-second cooldown. Unique Passive - Magic Life Steal +25%).

Rhea’s Blessing is a wonderful item that gives Diaochan everything she needs - more ability power, reducing cooldowns, and an emergency shield that will absolutely save your life. Oh, and a sizable life steal on top of all of that.

Enchanted Kicks (Movement Speed +60, Unique Passive - Magic Pierce +75)

Adding magic pierce to a mage is a no-brainer.

Boomstick (+240 ability power, Unique Passive - Explosion: Ability hits trigger a small-area explosion that deals magic damage. 5-second cooldown).

All of Diaochan’s abilities are AOE attacks, and they have relatively quick cooldowns. Boomstick will add to your damage output significantly.

Hecate’s Diadem (+200 Ability Power, Unique Passive - Warlock: +35% Ability Power, Unique Passive - Magic Pierce +75).

Magic Pierce along with a huge chunk of ability power, both base and a percentage increase. Hecate’s Diadem isn’t the most exciting item but Diaochan loves it and you should too.

Holy of Holies (+400 Ability Power, Unique Passive - Enlightenment: Increase HP by 1400).

Diaochan has all the defense of a wet paper napkin. Holy of Holies gives you a large HP boost without sacrificing any mid to late game ability power gain.

Soaring Aura (+140 Ability Power, +1050 Max HP, Unique Passive - Protection: Reduces magic defense of enemies within 800 units).

While it doesn’t give quite the dual bonuses of Holy of Holies, Soaring Aura comes with a nifty passive that pairs well with Blizzard, reducing enemy defenses while you ran icy hell around them.

Talents
Purify (120-second cooldown. Immobilizes your hero to become invulnerable for 1.5 seconds). Diaochan is vulnerable to stuns and crowd control. Even worse, her channeled ultimate Blizzard can be completely canceled with a single stun. Purify can help negate this disadvantage.

Arcana
Red: Easy enough: Ability Power and Magic Pierce. Talisman (I), Corruption (II), Violate (III).

Purple: Ability Power with a little magical life steal. Absorption (I), Revelation (II), Devour (III).

Green: Magic Pierce is still king, but cooldown speed is good too. Disruption (I), Corrosion (II), Hex (III), and Flurry (III).

Early Game
With her long range AOE damage Diaochan is more than capable of soloing a lane by herself. Don’t over-commit to most fights as your low health is extremely pitiful in the early game, and you may run into mana problems clearing minions. Try to avoid facing off against any warriors with ways of quickly closing in on you, or pulling you to them.

Mid Game
Diaochan continues to excel at clearing minions and pushing lanes, but maintain map awareness at all times, particularly if the enemy team has any roaming assassins. Balance pushing lanes with supporting your team in teamfights. Freezing opponents can swiftly turn the tide in any fight.

Late Game
You’re less squishy but alas, the enemy is also far deadlier. Stick with your team for protection and stay in the backline. Offensively Blizzard works best, and safest, when cast at max range on frozen targets. Don’t put yourself in a more vulnerable situation just to get a more effective Blizzard cast off - the enemy will quickly obliterate you.

As in the mid-game you can peel off and push down other lanes, or even jungle a bit with your sizable burst damage, but never linger anywhere by yourself. Many heroes are more than capable of destroying you one-on-one, almost assuredly if you miss freezing them with Diamond Dust. Don’t miss.

FAQ/Tips
Your primary combo in a fight is Diamond Dust -> Chilling Frost -> Blizzard. All but the healthiest tanks will melt to this icy combo, but you need to be quick in getting everything off. If you don’t have time for both, always go with Blizzard.

Against particularly nimble heroes it’s helpful to cast Chilling Frost first in order to catch them in Diamond Dust easier. At that point the combo becomes Chilling Frost -> Diamond Dust -> Blizzard.

You can cancel Blizzard’s channeling time by moving. There will be situations when a teamfight has turned badly and you need to make your egress. Likewise the fight may move beyond your radius, and you need to catch up to your team. Don’t overly commit to Blizzard just because you can. Use the channeling time as an option to weigh in every fight.

Unfortunately opponents can also cancel your Blizzard simply by stunning you, which is why it’s important to avoid the temptation to run up next to the enemy and activate it. You can use the talent Purify preemptively to avoid getting stunned out ot it, at least for a moment.

Matchups
Diaochan compliments most balanced teams. She likes warriors and tanks who can protect her, and marksman who can deal large amounts of reliable damage on targets she’s slowed and frozen. Most teams shouldn’t need more than one or two mages.

Diaochan fears any deadly assassins who can divebomb her and burst her down quickly. Her defenses and HP are pitiful, and Blizzard won’t save you from a healthy assassin who gets the drop on you. You absolutely have to land Diamond Dust to stand a chance, which is tricky on highly mobile killers like Butterfly and Wukong.