First question to diablo mains is how to play him. second question is why he is so popular even with a really bad winrate in all ranks. My friend and I used to be terrified of him so we banned him every time we could but stopped doing that a few weeks ago when we realized he isn’t that great and majority of time just shoves people back into their teams. Is w or q build better?
1 Like
I prefer W build in general, but like Q build on certain maps, like Tomb of the Spider Queen or Towers of Doom, or if I am up against a melee heavy comp. Diablo is fairly easy to counter, so if you draft him early, the enemy team can pick a hero like Imperius. You also want some sort of set up, follow up CC, and burst damage to take advantage of his strengths. Tyrande and Medivh in particular pair well with him. I played him with a Medivh recently who took Leyline Seal, and I would drop an Apoc under them timed to hit when the seal dropped.
In regards to playing him, you always want to be watching positioning and not just Q on CD. I use it to peel and escape as much as I use it to wallbang people. Early game, you want to play conservatively, or if you have been killed at full souls, as a Diablo without souls is very squishy, and you can rack up the deaths quickly if you play him too aggressively at low souls.
2 Likes
I feel like outside of wombs combos, W build is almost always better. Diablo’s sustain and ability to control fights and set up engages makes him very strong on most maps. I would argue he is still a top-pick tank right up there with Anuberak. The main problem with Diablo is that he is actually not that easy to play, and people tend to overestimate what he does.
His level 20 combo and engage with W build is beyond oppressive and will win games outright much like a perfect rewind combo on Anuberak will.
1 Like
My build is kind of a heretic one I guess, a lot of ppl got shocked by it and when things get bad sometimes they blame my build for it since it’s considered bad(?).
But I go AA Dibs almost all the times ![:smiley:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")
(Even in Diamond+ ranked games.)
(This season 70.6% winrate so far, last season 69.2%. Lifetime ranked: 61.8%, with QM: 57.5%. Having him close to lvl 36 (my highest).)
The way I play him is to seek ganks in the laning-phase, and do aggressive but well thought out engages.
Try to position for the wall stun bonus. Get the enemy’s attention when you’re fighting them so they don’t focus your allies, but if they do, you can charge back to peel.
The best way to pick Diablo is to be able to pick out a squishy and set it up for your team’s burst combo, making the fights 5v4.
Also with AA build they have such a hard time killing me and I found that lvl 4 talent the quickest way to get the your souls back.
Also, pick Lightning Breath most the times imo, and don’t forget that you can use it to become unstoppable as well. Not long ago I countered a Stitches hook with it on ToD.
The problem is people assume people who ban Diablo are idiots who dont know what they are doing and if he wasnt omegabanned, in all the otherwisebannedgames he would mantain his current (low) winrate.
People say Rehgar performs better than Ana. What if I told you Rehgar performs good because grenade is omegabanned?
Anyway…
Diablo is better at zoning than heroes who are supposedly “great” at zoning (Gaz/Probius lul). Most map objectives have tons of no-go zones, unless you want to eat Diablo/Tyrande combo.
All 3 builds (AA/Q/W) are somewhat viable, but W build, most importantly with Souls to the Flame is good/consistent value, no brainer build/talent. Lvl 1-10 are all worth consideration. It gets worse later on unfortunately. Lvl 13/16 W talents are Lightning Breath only. Lvl 13/16 Q talents are insta-pick otherwise.
Q/AA is worse against heavy poke (there is no way in hell I pick either one as solo warrior).
I cant stress this enough, but Diablo doesnt charge only forward. I can spend whole game running in circles between 2 deathballs, letting my dps do their job.
PS - Diablo being omegabannedcuzstronk is meme-worthy at best btw. Last cd nerf was good. Diablo is very consistent hero regardless the skill so if you dont know what to ban, Diablo is simply good choice. Right after Anub obviously D:
3 Likes
I think it is pretty obvious most people simply don’t know how to ban. So it is just easier to go with status quo or what they find annoying – but I mean neither of these are really hallmarks of good ban decisions anyway.
Possible, but in this case its not exactly what I meant.
If you make a imaginated skill/value graph for every tank, it will be pretty flat for Diablo (partially because of strong and easy to use W build). He is not Johanna, not calling him braindead idiot proof 
, but average tank player will get good results with him. If enemy team got tank to pick and you cant read someones mind, banning Diablo gives you the highest % of removing the most value from enemy pick, regardless of skill. I could argue it could be pretty good decision. Compare him to Stitches - you either land hook or you are just a big ball of hp. Lets say that made any sense lol.
@topic
Right before objective/TF, close to your well, use W and tap well, even if you are full already. For next 20s you got extra omegasustain.
You dont need wall to make his combo dangerous. Q minion between you and enemy hero and you will end your charge right in front of enemy. You dont have to overextend with Q.
Playing Diablo is basically cheating. He is disgustingly broken. A tank who can one shot whoever he wants. He has a ridiculous health pool and stupid self sustain from level 1, which becomes easily the most busted thing in the entire game once he finishes his quest. 5 second respawn timer btw hehexd.
You can’t reasonably avoid wallbangs. It is almost always impossible to not be in range of a wall because of map design.
I think picking Diablo is tantamount to cheating and I really don’t think you should do it if you care about the gameplay experience of your opponents
This is how i felt before the rework too and the reason i always banned him back then, but truth be told he doesn’t do any of those things right now. wall bangs aren’t that impactful unless you’re seperated from your team. most of the time what i see now is a diablo charge in and either
a be so cut off from his team that he pushes the squishy he slammed away from the danger zone and he himself gets killed by enemy. this generally happens in late game when he has 100 souls and is cocky enough to do it. end result: dead
b slams squishy into wall and takes out 30% of health but in doing so has seperated from his own squishies and allows quick entry to his own backline. end result: dead healer/assassin best case scenerio its a trade
c 5 second respawn time not that useful if your team was killed (which they most likely were killed without their tank)
the games where he instakills assassins are the ones where they have a 2+ level advantages and in those cases I gurantee you a carry hero was behind the advantage rather than diablo. Until he hits 50 souls his health pool is actually smaller and weaker than other tanks in the game.
Diablo is one of the strongest tanks currently in the game. Very high survivability, very high damage (highest in class) and strong CC.
It’s a tank that punishes the enemy very much for making a mistake.
Builds are 3:
- All W + Lightning Breath. This build provides very much area damage and greatly improves survivability. This is build for long TFs.
- All Q + AA + Apocalypse
This is build for quick killing. Very much damage and CC in one target. This composition allows you to kill enemies yourself. - Hybrids. Usually on the 4th and 7th level, we play W, on 10 we choose Apo, on 13 and 16 we choose Q.
I like the AA build too. Don’t know how good it is but its definitely fun.
There’s at least 3 builds that I know of, and which one you pick depends on enemy team Comp and the map.
If you face a ranged team with lots of poke, go fire build.
If you face a melee heavy team with lots of tank go AA build.
If you are on a map with lots of walls and facing non tank melee heroes go wall smasher build.
Most of the time you don’t want to engage with shadow charge, you want to zone your enemies with the fear of an overpower and a shadow charge back into your team.
Overpower resets shadow charge at 16 is a game changer for engaging. Charge, slam, charge is a great way to turn a team fight into a 5 v 4.
I think Diablo doesn’t get banned only because he is so strong, but I think you prefer not to play against him.
It doesn’t matter what wirnate he has, if you face Diablo and one or two of your teammates are constantly out of position, you fight whole game 4v5 or even 3v5.
I rather ban him than risk playing 4v5 whole game.
Still, with good positioning and some counters (I pick Arthas almost anytime I play against Diablo) you can have quite good game against him…
From the builds, I usually prefer the Q build. It gives me sustain, armor, high single target damage…
You can make plays with him.
They feels good, and the plays can win games.
He also did used to be pretty high up in winrate.
Oh, and Diablo feels annoying to play against. Due to these plays he can make which can make you lose the game.
Which is part of the reason his ban rate is high.
Diablo needs his wall damage quest nerfed with buffs elsewhere, to get to a more healthy place, I think.
My humble contribution as a woodleague player.
Why is diablo popular ? Fun to play and you can do burst damage with him so it is appealing.
Diablo is feared because if he has space on lanes and can rotate freely it is a nightmare for the other team because diablo can and will come and get you with his point and click charge and you have little say in it , making him oppressive.
I am no adept at AA build so i won’t comment on it.
Your build depend on whatever healer they have.
Q build with malevolence if they have sustained healer , if you have apoc setups, if you feel you need the burst and trust your assassins little and want to take matters into your hands. If they have lots of low hp targets.
It also is most straight forward as a build.
W build if they have burst healing, if you have lots of executionner assassins.
You have more inputs to do in your combos so practice it.
What can you do if you see early diablo pick?
-do not pick double mage (unless the second is hanzo and even then you are a wall target) : diablo will survive your burst with soul shield and with your cd downtime he can heal back with his W.
Plus you are in threat of wall Q malevolence combos.
Also keep in mind that his soul shield recovers cd from any damage he does so if he gets some good W multi hits he can have it back for your second cd rotation.
Pick a mage and a AA ranged if you go double range route .
- focus on waveclearing and putting pressure on lanes foremost.
If diablo’s (or garrosh or muradin or etc for that matter) have wave pressure on your lanes diablo can position in bushes or crossroads easily and engage one straggler.
If his team has to waveclear he will not be with full team and best scenario will have to waveclear himself making his threat void as he is visible.
Thus as a team mate always make sure you have waveclear covered to help your tank to have space.
Two of his banes are malthael and arthas (as a second frontliner if possible).
Diablo has 0 answers to malthael’s kit and last rites you can even deny combos by using W. Always pick heal reduction and unstoppable activables.
As a diablo player arthas and malth are very scary because you have to do a one trip dive into their jaws and unless you have medivh or anduin it is not an ideal situation.
Both ennemies can just play the waiting game on you and as diablo you are going to have to engage.
As a team mate avoid letting diablo be a solo frontliner to help relieve pressure on him.
Also always try to reset his soul stack whenever you can. It really changes the heroes’ amount of threat.
Please feel free to correct me if i am wrong, i am no pro and also wish to learn.
Hey, I’m trying to learn Diablo and I wanted to post this here instead of making a new thread. I used to be ok with him, now I’m not so good, both were post rework so I don’t think that’s the issue.
My main thing with him is mana. All of his talents are health and CD reduction. I’m probably using my abilities inefficiently, but it gets worse as game goes on and CD’s are really low. I find myself ready to combo with people, but I can’t use any of my abilities while my health fine.
Any help is appreciated, I spent some time reading posts and guides, this is still my main problem with this hero.
Make sure to ban the tychus
Pick the extra spell dmg on AA talent at 7 instead of the cdr. You don’t really need it but that extra burst helps a lot, and thus, your mana issues will go away.
1 Like
If you take Devil’s Due at 1, you have almost no mana issues. One tip, right before a big fight, you can pre-tap a healing fountain and essentially have 2 health and mana bars.
1 Like
Go Devil’s Due, all the Fire Stomp talents, Lightning Breath, and the teleport stun at 20. It is the best way to play him for most comps and coordination. His other builds are only good if your team mates know how to follow engages and you know how to wombo combo.
Edit: you really should practice your level 20 engage in try mode as well. The goal is to get able to consistently get out 2-3 fire stomps, land your teleport stun combo, and follow up with your lightning breath. Being able to charge for the 3rd fire wave is dependent on terrain.
1 Like