Why I think Diablo is the 2nd best mystic in the game/Diablo write-up
Saquongoat
Member Posts: 133 ★★
Hey everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster here. It's been a month since Diablo's new buff and I believe he is the 2nd best mystic in game. (All numbers will be based off of an sig 42 r3 diablo with no poison debuff or recovery mastery unless otherwise stated, because then things get tricky. I'll leave that to @DNA3000.)
Healing: Diablo is a very sustainable champion. First off, with suicides, he has a constant poison willpower heal due to his 100% poison resistance. With max willpower, this equates to .7% health per second. When launching a special attack, Diablo will gain Philosopher's mix, which has lots of effects. But it also heals him for 146 health per tick. After a special 1, that equates to 1168 health (3%). Sp2: 2336 (6%). Sp3 (Once per fight): 3504 (9%). And during a sp1, letting him drink from his flask heals him for 2557 over 4 seconds (7%).
Awakened ability: Diablo's sig allows him to reduce ALL damage by 15-30%. That means for example Diablo will take 15-30% less damage from getting punched in the face. Blocking. And some big things too: Recoil and all degens. Diablo is a top counter to bane, no retreat, and flare through this awakened ability. His awakened ability has great scaling, too. At sig 1, he already takes 15% less damage. And at sig 20, through just a natural dupe, he takes 18.8% less damage. Of course, you should strive to use all mystic sigs on him, since very few mystics need high sig. But he works perfectly well low sig. And this awakening is great, but far from necessary. His sig also gives him +282-705 attack.
Prefight: I'll divide this into thirds. One for each prefight. (All info is off of having only one philosopher's mix active, although Diablo can in fact stack up to 3)
Distilled will: This allows Diablo when philosopher's mix is up to heal 70% of damage taken from all energy damage. This includes both debuffs and passives, such as Magik's limbo, Electro's damage back, or Mephisto's aura. This healing is both reduces from having a poison on you, and increased by the recovery mastery. So this healing can both reduce energy damage by as high as 85% with 3 points in recovery, or as low as 49% (one poison from suicides and no points in recovery). However, with a generic suicide setup, this healing tends to be 59.5% (poison and 3 points in recovery). For comparison, Guardian's energy resistance is 84%. So as you can see, in the energy damage department, Diablo highly benefits from no suicides, which is very interesting.
Essence of null: When philosopher's mis is active, Diablo has a 100% chance to nullify one buff every 2 seconds. However, this chance to nullify can be reduced by aar. After a sp1, Diablo will nullify up to 4 buffs. Sp2: 8 buffs. Sp3: 12 buffs. The way this nullification works, is every 2 seconds, A buff is nullified off the opponent. No aura or contact needed. I've been saved multiple times by this. It's great. Since no contact (Bwcv) or aura (Sorcerer Supreme) is needed, it is incredibly easy to hang back and watch unstoppable and unblockable buffs get nullified. Unfortunately, you can't pick the buffs to be nullified. So if the opponent has 3 fury buffs and one unblockable buff, in one 2 second round of nullification, there is only a 25% chance for the unblockable buff to be nullified. Additionally, if no buffs are on the opponent in a set of 2 seconds, the nullification timer is reset and will check again for buffs in 2 seconds. So if the opponent gains a buff on the 5 second mark of philosopher's mix being active, you'll have to wait 1 second for the buff to be nullified.
Grain of uru: While philosopher's mix is up, Diablo gains stun and armor break immunity. Great for nodes like stunning reflection and encroaching stun.
Heavy attacks: Each hit inflicts a poison, (meaning 2 poisons per heavy) dealing 1917 damage over 14 seconds. I don't know how this scales, but with maxed glass cannon, suicides, and 8 vials, each poison does 268 damage per tick, amounting to 7504(!?! That's a LOT!) damage over 14 seconds. This is Diablo's best attack in general, and is great for a low hit count (abyss solos, anyone? I've personally gotten imiw down with a couple tries)
2nd medium attack: 75% chance to inflict one poison, dealing the same damage a heavy attack poison does.
Basic attacks: All energy damage. Which means he takes no damage from Korg's damage back using basic attacks. (Look out! He takes damage from the first hit of his sp1 and 2 though, due to them making contact and all hits from those dealing physical damage)
The utility of poisons themselves: Poisons are a good source of damage:direct, and secondary. Meaning they play around safeguard, rage, and physical/energy resistance. And they also reduce healing by 30% each. This however is not a flat 30%. It is exponential. For example, one poison on the opponent reduces healing by 30%. But 6 poisons? That's an 88.3% poison reduction. An easy formula to find the amount of heal reduction poisons will inflict is: 100 - .7^amount of poisons on the opponent=the amount their healing is being reduced by. (The number given will have a decimal. Move that over 2 places to the right to get your pecentage)
Special attacks: (Divided into 3 parts) (Also, all special attack's activate philosopher's mix for 8 seconds per level of special used. 8 for sp1, 16 for sp2, 24 for sp3)
Vials of might: Diablo starts with 2 vials per prefight not used. These vials grant 169 attack rating and +10% poison potency. These extra poison potencies mean his poisons still deal damage (albeit not as strong) against champs with 100% poison resistance, and increase poison damage by 10% per vial. Each vial of might also inflicts 2 poisons on the opponent after using a sp3.
Sp1: My go-to when I need a prefight's utility ASAP. Grants a healing passive mentioned earlier, healing 2557 (7%) if letting the animation run over 4 seconds. Ending his animation early (Holding block immediately after launching is the quickest way to stop the animation) grants him a vial of might. (I've thrown this special into their block at least 50 times and held block immediately after to pause sp3 poisons one last time out of desperation, and only been hit once. So more or less, nbd if this is blocked becuase it can still pause poisons)
Sp2: My main damage dealer if sp3s are impossible to throw, or I've already thrown my one sp3 and they're still alive (which is very rare). This whole special attack is unblockable. However, only the first hit of this special attack reapplies all poisons on the opponent. The third hit of this special attack deals a burst of 1410 energy damage, increased by 20% per poison and buff the opponent has had this fight, up to +500%. I will admit, I don't know mathematically how this damage scales, but after testing on rol wolverine with suicides and 3/3 glass cannon after he had been inflicted with 25 poisons, this burst dealt 24499 damage. (A little trick to know: The first hit of the sp2 reapplies all poisons on the opponent, and all reapplied poisons count towards the sp2 burst damage since they're new poisons once reapplied).
Sp3: Can only be used once per fight. This special gains +1410 attack rating (on top of the vials of might damage increase) and is your top damage dealer by far. For each vial of might, Diablo inflicts 2 poisons, each dealing 1917 damage over 14 seconds. (Again, with vials of might giving extra attack and poison potency I don't know how much damage these do, but I do know it's a LOT with 16 from the sp3 all ticking away. If distilled will is active, this attack gives Diablo a regen passive, healing 3653 health (10%) over 4 seconds. This is affected by poison healing reduction and the recovery mastery. If essence of null is active, this places 10 detonate buffs on the opponent, which deal 564 damage when they expire or are nullified. I don't know how this works out, but with suicides, maxed glass cannon, and 8 vials of might these dealt 1224 damage per detonate buff when expiring or being nullified. If grain of uru is active, philosopher's mix is paused for 10 seconds after this special. Which means more uptime on stun and armor break immunities, and makes it easier when cycling specials to keep almost constant uptime on having a philosopher's mix active, giving a plethora of utility.
How I like to use Diablo: (This is not set in stone, and I hope to be shown a better rotation. Everyone thought Corvus was garbage upon release due to their inability to maximize his glaive charges)
First, I always use the essence of null prefight unless their health is so small I would kill them before a sp3. Why do I do that? Because with this prefight, the sp3 inflicts buffs on the opponent. And with mystic dispersion, this grants Diablo power, giving him an easier time on managing sp3 poisons. Then I like to throw an appropriate of sp1s. By that, I mean enough sp1s to deal the best damage off of the sp3. If they have a 300k healthpool, and I have a prefight active, I'll feel stupid throwing 4 sp1s for maximum vials giving the most sp3 damage, only to never get to a sp3 because they're already dead or the sp3 kills them immediately, meaning I could've done with less sp1s. I then build to a sp3, and parry before launching it. After the sp3 is over, I dash in (because they're stunned) and play aggressively. MLLLM combos are key here, because they give more power. I throw a sp1 as soon as I get to it. Then I like to use a sp2 not as soon as I get to it, but a couple seconds after so I can have more power immediately after the sp2 to pause the poisons. After that sp2, I spam sp1s to keep poisons up for as long as possible. Once my sp3 poisons fall off I then spam sp2, but it never comes to that.
Synergies: Check https://auntm.ai/champions/diablo/tier/6. Overall he doesn't need synergies. But he really benefits from the Mr. Fantastic prefight increasing dots by 40%. This really helps Diablo's damage.
Wow. Reading back over this post, this turned into a full on write-up. Oh well. I enjoy this guy a lot and he truly is amazing. I think he's the best mystic in game with suicides, and the 2nd best even without. If this has impacted even one person positively, I consider this post a win. Just trying to spread the word.
Sorry for any typos!
-Saquon
Healing: Diablo is a very sustainable champion. First off, with suicides, he has a constant poison willpower heal due to his 100% poison resistance. With max willpower, this equates to .7% health per second. When launching a special attack, Diablo will gain Philosopher's mix, which has lots of effects. But it also heals him for 146 health per tick. After a special 1, that equates to 1168 health (3%). Sp2: 2336 (6%). Sp3 (Once per fight): 3504 (9%). And during a sp1, letting him drink from his flask heals him for 2557 over 4 seconds (7%).
Awakened ability: Diablo's sig allows him to reduce ALL damage by 15-30%. That means for example Diablo will take 15-30% less damage from getting punched in the face. Blocking. And some big things too: Recoil and all degens. Diablo is a top counter to bane, no retreat, and flare through this awakened ability. His awakened ability has great scaling, too. At sig 1, he already takes 15% less damage. And at sig 20, through just a natural dupe, he takes 18.8% less damage. Of course, you should strive to use all mystic sigs on him, since very few mystics need high sig. But he works perfectly well low sig. And this awakening is great, but far from necessary. His sig also gives him +282-705 attack.
Prefight: I'll divide this into thirds. One for each prefight. (All info is off of having only one philosopher's mix active, although Diablo can in fact stack up to 3)
Distilled will: This allows Diablo when philosopher's mix is up to heal 70% of damage taken from all energy damage. This includes both debuffs and passives, such as Magik's limbo, Electro's damage back, or Mephisto's aura. This healing is both reduces from having a poison on you, and increased by the recovery mastery. So this healing can both reduce energy damage by as high as 85% with 3 points in recovery, or as low as 49% (one poison from suicides and no points in recovery). However, with a generic suicide setup, this healing tends to be 59.5% (poison and 3 points in recovery). For comparison, Guardian's energy resistance is 84%. So as you can see, in the energy damage department, Diablo highly benefits from no suicides, which is very interesting.
Essence of null: When philosopher's mis is active, Diablo has a 100% chance to nullify one buff every 2 seconds. However, this chance to nullify can be reduced by aar. After a sp1, Diablo will nullify up to 4 buffs. Sp2: 8 buffs. Sp3: 12 buffs. The way this nullification works, is every 2 seconds, A buff is nullified off the opponent. No aura or contact needed. I've been saved multiple times by this. It's great. Since no contact (Bwcv) or aura (Sorcerer Supreme) is needed, it is incredibly easy to hang back and watch unstoppable and unblockable buffs get nullified. Unfortunately, you can't pick the buffs to be nullified. So if the opponent has 3 fury buffs and one unblockable buff, in one 2 second round of nullification, there is only a 25% chance for the unblockable buff to be nullified. Additionally, if no buffs are on the opponent in a set of 2 seconds, the nullification timer is reset and will check again for buffs in 2 seconds. So if the opponent gains a buff on the 5 second mark of philosopher's mix being active, you'll have to wait 1 second for the buff to be nullified.
Grain of uru: While philosopher's mix is up, Diablo gains stun and armor break immunity. Great for nodes like stunning reflection and encroaching stun.
Heavy attacks: Each hit inflicts a poison, (meaning 2 poisons per heavy) dealing 1917 damage over 14 seconds. I don't know how this scales, but with maxed glass cannon, suicides, and 8 vials, each poison does 268 damage per tick, amounting to 7504(!?! That's a LOT!) damage over 14 seconds. This is Diablo's best attack in general, and is great for a low hit count (abyss solos, anyone? I've personally gotten imiw down with a couple tries)
2nd medium attack: 75% chance to inflict one poison, dealing the same damage a heavy attack poison does.
Basic attacks: All energy damage. Which means he takes no damage from Korg's damage back using basic attacks. (Look out! He takes damage from the first hit of his sp1 and 2 though, due to them making contact and all hits from those dealing physical damage)
The utility of poisons themselves: Poisons are a good source of damage:direct, and secondary. Meaning they play around safeguard, rage, and physical/energy resistance. And they also reduce healing by 30% each. This however is not a flat 30%. It is exponential. For example, one poison on the opponent reduces healing by 30%. But 6 poisons? That's an 88.3% poison reduction. An easy formula to find the amount of heal reduction poisons will inflict is: 100 - .7^amount of poisons on the opponent=the amount their healing is being reduced by. (The number given will have a decimal. Move that over 2 places to the right to get your pecentage)
Special attacks: (Divided into 3 parts) (Also, all special attack's activate philosopher's mix for 8 seconds per level of special used. 8 for sp1, 16 for sp2, 24 for sp3)
Vials of might: Diablo starts with 2 vials per prefight not used. These vials grant 169 attack rating and +10% poison potency. These extra poison potencies mean his poisons still deal damage (albeit not as strong) against champs with 100% poison resistance, and increase poison damage by 10% per vial. Each vial of might also inflicts 2 poisons on the opponent after using a sp3.
Sp1: My go-to when I need a prefight's utility ASAP. Grants a healing passive mentioned earlier, healing 2557 (7%) if letting the animation run over 4 seconds. Ending his animation early (Holding block immediately after launching is the quickest way to stop the animation) grants him a vial of might. (I've thrown this special into their block at least 50 times and held block immediately after to pause sp3 poisons one last time out of desperation, and only been hit once. So more or less, nbd if this is blocked becuase it can still pause poisons)
Sp2: My main damage dealer if sp3s are impossible to throw, or I've already thrown my one sp3 and they're still alive (which is very rare). This whole special attack is unblockable. However, only the first hit of this special attack reapplies all poisons on the opponent. The third hit of this special attack deals a burst of 1410 energy damage, increased by 20% per poison and buff the opponent has had this fight, up to +500%. I will admit, I don't know mathematically how this damage scales, but after testing on rol wolverine with suicides and 3/3 glass cannon after he had been inflicted with 25 poisons, this burst dealt 24499 damage. (A little trick to know: The first hit of the sp2 reapplies all poisons on the opponent, and all reapplied poisons count towards the sp2 burst damage since they're new poisons once reapplied).
Sp3: Can only be used once per fight. This special gains +1410 attack rating (on top of the vials of might damage increase) and is your top damage dealer by far. For each vial of might, Diablo inflicts 2 poisons, each dealing 1917 damage over 14 seconds. (Again, with vials of might giving extra attack and poison potency I don't know how much damage these do, but I do know it's a LOT with 16 from the sp3 all ticking away. If distilled will is active, this attack gives Diablo a regen passive, healing 3653 health (10%) over 4 seconds. This is affected by poison healing reduction and the recovery mastery. If essence of null is active, this places 10 detonate buffs on the opponent, which deal 564 damage when they expire or are nullified. I don't know how this works out, but with suicides, maxed glass cannon, and 8 vials of might these dealt 1224 damage per detonate buff when expiring or being nullified. If grain of uru is active, philosopher's mix is paused for 10 seconds after this special. Which means more uptime on stun and armor break immunities, and makes it easier when cycling specials to keep almost constant uptime on having a philosopher's mix active, giving a plethora of utility.
How I like to use Diablo: (This is not set in stone, and I hope to be shown a better rotation. Everyone thought Corvus was garbage upon release due to their inability to maximize his glaive charges)
First, I always use the essence of null prefight unless their health is so small I would kill them before a sp3. Why do I do that? Because with this prefight, the sp3 inflicts buffs on the opponent. And with mystic dispersion, this grants Diablo power, giving him an easier time on managing sp3 poisons. Then I like to throw an appropriate of sp1s. By that, I mean enough sp1s to deal the best damage off of the sp3. If they have a 300k healthpool, and I have a prefight active, I'll feel stupid throwing 4 sp1s for maximum vials giving the most sp3 damage, only to never get to a sp3 because they're already dead or the sp3 kills them immediately, meaning I could've done with less sp1s. I then build to a sp3, and parry before launching it. After the sp3 is over, I dash in (because they're stunned) and play aggressively. MLLLM combos are key here, because they give more power. I throw a sp1 as soon as I get to it. Then I like to use a sp2 not as soon as I get to it, but a couple seconds after so I can have more power immediately after the sp2 to pause the poisons. After that sp2, I spam sp1s to keep poisons up for as long as possible. Once my sp3 poisons fall off I then spam sp2, but it never comes to that.
Synergies: Check https://auntm.ai/champions/diablo/tier/6. Overall he doesn't need synergies. But he really benefits from the Mr. Fantastic prefight increasing dots by 40%. This really helps Diablo's damage.
Wow. Reading back over this post, this turned into a full on write-up. Oh well. I enjoy this guy a lot and he truly is amazing. I think he's the best mystic in game with suicides, and the 2nd best even without. If this has impacted even one person positively, I consider this post a win. Just trying to spread the word.
Sorry for any typos!
-Saquon
Post edited by Kabam Porthos on
39
Comments
I'll stick with Sorcerer and Doom for my mystic needs without suicides personally.
I took Diablo against the SoP Symbiote Supreme we had recently, with Distilled Will and Essence of Null, managed to reach an Sp3 to start his Special Spam Mode. Having 4 Philosopher's Mixes active after Nullifying all the Buffs to spam Sp2s and an Sp1, every hit would heal me for more than he dealt!
Nice to finally have an alternative to Claire, whatever one's opinion on his 'place' may be. Major thanks for expanding that niche, devs.
Me, makes a sentence on Taskmaster
Claire has a lot going for her, due to her immunities , 3 types of debuffs , Decent power control , Great sustainability and very good buff control. However she loses in the damage department against diablo especially without suicides. Diablord offers almost the same level of buff control , and much better sustainability along with some of the utilities you mentioned.
However from my testing the ideal mastery setup for diablo is Suicides with Mystic dispersion . I belive if you activate essence of null prefight and do an sp3. M.D is more important than suicides in some cases. But that just be me.
Also about the 30% healing reduction on poison; its Logarithmic not Exponential. Exponent is a strictly increasing function and in this case since the level of healing is being reduced is decreasing hence it is actually the inverse of exponential , That is logarithmic.
Sorry lol on that last para. Great Job in detailing every part of his kit! Hope to see some more from you soon.
1. Doctor Doom
2. Black Widow (Claire Voyant)
3. Diablo
BUT if we're talking about survivability then it goes..
1. Diablo
2. Black Widow (Claire Voyant)
Skilled veteran players will still go with Doom or Claire in end-game, high difficulty content.
In terms of your comparison to Claire, I do see why people put her ahead of Diablo. Her triple immunities are very helpful. My one complaint with her, and what I think pushed Diablo ahead of her is how in order for her sp2 utility, she may need to lose an immunity, or if healing is necessary, will lose out on tons of damage.
So naturally, the next question is of his dupe... which although it sure wouldn't hurt by having it, it certainly, as you stated, is not a requirement in order to justify spending a few initial resources... (being my disliking ranking any* unduped champ really) just feels wasteful to me. No less and to my point, thanks to your input I will be taking my unduped 6*iDiablo to R3; as only my third ever* R3 6*.. no use in waitin I suppose.
Happy hunting boys
And girls
Much love,
_C4