Preview
Diona is a great Utility character to have on your team, as she can both give your characters a shield and provide healing with her Ultimate. Her weapon choice of the bow also allows you to kill flying enemies easily, such as the Birds in the Oceanid boss fight or shooting the Ruin guard's weak spot. There are two sets of artifacts that you can use on Diona, that will greatly depend on what you need from her for your team. This guide will introduce both builds for Diona, which you can interchange depending on your needs for the domain or perhaps in Spiral Abyss when healing from food is not allowed. I will also include considerations for F2P players and constellation guides as Diona grows stronger with each constellation.
Weapons
The best weapon to use on Diona would have an Energy Recharge sub-stat, you can see the following weapons below:
The Favonius Warbow is a F2P option as you can obtain it for free by completing one of the Mondstadt quests. It has an Energy Recharge sub-stat, but can also generate more energy if Diona performs a CRIT hit.
However, the best option would still be the Sacrificial Bow as it has a passive that ends the Elemental Skill CD, which allows for more elemental reactions with your Main DPS or other Sub DPS characters.
I would not recommend using the 5 star Elegy for the End bow on Diona since it also provides an increased ATK bonus from its passive, and it can be used on characters such as Venti instead. If you would like, you can read my Venti build guide here, where I discuss the bow in more detail. The 5 star bow should be used on another character that is not swapped in only for Elemental Skills, so do consider carefully before using this bow on Diona.
Unfortunately, the other F2P craftable bows such as the Prototype Crescent, Compound Bow and even the new weapon Windblume Ode in the Windblume Festival shop are not as good for Diona as she truly needs the Energy Recharge sub-stat.
Artifacts
There are two potential 4 sets that you can use on Diona, either the Noblesse Oblige 4 set or the Maiden Beloved 4 set.
The 4 set of Noblesse Oblige gives a buff to all other party members ATK by 20% after using Diona's Elemental Burst. If your team requires less healing due to skilful dodging or shields, I would recommend this instead. Particularly, if you have Hu Tao in your team and would not like to have as much heals to keep Hu Tao's HP below 50%, this is a better option. Not only does it buff Hu Tao's Ultimate, but it also prevents her from healing too much, something that might be a problem if you use the Maiden's set.
The Noblesse Oblige set can be obtained from Clear Pool and Mountain Cavern, which you can read about here.
A 4 set of Maiden Beloved gives increased healing by 20% after using Diona's Elemental Skill or Ultimate. This could be more helpful when you are just starting to play Genshin Impact as you require more healing and take more damage before learning enemy attacks, or lack strong shield characters. Do refrain from using this set if you have Hu Tao in your team, as she could heal too much for her own benefit.
This artifact set can be obtained from the Valley of Remembrance, you can read about this domain here.
Overall, you can swap these two artifact sets on Diona depending on what domains you are doing, as the Maiden Beloved set might be more helpful when doing Spiral Abyss in sheer cold, to prevent your characters from dying. For late-game players, definitely use the Noblesse Oblige set as the higher DMG output can definitely make your domain and boss runs much easier.
For beginners, use an Exile 4 set to increase Energy Recharge after each of Diona's Ultimate.
The stats and sub-stats that you should prioritise are as below:
- Flower sub-stats: Energy Recharge
- Feather sub-stats: Energy Recharge
- Watch stat: Energy Recharge/ATK (depending on early game/late game respectively)
- Goblet stat: Cryo DMG Bonus (can be any artifact set, as long as the main stat is Cryo DMG)
- Mask stat: Crit DMG or Crit Rate (depending on your other artifact sub-stats)
Talents
The best order to upgrade your talent is below:
Signature Mix > Icy Paws > Katzlein Style
Diona should not be used for her normal attacks at all, so Katzlein Style is definitely the last talent to level up.
Constellations
I wrote briefly about Diona in Xiao's 4 star banner characters guide before here, but a C6 Diona has great benefits to your team by increasing healing if HP is less than 50%, or increasing Elemental Mastery by 200 if your HP is more than 50%. This could be insane in places like the Spiral Abyss and allow you to hit 3 stars on each floor more easily. If you would like to use Diona in your team, I would greatly recommend at least obtaining a C2 to increase the DMG of her Elemental Skill. In late-game, you should be using her more for a Support and Burst DPS build (through 4 Noblesse Oblige set), so gaining more constellations is definitely helpful.
Party Setup
Having Diona in your party will be ideal if you have a Pyro Main DPS character on your team. For example, if you use Diluc or Hu Tao, you should use Diona's Elemental Skill first to affect enemies with Cryo. This is because the Pyro character will always do more damage in the Melt reaction than the Cryo character. I have included an example of a Party Setup below, do note that my Diona is not fully levelled as I only just obtained her during the Xiao banner and am currently focusing on other healers.
Here, Hu Tao acts as the Main DPS, with Xingqiu, Mona and Diona to provide support. Both Diona and Xingqiu have the ability to heal, generate shields and create elemental reactions. Since I prefer a more defensive playstyle, I would prefer having two shield characters on my team as Diona's shield tends to break more easily, especially in higher-level domains.
Materials
Conclusion
Diona can also provide a shield for other characters on your team, including during Co-op. This makes her an excellent choice to support your teammates when running bosses or domains during Co-op sessions.
Overall, Diona is a great healer if you know how to build her correctly and to fit your party's needs. We hope that this guide has been helpful and do let us know if you would like to see any other Genshin Impact guides!
