Mirana: It was not Luck but Skill...

Introduction

Mirana is an incredibly flexible hero - able to fill just about any role or lane. She has a fantastic range of skills that allow her gank, push and carry as required.

All of her powers can be tricky to get the most out of however, so she scales extremely well as you improve your own skills. You have to be smart, sharp and focused to excel with Mirana.

Pros and Cons

+ Broad range of skills
+ Long stun potential
+ Good nuking/pushing power
+ Team invisibility
+ Good escape
+ Good agility gain

- Low base damage
- Somewhat squishy
- Skills are not easy to use well
- Sometimes needs a little luck

Starstorm

Starstorm is your primary pushing and farming skill, and also serves as a useful AOE nuke for team fights and harassment. Every enemy within a relatively large radius around you is hit by a star for the standard nuke damage, and an extra enemy is hit again for 75%.

As this extra hit is randomly targeted (in a much smaller radius around you), the only way to guarantee it is to only have a single enemy within that range (175) at the time - for example if you're trying to finish a fleeing enemy - but at level 4 you can potentially inflict over 500 damage (minus magic resistance) with just this spell.

This skill is great for harvesting large creep waves, as you can simply ride into the middle of them and can hit them all for no extra cost. This makes it very useful for both pushing and defending towers.

The cooldown time is relatively short, the biggest issue you'll have is your limited mana pool and regeneration during the early-mid game. Later on, this makes for a fantastic flash farming skill.

Sacred Arrow

Sacred Arrow is Mirana's signature move - a potentially devastating skill shot ability that can stun an opponent for up to 5 seconds and inflict 300 damage! The difficulty comes from the manual targeting and travel time of the projectile - you need to predict where the enemy will be when it arrives, and hope they don't dodge or move unexpectedly...

Getting the most of Arrow is difficult, it's simply not a reliable stun unless you have an ally who can set you up a target. The stun time also increases with distance travelled, so you can only get the maximum disable effect with the most difficult shots - the arrow inflicts +0.5 stun per 150 units travelled, so needs to travel at least 1500 for a 5 second stun. However, you ALWAYS get the FULL nuke damage from a hit, so sometimes a point blank arrow will do the job just as well as the hail mary.

Arrow also benefits from no increase in mana cost as you level it, so can be worth putting extra points into if you're finding Starstorm too mana intensive early on.

Here are some tips to help:

- Whenever possible, keep arrows outside their line of sight, ideally through trees, from greater height etc. Enemies who can't see arrows can't dodge them.

- Try to combine with heroes who have abilities that can position enemies (e.g. Meat Hook, Flaming Lasso, Power Cogs) for you to hit.

- Try to throw arrows at an angle across the path of enemies, rather than directly at them. This makes them more difficult to dodge.

- Take a punt. You're not going to hit every arrow, but if you don't try then you can't succeed. Take an educated guess where the enemy is going to be.

- Narrow paths and grouped enemies make it more likely you'll hit.

- Enemy and neutral creeps block your arrows on contact, so try to avoid common spawn and movement spots.

Leap

Leap is a dual use skill, although for most of the early-mid game it's mainly used as an escape. It works something like a Force Staff, instantly propelling you forward in the direction you are facing, ignoring blocking terrain, Fissure's etc. It can also be used to dodge some projectiles.

This makes you extremely evasive, but you rely on it to stay alive due to your relatively small health pool. Remember that you can also use it to Leap into trees, and then teleport out unseen if you're in big trouble.

Later on you can start to make use of the bonus aura that increases movement and attack speed for all nearby allies - useful for both fighting, escaping and getting in position for Starstorm. However, be careful, as the cooldown means you will probably only get to use it once per fight.

Moonlight Shadow

Moonlight Shadow is one of the few DOTA powers to have it's own theme song:
Play Video or Play Video /dota-2/item/sentry-ward-41

Roles

Mirana can play a variety of roles, although she needs a fairly decent amount of farm to be effective. She can be played as a semi-support if absolutely necessary (concentrate on mana), but semi-carry is a much more natural role for her.

Although you can play as a safe lane carry, there are usually other heroes who can fill this role more naturally (usually with stronger passives and less of a midgame presence). This leaves you with:

- Solo Mid
- Hard Lane (solo or with support)
- Roamer

Leap usually gives you enough survivability to do well in the hard lane, although strong nukers and disablers can make this difficult for you.

Sacred Arrow can give you a 5 second stun at level 1, so means you can be a very effective roamer.

In Team Fights you usually want to unleash most of your abilities quickly for the burst damage, and for the best chance of having them off cooldown again in time for a second use. You have plenty of DPS, but very limited tanking ability, so try to stay out of trouble while inflicting as much damage as possible.

Skill Builds

I've listed 3 different builds as guides to how you'll usually play each role. Generally Starstorm makes for good farming, Sacred Arrow suits ganking and roaming, and Leap helps you stay alive.

While you'll generally want to max your nukes first, you need to decide whether you're more interesting in pushing or getting kills - and max the appropriate skill. Although I've left levelling Leap until later in the game (the bonuses are much more valuable once your stats have levelled up), occasionally you might want to get more levels in it early to reduce the cooldown and mana cost.

Some players put off levelling Moonlight Shadow until later in the game, but personally I like to get it at 6 to maximise those early ganks/escapes. You don't get any massive advantages from levelling it further (shorter fade time), but the reduced cooldown means that you'll generally want to take it every chance you get.

Early Game Items

You have two main problems that you want to address in the early game - your low base damage, and your limited mana pool. The first is the most important however, as solving it increases your ability to last hit in lane.

For me, the key early item on Mirana is the Ring of Aquila:



This item is relatively easy to build up from cheap parts, gives you a strong damage boost, and a large increase to your mana regeneration. Just remember to turn off the aura while laning. You might also want to consider Poor Man's Shield, but I think it has much more limited utility.

The next key decision is your boots. Arguments can be made in favour of each:

- Phase Boots boost your weak damage and help you make the most of your speed boost from Leap. Can occasionally be a good choice to maximise your early game.

- Tranquil Boots allow you to sustain a lot more harassment without having to leave the lane. Useful if you want to concentrate on farming up a Maelstrom.

- Arcane Boots give you a much bigger mana pool, and the ability to make far more use of your spells in the early game. This tends to only be used by rare semi-support or roaming Miranas.

- Boots of Travel, very useful, but you need to be spending your early gold on solving your other issues however.

- Power Treads give you the best carrying boost, and the ability to switch to the stat you need most. This ability to switch stats is very useful for a hero like Mirana who might need a boost in any of the 3 at different times.

My usual choice is:

Midgame Items

Now that you have some basic stats and mana regeneration, you can start looking at the bigger items you'll need to help you gank, farm and carry effectively. Yasha is a very common choice, as it boosts your damage and movement speed, and builds into Manta Style later on.



Mirana has a choice of Unique Attack Modifiers (UAMs) that can work well for her - ideally you don't want more than one of these items are they either reduce or remove the advantages from the others.

- Maelstrom (and later Mjollnir) is your usual choice if you're going to be the team's main carry. It boosts your farming speed, as well as adding to your DPS in team fights. It combines better than most with other UAMS, only reducing their effectiveness by ~25%.

- Desolator is a strong all round choice, adding substantial damage and armour reduction to your attacks. Particularly useful if your team has other strong right clickers, and scales well into the late game.

- Eye of Skadi would probably take you a while longer than midgame to acquire. It offers you a lot of additional stats and survivability, plus the ability to slow down enemy movement and attack speed. Not a particularly common choice, but useful against enemy carries.

- Diffusal Blade is probably the most common choice, as it's relatively cheap, while offering a good agility increase, mana burn, and a purge/slow. This is particularly effective against teams with lots of casters, and heroes with small mana pools who rely on key abilities. (e.g. Skeleton King, Lifestealer etc).

Luxury Items

Hopefully you should be getting hold of at least some of these luxury items in most games, and you may even decide to skip the extension items in order to get them ASAP.



Usually your first port of call, Manta Style builds on top of Yasha and gives an extremely strong set of bonuses, including the ability to create 2 illusions of yourself. It's pretty much a perfect item for Mirana and you'll usually want it in any situation.

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Magic Protection:

Sometimes you'll be up against teams with a lot of nukes and/or disable that's causing you problems. It can be well worth looking at some magic protection to keep you in the fight.

- Linken's Sphere is good for hit and run style heroes like Mirana who have good escapes, but can be in big trouble if caught out. It's especially useful against heroes with big single target ultimates. Adds some nice stats and mana regeneration, but is pretty expensive.

- Black King Bar gives you more protection during team fights, allows you to completely ignore most spells and abilities. Cheaper, and also adds some health and damage.

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Damage Boosts:

Once you've got a UAM and a Manta Style you'll have plenty of right click power, and next you'll usually want to maximise your damage.

- Crystalys / Daedalus both stack nicely with your existing damage and attack speed, allowing you to regularly hit some big crits.

- Assault Cuirass boosts your attack speed and also reduces the armour of enemies. It also adds armour to yourself and nearby allies. A useful pushing and fighting tool, but don't build one if a strength hero such as Slardar or Skeleton King wants to make it instead.

- Monkey King Bar offers a lot of damage, plus mini-stuns that can be a real pain for enemy heroes. A good buy anyway, it should become a priority against heroes with evasion like Windrunner, Phantom Assassin or Brewmaster, plus anyone packing a Butterfly or Heaven's Halberd.

- Butterfly offers you massively increased protection against right click (~40%), as well as more damage and attack speed. It's most useful against another strong carry, but avoid if they have a Monkey King Bar.

Sample Builds

Semi-carry/Early Finish:



A nice combination of items that provide a good balance of damage and protection.

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Full Carry/Late Finish:



A killer combination of attack speed, damage and the ability to stand up to other strong carries.

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Push Focused:



Rapid attack speed, debuffs and auras make for rapid push and help your team inflict damage.

Good Allies

Your favourite allies are usually heroes who can help set your stun through positioning or stunning enemies for you - the longer the stun, the easier and from further away you can hit with a Sacred Arrow.

Bane, who's Nightmare and Fiend's Grip makes for some fantastically long setup stuns.

Crystal Maiden who weighs in with a slow, stun and Arcane Aura which really helps with your mana regeneration early game.

Treant Protector also deserves a mention, as his Living Armor helps you absorb harassment, and your ultimates combine well.

Bad Enemies

Burst damage and unavoidable harassment are your big problems for Mirana early on - you're relatively squishy and can't afford to go toe-to-toe with many heroes. Most of the time you can out maneuver enemies and get the best of encounters, but these guys can make that tough for you...

Chaos Knight is worth a special mention, as his random stun length can spell big trouble for you, and you need to use Leap well to avoid being dragged back by his Reality Rift.

Drow Ranger is another safe lane carry who can cause you problems with a combination of Silence and the slow from Frost Arrows, plus she also outcarries you on equal farm.

Skywrath Mage can also be a pain, as his Arcane Bolts can wear you down from long range.