My love for maelstrum and my desire to make worthless items work.

Ok, first off, the primary reason for my distress is my desire to make maelstrum and mjollner work with carries, specifically mirana. My reasoning behind this is rather straight forward. Maelstrum is relatively cheap and in my opinion extremly cost effective. It provides damage, attack speed, and excellent farm pre-15 minute if you are farming correctly. From here ive been dipping to desolator and then finishing with upgrading mark to mjollner( however the **** that's spelled) and manta. The alternative to this is to go midas, manta, mask of madness and daed or mael, crys,manta, mjol, daed or some variation of that. Personally ive been having more success with the deso build but lack sufficient sustain especually early and no lifesteal ability late. so my question being: do you think mirana is a competetive hard carry her initiation and gank potential being considered and which build do you think is best out of the following.

1) mael-deso-mjol-manta
2) mael-crys-manta-mjol-daed or variation (if you like this which variation specifically.)
3) manta-MoM-daed
4) mirana is not a hard carry go semi carry or support items. I.e: ac and ???

I apologise for not making a poll. I'm doing this from my phone and it lacks that capability. Poor planning on my part. anyway, let me know what you think.

Mjollner is a good item and all but its can't beat items like manta. it does provide a good attack speed but stats and agility can solve that. The damage is minimal and the shield isn't that big. I feel like its only a good item on the long ranged heros like sniper. Chain lighting isn't that good of a passive as it only does 125 damage 25% chance. It is underutilised imo. Its also good on the tanky heros like alchemist although I would get ac instead for attack speed.

it's a late game luxury item, as your damage increases with other items this item gets better aswell

I feel like mirana has limited farm and push without it. Considering she has low mana and her q has high mana cost. the other builds dont help with farm either. Which do you prefer?

when ever I draft Mirrana I normally give her to my solo lane player and have him build vlads AC and diffusel. One of the great things about Mirana is her flexibly. She can support, gank, dps or semi cary depending on what lane you put her. The only thing she can not do is jungle :(.

If I have her farm on the safe lane as a hard cary I think I would use your second build.

What's your preference on Midas with that. If so, when? Before mael? So far the only one of these that seems to work is the mael-deso build. I'm getting mad frustrated. The damage seems too low. But maybe if I used daed.

No midas. If you buy Midas you surrender the early game. Mirana has a 720 damage combo at level 9 (if you skip the ulti). If you really wanted to get Midas on Mirana I would say that is outclassed by something like Slark.

Hmm, maybe I am playing this character wrong. I've been using her as a hard carry farm with team fight initiation saving people with my sexy global ulty. Hmm, maybe I should try slardar. But wheres the 720 damage coming from?

If you max Arrow and Star Fall first you get 360 damage from Arrow and 450 damage from star fall. A sudo blink with leap and a utility with ulti. I thought I said Slark above not Slardar ya know, the guy that broke out of coral reef. He has a 580 damage nuke from his first two skills. A sudo blink from his second. His ulti gives invisibility. The main differences with them is slarks third spell. This gives him an edge late game. Mirrana has good stats and abilities but all of her abilities can be applied to other heros. Stun and nuke, good for ganking. Her sudo blink gives that attack speed buff to carries so good for late game support. Lastly her ulti might let Mirana have some crazy power to start team fight but just think if your cary went in invisible. On the other hand Slarks nuke removes de-buffs so it work bet on himself. His ulti also only works on himself.

For other heros that play similar roles lets take a look at Specter. I think she is one of the most IMBA heros in the game but no one believes me. Specter has abilities that benefit herself, late game so it is fine getting items on her like Maelstrom, and her ultimate can help from a global range.

Another hero that might fit that play style is Mirana good friend Luna, Luna has
1) late game (E)
2) good push (E)
3) heavy nuke (Q)
4) A team fight ulti (R)

The biggest diffence with the two is Luna's abilities for the most part only help herself were Mirana helps herself and her team mates.

For the items you suggested I have two problems. The first one is Crit is good on any cary, semi carries included. The second is I thought Deso and Male were orb effects so they would not stack, I could be wrong however.

The great thing about dota is heros can be played any way. My personally play-stye for Marana is going mid or solo lane for fast levels. I get the skill build E,W,Q,Q.Q,W,Q,W,W,R,R. At 9 your combo should kill most heros, thus alwing you to gank important lanes. I then get items like Vlads-AC-Difusal. With Miranas early game and late game she should keep the game safe for you real cary.

Oh sorry for the double post but I spent some time about the Maelstrom part of your question.
Its attack speed is out classed by butterfly and orb is out classed by desolater. The three hero I think it is best on is

Lone Druid
Alchemist
Life Stealer

Druid should be swimming in gold. This a good item to put on the bear, you can also upgrade later for more procs on his roots.

Alchemist should have more gold than druid so if you get this and a Abyssal blade at 30 minutes GG

Life Stealer gains his damage from his passive. The more times you attack the more life you steal.