Mirana 6.87

Let's talk about Mirana.

As I'm sure you all fondly remember Mirana gained an Ag's upgrade. An ag's that gave her a free Starstorm every 8s. And from my observations it's actually an insanely good upgrade, to the extent it makes Mirana a very viable hero, a viable core in fact.

The item does a little bit of everything; it tanks you up, it gives you wave clear, it gives you team-fight presence, it increases your solo kill potential, it lets you flash farm. Just a bit of everything. Exactly what Mirana, a hero who suffered from having to have a massive early game impact, needed for relevance.

Just to put things into perspective; Mirana can now inflict a 650 AOE level one Finger of Death when she jumps in. So you clear waves in a heartbeatAnd gives her a maximum of 1510 Magical damage to an isolated target between Starstorm and Sacred Arrow.

Item build; Ring of Aquila into Ag's into Blink Dagger. The Blink Dagger lets you safely split push, and instant clear waves with double starstorm (Blinking into the middle of a wave so it triggers on everything). And from there you build into literally anything you want or need. Go full right click with Butterfly MKB, or go utility with Linken's Sphere and Lotus Orb. You can farm so quickly you elivate one of core Mirana's bigger issues which was lack of scaling.

Just discuss and experiment.

...and then you become the typical pub Mirana right now that goes aghs and steals all the map's farm on a position 3/4 hero.

Pretty much the Tinker, Naga Siren or Meepo effect of vacuuming all the gold from the map, except the hero who's farming doesn't even scale with items.

I really fear the game ruining potential of Mirana aghs. It's one of the heroes I'd like the *least* to have in my team right now.

The only other position 3 hero who melts creeps that fast is Timbersaw. Except a 6-slotted Timber is really scary. A 6-slotted Mirana...not really.

Admittedly it's not only good for farming, and it increases her burst as well so aghs + eblade on offlane Mirana for example is pretty legit, but still. I really, really dislike this change, feels completely out of place on the hero. Doesn't make me want to play the hero and even less to play with that hero in my team.

Everybody is going to want to play a position 4/5 roaming support as a farming core, AFK farming an aghs in the first 10 minutes of the game where the hero is at her strongest. RIP pubs.

(if not feeding the enemy Slark over and over because pounce can disable your escape skill...)

She was played as a core historically though. Go back to pre TI4 and the hero was played in every role. Yes, it was a worse time in DOTA, and the game has changed a lot, but the precedent for running the hero in a farming core existed in something that was more than just trolling, and the hero has not been reworked significantly since that happened.

The issue with it was her lack of natural scaling meant she had to be ahead of the enemy core to be especially viable and lacked damage when 6 slotted. Now she farms stupidly fast and deals far more damage than she used to - It's an extra 300 AOE damage every 8s, even in later game fights it's good. More items means she lives longer, which means she drops more of these nukes, which means she's continually putting out AOE damage.

Say she gets it at what 14/5 minutes (Similar ish time to a slow AM BF)? What other hero puts out 600 instant AOE magic damage at 14 minutes? What hero does that and then drops another 300 AOE magical damage every 8 or 12s after that?

If currently pubs are absorbing far too much gold from the rest of the map when playing it that doesn't mean it's without merit, it means people are playing it wrong.

Or hell, discuss it as a first item on a 4 position Mirana who uses it to become an additional core?

Lina
Timbersaw
Zeus
Queen of Pain
Phoenix
Meepo
Leshrac
Jakiro
Venomancer
Earth Spirit

...just on top of my head. It's really nothing impressive. I'd rather have any of these guys in my offlane or midlane than an aghs Mirana, no hesitation.

Mirana only really shines as a roaming support, and I'm pretty mad at OSFrog for diverting her from her best role by far.



What's the right way of playing it then? Core Mirana farms her lane, she doesn't roam the map for kills. She gets an early aghs, but not many early kills. Support Mirana roams for kills, but she's left with very little farm so she has no way to get an aghs at the proper timing window, since her aghs has no scaling whatsoever it's not worth it to get it after 30 minutes.

Aghs is only viable on core Mirana, and finishing the aghs is an incentive for people to sit in lane and AFK farm. And when you clear creep waves faster than SF, who wouldn't keep doing that all game?

Essentially her new aghs has only an impact on core Mirana, but it still doesn't make the hero a good core. For me that aghs design is just another stone in the big "OSFrog fail" folder.
When I saw a Mirana aghs I thought at first it was going to be a scaling item for support Mirana, like something that turns her Q into a big teamfight CC skill or something. And when I found out that support Mirana has no use for it...I was like what's the point. Biggest disappointment in the patch.

Doesn't mean offlane aghs Mirana is without merit, aghs + eblade is some pretty good hero burst, just that I think there are better ways to win games. I mean hell I don't mind if some people think it's good. As long as they don't kill all the creeps on the map and leave my carry with no items. Oh wait it's pubs so they'll do that all game long with their 14 minute aghs. Unless they for some reason refrain from doing so out of sheer politeness and respect for the farming positions. Kappa.

TLDR : It's not necessarily bad as a burst build but just don't ruin games by flashfarming the entire map. It doesn't matter if you're 6-slotted at 35 minutes, it won't change jack because you're just a Mirana.

I like her Aghs a lot, picked it up on her in the few games I've played. This has been as a #4 (although it was more like #5 due a sucky Io in one game). Helps with pushing, nuking and farming.

Tbh it just makes me feel even more like she's a support now - all of her skills are utility or nukes, the only reason anyone thinks of her as a core is cos she's agility and has reasonable stat growth, she doesn't really have much scaling at all. Having a half decent escape on a support is just so useful.

The aghs means you can pick up an early Point Booster and solve the worst of your health/mana pool issues. It also means you can basically farm for 'free' - allowing you to save your mana for when you need it.

If things go particularly well or late, you can transistion somewhat into a semi-core - items like Diffusal Blade and Desolator are pretty handy for you and your team. I'd say her item builds are pretty open these days, but Aghs make a really nice centerpiece.

It's not like she is the only one of n3s who do that. Especially in pubs. It is truly infuriating sometimes to play with Timber or DS in my team. And 6-slotted Mirana not being scary is just an outright lie, Hamster. A carry with rightclick and mobility skill + a potenital 5s stun is good enough.

Like, take Luna with only 1 carry skill(actually. 0.5 + 0.5 from both passives would be more accurate) that still wins games and rightclicks people down in a few hits just because she is overfarmed. Mirana can work in a similar fashion and she is a better carry than Luna if we talk about raw fighting power.

Nobody's saying she should be played offlane btw, Aghs mirana is a safe/mid thing and saying 14 min aghs Mirana wastes early-game potential of the hero is like saying that going carry Wraith king wastes early-game potential of the hero. Both are legit and both can win games.

All I know is that I've run into many allied Miranas who went mid, got Midas into Aghs, and then died like 8 times, but took all the cs so I wasn't able to farm as CK.

Yeah, this thing can be very annoying to play around in pubs. It seems legit enough with a decent Mirana player though.

Actually, saying that is a complete misunderstanding of how heroes' scaling work.

Mirana has no rightclick skill whatsoever, no idea where you get that from.
She has a mobility skill but it has a very long cooldown, so she's incredibly easy to kite. Nothing comarable to Weaver's 6 second cooldown mobility skill, also note that Weaver has 2 skills that increase his right-click.

6-slotted Mirana would be as scary as 6-slotted Nature's Prophet, another hero with good stats and no right-click steroid. Except that Furion is a far better carry in every possible way since 1) Sprout has a very low cooldown making him very hard to kite, and is reliable unlike arrow and 2) Teleportation giving him global positioning and turning the right-click damage he builds into tower damage.

Is 6-slotted Furion scary? Kind of, because he can teleport wherever he wants to snipe heroes, and more importantly he can rat. But Mirana can't do any of that, so 6-slotted Mirana is several levels weaker than 6-slotted Furion.

The only thing that people think makes Mirana a carry is the fact that she's an AGI hero. Except that primary stat has absolutely no bearing on a hero's carry potential. NONE. ZERO. Your stat gains have a small impact regardless of your primary stat, your anti-kiting ability had a high one, and the steroids you have have a MASSIVE one.

Just because most AGI heroes have been given carry skills doesn't mean that being AGI on its own makes you a better carry than Crystal Maiden. It doesn't.




moon glaive is one of the best carry steroids in the entire game. An overfarmed Luna wrecks face because of the glaives bouncing with absurd range in teamfights and destroying anyone standing near a tower during a push.

From the wiki :

Moon Glaives deals a total of 165%/207%/235%/272% physical damage, assuming max bounces per level.

She has a skill that pretty much triples her damage. Pretty much permanent God's Strength. How is there ANY comparison with Mirana? You put the same skill on an INT hero with similarily good stat gains, that makes him a good carry instantly!



WK peaks when he hits level 16. Mirana peaks when she hits level 2.

Moon Glaive has **** range and does almost nothing in an actual fight, it just makes her farm creeps super-fast and destroy rax super-fast, believe a guy who's played almost two hundred games with the hero. It's NOT a fighting steroid, it is way less reliable than the arrow actually. That's like saying Greater Cleave is an amazing carry steroid when in fact it only works against idiots or with AOE control.

Base stat matters because top AGI heroes not only have the best gain in the game(25/30 top AGI gains belong to AGI heroes) but they also benefit way more from Butterfly which is the best damage item for your average AGI carry.

Aghs gives Mirana a farming steroid, that, unlike Moon Glaive is also very good vs heroes. That's what makes her a good carry, You literally said being 6-slotted at 35 min mark won't change **** because you're Mirana when in fact being 6-slotted at 35 mins makes any hero a good carry(see Alchemist, heck, see Luna, she is only a good carry because she farms super-fast).

If Aghs Mirana is so useless how come ppl win games in 5k+ by spamming hero and finishing the match with top/2nd HD and GPM? Look at this f.e http://www.dotabuff.com/players/25175582 (I've checked, those are not party games, his teammates are just random solo queuers).

Sure there're a lot of dumb kids who can't play hero for **** and just copy players that actually know what they're going, but it's not like that's the first case and it;s not the hero's problem.


That's what you want to believe, but hundreds of ppl who win game with Aghs Mirana think otherwise.

Luna has bad range, not glaives. Glaives is 500 bounce range, can hit the same hero several times and bounces on creeps.
Nothing to do with Sven cleave really. Sven cleave only works if he stuns several heroes at once or if he has a setup, that's it.
Besides Sven cleave has like half the range of Luna glaives. I really fail to see the analogy between a short range cleave and Paralyzing Cask like bouncy glaives.

Saying moon glaive is useless in teamfights is like saying that WD cask never hits more than one hero in a teamfight.

For the record, Sven cleave has 300 range, Luna glaives 500 bounce range, WD cask 575 bounce range.



At most an AGI hero with 3 AGI gain has 25 more attack speed than an INT hero with 2 AGI gain and 3 INT gain at max level.

That's pretty negligible compared to even the worst steroid in the game. Thats why steroids make carries, not stats.

You could have Teleportation instead of that 25 attack speed. That's why Furion is a far better carry than Mirana in every possible way.

Yep, the only DPS carry Mirana has over carry Crystal Maiden is 30-ish attack speed. Scary.
But then CM is actually less kiteable than Mirana because 2 short cooldown reliable disables, so I'm not even sure who's the better carry in the end



That's not true. Daedalus is the best damage item for your average carry, and by far. Almost by a factor 2 compared to butterfly on certain heroes like Morphling or Clinkz. Do the math. And crit works on any carry regardless of his primary attribute.
Butterfly is only a better damage item than crit on AGI carries with cleave, which are 3 heroes in the game, that's it. And even on Gyro technically crit is more damage.
Sure, Butterfly is a good item on AGI carries, but Scythe of Vyse is an amazing item on an INT carry, and I'd rather have sheep than bfly if I had to chose. For example I'd rather have Clinkz be an INT hero rather than an AGI hero because orchid and sheep. Especially now that Abyssal Blade is no longer viable, INT carries are the only ones that can disable. Hell, now that Bloodthorn exists INT carries even have noticeably better item choices than AGI ones. And strength carries have really good item choices as well in 6.87.




Alchemist has 1 BAT, which is a steroid that increases his damage by 70%.
Luna is a good carry because glaives in fights and pushes which triples her damage, not because she farms fast. For the same reason Anti-Mage is a good carry because blink, not just because he farms fast.

Again, one hero with a good steroid, one with an amazing one, compared to a hero with none.

And even then I didn't know Alch was such a good carry. I always thought he was an unreliable and ultra situational carry at best and only shines as an aghs dispenser in the right lineup...did I miss something?

So yeah 6-slotted Mirana is like 6-slotted Alch without the best BAT in the game and that can't give away Aghs. Because Alch is such a great solo queue carry in the first place, right? That's pretty much what Mirana is once you tone it down several tiers.




Again, the classic argument of "pretending the opposing party said something he didn't actually say". Where did I say it was so useless? Oh wait I never did. I only said that Mirana aghs was a fail design from Icefrog and that it was completely out of place on that hero, because it encourages playing a roaming support as a farming core.

Does the dotabuff prove anything other than the fact that you can win games by snowballing with Mirana? Does it prove that a farmed Mirana is such a good carry? Does it even prove that her aghs is any good? Oh wait no. It doesn't actually prove anything, does it?