Mirana Nightshade- Priestess of the Moon guide

[EmperorGR]

Mirana is probably the most loved hero in Dota , so here is a guide if you like the hero but you have difficulties playing with her






Table of Contents:

1.a Pros and Cons
1.b Hero basic Stats
1.c Skills


2.a Skill Build
2.b Item Build


3.a Strategy
3.b Elune's Arrow strategy





Pros and Cons :
+ Great ganking abilities
+ Strong in both early and late game
+ 2 different escaping abilities
+ Great Agility growth
+ Easy attack animation to perfect last hits
+ Decent farming abilities (with starfall)
++++ Its fun , its deadly , its powerfull , it needs skill and practice , its annoying for the enemies ,its..........Elune's Arrow


- Low Health Points
- Needs a lot of practice to master the priestess of the moon










1.b Hero Stats






Mirana Nightshade
Range: 600 | Move Speed: 300

Primary: AGIL
Str: 17 + 1.85 | Agi: 20 + 2.75 | Int: 17 + 1.65
Damage: 38 - 49 | HP: 473 | Mana: 221
HP Regen: 0.76 | Mana Regen: 0.69
Attack Speed: 1.42 | Armor: 1



1.c Skills


Starfall (hotkey T)

Calls down a wave of meteors to damage each nearby enemy. If enemy is farther than 600 range, it has a 60% chance to still hit him. One random enemy unit within 200 aoe will get hit again for half the damage.
Level 1 - 75 damage per wave.
Level 2 - 150 damage per wave.
Level 3 - 225 damage per wave.
Level 4 - 300 damage per wave.
Mana Cost: 100/120/140/160
Cooldown: 12 seconds

Your main attacking spell (combined with Elune's Arrow and a great for farming spell


Things You didnt know about starfall:

a) Starfall deals Magical damage which means that it is reduced by the target's Spell Resistance and is blocked by Spell Immunity
b)Starfall is NOT blocked by Linkens Sphere



Elune`s Arrow (hotkey R)

Fires an arrow to a location with deadly precision, dealing large damage and stunning the first unit it strikes. Stun duration increases based on how far the target is, ranging from 0.5 to 5 seconds.

Level 1 - Deals 90 damage.
Level 2 - Deals 180 damage.
Level 3 - Deals 270 damage.
Level 4 - Deals 360 damage.
Mana Cost: 100
Cooldown: 25 seconds

The source of Mirana's power , Elune's Arrow is the main reason Mirana is such a good ganker , its the initiator spell and many times the finisher as well and my favourite spell in the game




Things You didn't know about Elune's Arrow


a) The arrow can't hit allied creeps/units/heroes
b) For every 150 distance the arrow travels, the stun duration increases by 0.5 seconds. For example, an arrow that travels for 450 range stuns for 1.5 second, and an arrow that travels at least 1500 range stuns for 5 seconds (which is the maximum stun duration).
c) The arrow travels with the movespeed of 837
d)Linken's Sphere blocks the stun but NOT the damage that it dealt by arrow
e) Elune's Arrow deals Magical damage which is reduced by the target's Spell Resistance and is blocked by Spell Immunity.





Leap (hotkey E)

Mirana's wild Frostsaber leaps forward into battle, empowering allies with a ferocious roar upon landing. Movement Speed bonus lasts 10 seconds.




Level 1 - 400 range. 4% speed increase.
Level 2 - 450 range. 8% speed increase.
Level 3 - 500 range. 12% speed increase.
Level 4 - 550 range. 16% speed increase.
Mana Cost: 40/35/30/20
Cooldown: 40/35/30/20 seconds

Your main escaping and chasing spell , it has great synergy with the other Mirana's spells since the usual combo is (Arrow+leap+starfall)


Things you didn't know about Leap

a) While Leaping, Mirana is moved 30 units every 0.025 seconds, that means she has a speed of 1200 during the leap.
b) You can use leap to dodge incoming spells
c) You can leap over cliffs which makes Leap a great escaping mechanism




Moonlight Shadow (hotkey w)

Turns Nightshade and all allied heroes invisible. If Invisiblity is broken, it gets restored after the fade time during the shadow duration.

Level 1 - Lasts 7 seconds. 2.5 second fade time.
Level 2 - Lasts 9 seconds. 2 second fade time.
Level 3 - Lasts 11 seconds. 1.5 second fade time.
Mana Cost: 200/250/300
Cooldown: 160 seconds

Imagine a team with 5 rikimarus , thats exactly what this spell does , grants invisibility to the whole team , great to save an ally or to initiate surprising ganks



2.a Skill Build

The Normal build
Level 1 - Elune's Arrow
Level 2 - Starfall
Level 3 - Starfall
Level 4 - Leap
Level 5 - Starfall
Level 6 - Elune's Arrow
Level 7 - Starfall
Level 8 - Elune's Arrow
Level 9 - Elune's Arrow
Level 10 - Leap
Level 11 - Moonlight Shadow
Level 12 - Leap
Level 13 - Leap
Level 14-23 Stats
Level 24 - Moonlight Shadow
Level 25 - Moonlight Shadow


The "I love arrows" build

Level 1 - Elune's Arrow
Level 2 - Starfall
Level 3 - Elune's Arrow
Level 4 - Starfall
Level 5 - Elune's Arrow
Level 6 - Leap
Level 7 - Elune's Arrow
Level 8 - Starfall
Level 9 - Starfall
Level 10 - Leap
Level 11 - Moonlight Shadow
Level 12 - Leap
Level 13 - Leap
Level 14-23 Stats
Level 24 - Moonlight Shadow
Level 25 - Moonlight Shadow



About the 1st build , its wiser to max out starfall first instead of Elune's Arrow , the reason? Level 1 arrow with level 4 arrow have exactly the same stun time the only thing that changes is the damage , so maxing out Starfall as soon as possible is probably better since it will be your main damaging/nuking ability

Why Arrow at level 1 : for a possible quick first blood

Why not ultimate at level 6 : besides the fact that your mana pool cant support your ultimate yet , you need leap and as high as possible arrow + starfall for the first ganks you will try , besides that Moonlight Shadow maxes its efficient at late game when team fights occur more often


Why stats over higher level Moonlight Shadow : level 2 and level 3 only increase the duration of the invisibility if you ask me its pointless to go for a lvl 3 ultimate at 16 level , the stats bonuses will be more useful


Why leap at level 4: At the start with your horrible health points you are a sitting duck without any escape mechanism , so having Leap early (1 lvl is enough) will save your life in many occasions , plus it will increase your ability to chase and kill which will come in handy at the first ganks you will make



About the 2nd build , truth is that i do not recommend it the 1st one is better no matter how u look at it , BUT i am an arrow fanboy so i usually max it first since its my favourite spell , but if you are making your first steps with mirana (which will mean that u are gonna miss A LOT with arrows) dont even think about going for the 2nd build



2.b Item Build


Start Items:
If you chose Mirana your starting item should be Magical Bottle there is no debate here bottle is the best first item for Mirana..period.

If you randomed Mirana you should buy Magical Bottle + Observer wards , Early game you should go for ALL the runes , refilling your bottle without going back to the fountain is EXTREMELY important


Main Items:






2




or



or




Why this item build:

: As a great ganking hero mirana can take full advantage of the runes and the refilling of bottle , with bottle you dont have to worry about going back to fill your health points

: You can buy Boots of Travel as well but my personal opinion is that at least to Mirana its not worth it , treads are cheaper and they also give you attack speed which can be the difference between a kill and a failed gank


2 : Not much to say the stats bonuses are important especially at the start where neither your damage or your hp are high enough



Desolator or Diffusal or Maelstorm : all 3 items are good for mirana , it depends on your opponents in order to decide for what build you 'll go

will give you the chance to farm easier and to kill low armor heroes easier

which is probably the most famous build at this time will give you and additional slow besides your stun and combined with leap makes impossible for someone to escape you


is great if you have beast opponents like centaur


Another choice which nowdays almost noone uses is Sange n Yasha , it gives you extra hp + extra movespeed + damage and its kinda cheap

Personally i usually go for the maelstorm build (which i turn to mjolnir later in game)


Luxury Items:

: (if you went for the maelstorm build)
:It was the n1 choice back when diffusal was the 1st requirement for manta , now with the changes i personally think manta is not a good choice for mirana
: huge bonuses +slow , IF you are extremely rich its quite a good item
: My number 1 choice after Mjolnir , butterfly is a very good choice to every agility hero


Bad choices:
Hp leech items , i have seen many times people going for Helm of dominator , well mirana is not meant to fight toe to toe so if you ask me going for hp leech is pointless since your main tactic will be to assasinate/gank heroes and not trying to overpower the enemy in "fair" fights



3.a Strategy


Early game:


Request a solo lane with Potm , the mid lane is the best in order to use Mirana's Full Potential

After farming till level 6-8 is the time for the first ganks , first see if it is possible to kill your enemy at the lane with a well placed arrow , if that is not possible its time for the rune hunt , find a rune fill your bottle and after seeing which lane is better to gank prepare , usually the best way is to hide in woods start with an arrow leap to your target and kill him along with your allies , if you miss try to decrease his hp with your allies and by the time your enemy tries to escape finish him with an arrow


Mid Game: Continue to gank and taking as much runes as possible by now you should have your maelstorm which makes your farming way easier , always look for a chance to gank especially the enemy carry heroes



Late Game: Your main role is to initiate the fights , fire an arrow stun the enemy carry or healer and with your team you ll have a huge advantage over the enemy team , you can also use your Moonlight Shadow if things go bad or to gank the whole enemy team.. Its always fun to see 5 people pushing and suddenly behind them 5 enemies appear and kill them before they understand what the hell happened;p



3.b Elune's Arrow Strategy


You can type at anytime -aa to see your Arrow Accuracy , it shows how many arrows you fired how many of them hit an enemy hero and the percentage accuracy


An important command that few use when playing mirana is the -apm command

That command shows you the Actions Per Minute for every hero , why is this important to you? Its simple an enemy hero with a low apm means that he is usually standing still thus you have more chances to hit him without trying to guess which way he will move , in the contrary an enemy with huge apm is more difficult to hit as he is moving a lot


Your main strategy with arrow will be to hit them when they dont expect it

Hide in trees , Over the hills at night or at the fog guarantees a higher accuracy with arrow...if you are face to face with the enemy at lane try to fire the arrow the second all the enemy creeps die , that way your arrow will travel along with your own creeps making it harder to see it and avoid it


Dont be afraid to fire arrows even with low chances of success , practice practice and practice , try to guess the path your enemy will follow and fire the arrow in that direction an arrow that missed is better than a non existent arrow ;p



Later on today pics will be added for further understanding of how the arrow really works

[Lazin]

i like ur guide
even tho i use almost the second skill build i do
arrow
leap
arrow
starfall
arrow
starfall
arrow
and so on

[BlackSheep)]

Nica guide!

[MasteR[KM]]

i like ur guide
even tho i use almost the second skill build i do
arrow
leap
arrow
starfall
arrow
starfall
arrow
and so on

+1 the best skillbuild

[Eulogison]

Nice guide but i guess i would go for
Level 1 - Elune's Arrow
Level 2 - Starfall
Level 3 - Starfall
Level 4 - Leap
Level 5 - Starfall
Level 6 - Elune's Arrow
Level 7 - Starfall

Although depending on oponent and teammates...

The build depends

+1 for diffusal

[nTaBaTzIs_GR]

Yeah that's a very good guide GJ!!!

[zr3_]

Nice guid but if u have money i make boots of traveling better

[CL.Thanos]

very useful guid. good work

[Lazin]

Nice guid but if u have money i make boots of traveling better

i think tis a waste of money
if u have threads + yasha with leap u can go anywhere really fast
plus u get more stats

[Etherial]

Very nice guide.. mirana is a quite tricky hero needs a hell lot of practice indeed

[SatirosSs]

very nice guide...i have seen mirana with S&Y an skadi imba combo....:dkni:

[palaiokwstas]

great guide

[MikrosMpelasFTW]

Hmm about the item build.. In my opinion making BoT would help a lot for gangs escaping etc. Secondly as for the orb effect the ones that i am using are Mjollnir and EoS which stack. Before ofc i make 3-4 wraith bands and farm/gang all the time. The spell series is fine ( i mean the first one.) andd thats all

[Taidan]

Nice guide

[Flush-RoyaL]

-> Its Favorite Hero for me And for play mirana need Big skill and need practice To much for be pr0 !!

and i play mirana 1LVL arrow/lvl2 leap/3 star/4 star 5 Star 6 arrow 7 star and.. after arrow

[Sn0w_BL4cK]

If u are SO LUCKY learn:
1)starfall
2)arrow
3)leap
4)starfall
5)starfall
6)arrow
7)starfall
8)leap
9)arrow
10)arrow
11)leap
ect...
i told that cuz if u are so lucky....
starfall has a 60% change to hit an random enemy twice... xD

[KickOn]

Indeed a good guide, +1

[Marquina]

Great build mate
but i prefer do Leap as first skill then afterwards arrow nor starfall all after your opponent and playstyle

[Jad0.]

If u are SO LUCKY learn:
1)starfall
2)arrow
3)leap
4)starfall
5)starfall
6)arrow
7)starfall
8)leap
9)arrow
10)arrow
11)leap
ect...
i told that cuz if u are so lucky....
starfall has a 60% change to hit an random enemy twice... xD

You mean "A" random, tbh its not about luck to hit twice, depends on range =)

[xania]

Nice guide,great job my friend...

Mljonir in mirana is imba with some attack speed upgraded