Sacred Arrownage: Playing Mirana to Full Potential

This is an in-depth, advanced guide to playing Mirana and deals with item builds, skill builds and, most importantly, arrowning.

Intro

Mirana is an incredibly fun hero to play, that's about the only reason necessary to learn to play her well. Having, arguably, the best single target nuke-stun in the game, a one-click escape mechanism, a very potent nuking/farming skill and a debilitating global ulti, Mirana is a pesky nuisance at worst and a fearsome source of devastation at her best.

Prerequisites

Awesomeness comes at a price, Mirana is not an easy hero to play well; skill is required. In terms of difficulty of play Mirana can be placed alongside Windrunner in that some farm and positioning are necessary for success. Skill comes with practice and, hopefully, this guide will steer you along.
Consider learning to play Mirana if/when you are comfortable using all your skills, two items and animation-cancel all within three seconds of gameplay i.e. you can play support but want a bigger piece of the action.

Besides your personal adequacy, it is also important to see if Mirana would be a good addition to your team lineup and/or if the enemy team does not have strong counters. Mirana can be anything from a hard carry to support, but does best at mid-game gank/teamfight initiation.

Pick Mirana if:
-You want to have a Good Game
-There are no teammates with invisibility (having one is OK)
-There are no ranged teammates
-There are teammates with whom Mirana comboes well (disablers, initators etc. more on that further on)

Do not pick Mirana if:
-There already are two (or more, sigh) teammates who rely on invisibility
-The enemy team has strong counters (more on that further on)
-Your team needs a tank or a hard support (roles outside Mirana's speciality)

Builds

I will be presenting two contrasting builds for Mirana to underline the flexibility in gameplay available to you.

Type A
Type A is a build geared towards maximizing Mirana's damage output. You will want to go this route if your team is lacking in carry capacity mid-game, you aren't too proficient at landing arrows and/or you want to be able to lasthit easier.


Type B
Type B is a build on the other end of Mirana's spectrum of possibilities - one of rapid mana regeneration and high movespeed.


Let's go over the details. The game start is the same in both cases - you purchase a circlet, a ring of protection and the recipe for wraith band. The clarity is purely optional but the 100 mana in it means one arrow you can own with. With these starting items you are rushing for an early Ring of Aquila (RoA) without the need for a courier (the team should still get it, it's just that you won't be using it much unless harassed bad). Head out to the offlane (the top lane for Radiant or bottom for Dire) and be happy if/when you get to solo due to a teammate jungling or trilane on the safelane. It is also possible to go solo the safelane if your team plans to trilane offlane. Adapt.
Once on lane, play aggressively harass, deny, be a pain in the ass, leap out at first sign of trouble. Lasthitting with the initial items will be nigh-impossible because your damage will be a laughable 45 (being an average between 39 and 47), but wait it out, finish the wrait's and it should pick up. A complete RoA will grant you a wopping 15 bonus damage and make lasthitting OK.
By this point you may want to have the courier bring you tangos, keep harassing and lasthitting like a bauss and complete those Tranquil Boots. Now you are a self-sufficient harass-machine! Later farm will be a combination of herokill and tower push gold, which is, I hope, self explanatory.

Path to Arrownage

Delicious, delicious skill!

What we can also learn from the (not too reliable) Dota 2 wiki are these facts:
-Sacred Arrow's maximum travel distance is 3000 units.
-For every 150 distance the arrow travels, the stun duration upon impact increases by 0.5 seconds and the amount of damage increases by 10. For example, an arrow that travels for 300 range stuns for 1 second and deals an extra 20 damage, and an arrow that travels at least 1500 range stuns for 5 seconds (which is the maximum stun duration) and deals an extra 100 damage (which is the maximum amount of bonus damage).
-The arrow moves at a rate of 857 units per second.
-Collision radius is 115

So here we have our first insight - the arrow reaches maximum effectiveness at half the maximum range which is about 2.5 Mirana's attack distance (which is 600). Become familiar with this distance on an intuitive level. Furthermore, effectiveness should always be sacrificed for hit probability, which will increase if you fire from a closer distance of ~ 1000-1200. Knowing the approximate distance you want the arrow hit at, you can also know how long it will take the arrow to travel. At 1200 unit distance and taking cast animation into account, it will take ~2 seconds for the arrow to reach the supposed target. So, for example, to increase your chances of landing an arrow on someone 1200 units away, you should target a spot they are likely to be at two seconds from when you fire. Such a landed arrow will deal 460 magical damage and before min 15 that will likely mean ~half of the enemy hero's HP.

First rule of arrownage: "Always assume that the arrow will miss its intended target". I cannot stress this enough. You will miss. A lot. Most of them. And that is OK. Think about these numbers: Sacred Arrow costs 100 mana to cast and has a 17 second cooldown. A good arrow usually means the target's death. Your accuracy, even if you just start out and follow my tips will be 20%. That is a kill every 2-3 minutes at the cost of 500 mana. Fantastic!
"But why bother shooting if I know I will miss?!" you may be wondering. Well, because it's not about you! The arrow is a beacon for your teammates to rally about, a sign of commitment to own a hero in the general direction of your firing.
If you always assume that the target will evade your arrow, you will be able to land better shots. This is how it works.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Arrow

Now that you have eased into being OK with missing 80% of your arrows and become completely impervious to comments from your teammates like "Mirana, use arrow" or "OMFG, Mirana, your arrows suck!", let me clear up some myths and explain when and how to use the Arrow.

Ideally you want the arrow to hit an enemy hero at the optimal 1500 travel range. You will achieve this 1.5 times or 3% of arrows a game. The next best thing is hitting a retreating enemy hero at ~800 range by firing just ahead of them as they turn and run. 60% of landed arrows will be of this kind and will secure you kills. If you live up to this, you are an OK Mirana player, but I am teaching you to be exceptional here. The next most common situation where you land an arrow will be firing just ahead an enemy hero that is about to be stunned (see Vengeful Spirit's missile in air, Sven pumping out a Storm Hammer, Rubick lifting someone up, Pudge (allied or enemy) landing a hook - launch an arrow immediately!) or is slowed and running in a predictable manner.

Now the uncommon arrow use situations:
-Slark ganks you and you are about to die - launch a point-blank arrow in his face
-You are hard pressed in lane - arrow the ranged creep to secure the gold.
-Your team does Rosh - arrow at max distance to stun him.

Myth: An arrow that doesn't hit an enemy hero is a waste of mana.
Truth: Even an arrow that misses completely is useful for giving vision. I routinely fire arrows from the river to scout ahead (and land occasional blind arrow). Furthermore, sometimes you want to fire an arrow ahead of a retreating or dangerously advancing enemy and put them between a rock and a hard place of being hit by the arrow or cough up by your allies.

Launching an arrow from 2000 units away towards a teamfight will seldom land, especially if your advance is noticed. It is better to land an attack or two, Starfall Starstorm and then arrow at whoever is still fighting or running straight to base.

Special mention about Sacred Arrow's ability to hit invisible units. Forget about hitting weaver, but a Clinkz or a Gondar trying an emergency invisibility escape can sometimes be cough with the arrow if you calculate their possible location, taking into account that Clinkz's invisibility gives him bonus movespeed while Gondar's does not.

Trick 1: Counterpush Arrow

This works best with an impeccable creepblock mid, but the general strategy can be applied on any lane. Here is how it is done.
You need at least one level in Sacred Arrow, obviously and watch the timing. Either by creepblocking, actively denying your creeps or being pushed hard, you have to move the creep front withing the range of your tower, then switch to attacking the enemy creeps to clear the wave as fast as possible, possibly foregoing lasthitting altogether (it's very hard to lasthit under the tower with Mirana due to low damage initially). Then comes the trick part. Just as the last (probably ranged) enemy creep falls and your creep wave begins advancing, the enemy hero will be falling back, you launch the arrow to where the enemy will be running. If the arrow connects, the enemy will take a severe beating from all your creeps, plus you. I have gotten countless first bloods this way.

Here are hi-res maps for good early Arrowning locations for the Radiant[dl.dropboxusercontent.com] and Dire[dl.dropboxusercontent.com].

Trick 2: Attack & Advance

This is a trick that will allow you to land one or two attacks more than usual after a good arrow and help you secure a kill early on.
Say you followed my advice and landed a Counterpush Arrow, you ran up to the enemy hero and started attacking, got three attacks and he backed up, eating a tango. Here is how you could have gotten off a couple more attacks. Launch the arrow, immediately click the direction you are firing, click the now stunned enemy hero, watch Mirana stop and attack. The microsecond you see her autoattack arrow leave her bow, click to move Mirana in the enemy hero's direction, move 170-230 units, click to attack again. Do this two times and cast a Starfall Starstorm when you move within those 175 units to have it hit twice. Continue doing this just as the stun wears off and the enemy is backing up. This will allow to put out two more attacks than usual because you are spending those 0.3-0.5 seconds of "backswing" moving, not standing around like an idiot. Leap after you cast Starstorm if necessary.
Leaping in and casting Starstorm just after a good arrow is what newb players do. Sure, it will get you kills, but hardly utilize Mirana's Full Potential.

Trick 3: Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

There are times when it is less difficult to land an arrow and have it pay off even if the enemy evades. Those times involve heroes going for lasthits, especially on high-paying ranged creeps and catapults. Wait for that 7 minute mark and for a catapult to roll out, clear out the enemy creeps so that catapult-vs-catapult is left and back off in a hurry like a sneaky ♥♥♥♥♥♥. The enemy will jump to the free catapult farm. Watch his movements and aim the arrow to hit just as the enemy would go for the lasthit. If timed right, the arrow will hit just before he lasthits, you can deny the catapult for insult points and proceed to attack the hero or if he had the prudence to evade, you denied a hefty sum of gold.

Trick 4: Collide With What You Can Not See

Remember that the arrow has collision size of 115 units, which is much larger than the arrow size lets on. Use this to increase the accuracy of your arrows. Always launch the arrows not only with the intention to have them hit after two seconds, but also aim them slightly in front of where you think the target will be because the arrow is not that fast and because the collision size allows for this.

Landing (or tactically missing!) your arrows depends not only on your personal skill, but also on the intended target's evasive maneuvers. If the enemy sees you launching the arrow, chances are they will evade 80% of the time, right. If, however, you launch from fog and/or have the arrow travel through the trees at least half of the distance, well, that will surely decrease the chances of them evading, now won't it?!

So if you are thinking of ganking an unsuspecting sniper mid-farm, launch an arrow through the trees, aim at the outer edge of his selection circle and have it hit just as he is trying to lashit and has to stand still.

Starstorm: More Punch Out of Your Mana

One random enemy unit in 175 range will take a second hit for 75% of the damage. That's 525 magical damage for 160 mana at level 4 (while ♥♥♥♥ Lina's ult does 450 at 280 cost). Though keep in mind that every hero has at least 25% magic resistance, so in actuality that will be 393 damage. If you land a good arrow, make sure to be in that 175 range, especially while your attack is below the additional 170 damage dealt (once you do more physical damage, it makes more sense to just land one more hit than spend the time running up to the guy). Yeah.

Leap: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Leap has a non-linear utility in that one level in it early makes you hard to gank by moving you out of danger, but at level three becomes a potent boost spell, giving you and any nearby allies move and attack speed boost (the buff is applied upon landing in a 775 unit radius when you hear Sagan roar), so it makes more sense so leap in a teamfight and give your team a sizable boost than to leap to chase or run out (after being wiped out).

If you get ganked and chances of running are slim, consider leaping in trees and TPing out, definitely beats dying. Say "Trololol" if you get to live like that.

Moonlight Shadow: Gank Them Oldschool

An awesome ult. Moonlight Shadow allows you to give the frustration-inducing invis-gank ability of a Shadow Blade to every ally every other minute. Best use it to get in position with a teammate and gank unsuspecting Snipers - Ult, walk up within 175 unit range of an enemy hero, Starfall Starstorm, attack, move up, attack, arrow, sweep up. Barring ganking, use it to save ganked supports or over-extending allied Slarks and Spirit Breakers. Keep the ult handy when going on Rosh to either slip in unnoticed or fall back safely. Train an eye for using the ult without a second though and look when you see a gank happening on the minimap. Look for enemy crosses entering tower radius to finish off your ally and a timely ult can not only save them, but turn the tables around. Look for enemy crosses popping up behind your allies on a lane attempting to squeeze them. If you see this pattern, don't bother to check, just ult. Do this since Moonlight Shadow's invisibility has a considerable fade time and a second in Dota often means life or death.

Enemies To Look Out For

Mirana is squishy and relies highly on mobility, heroes who can either silence or shut down movement make her natural enemies. Also enemies who can fart out tons of spell damage can make short work of Mirana, especially in a teamfight.

Let's look at contingency strategies.

Seeker is your worst nightmare. Never pick Mirana with a Seeker in the enemy lineup (unless you want pain and suffering ofc). If he's picked to counter your Mirana, accept that you will have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. There is only one thing you can do and I recommend you do it right now. Become familiar with the sound Rupture makes. Learn to be instinctively terrified of it and to trigger in you an unconscious reaction to trigger the TP scroll with a doubletap. Here's a vid.

If the enemy team isn't spell-intense you can also consider getting a Ghost Scepter later on to stay alive and TP out even after Rupture + Force Staff.

Kunkka is another pain in the ass. While considerably less of a problem than Seeker, Kunkka will hurt you with everything he does. He will whittle away your precious health with Tidebringer swings and be able to pull off a devastating X-Marks-The-Spot-Torrent-Ghost-Ship combo. Stay away, land good arrows and let tanker teammates take care of him.


Once Clinkz gets Orchid Malevolence, he will be able to pull off devastating ganks against squishy anyone, especially you. Your only hope here is biting the bullet and farming Manta Style to remove the silence from Orchid and fighting back or leaping away.



Zeus and Tinker, while excellent targets for good arrows, have the capacity to spell you down early on and you should always be mindful of an incoming gank by them. Also remember that Zeus's spells can reveal invisible units, denying you (or your teammates for that matter) the option to ulti out of a gank.





In a word - don't compromise your item build, don't go making three bracers just to survive a gank by these heroes. Rather, accept that you have been counterpicked and play more passively, end the game with a 4-3-7 score.

[Rip Van Winkle]

nice bro omg im seeing it in 2015