(art by helloatk.deviantart.com)
One of the most timeless Heroes, Mirana’s versatility, fun playstyle and semi-carry potential would always make her a top choice both in pubs and competitive matches. For the last few patches though, she’d become pretty underwhelming compared to the overbuffed beasts that plagued our games.
With a rather unexpected buff, she can now use Aghanim’s Scepter.
“Passively triggers Starstorm every 8 seconds. If there are no units to affect, the spell waits until there is a nearby enemy.
Does not trigger if the enemy does not see you. Passive procs are disabled by Break.”
This has two main applications. One is that it boosts her farm a lot, since the triggered Starstorms don’t cost any mana. It still is a 4.2k gold item, meaning it will take some time to pay off its own price, but the stats it provides are nice too.
The other is the high burst damage potential. Each Starstorm cast can hit an opponent twice if placed well, making for a maximum of 4 hits with Scepter. This amounts to 300+225+300+225=1050 magic damage on one target and another 300+300=600 to all others around it.
This arguably changes Mirana’s playstyle a lot. While semi-rightclick builds are still possible, people now prefer turning her into a heavy nuker. Aghanim’s is usually the first major item. After that, we’ve seen items like Blink Dagger, Dagon+Ethereal, Veil of Discord and even Hex. The fact that Intelligence now boosts spell damage adds more reason to use this playstyle.
It’s true that being a jack of all trades just doesn’t cut it in this game anymore. Mirana could fill any role, but only with average performance. She could be a support, a solo or a carry, but at the same time there were and still are better supports, better soloes and far better carries. One solution would be to give her something she’s really good at, and the other to boost her overall.
So what does this Aghanim’s do? I believe it’s both. Besides the obvious heavy nuke pro players are going with now, a passive nuke proc can really boost her farm and split push capabilities. It’s too early to say if it’s actually worth it to go with a playstyle like that, especially with a Hero that’s not a hard carry, but it’s definitely a possibility. I’m thinking about a solo mid Mirana, going Bottle+Boots+Aquilla+Wind Lace into Aghanim’s and Boots of Travel, then into some traditional damage items. It would make for a very fast Hero with a global presence.
