I've never actually tried getting the chalice instead ill give it a run prolly right after this lol. I liked the manamune just because i found without it i had serious early game mana problems and it cost me kills and deaths.

I really enjoy the extra mana to be completely honest..alot of the times i stay on the outskirts of the battle and pop people off without losing any health and with that mana regen i save time going back to town n what not.

I used The Frozen Mallet in this build instead of The BloodThirster before and loved it..I used The BloodThirster as more of a survivability build..the sway of the game permitting of course Ill sometimes pick up The Frozen Mallet instead

I run a very similar build (I max double up early, perfect for getting that toon that's out of reach), the only thing I was REALLY curious about is the manamune. Right after patch I grabbed it for a few games, and I really enjoyed the results, I had a couple of rough games, poor last hit timing and what not, so I was behind on money. I ended up getting the chalice instead and didn't notice THAT much of a difference in my mana or dps. The chalice is roughly HALF the cost of a manamune so now it's part of my regular build.

I was just curious if you had done any checking to see if the larger pool and slight dps bonus is worth the extra 1K gold.

note: I'm also a huge fan of the frozen mallet (ganks permitting of course)

good guide.