Weaver/Guide

Carry
Weaver is nearly always played as a carry. To be effective, Weaver depends on the extra hit from Geminate Attack to out-damage his opponents. Time Lapse, when used optimally, essentially gives Weaver a second life, allowing him to make riskier plays and outlast other carries. A carry Weaver requires a large amount of time and farm before he can truly hit hard with his attacks, especially if he chooses to purchase a first.

Support
Although very unusual, Weaver can somewhat be played as a support. With your level 2 (a point in Shukuchi and Geminate Attack) and your high base damage, you can easily harass an enemy offlaner or support. Unlike most heroes however, you do NOT want to be trading hits with anyone; just hit him once (twice with your passive) and run away immediately. You may even choose to skip dealing Shukuchi's damage if it would end with you being too close to the enemy. But your below-average BAT and abysmal starting stats ensure that, by the time you get a second right click on an enemy, you will probably have taken more damage than what you've dealt.

On a support Weaver, you will always want to rush an to save your carry. You can choose to skip boots entirely and rely on Shukuchi to keep up instead. is a great pick up on Weaver to further reduce the enemy's armor, and you can even start off with a immediately to further harass the enemy. However, support Weaver provides absolutely no control for your team, nor heal, just a tiny bit of vision with The Swarm, which also barely increases your carry's damage output, and requires to farm the before having any kind of impact. It is overall a poor choice for a support.

General

 * Weaver is very item dependent, but is very hard to stop once he gets a.
 * Weaver is one of the most difficult heroes to lock down, but this elusiveness can be countered by disables, true sight, and silence.
 * Weaver is great at kiting and killing melee carries (such as ) with the low cooldown of Shukuchi and the armor reduction effects of The Swarm.
 * Though treated as hard carry, Weaver is one of the most difficult heroes to lane against because of Geminate Attack granting him the ability to hit an enemy twice in a single attack instance, effectively multiplying his damage output by two every few seconds.
 * Weaver usually goes for . The active on (the phase and the bonus ms) is kind of lost on Weaver since Shukuchi gives both of them already, but you can use it while Shukuchi is on cooldown. The +24 damage however is very nice, especially combined with Geminate Attack which makes it +48, a  for half the price. Also there are plenty of times where you won't be attacking that often in a fight, making the attack speed from treads somewhat irrelevant.
 * Alternatively, consider relying solely on Shukuchi for movement speed and skip boots entirely, focusing on more important items like and  for carry Weaver or  for support Weaver.
 * Weaver starts off with 15 strength for a total of 500 HP and poor armor. Don't hestitate to leave your fountain with a couple of es or s that you can upgrade into a or a . The only upside to having such a poor health pool is that flat HP regen is proportionally better on Weaver than on anyone else. An  or a  (that will later upgrade into  for example) will go a long way to keeping Weaver healthy.
 * is a very interesting choice on Weaver. Its flat HP regen does wonders on Weaver's poor health pool and the mana will help you to spam Shukuchi. You may not want to contest for runes considering how fragile you are (though you could try to swipe one under the enemy's nose with Shukuchi). Once you reach level 6, you can always use a to regenerate in your fountain, fill your bottle, and go right back to lane with your Time Lapse.


 * Use The Swarm to soften up enemies before a teamfight.
 * Use The Swarm to latch onto enemies, keeping vision over them if they try to juke into the trees.
 * Use The Swarm before diving, so towers will target the beetles instead of you.
 * Use The Swarm to farm Ancient camps early on.
 * When attacking towers, use The Swarm on an incoming enemy creep wave. This will cause the creeps to stop and attack the beetles, giving you and your creeps more time to attack the tower.
 * The Swarm fully works on Roshan (armor reduction) and the beetle will also tank a couple of attacks for you. Weaver is actually a decent hero for level 1 Roshan attempts if your team wishes to try it (it will not be enough by itself however).


 * Shukuchi is your main spell and you will be using it all the time provided you have enough mana regen. It provides you, by itself, with no less than 3 means to escape or chase: it turns you invisible (potentially dodging slow projectiles such as ), it gives you 522 movement speed and you cannot be slowed, it gives you a phase movement allowing you to go through units. It also deals a bit of damage. In 95% of your games, you will want to max it first.
 * Use Shukuchi to dive and harass enemies by touching them.
 * Shukuchi allows Weaver to return to fights and deal a little extra damage, even when his health is low.
 * Since using Shukuchi doesn't interrupt channeled spells, you can use a and then cast Shukuchi to hide while you finish the channel.
 * This can be used when teleporting to escape or when teleporting to defend something. For example, if you cast teleport on a tower you want to defend, then Shukuchi right before the teleport channel completes, when you arrive at the tower, you will be invisible. This can cause confusion for the enemy, since they will not see you appear when the teleport completes, and may think that you cancelled the teleport.
 * Attacking, using another spell or using any items will finish Shukuchi. When chasing an enemy, be sure to catch up with him as much as possible while you have 522ms before attacking him. Similarly, when you're running away, be sure to use your or to tread-switch when Shukuchi is over. Weaver is fragile enough with Shukuchi having a downtime of 2 seconds, don't make that downtime even longer.


 * Geminate Attack is excellent for harassing a laning opponent. You can even try to push hard for a kill with it under tower if the enemy is low enough, though it should only be done if the enemy laner has no way to stun you.
 * It will not activate while denying your own creeps.
 * The second attack gets all the properties from your own right click. That means that it will lifesteal, it will crit if you have a or similar, it has 35% chance to mini-stun and deal 160 magic damage if you have a, it can even stun if you have a  or an  (not the most recommended item on Weaver, but better on him than on most ranged heroes thanks to Geminate Attack).


 * Use Time Lapse after buying back to immediately return to the fight. This is a risky maneuver, however, as you most likely won't be at full HP when you arrive. Consider using this trick when you got nuked by a strong ultimate like ( or ). Using Shukuchi immediately after Time Lapse will also improve your survivability.
 * Time Lapse removes most debuffs from Weaver, which is useful for removing and many other hazardous debuffs.
 * When retreating, a confusing tactic is to run towards the enemy, then use Time Lapse to return to the original spot and escape in the opposite direction.
 * If you use Time Lapse after respawning, you should arrive next to where you died. This can serve as a poor man's tp if you died next to your tower, but it can also allow some sneaky structure damage: if you died next to an enemy tier 3 tower, and there are (allied) creeps about to push another t3 when you respawn, you can be suddenly pushing two t3s at once, and the opponent might not be expecting you to come out of the blue hitting buildings. Don't do this if there are no allied creeps as backdoor protection will kick in.
 * If you've farmed an, you can use Time Lapse every 12 seconds on your allies at a considerable 1000 range. If you have a hard hitting ally that wants to land a couple of auto attacks on an enemy tower, he should be able to do with ease if he knows you're ready to save him.

Items
Starting items:
 * gives Weaver some regeneration in lane.
 * can save Weaver after a dangerous situation
 * helps Weaver sustain his mana in lane.
 * helps Weaver get last hits.
 * gives Weaver a few extra stats, and be built into a  to help with last hitting and mana regeneration.

Early game:
 * gives health and mana in a pinch, useful for playing aggressive or survivability in the laning phase.
 * give a decent speed boost so Weaver can be a bit faster when he isn't in Shukuchi.
 * is a cost effective stat boosting item that also helps with mana regeneration so that Shukuchi can be used more often.
 * synergizes well with Weaver's armor reduction.

Core items:
 * offers extra attributes and charge capacity.
 * give Weaver some extra health and attack speed.
 * gives excellent damage and an armor reduction debuff that synergizes with Geminate Attack.
 * gives extra health and blocks spells. Combined with Time Lapse and Shukuchi, this makes Weaver extremely hard to kill. Consider skipping it if the enemy teams have tons of low cd spells to break it such as, or . If they have plenty of Magic Damage, maybe go for  instead.

Situational items:
 * grants lots of bonus damage, which Weaver makes use of with Geminate Attack.
 * provides a means to remove debuffs like silence or, and slows enemies.
 * provides damage, armor, attack speed, and evasion, making Weaver harder to kill and more damaging.
 * greatly increases Weaver's damage, as Geminate Attack can proc the crit.
 * increases Weaver's moderate range and gives decent stats (especially the 13 str that Weaver so desperately needs) at a very good price. It also upgrades into through purchase of a  and a recipe. Although force staff is an unusual choice on Weaver, the extra mobility it grants is very interesting for the 2 seconds during which Shukuchi will be on cooldown. In many scenarios, the distance you will put with force staff between you and an enemy will buy enough time for shukuchi to come off cooldown (or perhaps for a silence to expire) and for you to finally run away to safety. Finally, using the pike's active on an enemy gives you an additional way to kite him. It synergizes especially well on Weaver since you have The Swarm to keep vision on the enemy and make full usage of your four attacks with unlimited range.
 * can be very frustrating for the enemy team, as Time Lapse will recover a great deal of Weaver's health.
 * can be useful in the late game for pushing in lanes.
 * is a good choice on Weaver provided you didn't go for first and  since is not an unique attack modifier anymore. Both will considerably increase your survivability with 25 str. The first will increase your chasing/kiting potential, and the second can give you a third life so to speak after Time Lapse with its unholy rage. Combined with Weaver's high attack and Geminate Attack, even a single attack during Satanic's active can heal you back up to full health.
 * and are rarely a terrible choice on a carry. They will help you farm faster, and you will have a chance to zap the enemies twice with a single attack through Geminate Attack. But they rarely are the best choices on Weaver.
 * is a great item since it reduces Time Lapse's cooldown significantly, and allows it to be targeted on allies. It should be considered when Weaver is not the team's main damage dealer/carry and an extra way to save the team's carry is needed. Be mindful that a target has to be chosen when casting it instead of just pressing the hotkey.
 * gives lots of damage, which goes well with Geminate Attack. Additionally, the Radiance Burn allows Weaver to deal additional damage while invisible.