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 not worry about Mana and 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 players should always make sure that they can use Shukuchi before committing to a kill
 * Weaver in the early game can't risk dying as dying in the early game can stun his progress in the long run.
 * Weaver will start to use Shukuchi more and more as the time goes on.
 * Weaver players should avoid spells that disallow weaver to escape in dangerous situations like any spell that can silence, Stun, or root.
 * Weaver is very item dependent, but is very hard to kill 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 doubling his damage output every few seconds.
 * Sometimes, Weaver may 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 low strength, health, and armor. So, consider and  that give attributes and you can upgrade into  or.


 * 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.
 * The Swarm provides vision as it travels.
 * Use The Swarm before diving, so towers will target the beetles instead of you.
 * Use The Swarm to farm Ancient camps early on.
 * The Swarm can cause enemies to take a lot of damage during the laning stage. This can be used to gank or push back enemies.
 * When pushing, use The Swarm on an incoming enemy creep wave, causing them to stop and attack the beetles, giving you and allies more time to attack the tower.
 * The tower may also attack the beetles instead of your allies, prolonging the push.
 * 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).
 * You can draw Roshan's aggro away from the beetle by right clicking an enemy hero on the map. This way your bug reduces the armor longer.


 * 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 550 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. Usually, 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 550ms 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.
 * Unlike Time Lapse, Shukuchi has no cast point, which works well as an escape against enemy instant disables such as or.
 * Weaver can use items during Shukuchi's fade time without breaking invisibility.
 * For example, he can switch back from intelligence to agility.


 * 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 a similar item, and 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 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. Best used when needing a small amount of regeneration in the early game. Don't be afraid to use them as dying in the early game can end up costing Weaver a lot of progress in the long run.
 * can save Weaver after a dangerous situation. If you're super low, remember to use Shukuchi to get good distance from enemies and then use the Healing Salve to recover from large amounts of damage.
 * helps Weaver sustain his mana in lane.
 * helps Weaver get last hits.
 * gives Weaver a few extra stats, and can be built into a to help with last hitting.

Early game:
 * gives health and mana in a pinch, which is useful for playing aggressively or for survivability in the laning phase.
 * give a decent speed boost, so Weaver can be a bit faster when he Shukuchi is on cooldown and he is one of the slowest heroes in the game.
 * synergizes well with Weaver's armor reduction.

Mid game:
 * offers extra attributes and more charge capacity.
 * give Weaver some extra attributes and attack speed.
 * gives extra health and blocks spells. Combined with Time Lapse and Shukuchi, this makes Weaver extremely hard to kill. If the enemy team has a lot of low-cooldown abilities to pop it or AoE disables/nukes, consider skipping it in favor of.

Late game:
 * increases damage and attack speed and grants Weaver a slow, something his own abilities are lacking. The Manabreak stacks with Weaver's own Mana Break talent.
 * gives excellent damage and an armor reduction debuff that synergizes well with Geminate Attack and The Swarm. Really important you get this by the late game as this can help with getting kills.
 * should be a choice if enemies have a lot of disables/nukes that can't be blocked with, or if they have multiple low cooldown abilities.

Situational items:
 * increases Weaver's attack range and gives a decent boost to strength and agility. The mobility it grants help Weaver put extra distance between himself and the enemies while he is waiting for Shukuchi to come off cooldown. Furthermore, The Swarm grants vision on the target, so Weaver can attack them during Hurricane Thrust.
 * can be very frustrating for the enemy team, as Time Lapse will recover a great deal of Weaver's health. The health regeneration allows Weaver to get back in a fight, and Weaver can simply use Shukuchi to get away for the health regeneration to activate.
 * greatly increases Weaver's damage, as Geminate Attack can proc the crit.
 * provides damage, armor, attack speed, and evasion, making Weaver harder to kill and more damaging.
 * grants lots of bonus damage, which Weaver makes use of with Geminate Attack.
 * is a good choice on Weaver, considerably increasing his survivability with its strength bonus and lifesteal. Moreover, it can give you a third life so to speak after Time Lapse with its Unholy Rage. Combined with Weaver's high attack damage and Geminate Attack, even a single attack during Satanic's active can heal you back up to full health.
 * provides overall great stats and increases your chasing/kiting potential with its Cold Attack.
 * is 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.
 * 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.

Weaver/Guia Weaver/Руководство 编织者/攻略