Gameplay

Playstyle
Weaver is a slippery carry who shifts in and out of space, and turns back time to recover from his injuries. Summoning The Swarm to latch onto his enemies, Weaver can drastically reduce enemy armor in teamfights, following up with Geminate Attack. With Shukuchi, Weaver is able to slip away from combat easily, or slip right into combat and surprise enemies. If the time arises, he can Time Lapse any damage away and return to the stats he had and the position he was in 5 seconds ago. He is extremely elusive and hard to lock down, and deals large amounts of damage. However, Weaver is extremely item dependent, and must farm well throughout the game to be effective. In addition, he has very low base attributes, and his intelligence and strength growth is not the greatest.
Pros	Cons
Elusive and hard to pin down. Reduces enemy armor. Good lane pusher. High base damage for ranged heroes.	One of the slowest heroes in the game. Countered by true sight. Vulnerable to silence. Low attribute growth coupled with the lowest base stats. Very item dependent.

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 Linken's Sphere 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 Aghanim's Scepter to save your carry. You can choose to skip boots entirely and rely on Shukuchi to keep up instead. Medallion of Courage is a great pick up on Weaver to further reduce the enemy's armor, and you can even start off with a Blight Stone 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 Aghanim's Scepter before having any kind of impact. It is overall a poor choice for a support.

Ability Builds

Generic Weaver
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Tips & Tactics

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 Linken's Sphere.
• 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 Ursa) 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 Linken's Sphere and Dragon Lance for carry Weaver or Aghanim's Scepter for support Weaver.
• Weaver starts off with low strength, health, and armor. So, consider Iron Branch and Circlet that give attributes and you can upgrade into Magic Wand or Wraith Band.

Abilities

The Swarm

• 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

• 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 Wraithfire Blast), 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 Town Portal Scroll 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 Magic Wand 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 Dragon Tail or Hex.
• Weaver can use items during Shukuchi's fade time without breaking invisibility.
  • For example, he can switch Power Treads back from intelligence to agility.

Geminate Attack

• 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 Crystalys or a similar item, and it can even stun if you have a Skull Basher or an Abyssal Blade (not the most recommended item on Weaver, but better on him than on most ranged heroes thanks to Geminate Attack).

Time Lapse

• 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 ( Finger of Death or Laguna Blade). Using Shukuchi immediately after Time Lapse will also improve your survivability.
• Time Lapse removes most debuffs from Weaver, which is useful for removing Dust of Appearance 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 Aghanim's Scepter, 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:

• Tango 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.

• Healing Salve 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.

• Clarity helps Weaver sustain his mana in lane.

• Slippers of Agility helps Weaver get last hits.

• Circlet gives Weaver a few extra stats, and can be built into a Wraith Band to help with last hitting.

Early game:

• Regular Stick gives nothing.

• Boots of Speed 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.

• Blight Stone synergizes well with Weaver's armor reduction.

Mid game:

• Magic Wand offers extra attributes and more charge capacity.

• Power Treads give Weaver some extra attributes and attack speed.

• Linken's Sphere 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 Black King Bar.

Late game:

• Diffusal Blade 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.

• Desolator 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.

• Black King Bar should be a choice if enemies have a lot of disables/nukes that can't be blocked with Linken's Sphere, or if they have multiple low cooldown abilities.

• Eye of Skadi provides overall great stats and increases your chasing/kiting potential with its Cold Attack.

Situational items:

• Hurricane Pike 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.

• Heart of Tarrasque 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.

• Daedalus greatly increases Weaver's damage, as Geminate Attack can proc the crit.

• Butterfly provides damage, armor, attack speed, and evasion, making Weaver harder to kill and more damaging.

• Monkey King Bar grants lots of bonus damage, which Weaver makes use of with Geminate Attack.

• Satanic 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.

• Mjollnir 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.

• Revenant's Brooch can provide good damage when used against high armor heroes.