Weaver is one of the most mobile and elusive carries in Dota 2. He has two escape mechanisms (Time Lapse and Shukuchi) that make him hard to gank or kill in team fights. In addition to his mobility, he has high damage output and harassment early on, which makes him a very strong laner.

Weaver scales very well with items, which combined with his elusiveness and mobility makes him a strong carry. However, his problem is that he is a very low HP hero with low (for an AGI hero) armor and if he gets disabled, he can be burst down very quickly. This means he is vulnerable against drafts with strong disables and needs defensive strong items most of the games.

In the mid and late game, Weaver becomes a potent damage-dealing carry that can be very useful in team fights by using his mobility to pick-off the enemy backline heroes. At the same time, he can easily avoid engagements and split-push thanks to his mobility and high physical damage. In rare occasions, thanks to Aghanim’s upgrade to his ult allowing him to save allies, he could be played as a utility hero.

Weaver is more of a counter pick to the enemy draft – when the enemy heroes don’t have good lockdown for him (for instance when they have only slows) and/or when he counters most of the opponent’s picks (if they have melee carries). In such a case, picking Weaver will make it very hard for the enemy team to deal with him. If they spend too much time trying to deal with the hero (constantly rotating, trying to zone him out or helping allies that get zoned out by him), then you other teammates will have much more space to farm up their items.

Besides as a counter pick, Weaver can be utilized as lane dominator in a favorable matchup against an enemy solo (usually in a 1v1 or 2v2 situation in a side lane).

When you play Weaver as a 1^st position carry, you might want to get another semi-carry in the mid or offlane to increase your carry potential.

Weaver excels in most 1v1 situations - his skills allow him to harass and zone out opponents. This makes the hero ideal for strategies with multiple carries. You can invest the time of your supports to ensure the laning stage of another carry while Weaver is doing fine 1v1 and simply occasionally gank his lane. The most common example would be to send Weaver safe lane while having two active roaming supports who spend more time in the mid and offlane. Having an early game carry that doesn’t need a lot of help in the lane is very valuable and could propel you ahead in the mid game.

The idea of Weaver in a dual lane is to zone out and harass the enemy heroes and win the lane. Coupled with another strong early game laner, the dual lane will be very hard to deal with – the amount of harass will be too much to handle for the enemy duo (or even some trilanes). Such a dual lane can create a lot of space for the other cores to farm up if enemies commit a lot of time and resources (i.e. sentries, regen) to deal with you. For example, if you go to the offlane with such a strong duo the enemy supports will spend most of their time trying to ensure farm for their safe lane carry, which will give lots of free space to your mid laner (he will not be ganked too often) and can even net you kills against slow and squishy supports.

Although Weaver has a lot of mobility he is not one of the heroes that can always go to the offlane. The reason for this is that the hero is very farm dependent. If you cannot ensure that he will be able to get at least some farm in the lane, he could become useless in the mid and early late game.

Ensuring farm in the offlane, however, is very difficult. The reason for this is that his Shukuchi at low levels has a relatively long cooldown and if you are using it to farm and harass you cannot rely on it to escape when you get initiated upon. If Weaver gets caught when his Shukuchi is over, then enemies will have enough time to bring him down or harass him to a great extent.

Therefore, Weaver in the offlane can be a suitable option only in lanes that can’t zone him out/kill him early on. For example, against a dual lane that doesn’t have good harass or control, Weaver can do quite well. Once he gets more levels, it will get harder and harder for his lane opponents to deal with him (his Shukuchi CD decreases).

Generally speaking, Weaver in the offlane is more of a counter pick to the enemy safe lane. If you have him there, you usually want to rotate there with your supports to pressure the enemy safe lane as often as possible. If he gets completely shut down and gets only a little experience and no farm, then he will have a very hard game (he cannot catch-up by ganking or jungling efficiently). Usually, in the late laning stage, you might want to rotate the Weaver elsewhere to let him get more farm if he is having a hard time.

Because of his good laning presence and the insane utility that his ultimate provides with Aghanim’s, it is possible to play Weaver as a position 4 support. Your role is to bully your lane opponents early on, to find some space to farm your Aghanim’s and to save your cores in mid and late game fights with it. Solar Crest is also a great item on a pos. 4 Weaver because it synergizes offensively with the minus armor of Swarm, while also having great defensive capabilities.

Strong Against:

Weak Against:

The skill build of Weaver is not versatile. You always want to max up Shukuchi first, since the cooldown of the spell gets reduced significantly. This means that at max Shukuchi level, you will only be visible for 2 seconds in between casts. The damage also increases which helps a lot with farming and harassing.

The only choice you have to make is whether to max your 3^rd or your 1^st spell. If you get a point in The Swarm early you can increase your kill potential. If you skip The Swarm and level up Geminate Attack, you will be able to harass the opponent more often. You always get a point in your ultimate (Time Lapse) in order to increase your survivability if you get initiated upon. The escape mechanism aspect of Time Laps also allows you to make more risky plays - dive the enemy tower, etc.

Being a carry, you naturally want to go for items that increase your damage output. Because of how Geminate Attack works, for you, these are usually items with high bonus damage rather than attack speed.

Weaver is a squishy hero even though he has 2 escape mechanisms – if he gets disabled, he can easily die. Therefore, you need some items that make you more survivable. Items that give you HP to solve the problem of squishiness and in addition counter spells are usually the best choice.

Lastly, you need some HP and Mana regen even from early on to use our spells (mainly Shukuchi) as much as possible. This way you will be able to harass more often and farm up faster.

You start with early Wraith Bands. The early Ring of Health can be bought from the sicret shop near you and solve your early game HP problems against harassment. Afterward you want to get your Linken’s Sphere to be more survivable and have HP/Mana regeneration to farm up faster. After Linken’s you go back for your DPS item - Desolator.

In this example you invest in another defensive item: A BKB is a great choice if the enemy team has a lot of disables and the Linken’s isn’t enough to let you fight freely. In the very late game, you want to increase your DPS impact further and invest in MKB/Bloodthorn to counter any sources of Evasion and a Butterfly to increase your EHP even further in addition to giving you more DPS. 

The suggested build is an early-mid game fighting oriented build. It is a suitable item progression if you want to apply pressure on enemy heroes from early on. You get Power Treads early and after this you rush Diffusal, allowing you to bring down almost any squishy hero after you reach Mana break talent. After this you have to decide what defensive item you want to take (this depends on the heroes you play against) - BKB/Linken’s/Pike are the options. After you have one of these defensive items you go for Butterfly which helps you against physical DMG and at the same time increase your own DPS. You can change the Butterfly with Heart for example if you need more HP to survive. After you go for the “Doom” item combo: Bloodthorn + Nullifier, which will help you kill enemies without allowing them to escape with skills or items.

The utility build is used either on a support or on an offlane Weaver that doesn’t have farm priority. The idea is to increase your early game strength an win the lanes with cheap stat items and later to get your Aghanim’s to be able to save your cores in team fights. The Aghanim’s Timelapse is one of the strongest saving mechanics in the game and its impact shouldn’t be underestimated.

Getting a fast Maelstrom increases your farming speed a lot as it helps you clear waves much faster. After Maelstrom, in this example, you get Orchid which increases your kill potential a lot. Afterward, you buy BKB. In case you feel you need the defensive item faster, you can switch their places. Upgrading the Orchid to Bloodthorn is the logical choice, and since you already have Maelstrom and Bloodthorn upgrading your Mjollnir and buying Nullifier is the quickest way to further increase your offensive potential. In the super late game, you can finalize the build with another defensive item that will keep you alive for longer versus the enemy carries that probably hit hard at this point – HOT is a good choice, as you have a low HP pool.

Getting as many last hits as possible is important early on since you are a very farm-dependent hero – if you don’t get enough out of the laning stage, you won’t be able to contribute to your team. 

Weaver has very high base damage for a ranged hero and a decent attack animation. Moreover, he has two abilities that could help him get last hits.

His Shukuchi can be used to last hit just one or a few creeps at the same time. You can, for example, damage 2-3 creeps until they get low on HP and use Shukuchi to get the last hits – this will make it much harder for an enemy to deny your creeps (in a 1v1 situation). Moreover, besides getting the last hits with Shukuchi you can also run into the enemy hero to harass him. However, you don’t want to disrupt the creep equilibrium and cause your wave to push into the enemy tower (unless you are going for the rune). To keep a good equilibrium, you should be careful how you use Shukuchi when you harass and the last hit - don’t damage the creeps in the lane unnecessarily, rather move around them. 

Weaver has Geminate Attack, which also helps to get last hits. If Geminate is off CD, you can time your attack so that the secondary projectile gets the last hit – this will make it very difficult for your lane opponent to contest these last hits. 

Weaver is a harassing carry. He has two abilities that make him very hard to lane against.

 First, Shukuchi can be used to quickly rush in, damage the enemy hero with the spell and then return to a safer position (the “hit and run” tactics). Don’t spam Shukuchi too often – even though it costs little mana, you can easily run out and you won’t have an escape mechanism if you get initiated upon.  When you run in with Shukuchi try to be 500 range away from the creep wave if you want to attack the enemy hero afterward – otherwise, you will aggro the creep wave on you and will mess up the equilibrium.  Moreover, make sure that you can actually win a man-fight against the hero you are going to harass/attack once you get out of Shukuchi. If you can’t you could get caught and die, since Shukuchi has a longer CD at lower levels and you won’t be able to use it soon enough to get away.

 Second, Geminate Attack is a perfect harassing tool. Every time the passive is off CD you can attack the enemy hero. You can even combine both Shukuchi and Geminate attack to zone out an enemy– go in, damage the enemy with Shukuchi, then start attacking and either man-fight or walk backward. Once Shukuchi is off CD again, use it to damage the hero for a second time and return back to your creep wave to not miss last hits.

Taking all this into account, you should try to harass and zone out the enemy as much as possible – last-hitting passively with Weaver is a mistake.  However, don’t get too over-aggressive. You need to be methodical and harass a lot but in the same time, you need to take all last hits while also taking care of your Shukuchi mana cost and CD in order not to over-extend and get killed.

Difference in the lanes:

The creep equilibrium and the length of the lane (the distance between your tower and the enemy tower) play a role in the way you can harass. In longer lanes, such as the side lanes, you will be able to chase down and harass an enemy for a longer distance (until he gets to safety under his tower), which can transition to a kill attempt especially if you use Swarm. In the mid lane (or if the equilibrium is close to the enemy tower), you will not be able to do this and you will usually have to harass and immediately go back behind the creep wave.

Weaver is a very elusive hero thanks to his Shukuchi and Time Lapse. Shukuchi can be used to dodge certain projectiles (only if enemies do not have reveal) if you are getting ganked – e.g. stuns like Wraith King’s Blas. The maximum movement speed of the spell also allows you to easily create distance between yourself and your opponents – this could allow you to move out of initiation range even if they have true sight. Time Lapse, on the other hand, can be cast to remove certain debuffs. For example, if you get ganked by Naga Siren and you get trapped in her net, you can use your ult to dispel the effect and then use Shukuchi to run away. Therefore, getting Weaver killed is a very hard job.

However, you should be careful how you use your Shukuchi early on and where you position yourself when the spell ends. Since it has a much higher CD at low levels, if you play too aggressively to harass the enemy hero, you might get yourself in a place where you could get initiated and killed. Without Shukuchi or Time Lapse available you are very vulnerable. Therefore, if you don’t see where enemy supports are, you should run in with Shukuchi and get back to a safe position closer to your tower when you harass rather than ending Shukuchi in an aggressive position. Keep in mind that Shukuchi and Time Lapse are not omnipotent escape mechanisms - if enemies have good lockdown, you can easily get nuked down.

Weaver has high kill potential early on even on his own thanks to his mobility and high single target damage output. Thanks to his Shukuchi, Weaver can not only harass and damage an enemy but also chase him down to get a kill. You can run in with Shukuchi, cast The Swarm to increase your damage output (lowers the target’s armor and deals damage), start attacking and when your mobility spell is off CD - continue chasing. You can even dive the tower if you have your ultimate ready – run in, get the kill and use your Time Lapse to get back in a safe position.

Keep in mind that your ult early on costs 150 Mana and because of your low mana pool, it’s likely that you won’t have enough to cast it if you’ve been using your spells often. Therefore, always check your mana before you make such a move.

Being too aggressive might be risky if enemies have disables that can prevent you from running away with Shukuchi or Time Lapse – if you dive an enemy and get stunned, you can easily die, since you are a low HP/low armor hero.  The last thing to consider about Weaver’s kill potential is where you are laning. In the side lanes (safe lane/hard lane) you will have a higher kill potential since you can chase enemies for a longer period – the distance between your and the opponent’s tower is larger. In the mid lane, it is harder to chase a target with Shukuchi, since you will always have to dive under the enemy tower should you attempt to do so.

In the laning stage, your first timing is when you get to level 4. Then you will usually have 1 point in The Swarm, 2 in Shukuchi and 1 in Geminate Attack. Having all three spells will allow you to get a kill on a hero, especially in the side lanes as we explained above. You won’t have your ult yet so don’t play too aggressively.

The second timing is when you get to level 6/7 and have your ultimate plus a higher or preferably maxed level of Shukuchi. Your ult allows you to play more aggressive and dive enemies under the tower. The higher/highest level of Shukuchi will help you chase and damage targets much easier since the CD of the spell gets substantially reduced.

If you are going for an aggressive item first (usually Diffusal), you have a very strong timing on lvl10 – the Diffusal + mana break talent increases your DPS a great deal and you should use this to join your team for a fight and claim some map control.

As a carry, your top priority should be to get farm. However, you have a very high harassing potential and you should harass/zone out the enemy offlaner to prevent him from getting last hits and experience.

Weaver is not the type of carry that likes to farm passively for very long. In the later laning stage, you can TP to another lane to join fights and chase down damaged enemies to secure kills. You shouldn’t start to actively search for fights and ganks, but when the opportunity presents itself, you definitely should TP to join a fight and finish enemies off – you can go back to farming right away when the fight is over.

He showcases the kill potential of Weaver right from the start of the lane. Notice how he is trying to use every Geminate attack on heroes not on creeps to harass more efficiently and possibly set up for other kill attempts.

Getting an early Aquila to sustain his mana and increase his attack damage is very important.

By the end of the laning stage, even after Weaver`s team managed to kill Ench a couple of times, Enchantress has high levels and is becoming more dangerous on the lane. So, Weaver decides to TP bottom and get some free farm instead of trying to fight Ench. This is a very good decision – after using your strong early game potential, you need to focus on your farm to be able to scale as a carry in the mid and late game. Constantly fighting with Weaver is not a good idea, because you will end up being item-starved.

Combined with another good harasser, a dual lane with Weaver is very hard to deal with and could possibly disrupt the farm of the enemy carry.

You are a harassing carry and your job would be to get last hits but also zone out the enemy heroes against you. Early on you are stronger than most other carry heroes and can use that to your advantage to attempt kills or just push your opponents out of the lane together with your support.

In the lane, you want to exploit your early game harassing and kill potential.  Simply trading farm won’t be enough to justify your dual lane if the enemy dual/tri-lane has lower kill/harassing potential (which will be usually the case). Therefore, you should try to zone out and harass the enemy heroes as much as possible together with your partner. The difference from a solo Weaver is that your support complements and amplifies your harass and kill potential a great deal and you can be much more aggressive.

If an enemy support is away from his carry or other support (e.g. he wants to take the Bounty/to ward/to stack), you should try to chase him down together with your support. He will have a long distance to walk to safety and usually, this will be enough time to secure the kill.

Weaver needs a support that can amplify his laning strengths - harassing and kill potential. If you combine Weaver with a hero such as Naga Siren that is also strong early on, then the dual lane becomes very hard to deal with. (In the case of Naga, she has very high armor early on and can trade harass, she has an additional source of armor reduction which will amplify your attacks a great deal and she has a source of disable – something you lack).

Preferably (but not a must), the support should not only have good harassment but also some form of disable, since Weaver has none. This way your partner can lock down a target, while you deal the damage – this will give you kill potential. Nevertheless, the emphasis should fall on harassing when you build a dual lane with Weaver.

Examples: Naga, NP, Clock, Ogre

Weaver goes to the offlane alone only when against a weak lane that can’t zone him out, usually because they lack enough damage (the safer choice is to go to the offlane with a strong lane support). He has a good escape mechanism early on in the form of Shukuchi but if he gets locked in place, he can be easily brought down, especially when Shukuchi is at low levels and has longer CD. Therefore, the play style of Weaver as a solo offlaner is generally very defensive at the start and gets more offensive when he gets levels.

Your top priority is to get experience and some farm. Don’t try to be aggressive to get last hits early on. Rather, try to leach experience and get farm only when you can do so safely. After you get a few levels you can feel safer (since Shukuchi will have lower CD) and you can start trading blows with the enemy supports who are trying to zone you out. Your high attack damage + your passive means you will usually win these exchanges. Moreover, if an enemy support overextends you can use Swarm and chase down with Shukuchi for the kill. 

Weaver could be played as a position 4 support because of his strength in the lane and because in the mid and late game he can be extremely useful with an Aghanim’s on his ultimate – it is one of the strongest save mechanics in the game.

With a pos. 4 Weaver you usually want to start the game as a lane support either in the off or safe lane and use your Shukuchi and high damage attacks to harass and create space for your farmers. When you get some levels you can start rotating, controlling the runes and TP-ing to other lanes to join fights and kill attempts much more often than a core Weaver.

If your team could provide you with some space to farm (e.g. a free safe lane while the carry is farming the jungle), you should take it in order to get your Medallion + Aghanim’s faster – your mid and late game presence is much stronger with Agh’s as you will be able to start saving your cores in fights.

 If the enemy, however, has very good team fight potential and you can’t engage on them head on, then you should not only farm but also split-push to delay the game and force enemies to go back to defend their towers. Weaver doesn’t have a good anti-push ability and needs a lot of farm, so staying to defend towers against 5-man pushers is not advisable. Instead, focus on split-pushing and farming and try to turtle until you get your carry items to be able to fight.

If the laning stage went well, you should attempt to pressure your enemies by fighting, since Weaver is strong in the early-mid engagements due to his skill set. However, if your team lacks team fight potential, then you should continue farming and split-pushing at least until you get your first big item (Linken’s, BKB etc.).

If the laning stage went poorly, you should attempt to catch up in terms of farm to get your core items. By and large, you have a hard time being active and applying pressure from behind. It falls to your teammates to create space for you. Nevertheless, if your team has a good team fight potential, you should try to fight and win engagements – even without many items, you could have an impact in the early-mid engagements. When playing from behind, however, you should be very careful with your positioning while fighting. If you still don’t have your defensive item you should keep track of all important enemy disables and go in once they are in CD. If you can’t fight, you should split-push as much as possible to delay the game.

In team fights, you are not a hero that runs in and starts the engagement, simply because you don’t have any initiation tools. Rather, you follow up an initiation from an ally.

Who you should focus:

With Weaver, you want to focus a single target. The hero has a lot of mobility that allows him to run after heroes and finish them off. Therefore, if heroes on low HP are retreating, it is your job to get them killed.

In terms of targets, you can focus, you have generally two choices - either go for the enemy carry or go behind enemy line to pick-off squishy supports. The former is a good decision and should be attempted if you and your team have the damage output to quickly kill the enemy carry. If not, then it isn’t advisable to try to bring him down – it will take too much time and will give freedom to his teammates to counter initiate and kill you. The better alternative would be to snipe squishy supports – since you are very mobile with Shukuchi you can easily go behind enemy lines, kill a hero or two and then return to kill the enemy cores.

How to move/survive in a fight:

Moving around in fights is vital to your survival – if you just stand your ground and man-fight you will be much more vulnerable. If you get disabled and focused on multiple enemies you could get killed before you get a chance to use your ult and run away.

 Therefore you should use your repositioning abilities to your advantage. You can go in, use The Swarm on as many heroes as you can, hit a few times. Then, when enemy heroes turn on you, you should use Shukuchi to kite them, especially when they are melee DPS heroes. Stay on the outskirts of the fight, go in, go out. These hit and run tactics will help you win an engagement against strong man-fight heroes that don’t have a way to get close to you (for example against Lifestealer) and will make it very hard for the enemy team to predict your movement and lock you down.  

Apart from Shukuchi, using your ultimate in fights is also crucial. There are three ways you can use Time Lapse:

 First, when you get focused you can use your ultimate to avoid getting burst down. You can use it to dispel a disable such as Naga Siren’s Ensnare or debuff such as Track – Shukuchi won’t help you in that case, or you can simply use it to recover your HP.  Second, you can use your Time Lapse to get into a more favorable or safer position. Let’s say you run into 3-4 enemy heroes. If they have detection and you use Shukuchi to run away, they can still disable you and kill you. Therefore, using your ultimate right away would be a better choice. Last but not least, you have an option to buy back and use Time Lapse to return to an engagement. This is only advisable when enemies managed to burst you down in the span of a few seconds. Then using buyback and Time Lapse would bring you back into the fight at a point in time when you were full HP (before getting burst down). If, on the other hand, you were very low on HP for more than 5 seconds, then buying back and Time Lapsing would return you to the fight with low HP again. This might get you killed twice, which wouldn’t help your team in any way. 

Example:

Envy realizes that the enemy supports are too far away from their teammates and uses the mobility of Weaver to pick them off on his own. This allows his team to turn around and help him secure an additional kill on the enemy DP – a great example of how good Weaver is in chaotic, drawn-out fights.

Split-Pushing:

Weaver is a good split-pusher since he has the mobility to move fast and stay safe, AoE spells to clear out creep waves faster and good physical DPS to push down towers (especially in the late game).  By using Shukuchi you can quickly move to a lane in order to split-push. You should use the spell on CD to damage and push out the creep waves as fast as possible. Moreover, you can also cast The Swarm on an incoming creep wave to bring it down faster – if you want to split-push more, then higher levels in The Swarm early on will help you clear out waves quicker. Weaver also has high single target damage thanks to Geminate attack ability. Therefore, he can bring down towers at a relatively fast speed especially if he has Deso.

Since Weaver needs a lot of items until he reaches his true carry potential, he usually needs to farm up for a long time. If you can’t fight the enemy team early on, you have to delay the game by split-pushing. If you passively farm and don’t split-push, your team is likely to lose towers, while having destroyed none of the enemy buildings.

5-man Pushing:

When it comes to your team pushing as 5, Weaver should most of the time stay back out of initiation range because he is low HP and if he gets disabled he can easily die. Only in cases when enemies don’t have a way to initiate on you and lock you down should you stay in front and attack the opponent’s building (or if you are very tanky because of a resource advantage). 

Weaver is not a good ganker because he doesn’t have control for the enemy heroes. Even if you gank a squishy hero, an opponent can always use TP to get away (you have no stun to cancel the TP and you deal gradual rather than nuke damage). However, if you are very farmed and have a high damage output, you can manage to kill an enemy hero very quickly. In such a case you could successfully gank on your own.

Most of the time, however, you wouldn’t have the damage or the control to gank by yourself. Therefore, the only reliable way to gank a hero would be with the help of an ally that can provide good disable. Together with other mobile gankers such as Storm Spirit or Puck you can quickly go in, snipe a target and then get away in time before enemies have a chance to counter-initiate.

With Weaver, you can use The Swarm to scout the positioning of enemy heroes. For example, if you think that enemies are in the Roshan pit you should cast the spell in that direction. Don’t scout with Shukuchi, especially in the very late game – you are a squishy hero and enemies are likely to have true sight for you. Moreover, you are a carry and if you die, your team your item development will be slowed and your team will be unable to fight without you. 

Being an item-dependent carry, you should farm a lot during the mid and late game. Weaver is not one of the fastest farmers in the game since he doesn’t have a flash farming ability to help him clear waves or neutral stacks quickly. Nonetheless, Shukuchi and Geminate Attack give him good damage output that can be useful to clear creep waves or jungle camps relatively quickly. Use your Shukuchi to not only damage creeps but also to move faster between lanes and camps. You can use the Swarm to clear jungle stacks faster – the beetles will tank a couple of creep hits, so you will also take less damage.

Last but not least, keep in mind that through split-pushing you are also farming. Shukuchi allows you to farm and split-push lanes where you have little map control. In fact, split-pushing helps you to get a lot of farm, while delaying the game so that you can have the time to get your late game items.