The new Aghanim's upgrade on Weaver

In case anyone missed it, the newest update gave Weaver the ability to use Time Lapse on allies if he builds an Aghanim's Scepter. This has led to a resurgence in the hero pickup in competitive games.

The more I watch Weaver games where he gets an Aghanim's Scepter, the more I feel that it is overpowered to the point of being borderline imbalanced. Here is my reasoning:

Time Lapse is a fantastic skill in general. Being able to dispel all damage, debuffs, positioning changes that you took in the last few seconds is extremely strong in teamfights. The only reason I feel that Time Lapse has a place in this game is because of the fact that it is on Weaver, a hero that has terrible stat gain and is incredibly squishy without his two escapes ( Shukuchi and Time Lapse). On a hero with better stat gain, this skill would be overpowered. This can be seen in Ability Draft games where Time Lapse is usually first picked.

Imagine a Weaver using Time Lapse on a hero like Storm Spirit that gets exponentially more effective with every bit of mana and life he has. It can lead to insane situations in teamfights. Or a hero like Bristleback that is inherently very tanky. The enemy team use all their focused nukes to bring him down to 10% HP, and boom, an allied Weaver shows up with a Time Lapse.

You might argue that a Weaver picking up an Aghanim's Scepter isn't going to do much damage himself, but there are a few ways to achieve this. First, an offlane Weaver can rush an Aghanim's Scepter after Power Treads and Ring of Aquila. Weaver is a legit offlaner, and if other cores can deal the damage in teamfights, that leaves Weaver free to pick up a get-out-of-jail-free card for one of his cores.

In a very quirky draft (which was actually done in a competitive game, by PR vs Alliance in the TI 5 qualifiers), you can have an Alchemist farm up the Aghanim's Scepter and give it to your core Weaver. This is even more insane since Alchemist is naturally an extremely fast farmer, and it also leaves the Weaver to actually pick up his damage items like Desolator or Monkey King Bar.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on Weaver aghs and opinions on whether it is balanced.

TL;DR: I think Weaver aghs is broken. What do you guys think?

I think offlane Weaver rushing Ag's before transitioning into damage will be a extremely viable hero eventually, because the issue with it at the moment is that Weaver is traditionally a 1 position, thus nobody else on the team needs Time Lapse as much as he does.

At the moment I think it's a case of it not being played around with enough/being a buff short of viable that keeps it from being common place. Like pretty much all the new Ag's we had ( Wraith King, Naga Siren, Centaur Warrunner and this one), since all are crazy abilities.

Might also be a case of needing a meta shift to make it viable, since it's not that favourable towards Weaver atm. But it will be viable eventually.

True dat. this new meta is going to be craZy in ti5 where we get to see some unique new strategies

The main trouble is that only work against the snowbal strategy, What about a AOE wombo combo one ? your team will need that tidehunter offlane instead of weaver

If Weaver doesn't get caught in the como, he actually laughs at wombo-combo with Ag's - They rely usually on High Cooldown-High Impact spells to burst someone down. Weaver undoes every little thing that that combo did on a core hero, which basically mocks the combo. Given, you know the

It's actually worse against snowball, because Weaver would be denied the space he needs to get the item in the first place. That and the hero is just plain bad against 5-man deathball DOTA, because Weaver is more of a skirmisher, darting in and out of fights, focusing the backline, and killing squishy heroes first, rather than butting heads against the enemy core directly.

You know how long it will tka ehim to farm Aghs before he has real items? Ya no. He'll get rekt.

My point is that, an offlane Weaver can be played more for his utility role early on by getting the Aghanim's Scepter first, right after Power Treads. If the game drags on, he can transition to a proper core with damage items and such.

The new Alchemist Aghanim's Scepter makes this even worse - a core or 4 position alch can farm up an Aghs realy fast and throw it on your 1 position Weaver who now has the additional utility aspect on top of his usual items.

Either way I see it, I feel this is borderline broken.

You're aware that a 13 mins aghs won't do **** right? If it takes time, so what? It's not like you need it early. A utility weaver is a good aura carrier, imo. Get threads aquila and vlads and aghs, and you are set to go. If you do well add a desolator to rekt even more.

I think it kind of screws you over now that its a cast. If its not instant its way harder to pull off on yourself. Eh.

havent been playing Weaver that much lately, but not too long ago it was pretty standard to go for a defensive item on him first and getting damage afterwards. Aghs gives him a nice healthpool and also solves his early mana issues...so its not that bad of a choice tbh.

I too think, that it could definitely be viable if you use it on the right heroes.