RIP Weaver

Once upon a time, I was a young boy, caring about nothing except Pokemon. That was until I heard of the computer game known as "Defense of the Ancients 2".

Back in the old days, my internet went at a snail's pace, forcing me to wait another 24 hours after I got home before I could play dota 2. Watching the download bar move was a great deal more painfully boring than watching paint dry. I scrolled idly through the wiki while waiting, and there he was. As soon as I laid eyes on the blue bug, I knew Weaver had to be my bae.


From then on until after TI3, I played Weaver in nearly every game. It started off terribly, and I would die once for every kill I got. However, when I got better and began doing well as Weaver, it happened. The Great Nerfing.

Icefrog once envisioned a hero, one that has mediocre stats but can immediately gain a copious amount of health and ludicrous health regeneration with the push of a button. He named the hero Alchemist. However, as he had soon discovered, he had created a monster. As soon as he had realised his mistake, the destruction of the invincible Alchemist was inevitable. Without anyone to defend his squishy exoskeleton, Weaver was left to fend for himself. After a couple of hard losses, I gave up on my insectoid friend.


In nearly every subsequent update following the Great Nerfing, Weaver slowly received some minor increases here and there, but he never returned to his former glory as Alchemist eventually did. New patches came rolling in and metas changed as the years went by, but Weaver's fate did not. Whether it is pubbers playing Storm Spirit in an attempt to emulate the plays made by the EG midlaner, or the time when death plagued the battlefield and towers fell like trees at a lumber mill, or even the era where the magical death pony ruled, there was no place for a simple bug like him; he was simply squashed under the feet/hooves of the heroes hogging the limelight. Still now Weaver sits out of the action, waiting for his time to rise once again. But when will it come? Will Icefraud come to his senses and save poor Skitscurr from being forgotten, buried under the successes of other heroes?



Save the Weavers. #Bitterpattern


/salt

Save the waever!!! and its children that got buffed.


Well I have a >60% winrate on weaver and I know that subconsciously I have stopped playing him. For some reason. But he is viable, its just that positioning is more strict now that you play him.

Also try medallion dragon lance.

But definitely I am gonna play him the next time I pop this game. and I will post my ramblings here.

I think hes still viable with Medallion Dragon Lance Daedalus Drum

Weaver is not only viable, but actually super strong this patch. His change this patch is a *major* buff if you add the Linkens cooldown + damage buff to the mix.

Linkens rush on Weaver which used to be arguably a trash build is now even semi-viable. Because now The Swarm deals a ton of damage so he can max it second and go linkens first item, and he no longer has the issue of lacking damage.

No seriously don't underestimate him. Bulldog got to 7K MMR by spamming Weaver. True story :)

But he's so squishy. Like a stun and some Dust makes quick work of him. Linkens... Just not good enough IMO, BKB would be better. Linkens blocks one but if they have more than that, or AoE? Then you're screwed.

Don't run into heroes with stuns? I've recently lost a game against Weaver who basically solo won it by not going in stupid places on the map or in teamfights. He splitpushed for the first half of the game( Weaver is impossible to deal with 1 vs 1, aside from select few heroes), hunted lone targets down, and later in teamfights he just got in the back of the fight where I( Kunkka) X'ed myself and just ate me since I couldn't do anything to him, then switched to the other target.

That's how you play Weaver, turn your brains on and select the right target with the right positioning, not just run into 4 heroes and get stunlocked and nuked down.

TL;DR
Stand in cool places and rekt some scrubs.

After some thinking, I have decided that my new year's resolution will be to play more Weaver! In fact, I just did that this afternoon: http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2053483661


My item build this game was mostly very chaotic, and I was also trying to adapt my build based on the other heroes on my team (hence the Vladmir's Offering). However, now that I've done that little test build, I can set my item build in stone.



In my next games, this would be my general item progression:
Ring of Aquila --> Medallion of Courage --> Maelstrom/ Desolator (depends on whether I want to farm or fight) --> Black King Bar/ Eye of Skadi/ Linken's Sphere (depends on the nature of enemy abilities) --> Monkey King Bar/ Daedalus (depends on enemy evasion).

Situationally, Dragon Lance (if keeping my distance is more important in that game), Vladmir's Offering (if other heroes are consistently doing more damage than me), Aghanim's Scepter (could be a godsend against Legion Commander), Divine Rapier (if I want to throw the game Kappa).

Exactly.

Where do you lane her? And do you pick her regardless of the enemy team composition or not? Your text seduced me to the bug side of the force, I'm curious on trying her now.