RIP Weaver

The advise of the worst Weaver player ever: buy Drum of Endurance into Power Treads into Desolator into mjolnir

Great response, Xyrus, lots of insight! Well said, Demonychan, back there a page or two. (I just wanted to start with this.)

I love playing aggressively and usually aim for items that allow for this quickly! Weaver has great kill potential from early on, so lane him MID or OFF and make some action. But play, like Demonychan said, with your brain. And BTW, The Swarm is awesome now, go 441. And use this:

The best and funnest Weaver build according to me:

Start off: Ring of Aquila, Magic Wand, Urn of Shadows, Phase Boots
Yes, you read correctly, Urn and Phase! Amazing combo on weaver. I won't take the time to theorize it now, but after many games I conclude that these four items work amazingly to kill and survive during the early game. Onwards!

Midgame: Desolator, generally; Diffusal Blade, for slow and dispel; Linken's Sphere, if enemy has big targeted problemizor.
Kill weaklings, push towers,

And that's the gist of it, you know late game. Butterfly (although it is now worse for Weaver!), Butterfly, Manta (also for dispell), Heart, Skadi (not with Desolator though), BoTs, whatever you need and want. E.g, Desolator to Boots of Travel is pretty amazing for pushing, if you need to do that.

Lastly, DO NOT BUY Dragon Lance, you don't benefit (enough) from the speed, strength or range--it is not worth it.

Yea weaver is my favorite Midgame carry hero because it's so fun to run behind the team fight and go up to nearly any hero and 3-4 shot them with deso,crit,mkb,and butterfly/any other damage item if I'm going glass cannon build but if I go survivability build I usually have a linkens/bkb deso butterfly/manta crit/butterfly.
Weaverino is probably my favorite divine carrier also cause it so fun to auto attack once with ur Gemini on and see the enemy carry just die

I agree you have to get the balance right between damage output and survivability, it's even more true of Weaver than other carries. I like the Medallion builds, you can get a lot done early/mid if you play it right and avoid getting burst down or locked down.

Desolator is also a great option if you can get away with it...BUT you see players going for this build when there's a friggin core Lina on the other team, which is just suicide. You need to gauge your survivability to the point where you can take a few digs from the opposition and still get out, while building as much damage as you can.

The thing I'm trying to say more than anything is that you can vary your builds a lot on Weaver, yes there are not a ton of viable items on him, but you can utilise them to get quite different results - snowball focus, farming focus etc early, and then you leave yourself some options to transisition to lategame/split push, or go for the early finish.

He's an interesting hero to theorycraft because his skillset is quite conflicted in some ways:

- Weak stats
- Fantastic escape abilities
- Wants raw damage over agility (as Geminate Attack doesn't scale with attack speed)
- Ult benefits massively from increased HP/EHP

You could definitely argue he should build Phase Boots for the damage bonus working well with Geminate, but the active doesn't benefit him, and he's so devoid of stats he kind of needs the help from Power Treads. All the way through his builds you have to balance the two branches. Which side you favour should depend heavily on the opposition, same as the choice of whether to risk the glass cannon build, go Linkens or BKB, etc.

I like ye olde Aquila > Medallion > BKB > situationals.

He's actually one of the very few heroes I like going Heart on, because he can run out of the fight, wait a few seconds, and come back in on higher HP, in addition to having Time Lapse. It also gives him infinite sustain, and on a hero that wants 100% non-farming activity during his timing window that's pretty good.

I have a doubt for all of you: If I go the Medallion of Courage - Desolator build, what survivibility item makes more sense afterwards? I'm thinking Black King Bar, and then go for the final damage item, because Skadi won't work, but could something else fit here, like the mentioned Heart?

Weaver Rampage.
This is my latest weaver game. The riki made early game tough with his pesky stink pellets, but our offlaner created enough space for me to get fat and then I capped off the game with a rampage at the dire T2 mid as well as a commend for our spirit breaker.

Dragon Lance works wonders for weaver, damage and survivability along with more hit time due to the range, makes for a beast of an early game item. Also the fact that it can be turned into a bkb and butter is like Icefrog begging people to rush a Lance after treads aquila wand.

i am not a great weaver player but this is my build anyway
aquilla->PT>HotD->moljnier->daedalos->MKB->skadi_>BoT->Satanic

i think that is pretty solid with good damage output and good survive

Sooo... Here's the big question then?

When would you actually pick the hero over something else in the pool? Because that's really the rest of the hero.

When you need a Linken's Sphere on your Position 1. There aren't many Heroes that can go Linken's Sphere as a 1st or 2nd item without having to delay more important Items, and you want that hero to be capable of Split-Pushing, e.g. against a heavy Teamfight lineup with Doom in it.