[Nerubian Weaver] Invisible Threat

[Lapis Lazuli]

A Guide To
Anub'seran
Nerubian Weaver

by LightRedemption

Written for 6.74c

Official Guide Version|Forum Guide Version

Credits of the pic goes to ManiacPaint on Deviantart.

Table of Contents:

1. Introductions
2. Overall Stats
3. Pros and Cons
4. Skill - Skill Build
5. Item Build
6. Role
7. Strategy
8. Hero Preferences

Introduction

This guide have been written two years ago, got published BEFORE the whole The Swarm remake. However, my view on him does not change at all, as I do believe he serve the same role as he did way back then. His skill change allowed him to be a lot less micro-intensive and straight forward. His skill theme also fits great into the current metagame while still retaining his reputation as an awesome pub-rapist. Having seen that there's no new guide for Weaver that fits today's metagame, I decided to update mine.
Update Back here 3 months later, trying to re-written the whole in order to grasp the new benefits of the forums. Meaning this was probably re-written a total of 4 times.
Update Decided to revamp the guide AGAIN after the release of 6.73b. I'm sure it needs the renovation anyways. Looking back at it, it does not have that whole "presentation" edge that some of my other guides hold. However, it's a classic and I'd like to keep it at that. The value is in the guide, not the pretty stuffs anyways.

Story

Anub'seran. The name of this creature strikes fear into all of those who have seen the Nerubians. Even the famed assassin Anub'arak is hesitant to fight this beast, which comes from the plane of the spirit world. He can swiftly walk through his enemies, bending their bodies to his will, causing pain while he strides through them. With his powers over the timeless plane, he can also step inside and throw himself into the past to keep himself from death. He can call an attack from the future to strike his foes, making his onslaught more deadly. Anub'seran. Only the fools do not fear his name.

Overall Stats & Skills

Strength 15 + 1.5
Agility 14 + 2.5 (Primary)
Intelligence 15 + 1.8

Damage 46-56
Movement Speed 290
Base Armor 1
Attack Range 425
BAT 1.7 seconds
Sight Range 1800/800

Pros & Cons

Pros:

[+]One of the best chasers in the game
[+]Low cooldown invisibilty skill
[+]Great escape mechanism
[+]Almost all of his skills make him very hard to kill
[+]A decent DPS late game
[+]Benefits double from damage items
[+]Very great in crowd-control
[+]Versatile item build
[+]Low cooldown and mana cost skills
[+]Decent laning capabilities

Cons:

[-]Low stats
[-]Horrible attack animation
[-]Low base armor
[-]Item dependant
[-]No actual farming skill
[-]Extremely vulnerable to disables (except Slow)

Skills - Skill Build

• The Swarm
• Shukuchi
• Geminate Attack
• Time Lapse

The Swarm - (Active, AoE-Target, Affects Enemy Heroes)

Extras • When a beetle latches on a a target, it will remain there until it is killed or the duration expires.
• Beetles are magic immune, but can be killed in 4 attacks from a hero, or 8 from other units.
• Every 1.5 seconds, the beetle will attack its target, dealing damage and reducing the target's armor by 1 until the beetle is killed or the duration expires.
• Beetles provide 321/321 sight, but will drop off their target if it becomes invisible.

This skill can get extremely, extremely annoying as the game progress. Basically it provides a meat shield for you an your team, which grants vision, and would hurt if not getting rid of early. Using this skill usually when you want to draw target fire from your allies to something else. Most of the time this skill is spammable, so it wouldn't be a problem. It can also be used to ensure a kill on fleeing heroes. Mostly due to the fact that it takes a lot of hits to kills, and would also delay creep reactions by quite a lot. However, don't spam it in lane though, since the bugs when killed give quite the amount of gold. It also serves as great distractions, just in case you ever need it.

Shukuchi - (Active, Instant, Affects Self)

Extras • Damage type: magical
• Can only damage a unit once per cast.
• Fade time: 0.25 seconds

The fade time addition, was my personal debate for a while. First glance, it seems like an obvious nerf. You can die, disabled during the fade time. That much is true. However, it is up to you how you would want to abuse that fade time, to waste instant disables and crappy targetted skills. For example Hex, can still be casted on you, but you would be a ultra-fast invisible chicken instead of a fried turkey. The edge that this non-instant invisibility skill has over other ones (maybe except Clink's Wind Walk) is the speed boost. It helps a lot considering invisibility dodge missles like nothing else.
Other than that, this skill is mostly used for positioning, whether it's an escape, or an assault, maybe a tower dive, all is packed inside this little skill.

Geminate Attack - (Passive, Insant, Affects Enemies)

Extra • Geminate Attack is an Orb Effect.
• The extra attack will never trigger attack effects (orb effects, bash and critical strike).
• Nerubian Weaver needs an attack order for this ability to activate.
• The attack in which this skill procs is considered an Orb Effect Buff Placer, while the bonus attack is considered only an Orb Effect.
• Can affect towers.

This semi-pushing, pure damage DPS-ing skill is more than you're bargained for. It doubles (almost) the effectiveness of DPS items, while synergises well with Weaver's chasing style, is a great asset to his arsenal. Called the "hidden machinegun", Geminate attack makes your DPS the entire game. It also makes for the non dps-centric Weaver's resolution. This makes Weaver's attacks hurt even with minimal concentration on boosting damage/agility.

Time Lapse - (Active, Instant, Affects Self)

Extra • Removes negative buffs (including Ice Blast) from Nerubian.

Another imbalanced skill. Makes you almost invulnerable to mass damage non-disables. It's so spammable from early game that it makes a good Weaver extremely hard to kill. The only reason Weaver's skills remained untouched, even though the skill set is so powerful, is because of bad stats. Semi-balancing some says, but it works. Not much else to say except be carefuly when you use it. Sure, it helps you survive, but not when you get caught on the wrong side of the battle. Thus, it is never good to be over reliant on things like this.

Skill Build

• The Cookie-Cutter Build (Recommended)
• The Classic Rape Build

1.Shukuchi
2.The Swarm (Geminate Attack)
3.Shukuchi
4.Geminate Attack (The Swarm)
5.The Swarm
6.Time Lapse
7.Shukuchi
8.Shukuchi
9.The Swarm
10.The Swarm
11.Time Lapse
12.Geminate Attack
13.Geminate Attack
14.Geminate Attack
15.Attribute Bonuses
16.Time Lapse
17-25.Attribute Bonuses

This skill build is for better lane control with Shukuchi and The Swarm, while also for better map harassment with occasional Geminate attack. As so, Shukuchi and the Swarm are maxed first, with one level of Geminate to help harassing and chasing early game. Ultimate is taken whenever possible and maxed Geminate Attack last. This is the PROVEN most effective skill build on Weaver. If you have something to say about it, feel free

1.Shukuchi
2.Geminate Attack
3.Shukuchi
4.Geminate Attack
5.Shukuchi
6.Time Lapse
7.Shukuchi
8.Geminate Attack
9.Geminate Attack
10.The Swarm
11.Time Lapse
12.The Swarm
13.The Swarm
14.The Swarm
15.Attribute Bonuses
16.Time Lapse
17-25.Attribute Bonuses

This build is more of a solo-carrier kind of (kind of) build. It is best for pubs, when just Shukuchi is enough. Geminate is to harass the hell out of the opponent. In any case, ultimate Time Lapse is taken whenever possible for the best effects. Taking this skill build means you are not going to go around gank assist that much, instead just sitting in lane with some regen and farm that fast Radiance for better late game potential. The Swarm is obviously still too good to skip out completely.

Item Builds

Ever since the remade of The Swarm, a lot of new builds have risen to practice and have proven themselves to be effective. I will list the ones I thought to be the most effective. Choose according to your in-game situation.

- Starting Items (stays true for all builds)


The usual starting items, obviously you won't buy all of this. Pick a number of them to adapt to your possible lane opponents as well as lane possibilities.

-The Radiance Build

Personally decided as optimum, this build works for most games and situations, exploiting Weaver's potential while also covering his weakness to a certain extent.

Early Game Items





After or even before completing your upgraded Boots (remember, only buy boots if you plan to update it immediately, since Weaver don't really need movement speed from items up until mid game), get either Vanguard or Hood as your survival item. You only need one, and Vanguard is better most of the time. But the choice depends on you and your opponent's line-up. Then get A Booster or Cloak (depending on your previous choice), and you have enough survivability. Aquilla is decent for his early game mana needs. Magic Wand gives great survivability incase you get disabled. Sometimes not upgrading, keeingp the stick is ok too. Treads is the prefered boots for this build.

Mid Game Items:




Radiance is the core of your build. It gives AoE dps, helps in farming and synergizes well with Shukuchi. Its awesome raw dmg increase also works great with Geminate Attack. It's everything you could've asked for. Medallion is well, a staple for Weaver. Works in all situation. If you can get that Relic early, do it, if not, slow down a bit and get Medallion in order to increase your early game effectiveness. If you already got Radiance but about to be left out (you already filled 4 slots) or someone else on your team is already getting the item, skip Medallion.

Late Game Items



After Radiance, farming these should be easy. After which point you'd be best off getting items with the mix of dmg and survivability. All the above items (most of the time Heart next) greatly complement Weaver's advantages. Remember to turn off MKB if you do get it though, else Geminate Attack won't work.

-The Linkens Build

This build was once though to be optimum. However the introduction of Medalion itself made this build so much harder to be effective, since the mana regen is overkill and the spell block is too easy to negate. Of course it provides excellent early game stats and a very handy block that is especially effective against certain opponents.

Early Game Items

/


Phaseboots is a nice alternative to amplify early damage since you'd be giving away a big chunk of gold for regen and stats. Notice how Medalion appears earlier in this build, since it is crucial for the hero to deal significant damage even early game, overall amplifying his effectiveness.

Mid Game Items



The whole point of this build, offers great stats, regen and a handy spell block. Obviously you're not going to farm like you had Radiance, so be absolutely sure that Linkens is a good invesment. Usually is a high pay-off, high risk build.

Late Game Items



Notice how the build shifted into damage focus items. That's because Linkens offers such great survivability by itself, meaning late game Weaver can focus on dealing large damage. Note that this build gives you LATER damage with probably the same DPS output with the Radiance build.

-The Support Build

Not always is Weaver the #1 in the team. Sometimes, situations turn unfavorable or you need someone else to do the reliable dps carry route, then you'd want to give your teammates some space from farming and get instead. It provides an excellent team coverage while you would still be moderately useful otherwise due to Geminate Attack's dps boost.

Situational Items




Situational all of them. Depends on the game. Hex is for when the disable is invaluable. AC is better for pushing towers. While HH is a good scaling item to get if you decide on a Sange instead of Vanguard.

Rejected Items



In short, Caster Items, Sange&Yasha, Orb Effect Items, Lothars. I thought of putting in here (which i just did) but it actually works better than all the items listed above.


Role

What is your role on the team? You are many things actually:

1.Initiator (somewhat) with the Swarm

2.Chaser with Shukuchi (and Radiance)

3.Damage Dealer with Geminate Attack and Medalion

4.Damage Tanker (in some way) with Time Lapse and Linkens/Vanguard/Hood

5.WEAVE!!!! That's the best advice I can give you.

Originally Posted by claniraq

Weaver's role is to WEAVE. You go around, unleash the Swarm, weave around your opponent with Shukuchi while NOT drawing too much attention. Hit them 2/3 times from behind. When they notice you and their point-click-stun are thrown at you, Shukuchi's cd should be over and DODGE them! Then proceed with decent teammates to rape.

In a way, you can play Weaver as many things, or perhaps even hybrid. Should you have enough of something to afford, you should do at least 2 or 3 things in the list well.

What you should do is: survive! Survive through the enemy combo, survive through the laning phase. Snatch a kill if able.But don't chase them till the end, since you have shitty armor and HP and your Shukuchi's damage is only substantial early-mid game.

Strategy

Picking a lane

The new Weaver is a excellent side lane solo/tri-lane carry since it gives him easy access to Ring of Basillus and great space to chase - his best quality. Avoid the middle lane since it is short, no easy access shop and Weaver doesn't make good use of Runes anyways.
How to do the said first blood strategy: Occasionally harass the opponent. Once you hit lvl 3/4, you should have all of your skills (depending on your build). Then make sure you a close to your own tower. Use the swarm, shukichi pass the opponent's creeps. Hit him, if he/she doesn't kill the beatles, it's almost a sure kill (unless with extensive escape mech). Even if she/he does, it might just be too late

Early Game

If you're facing melees, independant of how good a lane controller they are (except perhaps Admiral), you should (remember, only should) have no problem. Spam your spells if needed, or save them if you're facing to powerful a lane (against Tri-lanes). They are extremely versatile. If facing a solo, no matter if you are in a tri-lane or solo-ing, you can gets the first blood off most of other popular solos, or at least hinder greatly their farming potential while getting a lot of farm yourself. During this stage, it is crucial to get the early last hits and keep the opponents down. A kill shouldn't be too hard to get if you call yourself a gank. Only participate in the most important of team fights (if any happens at all this early) since your main job early is to farm up your core.

Mid Game

Mid game is argueably a harder stage for Weaver players. Since you must balance between farming and ganking. Obviously farming is of higher priority, independant on what build you're going for. Medalion alone should be enough for you to gank your way through mid game actually. The key at this stage is just to complete what you set out to do, and not lose your objective. You are somewhat a decent pusher, so an occasional hidden push escape is easy for you to do.
You should have completed Radiance/Linkens by now, which sets you up perfectly for the late game.

Late Game

Disables disables disables
Every shit is probably going to be thrown at you. Survive, dodge and most importantly, Weaver, with your excellent skills (hero ability-wise) and shitty stats and survive the hard battles yet to come. Not much to say here except kill, farm some more, push, Roshan, farm some more, team fight then lose/win. There's nothing else to do but that

Allies & Enemies


Disablers:



Everyone's good allies and formidable enemies. Counters everything in the game. Usually only these scares Weaver.

However, special mention must be made for:

No comment

Gang rape + no shukuchi

A 1-1 battle with this piece of meat is always a bad idea. It was almost like he was made to counter you.

Replays

I've uploaded two at the end of the guide. To download them you need to visit the forum version of the guides and download the attachments
They are from ZSMJ, one of the best in Asia and Lacoste, one of the best in Europe. One of the replay is in 1.24e, one is 1.26, pick whatever is the most suitable

Updates

26.7.2009: Guide Created
4.8.2009: My Birthday
16.8.2009:Updated
23.8.2009:Finished
11.6.2010: Reupdated almost a year later
15.5.2011: Reupdated almost a year later
9.8.2011: Re-written into Lapis Lazuli
9.1.2012: Re-written into LightRedemption

Credits

-IceFrog for development
-Redefiner for his Skill NQB tablet (so sorry I didn't ask in advance)
-ZSMJ for inspiring me to re-write this guide

[Lapis Lazuli]

Bump for comments
Some additional pictures needed, will patch it in a couple of days.

[king_james]

EoS is too much even for a luxury item for weaver. I actually prefer Butterfly on him. If i believe right, Germinate attack is a orb-effect/buff placer, meaning EoS won't stack the next germinated attack.

Check Nerubian Weaver - DotA Hero Details for further stats.

[sAviOr[gm]]

Skadi wont work with his 3rd skill, so any reasons why we should go with Skadi?

[Eumellein]

Originally Posted by sAviOr[gm]

Skadi wont work with his 3rd skill, so any reasons why we should go with Skadi?

If Weaver auto-acquires his target it will slow while Geminate Attack is on cooldown, if he is ordered to attack it will slow on every hit except the one before the extra attack.
Means Skadi is just fine for weaver, still you might want to add this info otherwise more people will comment on this.

[Lapis Lazuli]

Originally Posted by Eumellein

If Weaver auto-acquires his target it will slow while Geminate Attack is on cooldown, if he is ordered to attack it will slow on every hit except the one before the extra attack.
Means Skadi is just fine for weaver, still you might want to add this info otherwise more people will comment on this.

I DID!
Look again under the Geminate Attack's comment and you'll see

[Eumellein]

To be honest I haven't read anything from your guide by now since I am no fan of unfinished guides probably will as soon as it is finished. Just saw this wrong statement.

[Lapis Lazuli]

Finished
Needs some comments before publishing

[Eumellein]

First thing, you have to make your album public otherwise only you, your friends and moderators will be able to see the pictures. The item pictures are working but the skills/heroes are currently not. There is also an open [/center] in your first paragraph. You are using orange color for your story and thats it the color is nowhere in your guide again, maybe change the Ingame and Combat parts into orange too. (red directly under magenta )

Haven't played the new Weaver since the Urna Swarm change so I can't comment on skillbuild. Still you describe Weaver's proper skillusage pretty well. I don't like the spoiler in spoiler part, maybe it is just me so wait if someone else comments on this before you change it.

I have never seen someone buying Dagger of Escape on Weaver or ANY other windwalk hero this is like double blink with QoP. In mid game section you linked a wrong item => 2 Magic Wands.

Pictures in your Combat: would improve this section. I understand the basic idea behind this still they would be helpful (AoE of Infestion, positioning of Scarabs compared to Weaver, maybe more).

I see many good ideas in it with much more potential, try to improve them and describe them a bit more this way your Guide will get way better.

[EternityPala]

Even for the Pub Stomp build, i would suggest Urna Swarm, since it's wicked to counter gank those gankers aiming for you, and the additional sight helps when you're farming.

[Lapis Lazuli]

Originally Posted by Eumellein

First thing, you have to make your album public otherwise only you, your friends and moderators will be able to see the pictures. The item pictures are working but the skills/heroes are currently not. There is also an open [/center] in your first paragraph. You are using orange color for your story and thats it the color is nowhere in your guide again, maybe change the Ingame and Combat parts into orange too. (red directly under magenta )

Haven't played the new Weaver since the Urna Swarm change so I can't comment on skillbuild. Still you describe Weaver's proper skillusage pretty well. I don't like the spoiler in spoiler part, maybe it is just me so wait if someone else comments on this before you change it.

I have never seen someone buying Dagger of Escape on Weaver or ANY other windwalk hero this is like double blink with QoP. In mid game section you linked a wrong item => 2 Magic Wands.

Pictures in your Combat: would improve this section. I understand the basic idea behind this still they would be helpful (AoE of Infestion, positioning of Scarabs compared to Weaver, maybe more).

I see many good ideas in it with much more potential, try to improve them and describe them a bit more this way your Guide will get way better.

Thanks for the comments, will fix what I can

Screenshots is good, I know, it make the guide more easily comprehensed, however I'm lacking resources right now, so even replay are out of my reach, will try to update whenever possible

The spoiler inside spoiler will stay if they're Ok (remove if they are hated)

The R*** build is basically for fun, it is an alternative build. It actually depends on your definition of R*** lol

Blink Dagger is a strange item of course, however, on other Wind Walk heroes, they do not posses the means to initiate like Weaver, that is what make him so special (Even I don't go initiator on him, but will try and there should be a replay follow)

[sirsatthu]

Hey what happend to the hood when mid game end ???

[gwho]

can yo unot cover up your items in spoiler. thats main stuff. dont hide it. hide extraneous, walls of texts and lesser important stuff

[RevenBankai]

I think Buruiza should be a core item on weaver
or even butterfly
interesting build..

[Wendek]

You should mention Linken's for survivability. It gives quite enough hps (and mana), and most importantly it BLOCKS STUNS. You said it yourself : Weaver can only die if chain-disabled, because Time Lapse + Shukuchi owns almost any ganker, whether they got dust or not. Linken's makes u really hard to take down (except by 4-5 men ganks ofc). Obviously don't take it if it can't block anything from the enemy team, but for instance it can block Impale, Hex, Shackles, Storm Bolt, Hellfire Blast, Viper Strike (not completely sure about this one, but i see no reason why it shouldn't get blocked), Doom, Primal Roar...all of this spells will usually mean your death if cast on you, especially Doom. (the block can obviously be avoided by wasting a LVL?Death but in the heat of the battle, sometimes... )

Your "core" items are way too expensive. I mean a "core" is something you're supposed to get in every game, even if you're not really doing well. For instance ES' core is Dagger + Bottle + Boots + stats items, nothing else. Your "core" is just as if someone said that Refresher/Guinsoo's/Shiva's is core on ES, and you will agree that while these items are really good, they are by no mean needed to win a game. Putting core in a spoiler tag also seems weird to me, it's something important after all. Imo Weaver's core should be Radiance + Travels (following ur build), the other 2 are already luxuries that will never be gotten in a 35 minutes game for instance.
And I still don't see the point of Dagger on Weaver, not like (s?)he got any stun or what to initiate. Shukuchi + Time Lapse is enough to escape usually.


Seems like a good guide overall, lacks screens to show proper usage of Scarabs during battle though, because quite frankly, what you said just looks like theorycraft, so i'm eager to see how you actually use Scarabs in a teamfight. And at least ONE level of Scarabs will always be needed. The difference relies in whether you max it asap, get Geminate or get stats. (for a R*** build you would max Geminate obviously)

[Burninglegion]

best weaver guide so far

[P0larBear]

why travel and radience?

[xH-deg]

Although I disagree with a couple of points in this guide, I must say that we're on the same skeletal page.

[Wonder_Boy]

Not a very realistic set of core items.

core should be getting radience. Boots (let alone boots of travel) are not even needed most game with an early maxed shukuchi (you are only walking slow for 2 seconds as you are waiting for shukuchi to finish cooldown). Buy whatever you need to get you to not die, so you can get radience. Skadi is not needed, and probably doesn't work correctly with your orb. I would skip that completely and focus on damage (as your geminite attack ends up increasing your damage output greatly) and survival items (as you may be in a game with nuker(s) that can take you out before you can shukuchi/time lapse.


I agree that having your summons helps in early game (to warn you of ganks), but only one level of this is really needed until mid game. Same with geminite attack (you should use this to harass your lane opponent whenever on cooldown). Also, an early level of geminite can get you the unexpected first blood that you would have missed if you didnt have that extra attack coming out.

Basically, I am saying that a more effective skill build (from my experience) is similar to the following (sorry if I am spelling anything incorrectly):

shukuchi
geminite
scarab
shukuchi
shukuchi
time lapse
shukuchi
then adapt to the game.

Guide is about a 5 out of ten (low score mainly due to poor information).

[Vongola Judaime]

Phase synergises with weaver more though you dont get that until ur radience. Travels is advocable since she can saafely ward off raxers