A Guide To
Anub'seran
Nerubian Weaver

by LightRedemption

Written for 6.73b

Official Guide Version|Forum Guide Version

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

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

__________

A swarm of 12 beetles will move towards the target point, each latching onto an enemy unit that it comes into contact with. Each unit will only get latched onto by one creature maximum.

__	____.	________.	_______.	___.	_______.	__________________________.
	Mana	Cooldown	C. Range	AoE	Duration	Effects
1	100	36 sec	3000	N/A	8 sec	Deals 15 damage per attack
2	100	33 sec	3000	N/A	12 sec	Deals 20 damage per attack
3	100	30 sec	3000	N/A	16 sec	Deals 25 damage per attack
4	100	27 sec	3000	N/A	20 sec	Deals 30 damage per attack

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.

Skill 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

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.

Quote:

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