Overview

The weaver is the CC class of the creeps with a skillset of debuffs, an AoE slow, two root skills (one is AoE), a mezz, a CJ stun, and a unique delayed stun.

Skills

Traits

Class Traits

Recommended Corruption Traits

Balanced:  Tactical or Physical Mitigation, Health for Power, Critical Protection, Damage for Power, Mastery

Survival:  Health for Power, Health for Damage, Physical Mitigation, Tactical Mitigation

Tactics

[Strozzapreti, r9, Brandywine] 12/30/2011 (RoI update 5)

This portion of the guide is more relevant to a weaver who has minimally reached the rank of 6.  It is possible to buy the class skills necessary to perform some of the strategies below, but a cost-inefficient way to do it as rank 6 is attainable quickly and the points are better spent on higher ranked abilities such as Shadow Bite.  Two meat-and-potatoes skills you should have by r6 are Web the Earth and Paralytic Venom.

Solo Tactics

• Hatchling:  You have a melee or ranged option for your pet.  The melee version does a respectable amount of DPS and is valuable so long as it is not CC'd.  The ranged version is currently bugged and has abysmal DPS.  However, it cannot as easily be kited.  The most powerful skill for either is that it can be sacrified to heal you for about 2.5k morale.  The conditions to use it are: you must be in combat, the hatchling must be near you, you must be targeting an enemy, and the pet must not be mezzed, stunned, or feared.  It's also important to control it precisely so that it does not drag unwanted NPCs onto you or get itself killed pointlessly.  I keep mine on Passive and use the Attack/Follow/Stay/Devour commands on my skillbar.  Against a group with burglars, it can also be a liability as they can CJ (fellowship maneuver) it for a powerful heal.  Create the binding "/alias # /petreleaseall" for these situations and release it as soon as it is CJ'd, unless the hatchling heal is more important than your enemies getting a heal. You will need to be alert and react quickly: if they select green before you unsummon, the freeps will still get their heal.
• Crowd Control:  DR (diminishing returns) changed the game for CC.  As a result it is important to use CC sparingly.  Some good reasons to use it are:  typically the very beginning of a fight to dehorse, debuff, or force the opponent to burn CC breakers early; for making space while kiting; and for delaying or interrupting an action.  Make use of the time gained while the opponent is CC'd to go through debuff inductions or gain distance.  Latent Poison has a high failure rate because it has to pierce BPE on top of having 2 poison resist checks.  To improve its chances, it is best to put it on after debuffing with Necrosis and after a mezz or a stun.  Smothering Webs (the CJ-stun) has a much faster induction than the mezz, so apply it if your opponent is too close for you to get a mezz off.  Finally, there is a r14 trait that extends the unbreakable portion of your mezz to 5s, essentially turning it into a 5s stun (dimishing returns notwithstanding).  Trait it if you have it!
• Stacking Poisons:  Expect your opponent to have potions.  Stack poisons to ensure that the important ones will take effect.  However, we no longer have a single particularily potent poison, as Latent is extremely unreliable, so poison stacking is not as important.
• Debuff:  Debuffs will limit the amount of damage you take during the fight, while your opponent isn't CC'd.  It's helpful to get these on as soon as possible to give you control of the fight.  (in order of importance) Catch Prey (r7)/Entangling Web/Clinging Web/Poison Spray/Necrosis (r8)/Latent Poison do no damage, and will not break a mezz.  Get as many--or all--on the target as soon as you can.  Catch Prey, Poison Spray, and Necrosis are instant-cast, so they can be applied as you kite.
• Power Drain:  Power drain has slowly become less effective through updates.  Your drain skills are:  Toxin, and Shadow's Bite (r13).  The classes that tend to have power issues are Guardians, Burglars, Captains, possibly Champs, and possibly Minstrels.  I would definitely try to power drain a Guardian; against the others, I would go that route if I saw them dipping low on power.
• Trapdoor Sanctuary:  Trapdoor Sanctuary is often the difference between an easy win and a loss.  It gives time for your dots to tick, enemy buffs to wear off, and your hatchling can still attack.  With the r13 trait, it will also heal you to full over the 1min burrow time, which completely changes the dynamic of getaways and some fights.  Against a hunter, it can be devastating if you burrow just as he Burns Hot/Needful Hastes.  I typically save it in case I get jumped in the middle of a 1v1.  If safety is near enough, it can save you from a gank when combined with your brand.  Of course, always try for a hatchling heal before your TS if you are getting ganked.  If you do not have things keeping you in combat (NPC engaged against you, hatchling fighting something, Catch Prey debuffing something), you should drop from combat at the end of your 1m burrow, enabling you to pop your brand.  Combined with WtE, mezzing/rooting horsed freeps if you have >50m distance from the bulk of your pursuers, and cover from terrain, a weaver can make some epic escapes.
• Lie in Wait:  The induction time on this skill is only 2s now, meaning that with enough awareness to your surroundings, you can avoid getting overrun by raids or multiple players.

Individual Class Strats

• Melee Combat:  You will want to stay in melee range against the following classes to disrupt their inductions and increase your damage output with Piercing Attack.  Cut back and forth through them to break line of sight and, if possible, use trees and other impediments to cancel their skills.  The weaver benefits the most of all the classes from having cover.  TK will tick while the opponent will typically have much weaker DoT strength, and your hatchling can chase them behind trees and rocks.
  
  • Hunters:  Get in quickly, using either the mezz or the cj as soon as you see them Burn Hot/Needful Haste.  Against a very tough hunter, you can just burrow to waste their BH/NH, though I consider this a low tactic.  Follow it with Latent (make sure to stack a poison first so they have to use Cure Poison to remove it.  If you have melee range and they are CC'd or removing poisons, use the opportunity to get an induction debuff on (Catch Prey first).  You can also use red wound pots to remove the slows from Quick Shot, Barbed Arrow, and Low Cut.  The rest of the fight should be fairly straightforward.
  • Loremasters:  Most loremasters will not take the time to SI (stun immunify) their pet, so you should try to keep it CC'd.  Even if he SI's it, it is likely vulnerable to roots.  Unfortunately, some pets like the bog lurker cannot be CC'd at all.  If the pet is stealthed, I would start with a r9 AoE root targeted on the LM.  Alternatively, get close to the LM and drop webs to slow him and his pet.  As you move away, you may be able to spot it before it comes out of stealth.  Any other pet, just throw a root or mezz (if it's in your face) on it.  Another strategy: if cover is available, it may be worth your time to kill the pet for a free Shelob's Gift.  However this is risky in that the LM may desummon the pet before it dies, leaving you critically behind on potential DPS and without a heal.  In any case, with the pet out of the way, your debuff inductions won't be broken or delayed, so you throw those up on the LM.  Keep your hatchling on the LM as well.  If he roots it, pay attention to where it's rooted, in case you need its heal.
• Kite Combat:  Against the next set of classes, you will spend most of the time kiting, as they will far surpass you in melee damage and/or survivability.  Counter a slow with your webs or a burrow.  If you burrow, try to stay up until you lose about as much morale as your pet heal will give back to you, then burrow; let your pet attack until he changes target, pop, attack some more, and sacrifice the pet.
  • Burglars:  If the burg has a teammate, you will need to watch your hatchling for CJs.  Against a solo burg, TK - Smothering (CJ-stun) - Latent right off the bat, to spend his Find Footing.  Drop webs and kite him around.  If he has addle induction legacied, don't bother with getting Catch Prey or Entangling up, just concentrate on kiting him around.  Stun pot out of his first stun or CJ.  When he is at critically low morale, he will likely try to run.  Tag him with both your power drain DoT if you are close enough and TK while chasing.  Keep your hatchling on him.  You should still have your root and mezz.  If he has evade from FF or TnG, don't bother with the root and go straight for the mezz.  The mezz and CJ go through avoidances, but the root is subject to block and evade.  In the unlikely event that you have the jump on the burglar, stay out of his melee range, but just in range to TK (15-20m is perfect).  Keep your hatchling on him and shadow him (chase when he runs and run when he chases).
  • Captains:  It's hard to lose against these guys.  Mezz their pet if they have one, debuff them, and DoT-kite them around.
  • Champions:  It's a challenging fight against a good champion.  You must pay attention to your cooldowns in this fight:  WtE, Trapdoor Sanctuary, Smothering Webs, and Catch Prey.  Your hatchling heal will also be indispensible.  The champion has some important cooldowns as well:  Sprint, Seeking Blade, Sudden Defense, and Dire Need.  I often start by gaining as much distance as possible, applying poisons and debuffs while side-strafing.  Drop WtE just as he closes in on you, forcing him to Sprint.  You generally want to either weather out his Sprint or Trapdoor through it.  To survive his Sprint, you must be able to switch directions quickly to zig-zag-kite him, buying yourself time.  If he is a quick turner, it's better to Trapdoor right away.  Mezzing or CJ-stunning him will delay him as well, but don't get caught in the induction when he is in melee range.  If he gets a hamstring or stun on you, it's also a good time to think about burrowing ASAP.
  • Guardians:  This fight is much like a slightly easier champion fight.  One major difference is you must be careful with your CC because of Turn the Tables.  If you have distance, try to mezz or CJ them and get away before he TtT's, or pop your stun pot early to prevent it.  Next get Catch Prey on, dropping webs if needed to get some distance first.  Debuff whenever possible: Catch Prey, Entangling, and the agility poison.  If the guardian is traited for Overpower, he likely drains his power pool quickly so you can exploit that vulnerability.
  • Wardens:  Get your TK DoT on him immediately, followed by your CJ - Latent combo.  Catch Prey, Entangling, and wear him down while kiting.
• Difficult:  These classes are very strong against weavers.  For the toughest ones, you may need to brand to even have a chance of winning.
  • Minstrel:  The only effective strategies I've found against a minstrel is to escape or duo with anything but another weaver.  They can far outheal any measly dps you can output while doing thrice as much back to you.  One tactic that I've tried is a mixture of power drain and complete avoidance using a large rock.  It has many weaknesses: Toxin locks you in place, so it screws up kiting; Cry of the Wizards is a 30% slow that lasts for 15s with a 1m cooldown and 40m range and will typically give him at least 10s of good dps on you; and with DR, you can't keep him away long enough to get of combat reliably to resummon your hatchling and heal up.  However, escape is always an option.  One simple method is to Smothering to burn his stun pot, followed by a mezz once he wakes up.  If you have mezz traited, he'll typically mistime his root pot if he uses that to break out.  In a pinch, you can always Trapdoor, Brand, WtE and go (effective even against a raid of minstrels).
  • Runekeeper:  A 20m spacing is ideal for this fight, because the important turning point is to avoid Perfect Imagery and Trapdoor immediately after he uses it.  If he drops his rock (and you have the r9 heal), sic your pet on it and heal when it goes down.  Usually boils down to your luck against crits.  I don't know enough about RK skills to develop a more complicated strategy.

[Yicky, Elendilmir]

Small Group/Raid

• • Weavers in a group/raid
    
    some raid leaders have specifics to what they want their members to do.  However, a spider can be a very powerful 
    demoralizer for a Freep raid if you use your skills effectively.
  • With multiple weavers a mixture of strong brood traited hatchlings and Scytode brood based hatchlings can make for a good balance fight.
    
    Know your skills and what they do:
    
    The key to a good spiders is knowing when, how, and where to place your skills that will cause the most problems to a freep raid.  Putting Latent Poison on a Loremaster with full power and their stun dot up will do you no good at all.  Or throwing a mez or stun on a burglar that is 3/4 dead is probably not your best choice of actions. Clinging Webs on a Fervour champ is a waste of a skill, and so on and so on.  Knowing what skills will cause major problems on certain classes is what makes you a good spider.
    
    Know the functions of the freep raid.
    
    What is the freep raid doing?  are the full DPSing?  are they removing wounds and poisons?  Are their healers RK's or Minstrels? What are they focusing on?  Where are their hunters in reference to their targets?  Are their burgs following target assist, or harassing healers?  Is the freep raid mainly Melee or Ranged?  Tactical or physical?  These can be vital pieces of information that i will get into in a bit.
    
    Know the functions of YOUR raid.
    
    Who has the larger force?  Creeps or Freeps? Is your raid primarily ranged or melee?  How many healers? Where they are positioned, etc.
    
    Re-Evaluate the raid's situations throughout the fight.  Does it look like the freeps are going to use a fallback point? Are they advancing forward or staying back?
    
    With all this in mind we can go into some detail on these fights.
    
    Open Field:
    
    Outside of a keep, You can have a broad area to move around in which can add some advantages to you.  During this time, take a quick moment to assess the situation of your raid.  Were are you healers?  Are there trees or areas to Line of Sight.  If there are,  dont be afraid to use them if you get hit.  Keep an eye on your healers.  make sure that they are protected.  Wargs and yourselves can be vital tools to save a healer from issues such as a burg coming and harassing them.  if you find a melee class all over one,  communicate with the healer,  quickly let them know where you are.  
    After that, If its a melee class(even a burg)  check their buff. make sure there is no LM stun dot on them, and if not, Toss a mez on them and have the healer move at least 30 meters away. [note: if they DO have a LM dot on them, use a root instead].  At this point, move in, and get a slow on the harasser and start working on them with some DPS to get them to move back into the Freep lines and out of the way of the healer.
    
    If your healers are ok, you get to have some fun with freeps.  As a spider you want to stay on the outskirts of the main skirmish.  This allows you to stay out of the AoE ball, and gives you an overview of the battle.  Your main targets are going to be support classes(Minstrels, Healing Runekeepers, Captains, and Loremasters) your secondary targets are going to be Hunter turrets if there is one.  Staying on the outside of the raid as well can give you a good opportunity to move behind a freep raid and drop some Web The Earth to slow their retreat.  It can also play as some good bait to pull a freep or two away from the safety of their healers allowing you to burn down stray freeps.
    
    Minstrels/Healing RKs and support classes:
    Power draining and slowing the healer's ability to heal is your primary functions.  If they only have 1 healer than start moving in on them.  If they have more than one, find the primary healer(the one that will be doing the majority of healing and has the most power and protection).  When you find that healer,  You will want to start off by hitting him with toxin.  Most healers are going to be paying attention to everyone elses green bars and not his debuffs,  So after you land your toxin your next skill will be Catch Prey negating their B/P/E and giving you more avoidances.  Nowy ou want to place your Necrosis.  This will make sure your longer cooldown skill are not resisted.  Stay at ranged till you know it is clear then charge in and hit your latent poison.  reapply your toxin at this point then when the Latent stun lands have the raid burn it down or keep it disabled.  It can also be a good point to send your hatchling in with Enhanced Lethargic poison.  Not only does it keep the freep raid in combat but it puts a +10% induction on the healer  Your job here is to burn through the minstrels power and disrupt their healing.  Not kill them.  At this point their power should be slim to none so move on to the next Target. 
    
    90% of the time you have multuple spiders in your group.  So if all the rank 7 + spiders harass a healer they should all be powerless very quickly. however dont be afraid to move from healer to healer adding Entangling webs to them to slow them.
    
    at this point its time to re-evaluate the situation.  The DPS should have been bringing some of the raid down(hopefully)  
    So take a look around.  Lets say we find a hunter turret?  Well, grab 3 other spiders and help out the DPS.  Take your spider pack and move right to them.  Each of you pick a different hunter(this needs to happen quick)  Move through them so you are behind them,  And each of your fire off your Venemous Haze, and Poison spray.  This will bring their Skill range down to very short range, and their DPS down a ton due to poison spray's -285 Agility.  Then each of your place Entangling Webs on your hunter to bring their induction time up 30%.  They may clense those poisons, but that is a couple seconds of breathing that can bring in some much needed healing.  Make sure you get out.
    
    For the other support classes things are a little less technical.
    
    For Loremasters, most of their skills are induction based.  pop a hatchling on them and get lethargic poison to them.  more induction time.  every little bit helps
    
    Captains that are healing are a bit tougher due to their heals not having an induction.  Entangling webs will still give 
    
    them a +30% attack duration.  but your best tool here is your mez and toxin.  try to keep them locked down.  their heals are light and they dont have a lot of power. so keep toxin on them, and try to mez them and stun them when you can.
    
    Melee:
    
    With melee, your web the earth is a great tool.  Obiviously when they are slowed they cant chase your raid as well.  So make sure you keep that web the earth on them.  Melee also uses Agility for their crits.  Burgs especially.  Poison spray is a big thing here.  You will want to keep your Latent and hatchlings for the healers.  But when you run across a burg, warden, champ, or guard, Poison spray can make a world of difference.  Also if you see Burgs with evade up or a guard with Pledge,  Fire off your Clinging webs on them.  it puts their avoidances at zero even when pledge is hit.  When the time comes for the target to be a Warden or Guard, They will both most likely be traited DPS so you wont have to worry about block so much.  But you will need to worry about Evade and Parry.  So make sure you hit them with Clinging Webs when the time comes so all you have to do is burn through their Mitigations and not their avoidances.  If they have a block stance up, make sure you land your catch prey on top of the clinging web to remove all their avoidances as best you can

•  
  • MELEE BALL OF FREEPS.  This is where the strong brood traited hatchlings can shine.  If you see a ball of freeps covering a healer or just in general,  Send that hatchling into the minstrel and hit them with Lethargic Poison.  let it attack the minstrel in hopes they will call it out and kill it in the ball releasing the poison cloud on them.  This will drain up to 3K morale and power if they stand in it the whole 10s.  get them to move.  repeat with multiple spiders if you like.  the scytode brood hatchlings can go in as well but I like to keep them on the melee making the healers work.

•  
  • Keep Fight(offence)
    
    In a situation where you are taking a keep you can't move around as much so things move a little differently for you.  The debuffs will stay the same except for 1 major change.  DO NOT USE HATCHLINGS.  Unless you are asked to do so, dont put your hatchlings on a freep.  They call pull those things throughout the whole keep and make life very difficult for your raid.
    your biggest difference is your positioning.  You cant really be outside the raid looking in as much as you are in an enclosed space.  Your new spot will typically be back and forth between the front and middle of your lines.  Watch those AOE's from the freeps.  That is a meat grinder for spider soup if you get caught in it.  If a charge comes, Hit your web the earth and back up towards the healers.  During a hallway battle keep the same observations up as an open fight.  But you cant charge in to find a healer as easily as before due to the AOE ball.  So your changes are going to be dealing with mostly toxin and entangling web.  Your main tactic however is going to be Creep raid defence and more DPS based as many of your skills require you to be in harms way.  When the freep raid is in a defensive state, move to the front line of the creep raid and get ready for the push.  When they charge your job is to slow them down so web the earth and move back to the middle of the raid.  Once the melee pushes through into your lines, Move in with your 
    Poison spray and coat the raid with it.  Lower their DPS and move over to the healers and start your harassment as before.  Toxin > Entangling Webs > Necrosis but then hit them with Tainted Kiss but stay at range.
    These are some of the primary uses of a spider.  There are many variations.  Ones that i would always recommend trying and seeing what is best for you,  But remember. You are a CC and Debuff class by trade.  Your DPS is a secondary use.
  • Keep fight(Defence)
• Again for rank 7+ spiders a mixture of scytode and strong brood traited hatchlings can really mess with a freep ball here.  Freeps like to ball up in a keep take to aoe NPCs so this is a good time to get those hatchlings in the middle of them nonstop and get them killed for poison clouds.  Keep the freep ball moving and try to get them to spread out so the rest of the raid can pick them off.  stay spread out around the rest of your raid (near the melee for protection) and keep sending in the hathchlings to keep them moving or draining power.  find those healers and debuff them as much as you can while watching for charges.  keep your healers in sight so you can CC anything that moves towards them.  once they get to a Tyrant a lot of freeps like to find a place to move him and ball around him.  This is your opportunity.  Use that pet as much as possible.  when the Black Arrows go in to place fire traps,  send in your melee hatchling and find an important freep member to let it harass.  Hopefully they will kill it causing poison clouds.  at the same time,  you are in a crunch for time in burning the raid down.  so follow your target assist for damage while continually sending in your hatchling for clouds.
• Hopfully this will help you guys in manipulating your own strats for your weaver to make it top knotch.  Good luck and Happy webbing!!

Traits

• I have compiled a list of different combinations of damage/morale corruptions here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pEi4djhuEik-A3N4WwnkIOQ
• I recommend using DfP2 and DfP1, because the percentage increase in DoT damage for each damage corruption is tremendous.  Taking DfH is debatable, but in my opinion, is worth the loss of survivability.  Damage is better for a solo fight and health is better for small group-raid fights.
• HfP2 and HfP1 are advisable if you need the morale.  I would be careful about taking HfD, as it penalizes your damage output significantly.
• Class traits: At r8, I have the following slotted: Health Boost, Armor Boost, Steelweave Webs, Swift Weave, Enhanced TK, Enhanced PA.