Strand

Decoy — Balance of Power (Strand Hunter)

Tanky Threadling-decoy control / survivability add-clear

Anchor: Balance of Power (Legs) · Subclass: Threadrunner · Role: Tanky Threadling-decoy control / survivability add-clear Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Created 2026-06-16

Throw your class ability down and walk away. The decoy soaks the room's attention while you vanish from radar beside it; every bullet that hits it bleeds Threadlings, and Balance of Power makes the clone tankier, longer-lived, and a bigger seeker-factory than anyone shooting it expects. You are never where the fire is — the fight is happening at a Strand puppet you left behind.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Super	Silkstrike	Strand's only Hunter super; roaming whip for when the decoy game needs a panic button. (Subclass is super-flexible — Silkstrike is just what Threadrunner brings.)
Class ability	Marksman's / Gambler's Dodge	Activating the class ability is what spawns the Threaded Specter — this is the build's trigger. Gambler's for the melee refund; Marksman's for the reload + faster cooldown if you want the decoy back sooner.
Melee	Threaded Spike (Rope Dart)	Catching the returning dart grants Woven Mail (9.7.0) — a second DR source independent of the fragment loop.
Grenade	Threadling Grenade	More Threadlings in the air; pairs with the decoy's seeker flood. (Grapple is fine if you'd rather have mobility — the grenade slot is open.)
Aspect 1	Threaded Specter (mandatory)	Class ability → Strand decoy that draws aggro and, when damaged or approached, detonates into Threadlings. Scales with Class stat at 100+. 2 Fragment slots.
Aspect 2	Whirling Maelstrom	Destroying a Tangle weaves a writhing Strand mass that seeks and kills, emitting Unraveling projectiles — turns the Tangles your decoy/Threadlings generate into a second autonomous killer. 2 Fragment slots.

Fragments (4 + 1 from gear energy)

Thread of Warding Orb pickup → Woven Mail — your DR engine
Thread of Generation dealing damage → grenade energy → more Threadling grenades
Thread of Continuity suspend/unravel/sever last longer — stretches Maelstrom's Unravel and any suspend you bring
Thread of Transmutation while Woven Mail, weapon kills make Tangles → feed Whirling Maelstrom
Thread of Rebirth (Strand weapon kills can spawn a Threadling — more seekers for free). *Two aspects give 2 slots each (4 total); the 5th rides on Aspect Energy Capacity from gear. If you can only run 4
drop Rebirth.

Exotic — Balance of Power (Legs)

Double Down: Your Threaded Specter has increased duration and durability, and damaging it releases additional Threadlings. While near your Threaded Specter, you do not appear on radar.

Three changes, and all three reinforce the same fantasy. Increased duration = the decoy is a fixture, not a flicker — it stays the room's focus long enough to matter. Increased durability = enemies have to commit fire into it, which is exactly what you want, because damaging it releases additional Threadlings — so the harder they shoot the decoy, the more seekers spawn back at them. And no radar near the decoy means the AI's attention and the player's attention both land on the clone, not on you standing a few metres off. The exotic doesn't add a new verb; it makes the Threaded Specter loud, sturdy, and a Threadling fountain while making you quiet.

Why this works (the mechanics)

The decoy is a damage sink that pays you to be shot. Vanilla Threaded Specter detonates once when damaged/approached. Balance of Power makes it durable (so it survives to keep absorbing) and makes damage itself — not just the final detonation — release additional Threadlings. Enemy fire is converted into your seekers. The tankier the exotic makes it, the longer that conversion runs.
Radar denial is a real defensive layer, not a gimmick. "You do not appear on radar" while near the decoy means hostile players can't track you and the PvE crowd's aggro is anchored to the clone. Combined with you not being the thing being shot at, it's positional invisibility — you reposition and reload in the quiet while the decoy holds the line.
Class stat is the real scaling knob. Threaded Specter's text: "This ability's damage increases with your Class stat when your Class stat is 100 or higher." Past 100 Class the decoy's detonation hits harder — and high Class also means the decoy comes back faster. Class stat is doing double duty: decoy uptime and decoy damage.
Woven Mail from two independent sources keeps your own DR up. Thread of Warding (Orb pickup) and the Rope Dart catch (9.7.0) both grant Woven Mail. You're not relying on the decoy for your survivability — you have the Strand mesh DR running in parallel, so even when the decoy expires you don't fall off a defensive cliff.
Two autonomous killers, not one. The decoy spews Threadlings; Whirling Maelstrom turns destroyed Tangles into a roaming Strand mass that seeks and kills on its own. Thread of Transmutation (Woven Mail → weapon kills make Tangles) feeds the Maelstrom, and Thread of Continuity stretches the Unravel it sprays. The field fills with things attacking for you while you're off radar — that's the control identity.
The economy is self-feeding. Decoy and Threadlings kill → Orbs (via weapon/mod sources) → Thread of Warding Woven Mail; damage dealt → Thread of Generation grenade energy → another Threadling Grenade → more seekers. Strand weapon kills → Thread of Rebirth Threadlings. Nothing here needs you to be in the danger zone to keep the loop turning.

Weapons

Strand primary (auto/pulse/SMG) — feeds Thread of Rebirth (Threadlings on kills) and Thread of Transmutation Tangles while Woven Mail is up. A roll with Hatchling (Threadlings on precision kills) doubles down on the seeker theme.
Any special/heavy you like — the build isn't weapon-dependent; the decoy and Threadlings carry add-clear, so bring a special for majors and a heavy for bosses/champions.
Champions (Anti-Champion 2.0): stun is intrinsic to weapon archetypes now — Aggressive/High-Impact → Unstoppable, Precision/Adaptive → Barrier, Lightweight/Rapid-Fire → Overload. If you bring a suspend source (Slicewire Grenade, or swap Aspect 2 for a suspend aspect), suspend helps disable Overloads. Cover the formal stuns with your two weapon archetypes.

Stats & archetypes

Class 100+ is non-negotiable — it's both the decoy's damage multiplier and its uptime. Target Class 130+ → Grenade ~100 (Threadling grenade economy) → Weapons. Health is the safe dump stat: you already run Woven Mail (two sources) plus radar denial plus a decoy soaking aggro, so flat Health DR is the least of your defensive layers.

Archetypes: Specialist (Class/Weapons), Grenadier/Demolitionist (Grenade/Class). Mods: Class Font + Grenade Font to hit the targets, Recuperation / Better Already for orb-pickup healing, Strand surge on boots, and an orb-pickup ability mod (Orbs of Restoration) to keep Thread of Warding fed.

Set bonus (optional)

Pure garnish — the build is complete without one. If your rolls already carry Class/Grenade, any set with a Strand-/Threadling-/Woven-Mail-adjacent 2pc is fine filler; don't chase a 4pc and don't trade away the Class-100 floor for it. The decoy + Whirling Maelstrom + Woven-Mail loop is the engine; sets only flatter it.

Mod selection (masterworked — full allocation)

Piece	Mod · cost	What it does
Helmet (5/10)	Strand Siphon 1e fill	Rapid Strand weapon final blows create Orbs of Power.
	Ashes to Assets 3e fill	Gain bonus Super energy on grenade kills.
	Heavy Ammo Finder 1e fill	Increases the effect of all contributions towards the Heavy ammo meter.
Arms (6/10)	Grenade Font 1e	You gain a bonus to your grenade stat while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge decays over time.
	Utility Kickstart 3e fill	When your class ability energy is fully expended, your Armor Charge is consumed and you gain class ability energy for each Armor Charge used.
	Momentum Transfer 2e fill	Causing damage with a grenade reduces your melee cooldown.
Chest (6/10)	Strand Resistance 2e fill	Reduces incoming Strand damage from combatants.
	Concussive Dampener 3e fill	Reduces incoming area-of-effect damage from combatants.
	Sniper Damage Resistance 1e fill	Reduces incoming damage from combatants that are at long range.
Legs (5/10)	Better Already 1e	Your health begins to regenerate immediately after picking up an Orb of Power.
	Recuperation 1e	Replenishes health each time you pick up an Orb of Power.
	Strand Weapon Surge 3e	Your Strand weapons gain a small bonus to damage while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge now decays over time.
Class Item (5/10)	Class Font 3e	You gain a bonus to your class stat while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge decays over time.
	Reaper 1e fill	Shortly after using your class ability, your next weapon final blow spawns an Orb of Power.
	Bomber 1e fill	Reduces grenade cooldown when using your class ability.

All 15 sockets used, 10 energy per masterworked piece; costs from the manifest. Core mods are the build's engine; fill mods are strong defaults — swap freely (chest resists should match the activity's damage types).

The loop

Drop the Threaded Specter (class ability) into the pack — you go off radar the moment you're near it.
Reposition a few metres off and shoot. Enemies pile fire into the durable decoy → every hit bleeds Threadlings (Balance of Power) → detonation when it finally pops releases more.
Your Strand weapon kills + Transmutation make Tangles → destroy them → Whirling Maelstrom spins up a second autonomous killer; Continuity keeps its Unravel lingering.
Pick up Orbs → Woven Mail (Thread of Warding); catch the Rope Dart on its return for a second Woven Mail. Damage dealt refills the grenade (Generation) → throw another Threadling Grenade.
Class ability is back fast (high Class) → new decoy, new radar-denial bubble, repeat. Silkstrike is the panic button when a room gets ahead of you.

Verify notes

Exotic text is verbatim from the manifest (`exotics.md`, Balance of Power — Double Down): increased duration + durability, damage releases additional Threadlings, no radar while near the decoy. Confirmed.
Threaded Specter and Whirling Maelstrom aspect text, and the Class-100 scaling line, are verbatim from `docs/encyclopedia/aspects.md`. Threaded Specter is 2 Fragment slots (per `subclasses_and_aspects.md`); Whirling Maelstrom is 2 Fragment slots — 4 total, with a 5th from Aspect Energy Capacity on gear. Note: the manifest says the decoy spawns on "activating your class ability"; the older knowledge doc phrases it as "dodging" — I used the manifest's class-ability wording.
All five fragments (Warding, Generation, Continuity, Transmutation, Rebirth) are verbatim from `docs/encyclopedia/fragments.md` (Strand = "Thread of …"), including their stat deltas. Set is swappable — the brief calls the subclass flexible; this is one valid 5-fragment Warding-for-Woven-Mail set.
Woven Mail = Strand DR buff (per `subclasses_and_aspects.md`); exact DR % not stated in our docs — community figure is ~45% but treat as unverified here.
Rope Dart Woven-Mail-on-catch is a 9.7.0 behaviour carried over from the Silkstrike build doc, not re-confirmed against the manifest snapshot in this pass — verify in-game if it's load-bearing for you (the Warding source alone carries the loop regardless).
Subclass is intentionally flexible per the design brief: Threaded Specter is the only mandatory aspect; Whirling Maelstrom, the super, grenade, and fragment set are all swappable around the decoy core.