Strand

Webweaver — Moirai (Strand Hunter)

Threaded-Spike + Tangle melee engine — detonation-chain ad-clear with Suspend control and permanent Woven Mail

Anchor: Moirai (Chest) · Subclass: Threadrunner · Role: Threaded-Spike + Tangle melee engine — detonation-chain ad-clear with Suspend control and permanent Woven Mail Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Created 2026-06-16

Moirai turns the rope dart into a loom. Threaded Spike rips through a pack, bounces into a Tangle to detonate it, and snaps straight back to your hand — and the exotic reweaves that Tangle and brings it back with the dart, so one throw clears the room and leaves you holding a fresh Tangle to throw again. Catch the dart on a pack with no Tangle and you get extra melee energy instead. Either way the spike never really goes on cooldown.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Super	Silkstrike or Bladefury†	Flexible — neither drives the build. Silkstrike for roaming whip clears; the melee loop is the engine, not the Super.
Class ability	Gambler's Dodge	Dodging near enemies refunds melee energy — a second, independent Threaded Spike charge alongside Moirai's refund.
Movement	Triple Jump	Air control to line up Threaded Spike bounces and Ensnaring Slam dives.
Melee	Threaded Spike (mandatory)	The rope dart Moirai is built around: it severs on hit, ricochets, bounces to Tangles, and is retrieved by the exotic.
Grenade	Grapple or Threadling	Grapple for repositioning + a Grapple Tangle to seed the chain; Threadling for more bodies. Either works.
Aspect 1	Whirling Maelstrom	Destroying a Tangle weaves a writhing Strand mass that seeks and kills, emitting Unraveling projectiles — and Threaded Spike detonates Tangles, so it spawns Maelstroms for free. +2 Fragment slots.
Aspect 2	Ensnaring Slam	Air-dive that suspends everything nearby and grants Woven Mail on suspend; damage scales with Class stat ≥100. Room-wide stun on demand. +2 Fragment slots.

Fragments (4 slots — 2+2 from the aspects)

Thread of Warding Orb pickup → Woven Mail, -10 Health
Thread of Generation dealing damage → grenade energy, -10 Grenade
Thread of Continuity Suspend / Unravel / Sever last longer — stretches Ensnaring Slam and the dart's sever
Thread of Fury damaging targets with a Tangle grants melee energy, -10 Melee — Moirai throws Tangles constantly

Swap option: drop Thread of Fury for Thread of Mind (suspended kills → class energy) if you lean harder on Ensnaring Slam for the dodge economy.

Exotic — Moirai (Chest)

Webcatcher: Threaded Spike can bounce to Tangles, detonating them and returning immediately. Tangles detonated by Threaded Spike are rewoven and retrieved by it. Catches without a Tangle refund extra melee energy.

Three clauses, one loop:

Bounce + detonate + instant return — the dart can ricochet off a pack into a Tangle, blow it up, and come straight back (no full return arc), so the throw resolves fast and you can re-throw quickly.
Reweave + retrieve — the detonated Tangle isn't spent; Moirai re-forms it and the dart carries it back to you. You catch the dart and a ready Tangle.
Empty-catch refund — if you catch the dart with no Tangle on the line, you get extra melee energy instead. The exotic always pays out: either a Tangle to throw, or melee energy back.

Why this works (the mechanics)

The melee never truly goes on cooldown. Every Threaded Spike resolves into one of two refunds: catch with a Tangle (Moirai retrieves it — and damaging targets with that Tangle refunds melee via Thread of Fury) or catch without one (Moirai refunds melee directly). Add Gambler's Dodge on top and you have three independent melee-energy sources feeding one melee. The dart is effectively always available.
Tangles are the ammo, not a byproduct. A normal Strand Hunter waits for a Strand kill to spawn a Tangle, then has to find and shoot it. Moirai hands you a Tangle back with the dart, so you start every cycle already holding the thing the next cycle needs. The loop is self-seeding.
Whirling Maelstrom turns each detonation into a kill-bot. Threaded Spike detonates Tangles (that's the whole exotic), and destroying a Tangle is exactly what Whirling Maelstrom wants — so every bounce spawns a seeking Strand mass that clears stragglers and emits Unravel on its kills. One throw = a detonation, a re-thrown Tangle, and an autonomous add-clear pet.
Suspend is a free, mod-less stun. Ensnaring Slam suspends the whole pack on a dive — suspended enemies can't move, shoot, or use abilities. Thread of Continuity stretches it. Against Overload champions, Suspend interrupts their regeneration behaviour without needing the Overload mod (you still bring the archetype stun for the formal break — see Weapons).
Woven Mail is always up, from two sources. Ensnaring Slam grants it on suspend; Thread of Warding grants it on every Orb pickup. Between the dive you throw constantly and the orbs your kills make, the ~45% DR of Woven Mail barely gaps — the same redundant-sourcing principle the Silkstrike build uses, reached a different way.
Sever softens the room you're standing in. Threaded Spike severs on hit (reduced enemy outgoing damage), Continuity makes it linger — so the pack you're detonating is also hitting you for less while you do it. Defensive value baked into the offence.

Weapons

Strand primary with Hatchling or Unravel — keep Strand kills flowing so the subclass economy (Tangles, Threadlings, Unravel spread) stays lit between dart throws. A Strand weapon also benefits from the sever/suspend pile-up.
A special or heavy for priority targets — the melee loop is add-clear; bring a shotgun/fusion/glaive or a Strand heavy for the chunky bodies Threaded Spike won't finish alone.
Champions (Anti-Champion 2.0): stun is intrinsic to weapon archetypes now — Aggressive/High-Impact → Unstoppable, Precision/Adaptive → Barrier, Lightweight/Rapid-Fire → Overload. Suspend (Ensnaring Slam) covers Overload behaviour functionally; bring frames that cover the rest. Pick whatever archetype spread your activity needs.

Stats & archetypes

Melee 150+ (the whole build) → Class 100+ → Grenade. Melee is non-negotiable: it shortens the base cooldown under the three refunds and, past 100, adds melee damage. Push Class to ≥100 so Ensnaring Slam's damage scales up (the aspect explicitly boosts at Class ≥100) and Gambler's refund stays fast. Grenade third for Grapple/Threadling uptime; Thread of Generation tops it off from raw damage. Health is the dump stat — Woven Mail covers DR, and two fragments (Warding, Fury) already cost Health/Melee deltas.

Archetypes: Brawler (Melee primary) is the spine; Specialist (Class) or Grenadier (Grenade) for the secondary. Mods: Heavy Handed (melee kills → melee energy — a fourth refund), Melee Font, Recuperation, Strand surge on boots, Orbs of Restoration to feed the Warding → Woven Mail loop.

Set bonus (optional)

Garnish, not a driver — the build is complete on Tier 4 gear with no set. If you have the rolls: a 4pc that converts Unravel or Tangle kills into ability energy flatters the loop, and anything boosting Suspend/Sever duration doubles down on Continuity. But the Melee/Class stats and the aspect pair come first; slot a set only if it doesn't cost you those.

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.
	Hands-On 3e fill	Gain bonus Super energy on melee kills.
	Heavy Ammo Finder 1e fill	Increases the effect of all contributions towards the Heavy ammo meter.
Arms (5/10)	Heavy Handed 3e	Your powered melee final blows create Orbs of Power.
	Melee Font 1e	You gain a bonus to your melee stat while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge decays over time.
	Melee Kickstart 1e fill	When your melee energy is fully expended, your Armor Charge is consumed and you gain melee energy for each Armor Charge used.
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)	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.
	Orbs of Restoration 1e	Picking up an Orb of Power grants a small amount of energy to your ability with the least energy.
Class Item (4/10)	Reaper 1e fill	Shortly after using your class ability, your next weapon final blow spawns an Orb of Power.
	Outreach 1e fill	Reduces melee cooldown when using your class ability.
	Powerful Attraction 2e fill	Automatically collects nearby Orbs of Power when you activate 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

Seed it — Strand kill (or Grapple) makes a Tangle; or just throw Threaded Spike into a pack to start.
Throw the dart through the pack → bounce into a Tangle → detonation (Whirling Maelstrom spawns a Strand mass) → dart returns instantly with the Tangle rewoven.
Catch it — you're now holding a fresh Tangle (Thread of Fury refunds melee as it damages) or, if there was no Tangle, Moirai refunds melee directly. Re-throw.
Ensnaring Slam when the room fills → suspend everything + Woven Mail → clean up with the dart and the Maelstrom pets; orbs from kills re-arm Woven Mail (Warding).
Dodge near enemies for a bonus melee charge (Gambler's). Super (Silkstrike or Bladefury) when you want the burst — but the dart-and-Tangle engine is what carries.

vs. the Silkstrike build

`hunter_silkstrike.md` (Threadripper) and this build are both Threadrunner but share almost nothing in play:

Silkstrike build = the Silkstrike Super + Grapple brawler on Cyrtarachne's Facade, living in the air, Woven-Mail-on-grapple, suspend via Ensnaring Slam. The Super and grapple mobility are the identity; melee is a Woven Mail top-up.
Moirai build = a Threaded-Spike + Tangle melee engine on Moirai (Chest). The Super is flexible filler; the loop is the rope dart detonating and retrieving Tangles, with Whirling Maelstrom converting detonations to add-clear. Grapple is an optional Tangle-seeder here, not the core.

One is "Spider-Hunter who lives in the Super"; the other is "the loom that never stops throwing." They use different exotics, different aspects (Moirai runs Whirling Maelstrom, which Silkstrike doesn't), and a different stat spine (Melee-first vs Grenade-first).

Verify notes

Moirai / Webcatcher text — verbatim from the manifest (`docs/encyclopedia/exotics.md`). Aspects (Whirling Maelstrom, Ensnaring Slam, Threaded Specter) and all four Thread fragments verified in `docs/encyclopedia/aspects.md` / `fragments.md`.
Uncertain numbers (confirm in-game): how many Tangles a single Threaded Spike can bounce through, the exact melee-energy refund on a no-Tangle catch, and whether the rewoven Tangle counts as a "destroyed Tangle" for Whirling Maelstrom per bounce or once per throw. The encyclopedia gives behaviour, not the scalars.
Woven Mail DR (~45%) and Ensnaring Slam's Class-scaled damage are evergreen Strand values — confirm live 9.7.0 figures on light.gg / d2foundry.
Thread of Fury ("damaging targets with a Tangle grants melee energy") assumes the retrieved Tangle you throw counts as a damaging-Tangle hit — almost certainly yes, but worth a sanity check, since it's a load-bearing refund here.
Super is intentionally open (Silkstrike or Bladefury) — the build does not depend on which you pick, unlike the Silkstrike build, where the Super is the build.