Strand

Webweaver — Moirai (Strand Hunter)

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

Centerpiece: Moirai (Chest) · Subclass: Threadrunner · Role: Threaded Spike + Tangle melee engine — detonation-chain ad-clear with Suspend control and near-permanent Woven Mail Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Updated 2026-07-03

Moirai turns the rope dart into a loom. Threaded Spike rips through a pack, bounces into a Tangle to blow it up, and snaps straight back to your hand — and the exotic reweaves that Tangle and carries 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 melee energy back instead. Either way the spike never really goes on cooldown.

The exotic

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.

Moirai rewrites the Threaded Spike melee into a closed loop with three clauses. First, the dart can ricochet off a pack into a Tangle, detonate it, and return immediately rather than flying a full arc back — so the throw resolves fast and you re-throw quickly. Second, the detonated Tangle is not spent: the exotic re-forms it and the dart carries it home, so you catch the dart and a ready Tangle in the same motion. Third, if you catch the dart with no Tangle on the line, Moirai refunds extra melee energy instead. The chest never pays out nothing — every throw returns either ammunition (a fresh Tangle) or the melee itself, which is why the rope dart behaves like it has no cooldown at all.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Subclass	Threadrunner (Strand)	The rope-dart subclass — Threaded Spike, Tangles, Suspend and Woven Mail are all native Strand verbs Moirai feeds off.
Super	Silkstrike	The Threadrunner Super — flexible burst 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 own refund.
Movement	Triple Jump	Air control to line up Threaded Spike bounces and set up Ensnaring Slam dives.
Melee	Threaded Spike	The rope dart Moirai is built around: it severs on hit, ricochets, bounces to Tangles, and is retrieved by the exotic.
Grenade	Grapple	Repositioning plus a Grapple Tangle to seed the detonation chain; swap to Threadling if you want more bodies over mobility.
Aspect 1	Whirling Maelstrom	Destroying a Tangle weaves a seeking Strand mass that emits Unraveling projectiles on its kills — and Threaded Spike detonates Tangles, so it spawns Maelstroms for free.
Aspect 2	Ensnaring Slam	Air-dive that suspends everything nearby and grants Woven Mail on suspend; damage scales once Class stat hits 100. Room-wide stun on demand.
Fragments	Warding · Generation · Continuity · Fury	Redundant Woven Mail, grenade regen, longer Suspend/Sever, and a Tangle-driven melee refund — the four verbs the loom leans on.
Exotic armour	Moirai (Chest)	Reweaves and retrieves detonated Tangles and refunds melee on empty catches — the whole loop's engine.
Weapons	Strand primary + special/heavy	A Strand primary keeps Tangle/Unravel economy lit between throws; a special or heavy handles priority bodies the dart won't finish.

Fragments

Thread of Warding Orb pickup grants Woven Mail, -10 Health
Thread of Generation dealing damage generates grenade energy, -10 Grenade
Thread of Continuity Suspend / Unravel / Sever last longer
Thread of Fury damaging targets with a Tangle grants melee energy, -10 Melee

Why it 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 a single 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 the Tangle back with the dart, so every cycle starts with the thing the next cycle needs already in hand. The loop is self-seeding rather than kill-gated.
Whirling Maelstrom turns each detonation into a kill-bot. The aspect procs on destroying a Tangle, and detonating Tangles is the entire point of the exotic — so every bounce weaves a writhing Strand mass that seeks stragglers and emits Unraveling projectiles when it defeats them. One throw becomes a detonation, a re-thrown Tangle, and an autonomous add-clear pet.
Suspend is a free, mod-less crowd stun. Ensnaring Slam suspends the whole pack on a dive — suspended enemies cannot move, shoot, or use abilities — and Thread of Continuity stretches that duration. Against Overload champions the constant Suspend interrupts their regeneration behaviour without spending an Overload slot (you still bring an archetype breaker for the formal stun — see Champion coverage).
Woven Mail is up from two redundant sources. Ensnaring Slam grants it on suspend; Thread of Warding grants it on every Orb of Power pickup. Between diving into packs and the orbs your kills make, the buff barely gaps — and that permanent overshield-class buff is exactly what Shieldcrush on the artifact wants (see Artifact).
Sever softens the room you stand in. Threaded Spike severs on hit — reducing the enemy's outgoing damage — and Continuity makes it linger, so the pack you are detonating is also hitting you for less while you do it. Defensive value baked into the offensive verb.

Stats & mods

Melee 200 → Class → Grenade. Brawler-leaning: Melee is the spine of the whole build — it shortens the base cooldown under the three refunds and, past 100, adds melee damage. Push Class next so Ensnaring Slam's damage scales up (the aspect explicitly boosts at Class 100+) and Gambler's refund stays fast, then Grenade third for Grapple/Threadling uptime, which Thread of Generation tops off from raw damage. Health is the dump stat — Woven Mail covers the DR and two fragments already spend Health/Melee deltas.

Mods:

Boots: Recuperation (heal on Orb pickup) + a Strand Surge holdover if not on chest — keeps the Warding orb economy paying twice.
Arms: Heavy Handed — melee kills refund melee energy, a fourth refund on top of Moirai, Fury and Gambler's.
Chest: Melee-resist mods for the dive-in playstyle, layered under near-permanent Woven Mail.
Class item: Bomber / Powerful Attraction — faster dodge for the Gambler's refund; Powerful Attraction auto-vacuums orbs into the Warding loop.
Surge: Strand Surge (boots) to line weapon damage up with the subclass and the Strand primary.
Anti-Champion: archetype-intrinsic in 9.7.0 — pick weapon frames per activity (see Champion coverage); Suspend covers Overload behaviour functionally.

Artifact — Implement of Curiosity

Pure Strand artifact that feeds every verb this loom already throws — Tangle detonations, Unravel-into-Threadling spread, Suspend control, and the near-permanent Woven Mail that gates the melee.

Picks (2/3/2):

Tier 1: Horde Shuttle · Pack Tactics
Tier 2: Threaded Blast · Elemental Daze · Elemental Coalescence
Tier 3: Tangled Web · Shieldcrush

Horde Shuttle spawns severing Threadlings off unravelled targets — Whirling Maelstrom floods Unravel and the build lives on Sever, so this pours more autonomous bodies into the room.
Pack Tactics scales Threadling damage and, at max stacks, stuns Unstoppable Champions on-element — the free Unstoppable answer for a build already swimming in Threadlings.
Threaded Blast widens the Tangle-detonation explosion, and the dart detonates a Tangle every single cycle — a direct damage multiplier on the core verb.
Elemental Daze turns a Strand primary stunning a Champion into a Strand debuff eruption, spreading the pile-up across the pack.
Elemental Coalescence drops Elemental pickups on kills that re-feed ability energy, thickening the refund economy.
Tangled Web suspends nearby foes when a Strand-debuffed kill makes a Tangle — free extra Suspend in a build that is constantly making and detonating Tangles.
Shieldcrush makes the melee recharge faster and hit harder while Woven Mail is up — and Woven Mail is essentially always up here, so it reads as a permanent melee buff straight into the Threaded Spike engine.

Where it shines

Add-dense PvE — Nightfalls, Legend/Master lost sectors, GM ad waves: the Threaded-Spike-into-Tangle loop plus Whirling Maelstrom pets clear packs continuously with no cooldown gap.
Endgame survivability content — near-permanent Woven Mail plus room-wide Suspend on Ensnaring Slam make crowded rooms manageable without a dedicated healing subclass.
Champion coverage: Suspend (Ensnaring Slam) functionally shuts down Overload behaviour, and Pack Tactics at max stacks stuns Unstoppable intrinsically; bring an archetype-appropriate frame for Barrier (Precision/Adaptive) since the kit has no native answer.

Verify notes

Moirai / Webcatcher intrinsic — quoted verbatim from `docs/encyclopedia/exotics.md` (line 42) and `exotic_intrinsics.md` (Webcatcher, keys off Threaded Spike / Tangle).
Aspects — Whirling Maelstrom and Ensnaring Slam text (including the "Class stat 100+" damage clause) verified in `docs/encyclopedia/aspects.md`; both list +2 Aspect Energy Capacity.
Fragments — Warding, Generation, Continuity, Fury all quoted from `docs/encyclopedia/fragments.md` (stat deltas: Warding -10 Health, Generation -10 Grenade, Fury -10 Melee).
Artifact — all seven picks confirmed present in the Implement of Curiosity 2/3/2 pool in `docs/encyclopedia/artifacts_structured.md`; section is exactly 2/3/2 and audit-legal.
Woven Mail DR — the Clarity DB entry (`clarity_build_numbers.md`) lists the flinch-resist and 10-HP-on-kill riders but leaves the damage-resistance percentage as "%?"; the commonly cited ~45% figure is unconfirmed at 9.7.0 — confirm live.
Super note: Silkstrike is the sole Threadrunner Super; the prior file's "Bladefury" alternative is a Strand Titan super and is not equippable by a Hunter, so it was dropped. Uncertain scalars (bounces per throw, empty-catch refund amount, whether a rewoven Tangle counts as a "destroyed Tangle" for Whirling Maelstrom per bounce) remain manifest/tuning — the encyclopedia gives behaviour, not the numbers.

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 (6/10)	Heavy Handed 3e	Your powered melee final blows create Orbs of Power.
	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.
	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)	Recuperation 1e	Replenishes health each time you pick up an Orb of Power.
	Strand Weapon Surge 3e fill	Your Strand weapons gain a small bonus to damage while you have any Armor Charge. Your Armor Charge now decays over time.
	Recuperation 1e fill	Replenishes health each time you pick up an Orb of Power.
Class Item (4/10)	Bomber 1e	Reduces grenade cooldown when using your class ability.
	Powerful Attraction 2e	Automatically collects nearby Orbs of Power when you activate your class ability.
	Reaper 1e fill	Shortly after using your class ability, your next weapon final blow spawns an Orb of Power.

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). Flex/loadout-dependent: a fourth refund on top of Moirai; Fury; Gambler's. - **Chest:** Melee-resist mods for the dive-in playstyle; the Strand primary. - **Anti-Champion:** archetype-intrinsic in 9.7.0 — pick weapon frames per activity (see Champion coverage); Suspend covers Overload behaviour functionally.