Widowmaker — Cyrtarachne's Facade + Final Warning (Strand Hunter)
Anchor: Cyrtarachne's Facade · Subclass: Threadrunner (Strand) · Role: Woven-Mail grapple brawler — dive in tanky off the grapple, mark and unravel a pack with Final Warning, turn the kills into Tangles, and let Whirling Maelstrom eat the room Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Created 2026-06-24
Cyrtarachne's Facade gives you Woven Mail the instant you grapple — flinch immunity and heal-on-kill, so you can dive straight into a pack. Final Warning marks the whole cluster and unravels it. Unravelled, healed, and tanky, you turn those kills into Tangles, and a Tangle becomes a Whirling Maelstrom that devours what's left. Grapple in, web them up, walk out.
The pairing — why two exotics, not one
Cyrtarachne's Facade is the 
helmet, Final Warning the Primary — Cyrtarachne makes you durable enough to fight up close, Final Warning is the close-range Strand weapon that pays off Woven Mail:
Cyrtarachne's Facade grants Woven Mail on grapple — flinch resistance plus health on every kill while it's up. It removes the risk of brawling, but it's defensive only; it makes no offence on its own.
Final Warning is the offence: a Strand Primary sidearm that marks targets and, on a charged burst, unravels them (unravel = bonus damage + spreading Strand procs). It wants you in its face — which is exactly where Woven Mail lets you live.- They meet on Woven Mail + Strand kills: grapple → Woven Mail → dive on a marked, unravelled pack → kills heal you (Cyrtarachne) and — with Thread of Transmutation — spawn Tangles → a Tangle becomes a
Whirling Maelstrom that clears the room while you stay topped up and untouchable to flinch.
Loadout
| Slot | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Super |  Silkstrike | Roaming rope-dart Super — grapple-cancellable, thrives in the melee range this build fights at, and clears the rooms Maelstrom can't finish. |
| Class ability |  Gambler's Dodge | Refunds melee for Threaded Spike (sever); the grapple (grenade) is the Woven-Mail trigger, so the dodge is free for the sever economy. |
| Melee |  Threaded Spike | Returning rope-dart that severs (−enemy damage) and can ricochet — ranged-ish CC + a Tangle interaction. |
| Grenade |  Grapple | The Cyrtarachne engine — mandatory. Each grapple = Woven Mail + a reposition into the pack. |
| Aspect 1 | Whirling Maelstrom | Destroying a Tangle weaves a writhing Strand mass that seeks enemies and emits unravelling projectiles on kills — the ad-clear engine. 2 fragment slots. |
| Aspect 2 |  Ensnaring Slam | Aerial dive that suspends nearby targets (counts as a class-ability use) — hard CC to set up the Maelstrom + Final Warning bursts. 2 fragment slots. |
Thread of Generation dealing damage generates grenade energy — keeps the grapple, and therefore Woven Mail, on tap
Thread of Transmutation while you have Woven Mail, weapon final blows create a Tangle — Final Warning kills feed Whirling Maelstrom directly
Thread of Warding Orb pickup → Woven Mail — a backup DR source
Thread of Continuity suspend/unravel/sever last longer — the whole CC field lingers
Exotic armour — Cyrtarachne's Facade (Helmet)
Acrobat's Focus: Activating Grapple grants Woven Mail. While active, Woven Mail provides flinch resistance and health when defeating targets.
Two gifts off one grapple: flinch immunity (you can ADS-burst Final Warning in the middle of a pack without your aim getting rattled) and heal-on-kill (every defeat tops your health). It makes the aggressive, in-their-face playstyle Final Warning wants actually survivable.
Exotic weapon — Final Warning (Sidearm · Strand · Primary)
All at Once: "Holding down the trigger marks targets within range and loads multiple bullets, which fire in a burst with increased stability on trigger release. Hitting a marked target with a fully charged burst will unravel them."
A 450-RPM Strand Primary sidearm that paints a whole group when you hold the trigger, then dumps a burst into them — and a charged burst on a marked target unravels it. Unravel chains Strand damage between nearby enemies and makes them take more, so one burst softens an entire cluster for the Tangle/Maelstrom loop.
Why this works (the mechanics)
- Grapple buys you the brawl. Grapple → Woven Mail (flinch immunity + heal-on- kill) → dive into the pack. Now you can stand in melee range and ADS-burst Final Warning without flinch ruining the shot, healing on every kill.
- Final Warning sets the table. Mark the cluster → charged burst → unravel → bonus damage + spreading Strand. Unravelled, the pack is primed.
- Kills become Tangles become a Maelstrom. With Woven Mail up, Thread of Transmutation turns Final Warning kills into Tangles; destroy one and Whirling Maelstrom spawns a seeking Strand mass that clears the room and re-unravels.
- Grapple uptime is self-funding. Thread of Generation pays grenade energy for dealing damage, so the grapple (and Woven Mail) keeps coming back; Thread of Warding is a backup off Orbs.
- CC stitches it together. Ensnaring Slam suspends, Threaded Spike severs, unravel spreads — enemies are controlled while you heal through them. Suspend handles Overload; Unstoppable behaviour comes from suspend too; bring a Barrier frame on the Special/Heavy.
Weapons
- Final Warning (Strand Primary sidearm) — the mark/unravel engine + your workhorse.
- Special/Heavy: a
Strand option keeps surges + the Tangle economy live; a boss-DPS Heavy for targets the brawl can't chew. A Strand GL or Sword leans into the Tangle theme. - Champions (Anti-Champion 2.0): Overload + Unstoppable — suspend (Ensnaring Slam + grapple-melee) and sever; Barrier — an archetype frame on the Special/Heavy.
Stats & archetypes
Priority: Weapons 150 → Grenade 100 → Health 100 → Super/Class/Melee dump.
- Weapons 150 — Final Warning throughput; the first 100's PvE damage bonus on top of unravel's bonus.
- Grenade 100 — grapple is your DR source (Woven Mail); more grapple uptime = more Woven Mail. Thread of Generation supplements it.
- Health 100 — a floor under Woven Mail's heal-on-kill for the dives that go wrong.
Archetypes: 
Gunner / Powerhouse (Weapons), 
Grenadier / 
Demolitionist (Grenade), 
Bulwark (Health). Mods: Sidearm Loader + Targeting, 
Grenade Font, Strand Weapon Surge ×2, Strand/Harmonic Siphon, 
Recuperation on the class item.
Artifact — Implement of Curiosity (Renegades)
Picks (2/3/2): 
Refresh Threads + 
Horde Shuttle — 
Threaded Blast + 
Elemental Daze + 
Elemental Coalescence — 
Tangled Web + 
Shieldcrush The Strand/Threadling artifact — it compounds the Tangle + unravel + Woven Mail loop:
- Refresh Threads — picking up a Tangle (or matching elemental pickup) grants your least-charged ability energy — more grapples, more Woven Mail.
- Horde Shuttle — damaging unravelled targets spawns Threadlings that sever — Final Warning's unravel becomes a Threadling factory.
- Threaded Blast — destroying a Tangle with Strand damage makes a bigger explosion — scales the Whirling Maelstrom / Tangle pops.
- Tangled Web — creating a Tangle from a Strand-debuffed kill suspends nearby combatants — your Transmutation Tangles now CC as they spawn.
- Shieldcrush — while you have Woven Mail, melee recharges faster + hits harder (and grenade while amplified/radiant). Directly rewards Cyrtarachne's Woven Mail.
- Elemental Daze / Elemental Coalescence — champion-stun explosions + kills → elemental pickups (which Refresh Threads converts to ability energy).
Mod selection (masterworked — full allocation)
| Piece | Mod · cost | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Helmet (5/10) | Harmonic Siphon 1e | Rapid Arc weapon final blows create an Orb of Power. Rapid Solar weapon final blows create an Orb of Power. Rapid Stasis weapon final blows create an Orb of Power. Rapid Void weapon final blows create an Orb of Power. Rapid Strand weapon final blows create Orbs of Power. |
| 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. | |
| Arms (7/10) | Weapon Loader (faster reload) 3e | |
| 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. | |
| 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 (7/10) | 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. |
| 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. | |
| Recuperation 1e | Replenishes health each time you pick up an Orb of Power. | |
| Class Item (4/10) | 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. | |
| 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
- Grapple into the pack → Woven Mail (flinch immunity + heal-on-kill).
- Hold Final Warning to mark the cluster → charged burst → unravel them.
- Kills (while Woven Mail) → Tangles (Transmutation) → destroy one → Whirling Maelstrom seeks + unravels the room; Horde Shuttle spawns severing Threadlings.
- Ensnaring Slam to suspend a tough group; Threaded Spike to sever; Thread of Generation refunds the grapple → dive again. Silkstrike to reset a dense room.