Strand

Widowmaker — Cyrtarachne's Facade + Final Warning (Strand Hunter)

Woven-Mail grapple brawler — dive in tanky, mark and unravel a pack with Final Warning, and turn the kills into Tangles that Whirling Maelstrom devours

Cyrtarachne's Facade on light.gg

Centerpiece: Cyrtarachne's Facade (Helmet) · Subclass: Threadrunner (Strand) · Role: Woven-Mail grapple brawler — dive in tanky, mark and unravel a pack with Final Warning, and turn the kills into Tangles that Whirling Maelstrom devours Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Updated 2026-07-03

Grapple and the world turns to silk. Woven Mail snaps on the instant you launch, so you dive into the middle of a pack flinch-immune and healing on every kill. Final Warning paints the whole cluster and unravels it; the corpses become Tangles, a Tangle becomes a Whirling Maelstrom, and the Maelstrom eats what's left while you stand there untouched. Grapple in, web them up, walk out.

The exotic

Acrobat's Focus: Activating Grapple grants Woven Mail. While active, Woven Mail provides flinch resistance and health when defeating targets.

All at Once (Final Warning): "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."

Cyrtarachne's Facade is the helmet and the engine: one grapple grants Woven Mail for a window (10 s per Clarity), and while it's up you get flinch resistance plus roughly 10 HP restored on every kill — everything a close-range brawler needs, and no offence of its own. Final Warning is the co-exotic that supplies the offence: a Strand Primary sidearm that holds-to-mark a whole group, dumps a burst into it, and unravels any marked target hit by a fully charged burst (unravel = bonus damage plus spreading Strand procs between nearby enemies). The two meet on Woven Mail plus Strand kills — the helmet keeps you alive in the exact melee range the weapon wants to fight at.

Loadout

Slot	Pick	Why
Subclass	Threadrunner (Strand)	Grapple, Woven Mail, Tangles, unravel and suspend all live on Strand — the verbs this whole loop trades in.
Super	Silkstrike	Roaming rope-dart Super that thrives in the melee range this build fights at and clears rooms the Maelstrom can't finish.
Class ability	Gambler's Dodge	Refunds Threaded Spike on a nearby dodge; grapple (the grenade) is the Woven-Mail trigger, so the dodge is free for the melee economy.
Movement	Triple Jump	Extra aerial control to reposition mid-dive and line up Ensnaring Slam's air-move impact.
Melee	Threaded Spike	Returning rope-dart that severs (−enemy outgoing damage) and can ricochet for ranged-ish CC.
Grenade	Grapple	The Cyrtarachne engine — mandatory. Each grapple = Woven Mail + a reposition into the pack.
Aspect 1	Whirling Maelstrom	Destroying a Tangle weaves a seeking Strand mass that emits Unravelling projectiles on its kills — the ad-clear engine. +2 Aspect energy, 2 fragment slots.
Aspect 2	Ensnaring Slam	Air-move dive that suspends nearby targets and grants you Woven Mail on the suspend — hard CC plus a second Woven-Mail source. 2 fragment slots.
Fragments	4 (see below)	Grapple uptime, Tangle generation, backup Woven Mail, and longer CC.
Exotic armour	Cyrtarachne's Facade (Helmet)	Woven Mail on grapple = flinch immunity + heal-on-kill, making the in-their-face playstyle survivable.
Weapons	Final Warning (Strand Primary sidearm) + a Strand Special + boss-DPS Heavy	Final Warning is the mark/unravel workhorse; a Strand Special keeps surges and the Tangle economy live, Heavy covers what the brawl can't chew.

Fragments

Thread of Generation dealing damage generates grenade energy — keeps 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 the Maelstrom directly
Thread of Warding Orb pickup grants Woven Mail — a backup DR source
Thread of Continuity suspend/unravel/sever last longer — the CC field lingers

Why it works (the mechanics)

Grapple buys the brawl. Grapple grants Woven Mail (flinch resistance + heal-on-kill) and repositions you into the pack in one motion. Now you can stand in melee range and ADS-burst Final Warning without flinch rattling the shot, healing ~10 HP on each kill.
Final Warning sets the table. Hold the trigger to mark the whole cluster, then release a charged burst — a marked target hit by that burst is unravelled. Unravel spreads Strand damage between nearby enemies and makes them take more, so one burst softens the entire cluster for the Tangle loop.
Kills become Tangles become a Maelstrom. With Woven Mail up, Thread of Transmutation turns Final Warning final blows into Tangles; destroy one and Whirling Maelstrom weaves a seeking Strand mass that damages targets and emits Unravelling projectiles when it kills — re-unravelling the room hands-free.
Grapple uptime is self-funding. Thread of Generation pays grenade energy for dealing damage, so the grapple — and with it Woven Mail — keeps coming back; Thread of Warding is a backup Woven Mail source off any Orb pickup.
CC stitches it together. Ensnaring Slam suspends a group and refreshes Woven Mail on the suspend; Threaded Spike severs; unravel spreads; Thread of Continuity stretches all three. Enemies are locked down while you heal through them, then Silkstrike resets a dense room.

Stats & mods

Weapons 200 → Grenade → Health. Gunner/Powerhouse lean for Final Warning throughput, with Grenade second to keep the grapple (your only DR source) cycling and Health as a floor under Woven Mail's heal-on-kill for dives that go wrong.

Mods:

Boots: Recuperation / Innervation — health and grenade energy off Orb pickups feed the grapple loop.
Arms: Sidearm Loader — faster Final Warning reloads between bursts.
Chest: Concussive Dampener / resist mods for the close-range dives.
Class item: Recuperation — Orb pickups patch health between Woven-Mail windows.
Surge: Strand Weapon Surge ×2 — matches Final Warning's element.
Anti-Champion: Overload/Unstoppable handled by suspend + sever (Ensnaring Slam, grapple-melee, Threaded Spike); bring an archetype Barrier frame on the Special/Heavy for Barrier.

Artifact — Implement of Curiosity

Picks (2/3/2):

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

The Strand/Threadling artifact — it compounds the Tangle + unravel + Woven-Mail loop:

Refresh Threads grants energy to your least-charged ability when you pick up a Tangle (with a Strand Super) or a matching Elemental pickup — more grapples, more Woven Mail.
Horde Shuttle occasionally spawns a Threadling when you damage unravelled targets, and those Threadlings sever — Final Warning's unravel becomes a Threadling factory.
Threaded Blast makes destroying a Tangle with Strand damage a larger, harder-hitting explosion — scales every Whirling Maelstrom Tangle pop.
Tangled Web suspends nearby combatants when you create a Tangle by defeating a Strand-debuffed target — your Transmutation Tangles now CC as they spawn.
Shieldcrush recharges your melee faster and buffs it while you have Woven Mail (grenade too while amplified/radiant) — directly rewards Cyrtarachne's Woven Mail.
Elemental Daze / Elemental Coalescence add champion-stun explosions and kill-sourced Elemental pickups, which Refresh Threads converts straight back into ability energy.

Where it shines

Add-dense PvE — grapple → mark → unravel → Tangle → Maelstrom is a self-sustaining room-clear that heals you as it kills.
Melee-range content where flinch would normally ruin an aggressive sidearm — Woven Mail's flinch immunity is exactly the enabler.
Champion coverage: no intrinsic weapon breaker (Final Warning breaks nothing — champion field is null in the manifest). Overload and Unstoppable are covered by suspend (Ensnaring Slam + grapple-melee) and sever; bring an archetype Barrier frame on the Special/Heavy for the rest.

Verify notes

Cyrtarachne's "Acrobat's Focus" quoted verbatim from `docs/encyclopedia/exotics.md`; Final Warning's "All at Once" verbatim from `exotics.md` (line 247). Unravel on a fully-charged burst against a marked target is the base intrinsic — no catalyst needed.
Final Warning facts (`data/weapon_facts.json`): Strand · Primary · Sidearm · 450 RPM · champion: null (no intrinsic breaker). The Final Warning catalyst adds +10% damage to marked targets (5% vs minibosses/bosses) per `clarity_build_numbers.md` — a damage boost, not a breaker.
Woven Mail numbers (`clarity_build_numbers.md`): grapple grants Woven Mail ~10 s and restores 10 HP; kills while active restore 10 HP. Woven Mail's flinch-resistance % is listed as unknown (`%?`) in Clarity — flagged as manifest/tuning.
Ensnaring Slam grants Woven Mail on suspend — confirmed in `docs/encyclopedia/aspects.md` (line 64), giving this build a second Woven-Mail source beyond grapple.
Aspect class-check: Whirling Maelstrom + Ensnaring Slam are Threadrunner (Strand Hunter) aspects; Widow's Silk is present in the Strand pool but not used here — verified vs `aspects.md`. See [[reference_d2builds_aspect_class_gotcha]].
Thread of Transmutation Tangle cadence (weapon final blows while Woven Mail) is the hinge of the Maelstrom loop; the fragment text confirms the interaction but the per-kill Tangle rate/cooldown is unlisted — flagged as manifest/tuning.
Artifact: all seven Implement of Curiosity picks are exact real mods verified against `docs/encyclopedia/artifacts_structured.md`; 2/3/2 unchanged from the prior build.

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)	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.
	Fastball 1e fill	Increases grenade throw distance.
Chest (8/10)	Concussive Dampener 3e	Reduces incoming area-of-effect damage from combatants.
	Concussive Dampener 3e	Reduces incoming area-of-effect damage from combatants.
	Strand Resistance 2e fill	Reduces incoming Strand damage from combatants.
Legs (5/10)	Recuperation 1e	Replenishes health each time you pick up an Orb of Power.
	Innervation 1e	Reduces grenade cooldown 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 (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). Flex/loadout-dependent: grapple-melee; Threaded Spike); bring an archetype Barrier frame on the Special/Heavy for Barrier.