Introduction
“The forecast calls for blood.”
Disruptor is a ranged intelligence support hero. Although picked sparingly, he has a tremendous capacity to control enemy heroes during teamfights and ganks, which makes him a fantastic pick-up in certain line-ups.
You can find Disruptor's complete character profile here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Great teamfight crowd control
- Incrediblly long range single target control for ganks
- Good in a roaming support duo
- High AoE magic damage output
- Decent lane harasser
- Solid counter to mobile/escape heroes
Cons
- No stun or hard lockdown
- Hard-countered by Spell Immunity
- Quite high skill floor
- Squishy
Item Build
As a support hero it’s your job to ensure that the Courier and/or Observer Wards are bought at the start of the game. Usually these duties will be split between yourself and another hero on your team, but you can’t always guarantee this in public games. If no one else ponies up the gold for one then you should bite the bullet and buy both for your team.
Good starting items are therefore:
Courier and/or Observer Wards, a Set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, 3x Iron Branches.
Early Game
Ensure that the Courier is upgraded into a Flying Courier when it comes off cooldown at the 3 minute mark. Also ensure that Observer Wards are always purchased when they’re off cooldown.
Get your Boots of Speed up and running as quickly as possible, then upgrade any Iron Branches you have into a Magic Wand, and any Bracer components into a Bracer.
Core
Keep ensuring Observer Wards are bought whenever they’re off cooldown, and in the meantime work towards your Arcane Boots. These really are the upgraded boots of choice for such a mana hungry hero as Disruptor, who has no in-built mana regeneration ability like Lich. Your abilities all have fairly high mana costs and for the mostpart low cooldowns, so you’ll be burning through a lot of mana even before you purchase a Mekanism, which is your next core item.
Mekanism is your priority core pick-up. If there are no more viable Mekanism carriers on your team that will get it up much faster than you (such as a mid Viper, or a jungle Chen), then Mekanism should be your go-to core item. Be sure to check with your team to see if anyone else intends to build one before you get started on it though.
Luxury
Aghanim’s Scepter – The Aghanims buff to Disruptor’s ultimate is notable. Not only does it increase the ability’s duration from 5 seconds to 7 seconds (and thus increases the damage from 525/656/788 to 1016/1263/1515), it also prevents those trapped within it from using items, so they will not be able to – for example – Force Staff out of Static Storm, or activate Black King Bar and thus negate the magical damage from the ability. When combined with Kinetic Field, you essentially trap any enemy heroes you catch within it for at least 4 seconds, during which time the rest of your team can go to work on them.
That’s on top of +10 all stats, +200 health and +150 mana that the item itself provides, all of which is very handy to have on Disruptor. In general, if the game is going alright, you’ll want to purchase Aghanims at some point. If you’re struggling, however, you’re probably better off going for more cost efficient stat items such as…
Drums of Endurance – Drums of Endurance are a great option because they give your team bonus attack speed and move speed auras, whilst at the same time giving you plenty of stats and being easy to build into (since the components are so cheap you can buy them up whenever you have the spare unreliable gold, meaning you won’t lose much gold when you die). You probably already have a Bracer from the early game as well, making Drums a natural extension to your inventory.
Force Staff – Force Staff gives you less all-round stat gain than Drums, but it gives you much more mobility and more direct team utility (Drums’ auras are largely a passive, somewhat unnoticeable buff). It’s an amazing escape tool for someone who is naturally very squishy and can be used on allies and enemies, making it a great play-making item for clutch saves or to Force an enemy into bad positioning.
Ghost Scepter – The go-to luxury pick-up if you find the enemy team is able to bring you down quickly with physical damage (typically in the form of right-clicks). Most often this will be the enemy carry taking you out of the fight quickly with a few auto-attacks. Ghost Scepter will buy you a clutch 4 seconds of physical immunity, which gives you time to create distance between yourself and the enemy carry or at the very least buys your team 4 seconds of distraction time.
Heaven’s Halberd – A fantastic anti-carry item, thanks to the ability to disarm an enemy core for 3.0-4.5 seconds, Halberd will also give you a much-welcome chunk of health an evasion, making you a lot less fragile.
Veil of Discord – Veil gives decent all-round stats - +6 all stats, +6 health regeneration, +6 damage, and +6 armour, but the main reason it’s purchased is for its active, Magic Weakness. Magic Weakness increases the magic damage taken by an enemy caught within its 600 unit radius by 25%, which augments your abilities superbly (both Thunder Strike and Static Storm deal magic damage).
It lasts for a lengthy 25 seconds, making it a great active for teamfights, and won’t just buff your own magic damage output either - it will also increase the potency of any other magic damage spells your teammates cast on affected enemies in that time frame too. If there are other high magic damage heroes on your team definitely consider this item.
Scythe of Vyse – You're unlikely to be rich enough to ever afford it, and if you are the game is likely already won anyway, but if the game is really stretching out it can potentially be a decisive item to get. 3.5 seconds of lockdown on a key enemy hero is the reason Scythe is considered one of the most powerful items in the game.
Situational Items
Sentry Wards, Dust of Appearance, Gem of True Sight – all-important detection. You’ll need at least one of these in your inventory if the enemy line-up features an invis hero. Sentry Wards will also allow you to deward rune spots, and Gem will give you superior vision going into the mid and late game.
Smoke of Deceit – If you roam with another support in the early stages of the game a Smoke will allow you to do so more quickly and without being spotted by enemy wards. Smoke will also come in handy in the post-laning phase if your team wants to gank as 5.
Boots of Travel - Great for the late game, when you need to free up a slot which would otherwise be taken up by a TP Scroll. With this, you combine your Boots and TP Scroll slot into one, allowing you to put a slot to better use if you’re about to become 6 slotted.
Pipe of Insight - A very expensive item for a support, and not an ideal pick-up if you bought the team’s Mekanism (having both on one hero is very risky, especially a squishy one like Disruptor), but always a good item to have if the enemy team has any magic damage (which they almost certainly will). Quick rule of thumb: go for it if you didn’t buy the Mekanism earlier.
Vladmir’s Offering – Yes, you’re ranged, so you won’t get the lifesteal bonus from Vlad’s, but you’re not buying it for yourself, you’re buying it for your team. Vladmir’s Offering is great to pick up on a support even if your team doesn’t consist of any melee heroes because of the bonus damage and armour it provides. If your team does have a melee core and no one else has purchased one then it’s an excellent utility item to purchase.
Necronomicon - Great if you’re part of a pushing line-up or your team is struggling to break the base. Also a great item for teamfights and for countering any invis enemy heroes.
Skill Build
Thunder Strike is an ability which deals magic damage to a single target and any enemy units within a small 240 AoE of them at regular intervals. It tends to be maxed first, in order to make the most out of its early effectiveness as a nuke/harassment tool – it falls off drastically in effectiveness after the mid-game.
Thunder Strike lasts for 6 seconds and deals damage a total of 4 times over this duration. Each ‘Strike’ deals 40/60/80/100 magic damage, meaning the ability deals a total of 160/240/320/400 magic damage to the target unit.
Glimpse is a teleportation ability which sends the target enemy hero back to where they were 4 seconds ago. It tends to be maxed second, although sometimes it is maxed last.
Additional levels increase the range of Glimpse from a very short 600 units all the way up to a massive 1800 units, which effectively gives you much more control. The cooldown also reduces with levels (60/46/32/18).
Kinetic Field creates a 325 radius circular barrier which prevents enemies from passing for 2.5/3/3.5/4 seconds. It takes 1.2 seconds for it to form, but after that enemies will be unable to leave or enter the barrier. Kinetic Field tends to be maxed last, although sometimes it is maxed second.
Kinetic Field is primarily combined with Disruptor’s Glimpse ability and his ultimate to trap people in place and ensure that Static Storm deals as much damage as possible. It has defensive (e.g. to cut off a choke point from pursuing enemies) and offensive uses (e.g. to cut off an enemy’s retreat).
Static Storm is Disruptor’s ultimate. It is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). This creates a storm which covers 450 units and deals magic damage over time for 5 seconds to any units inside the storm. Additional levels increase the damage over time – 200/250/300 per second respectively.
Static Storm is most commonly used in conjunction with Kinetic Field to trap enemies and force them to take the full damage over time (525/656/788 respectively) from the ultimate, otherwise it is easy for enemy heroes to move outside of the storm and thus minimise the damage they take.
Gameplay Tips
Thunder Strike is a good way to provide additional harassment to the enemy offlaner if you are babysitting the safe lane, as it will deal a total of 160/240/320/400 magic damage over its full duration.
| Note: Thunder Strike actually continues to provide vision of and around the target even if they move back into fog of war. This is especially useful if you have levelled up Glimpse and wish to teleport them back when they would otherwise have escaped into fog of war. |
Once used, Glimpse has a slight travel delay during which the target is teleported back. A slight blue hue is displayed on the screen which displays the position they’ll be returned to. You can use this visual cue to ensure you’re able to set up a Kinetic Field that will trap the hero in place.
| Tip: One of the most satisfying uses of Glimpse is to teleport an enemy who has just used a TP Scroll to arrive at one of their towers. Use it on them within 4 seconds of their arriving to send them all the way back to their starting location – you’ve just cost them 135 gold, taken them out of the fight, and caused them to waste a lot of time. |
Kinetic Field is useless against Spell Immune units, but it does counter Force Staff (Force Staff cannot push a unit through a Kinetic Field barrier).
| Tip: Kinetic Field actually provides vision in the area it is cast. It also has a 900 unit cast range, which makes it a great tool for both scouting Roshan attempts by giving vision inside the pit and also trapping any enemy heroes caught within. |
Remember that Kinetic Field has a 1.2 second delay before the barrier is set up after casting it. If attempting to trap a unit inside the barrier keep this delay in mind and anticipate the enemy hero’s movements lest the barrier be set up after they’ve already move outside of its area of effect.
Static Storm covers a 450 unit radius whilst Kinetic Field covers a smaller 325 radius. When using the two in conjunction (Disruptor's bread and butter combo when ganking is Glimpse > Kinetic Field around the area the unit will be teleported back to > Static Storm on top), make sure you cast Static Storm on top of Kinetic Field, that way any heroes trapped inside will have no choice but to take damage from Static Storm.
Remember that Static Storm silences units (so long as they are not Spell Immune), and so can be used to counter powerful channelled abilities like Enigma’s Black Hole.
Last Updated - Patch 6.83.
