Disruptor - Teamfight Supporter - UPDATED for 6.83 - Dec 23, 2014

Introduction

Keep in mind that this is my first guide, so constructive feedback is more than welcome!

Disruptor is a hero that doesn't get used all very often and when he is, he is underestimated by the enemy team. He's a great aoe/teamfighting hero that excels at supporting, picking out careless enemy heroes for easy kills, and rendering enemy casters useless during group engagements.

Items

Starting

You'll need to start with some hp regen and probably a Clarity or two because Thunder Strike and Glimpse are pretty spendy mana-wise.

Boots

Arcane Boots are what I buy 90% of the time now. Disruptor is a mana-hungry hero and there's nothing worse than running out of mana when you spot a hero you could Glimpse back to your team for an easy kill. However, if your team already has a couple people going Arcanes, you might be able to get by with Tranquil Boots to tank up and keep your hp high early.

After boots

If you decide you're too squishy and you don't want to wait for Mekansm, you're going to want a Bracer or an Urn of Shadows if you didn't go Arcanes and your team doesn't have one. You can turn the bracer into a Drum of Endurance if your team doesn't have one. However, ideally you'd probably want to go...

Mekansm

You are a good candidate for being your team's mek holder since you're probably playing position 4. You need to tank up and the regen/armor from mek helps a lot with that. If you had a couple ironwood branches at the start that you didn't make into a Magic Wand, you can use them for the Headdress and Buckler.

Force Staff

Being a support means you have to worry about positioning a lot. Luckily, Disruptor has some very long cast ranges on his abilities, so you can stay out of the fight. However, against heroes like Riki and other blink/leap initiators, you'll find yourself in hot water pretty fast. This is where Force Staff comes in. You can save yourself and allies from the wrath of a raging Lifestealer, the cloud of a Stealth Assassin, the aoe of a Tidehunter Ravage, etc. It also helps you speed around the map when you're rotating or warding.

Drum of Endurance

We can utilize our bracer for one of these if the team doesn't have one. Extra mobility and attack speed for your team in early teamfights/chases is huge. This is another very cost-efficient item. For 250 gold less than an Ultimate Orb with an easier buildup, you trade 1 to all stats for 3 damage, an aura, and 5 charges of a good teamfight active ability. Yes, please. However, don't bother buying it if it's getting later in the game (if you bought mek - it's already too late to buy this). Its effectiveness drops way off later on.

Pipe of Insight

If somebody else is getting the team's mek, you can get Pipe to help yourself tank up and protect your team from enemy magic damage. This baby can singlehandedly negate the damage of a lot of ultimates out there for your whole team, while tanking you up against magic damage and giving fantastic hp regen.

Ghost Scepter

This is a very handy item to get some stats and buy you a few seconds respite from enemy right-click carries. Make sure you don't activate it when enemy nukers are in range or you will get decimated due to the magic damage amplification.

Scythe of Vyse / Rod of Atos / Aghanim's Scepter

The odds of you having enough money or inventory space for these is pretty low. Your inventory will probably look something like this: Arcane Boots, Mekansm / Pipe of Insight, Force Staff, Bracer / Drum of Endurance, Town Portal Scroll, Dust of Appearance / Observer Ward. However, if you just aren't playing support for some reason or are getting way too many hero kills, these are 3 good choices for extreme luxury items. Aghanim's is a fantastic item on Disruptor if you manage to catch heroes before they pop their items like BKB/Pipe/Mek/Force. However, I've found that when I try to Glimpse an enemy carry into our team, he'll pop BKB before Glimpse triggers and just continue walking away. It's rare at medium/high levels of play that a carry will let themselves get caught in your ult before popping BKB. Aghanim's is also fantastic if you have enough reliable lockdown where you can keep a hero in it during the final few seconds of duration (due to the way the dps ramps up as the duration of the spell goes on).

Skills

Thunder Strike

Target: Enemy Unit/Hero

Repeatedly strikes the targeted unit with lightning. Each strike damages nearby enemy units in a small radius.

Range: 800
Radius: 240
Duration: 6
Number of Strikes: 4
Damage Per Strike: 40/60/80/100
Cooldown: 16
Mana Cost: 130

Note: This skill gives you some flying vision in the area you cast it. This means you can use it when enemies try to juke or blink into the woods (assuming you didn't already have vision from Thunder Strike).

Notes
You gain vision in an aoe around the target that is being struck for the full 6 second duration. This is incredibly important for Glimpse and chasing. However, this ability doesn't scale amazingly well, but it got better in 6.78. It deals total magic damage of 160/240/320/400 with nothing else changing. Also, the aoe of this skill has been buffed to 240, it can be worth maxing out if you can manage to hit multiple heroes with these strikes reliably. Consider this: Your Kinetic Field aoe is 325. In my experience, enemy heroes spend their majority of their time in this field by running against one of its edges. If they're also getting chipped down with Thunder Strike, there isn't a lot of space inside that field that will keep their allies from getting zapped as well unless their allies are close to the opposite side of the field (which is probably where your team is coming from). It can also be maxed first in situations where you need to harass more or when you can get consistent multi-hero Kinetic Fields but I feel that your early skill points are better spent in...

Glimpse

Target: Enemy Heroes

Teleports the target hero back to where it was 4 seconds ago. Instantly kills illusions.

Range: 600/1000/1400/1800
Cooldown: 60/46/32/18
Mana Cost: 100

Notes
I'm going to spend a lot of time talking about Glimpse because it's very important. This skill scales amazingly well. You're gaining massive casting range and each point drops the casting cost and CD of the spell very nicely as well. Please don't listen to the people that tell you to leave this at level 1 until late. The range is painfully short so you'll rarely be able to use it, the CD is long, and it's not going to get much use. Maxing this early messes with the enemy's expectations for their own safety and will net your team easy kills when you use it correctly.

Sending a hero back in time 4 seconds sounds tricky because it's easy to lose track of how long seconds are in the heat of a teamfight. This skill synergizes with Thunder Strike quite nicely. Thunder Strike is now a 6-second duration, so you can't use it to perfectly time Glimpse anymore. However, it still provides the necessary vision of your target to allow you to cast Glimpse. Also, if you Glimpse your target 1 second after the 2nd tick of Thunder Strike hits, you should bounce the hero back to where he was when you first cast Thunder Strike on him. Thunder Strike an opponent you know you want to Glimpse (especially if they start running away). REMEMBER where they were when you cast Thunder Strike. You can also keep counting off 1...2...3...4 in your head when you're getting ready to Glimpse to give yourself a general idea of when/where to do it to yank the fleeing enemy back where your team can 5v1 them. Even if you don't have a perfect count in your head, you can see a blue indicator on the ground where they are about to be warped back. This can help you drop your Kinetic Field before they arrive so they'll be trapped for sure.

Another handy use for this skill is to cancel use of enemy channeled spells/items/abilities. You can Glimpse them while they TP away to break the channel even if they haven't moved an inch in 4 seconds. Global hero initiating on you? Send them back. Furion trying to be cute? Bounce him back to where he came from. Deadly CK + Wisp TP'ing after you? Bounce CK back and murder the lonely Wisp. Diving for a hero kill early on and an enemy support TPs in to try and turn the fight? Send them packing. Super-farmed carry trying to TP back to base to stop your gg push? Kick him out of his own base and make him walk. Stopping/reversing any TP with Glimpse feels great and the enemy is going to be out of 100g, waiting 60 seconds to TP again and probably pretty pissed.

One way to get free kills on unsuspecting enemy heroes is during pushes. You might have done this yourself: The enemy team is pushing and you want to keep them in sight range so you know if they're going to loop around on you or if they're going to break to a different lane. Maybe you're even going to try and throw some nukes to slow the push down or something. As they kill the creep wave, you back off and continue retreating towards your tower. This is the part where Disruptor kills you. If he sees you with his daytime vision (1800 range) and has Glimpse maxed (1800 range), he can pull you back to where you were 4 seconds ago, which is probably in the midst of his team for a quick 5v1. The enemies you'll face in Normal and High (and sometimes Very High) matchmaking tiers will make this mistake enough for you to punish them for it. It can also be used to similar effect by the rivers when you see a support trying to place common rune wards (provided you already have vision of the area with your own wards).

Another good use of Glimpse is to screw up a carry's day. Faceless Void leaps in and uses chrono on 3 members of your team. You should be standing WAY back and out of this chrono because you can utilize your massive casting range of Glimpse (remember - 1800 range). The moment he pops chrono, you glimpse him out. He's gotta walk all the way back towards your team while his chrono duration is completely wasted.

However, Glimpse needs some coordination on your team. You need to ping and tell your team that you're going to Glimpse during a chase. It doesn't help to Glimpse a fleeing carry to the back of your team formation when they are completely out of position and unready to pounce.

Kinetic Field

Target: Ground

After a short formation time, creates a circular barrier of kinetic energy that enemies can't pass.

Range: 900
Radius: 325
Formation Time: 1.2
Duration: 2.5/3/3.5/4
Cooldown: 13/12/11/10
Mana Cost: 70

Notes
Here's another skill that doesn't scale all that great (it scales a little better now that the CD reduces slightly with each level). However, it can be better to get this skill maxed out 2nd instead of Thunder Strike in some situations. Decide whether you need more damage output from your hero or if you can land fields well enough for your allies to get more damage on the enemy and keep them trapped under Static Storm. If your team is working together, getting a full 4 second kinetic field on an enemy or enemies will probably allow your allies to do more than the 240 extra magic damage you'd get from a maxed Thunder Strike. However, this is dependent upon team lineup and play-style. Another big reason to get Kinetic Field maxed 2nd instead of Thunder Strike is maximizing the time enemies are trapped and silenced by your Static Storm.

This is also another skill that most Normal and High matchmaking players don't play well against. They spend all their time inside the field pushing against the fence in a panic instead of just moving and fighting inside it freely. The 1.2 second delay can be tough to work around sometimes, but in conjunction with Glimpse and the fact enemies will get stuck on the outside of the field helps as well.

Magic immunity/ Black King Bar will allow enemies to walk right through your field without a problem, so don't waste it while MI is active on a fleeing or charging enemy. Several heroes have abilities that help them leap over the field wall as well Mirana Slark and blink heroes.

Static Storm

Target: Ground

Creates a damaging static storm that also silences all enemy units in the area for the duration. The damage starts off weak, but increases in power over the duration.

Range: 800
Radius: 450
Duration: 5 (*7)
Maximum Damage Per Second: 200/250/300 (*280/350/420)
Cooldown: 90/80/70
Mana Cost: 125/175/225

*Aghanims Upgrade: 2 extra seconds of duration (which ends up increasing the max dps it puts out) and silences items

Notes
Here's another ability that doesn't scale to the point that you absolutely need levels of it as soon as possible. However, recent patch changes bring the CD down with each level of your ult. The Max DPS numbers certainly look amazing, but due to the fact that the DPS starts low and ramps up over the duration of the spell, you're not getting the full benefit a lot of the time. Take a look:

Total damage dealt: 520/648/780 - (1009 / 1257 / 1512*)

If you can manage to keep your enemies in the static storm for the entire duration of the ult, then level it up. This is a reason I like leveling Kinetic Field earlier than Thunder Strike. The longer my enemy is stuck and silenced, the happier I am. If they're able to freely walk out of your ult, you're not going to benefit much from the extra levels because they'll be out by the time the ult really starts hurting.

If you can trap multiple heroes in a Kinetic Field, a quickly followed Static Storm can lock their team down pretty hard while your team mops them up.

If you are rich/greedy enough to get an Aghanim's Scepter, this ult gets boosted quite nicely. It will prevent any affected enemies from using items. This can be huge if it stops a pipe/mek/BKB. It's definitely worth considering Aghs if your team can initiate and catch enemy carries before they BKB, as dropping this as a follow-up is fantastic.

Play Style

Disruptor has a nice attack animation and one of the fastest cast points in the game (.05 seconds). This helps you Glimpse and Static Storm your enemies as soon as possible to thwart their plans. His cast range is nice and long. You're going to need to use it to keep yourself out of danger.

I find myself switching up the order in which I skill my first 3 points quite often. It's highly dependent upon the lane you find yourself in. You might be in situations that call for more harass than a Glimpse-first build will offer. Max Thunder Strike if that's the case. Don't take my skill build as a universal one. It just happens to be the build I use when my team is working together. If you feel your team can't capitalize on your Glimpses, get more damage on Thunder Strike. If they are blinkers like AM or QOP, level Glimpse first and Kinetic Field last because the field won't do anything to stop them from blinking to escape. Decide each level whether you could benefit from 60 more magic damage (after the standard 25% reduction), 400 extra range / 14 second lower CD on Glimpse, or an extra .5 seconds / 1 second lower CD on your Kinetic Field.

Since you're a support, you're going to be responsible for keeping Observer Wards up. A good ward will pay for itself if it stops an allied hero from dying or gives you vision for a long-range glimpse to turn into a kill.

Same rule applies for invis detection. Buying Dust of Appearance or Sentry Ward will almost always net you at least one kill on a surprised invis hero that didn't see you holding detection items.

When it comes to teamfights, you need to stay out of the fray whenever possible. Use your large cast range to your advantage. You have 800/900 range on all your spells and 1800 for Glimpse. Use your spells and back up while you wait for cooldowns. It's important for you to stay out of the aoe of big initiations like Chronosphere and Ravage. If you're fast enough and have Static Storm ready to cast (with the aoe indicator up or you can use quickcast) you can potentially stop the Chrono, RP, or Ravage before they can cast it. Even if you can't stop it, you can Glimpse the initiator out (assuming they had some follow-up damage to deal) right after they jump in and make them waste time running back into the fight while your team kills their other heroes. If they don't have any big initiations, try to save your Glimpse for a deadly channeled ability or make their melee carry do more running around in order to deal his/her damage.

Rather than prattle on about play style for Disruptor, here's a Dotabuff link to my matches with him if you want some match IDs to check out. I'll be looking around for more matches that are good examples.

Matchups

[This is a WIP]

Friends

Clockwerk
When Clock manages to get enemy hero(es) in cogs, that's a great time to hit them with Thunder Strike and Static Storm. They'll all be in range of the aoe of Thunder Strike. You can get even more guaranteed position lockdown by following cogs up with your Kinetic Field.

You can also set up some easy cogs traps for him when you glimpse. He can see where the enemy is going to land and set his cogs up just as they arrive for a guaranteed trap.

Dark Seer
Vacuum + Wall + Kinetic Field + Static Storm = Dead enemy heroes. I don't need to explain this one too much.

Magnus
Reverse Polarity sets you up to trap his prey even longer and keep them silenced and taking a bunch of magic damage.

Good Counter To...

Faceless Void
As I stated in a section above, you can nullify a lot of FV's damage when he chronos your team with Glimpse. Most FVs like to leap and chrono right after. Be sure you stay back from your team so you can be sure to stay out of his initiation. The moment he pops chrono, Glimpse him out and make him walk back. This saves your team from taking a lot of damage from him. Force Staff is a really helpful item in this matchup as well. After a little while, Void will want to catch you in his chrono because you're being a pest. Keep your finger ready on the Force Staff button so you can bounce away and maybe escape the chrono aoe as he leaps in. Also, if you manage to stay out of the aoe without needing to use the force, you can try to use your staff to push Void's allies into his chrono so they can't follow up. If there are no enemy heroes in range to force staff into chrono and if Void manages to land a good one without having to use his leap, Glimpse him out and then force staff him after he leaps back in. It will buy your allies a little more time.

Spirit Breaker
With the proper vision, you can really annoy a Spirit Breaker. You can Glimpse him out while he charges. Him going 4 seconds back in time is a long distance when he has a quick charge. However, due to the mechanics of Glimpse, it'll probably take the full 1.8 seconds for him to be relocated to his old position. This means he might hit you with the charge before he bounces out if you didn't have good vision of him before-hand.

Io
If Wisp likes to relocate on you and bring a friend, Glimpse the friend out to where he came from and take down Io when he's all by himself. Taking away Wisp's gank power goes a long way to make space for your team. Even if you aren't nearby to help an ally, Wisp might hesitate more if you've already abused him a few times in the game by Glimpsing his ganking partner

Nature's Prophet
This follows the same principles as Io, but is less effective overall. You can Glimpse Prophet back to where he came from when he tries to TP into a teamfight. However, I say this is less effective because it's not uncommon for an NP to get Orchid. He'll be able to silence you before you get the chance to Glimpse him if you can't get out of range fast enough. Teleportation only has a 20 second CD, but luckily, Glimpse has an 18 second CD :)

Foes

Heroes with silences can be a big problem if they manage to catch you with them e.g. Puck Nightstalker Silencer Death Prophet Drow. Keeping your distance is especially important for these guys (can't run from Silencer's ult obviously).

Heroes that can ignore your Kinetic Field are very annoying to face. Mirana Lifestealer Timbersaw Magnus Slark Io are just a few heroes with abilities that allow them to escape the kinetic field wall. Assuming you don't have Static Storm up, you can wait for them to use their ability that helps them get past your field. Trying to kill a Mirana? Wait for her to leap before glimpsing back and penning her in a Kinetic field. The same holds true for blinkers like Anti-Mage or Queen of Pain. Just be sure to get a Thunder Strike on the enemy right away so you get vision of them when they try to leap/charge/blink away so you can glimpse them back. Slark is a big pain because he can purge off your Thunder Strike with his Dark Pact and leap over your field walls.

Also, any BKB user is going to render you pretty ineffective. When they pop BKB, the best thing you can do is try to evade them (remember to stay as far back in fights as possible) and try to mess with their supports by using a zoning Kinetic Field or static storm.