Limb Disruption and Purification

[BlackMagister]

The relation between Limb Disruption (Cripple) and Purification (Dispel) has been changed ever since Purification had it's mana cost upped to 100. It is now a valid strategy to constantly use Limb Disruption certain heroes early on for easy wins. The goal is simply to do it constantly so they can't kill creeps and will never reach level 10 or at least by the time they do they will have leaked a lot of creeps. The player being crippled can use purification to remove it, but you actually want them to do that so you can have them waste SB mana and you simply recast Limb Disruption which costs 75 mana. Not only can they not kill creeps but just getting around is troublesome and holding the middle becomes impossible.

It depends on the hero they're using and is more effective vs small teams like 2vs2 or teams dependent on one hero. There are a lot of choices for Limp Disruption, but some examples are: Faenrae Champion, Ranger, Barbarian and Troll Cannibal.

Some heroes like the Blood Dancer can fight it using Magic Resistance and Blood Dance, there are other heroes that are less effected, but not as much as the Blood Dancer. Going over some hero examples briefly: Weapon Smith (Cambrinth Charge and Concentrate) and Paladin (Courage to negate move speed debuff).

You can also fight this by summoning on wave 8 (spiders) so you can get wave 11 (fel'guards) with cleave, but if they get a good purification off your team is dead. Not to mention to do this it means one person has to not use their spellbringer in order to summon by wave 8 (unless Bard or Warlock).

It's now more important than ever to have a hero either less affected by Limb Disruption or has spells that kill early on in small teams. Your team setup might be the ideal team once it gets going, but if every hero relies on getting to level 10 expect a lot of trouble early on or possibly even a loss.

There are a number of reasons why I emphasis small teams. For one bigger teams are more likely to be balanced out and have a hero with spells good for killing early on. Secondly a they can alternate if one hero is crippled and lastly if multiple heroes are crippled a purification can dispel more than one cripple if the heroes are close enough.

[Cheezeman]

This might work, supposed your target doesn't have a good team backing him up. I've played a few matches with this strategy, but the enemy always gave up after 3-4 disruptions because it didn't make a huge difference (I played those games with a few clan members which destroyed the entire concept).
It was of course quite annoying and required more attention, but it was managable.

[BlackMagister]

The biggest point in countering this is having a good hero setup more than anything I think. Of course teamwork is good, but there is only so much your team can do when the setup requires level 10 skills to be alternated. Players simply don't realize that certain heroes aren't good on small teams and constantly casting Limb Disruption is taking advantage of that.

Rangers who take a while before they can get going and not only that but eventually max out their attack speed.

Empaths who can't attack forcing only one hero to fight is a really bad idea.

Usually when using this strategy in public games (small team vs small team) the other team will try to do it as well, my team will lose the middle, but the other team loses all their lives of because of their setup.

[sackpuncher]

I think the strategy is only valid because of the AM pot price increase recently, before then getting 1k early on to buy an AM pot for your tank was common place and kept this from happening.
Same reason its "impossible" to 1v1 in anything past 1.87 because you can just sit there and spam cripple on each other and see who slowly dies first since you can't buy AM's early game anymore.

[Cheezeman]

Just came to think of that the actual mana loss of dispeling a disruption is 25m + (75m / 30)x [x being seconds it has been affecting you].
So if you wait 25 seconds of dispeling it the mana loss would be 87,5m [25m + (75m /30)25]

[BlackMagister]

I assume you mean 87.5 mana (is it a European thing to switch . with ,).

Though I don't see how the formula makes any sense. It doesn't matter when you dispel a cripple you will still lose the same amount of SB mana, it just changes when they can recast cripple (if you purify fast) and how long you're crippled (if you take a while to purify).

The SB mana calculation should be simply how many Purifications you had to use versus how many Limb Disruptions the enemy casted. What you really need to take into account is how much ground you lost and how many if any lives you've lost.

[Cheezeman]

It does matter when you dispel a cripple, because since it's an over-time effect (unlike purification) you can calculate how much juice you've managed to squeeze out of it. Having all of the 30s fully affect the Hero surley must be a better use of 75m than having it affect him 2s, no?
Therefore the longer you've managed to have the enemy under the effect of the curse, the more mana you've managed to profit (disregard of the fact if it was actually worth it or not).

Think of it this way:
For each second that the enemy is under the effect of disruption, you have successfully used 2.5 mana (75/30 = 2.5). So if it's affected the Hero for 16 seconds, you have used 40 mana of the 75 mana it costs.
So if the enemy purifies it after 16 seconds for 100 mana, they will have lost 65 mana (100m - (75m - 2.5m*16s)), and not 25. You have used 40 mana, they have used 100 mana, so difference is 60.

And yes I mean 87.5 mana.

25m + (75m /30)s = 100m - (75m - 2.5m*s)

[BlackMagister]

It doesn't matter how effective the Limb Disruption was it still cost you 75 mana and it still cost them 100 mana if they use Purification. It costs you 75 mana for each Limb Disruption and cost them 100 mana for each Purification that's it. Your formula calculates how much of it was wasted, but I don't really see how you can calculate that with a formula. How it really should be calculated should be by looking at the game and seeing how effective the Limb Disruption was.

Yes it's good for them to Purify the Cripple once it's lasted for a bit versus immediately, but it's still a 25 mana difference between the spells that makes it so eventually they will just have to sit through a full duration Limb Disruption.