Tech Artist Maulik Kataria with a great post on the Freedom of a Constrained Node in Maya which answers the question of what a constrained node in Maya stops inheriting transform values form its top hierarchy. Check out the post for Freedom of a Constrained Node in Maya by Maulik Kataria here.
Maulik Kataria writes: When you constrain a transform node using Maya’s constraints, it stops inheriting transformations from its top hierarchy. However, if you just connect (for example) translation attributes directly or using simple arithmetic nodes, the connected node continues to inherit transformations from its parent. The difference is because of how a constraint calculates the final output
