DOTA 2 - Smoke Ganking

Introduction

Greetings! In Dota 2, there are a lot of ways to grant you or your team a slight advantage, which can build up to an even greater one, making your way to victory much less of a perilous path, and more of a complete cakewalk. One of these ways is smoke-ganking, which is what this guide will cover. If you tend to play support, this guide will fit right up your alley, as you will more often than not be the one doing this. If not, it may help you avoiding a smoke gank coming your way. Without further ado, let us begin!

The Basics

Smoke-ganking is the act of buying a Smoke of Deceit, and using it to go somewhere with the motive of catching an enemy player unaware and bringing him down swiftly and brutally. The advantages of this compared to normal ganks is that you are invisible both in-game and on the mini-map as well as move 15% faster as long as you are over 1025 range away from an enemy hero or tower. Because of this, the enemy will have less time to react, and as such, will be easier to catch.

What’s the catch with this item, then? This all sounds too good to be true! The downside of Smoke of Deceit is firstly that it costs gold, although the price of 100 gold is absolutely worth it should the usage of it result in a kill. Secondly, in order to balance the strength of the item, it has a limited stock of 3, which refreshes after twelve minutes. This can potentially mean that if you use too many of your smokes during a short interval, you will be stuck with a period where you cannot use them, which may result in really bad teamfights or botched ganks due to enemy vision and knowledge of your movement beforehand.

Now I would like to answer four important questions that can be asked in order to help you decide how you should use this tactic.

Smoke of Deceit has a surprisingly lengthy item description.

Who?

Which hero or player is the most suited one for using a smoke of deceit to go smoke-ganking? More often than not, it is the support, which is not as dependant on gold to buy items as the carry is. Therefore, the support is able to spend the gold and time it takes on setting smoke-ganks up. However, do keep in mind that this should only be the case if your carry is 100% safe in his lane. Should the enemy team be doing an aggressive trilane against you, smoke-ganking is not a recommended option, as all of your attention will have to be on the lane, making sure that you win is, as a botched trilane often means a lost game. Topple the trilane and grant your team the game. Otherwise, smoke away and look for these ganks!

When?

Generally, smoke ganks tend to come relatively early, often to give a solo lane, often middle, the advantage over its opponents. Smokes are as such often bought at the start of the game by one of the two supports of the team. However, smoke-ganking is incredibly effective throughout the entire game, and should you feel as if one won team fight is the only thing you need to end a game, suggest that you smoke in order to get the jump on your opponents. This might be the only thing you need to topple the towers and annihilate the ancient of your enemy team!

Where?

Where should you gank? As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the middle lane is a hot spot for smoke-ganks. However, if the enemy mid-laner has a reliable escape and you have no silence or way of locking them down, it might be better to gank the enemy’s offlane. For instance, should the enemy mid be a Puck player against a Venomancer, and your supports be a Rubick and an Abbadon, then you only have one reliable stun, and as such, will have a hard time bringing Puck down. In that case, you should try your own safelane, which may have a Doom or something similar from the enemy team in their offlane. Why smoke for the safelane, you ask? Well, simply because it gives them much less time to react and makes them easier to kill. However, if you are one hundred percent sure that they do not have vision and you do not need a smoke for it, then save it for later. After all, they are an exclusive item with a very limited stock, so use them wisely!

This is a pretty good place to smoke if you are on the Dire side.

How?

Exactly how would one go about doing a smoke-gank, then? There is one key word here which matters more than any other, and it is vision. If you smoke underneath an enemy ward, they will know what is going on, and will either play very defensively or try to bait you into a fight where the advantage is theirs. Therefore, you should always attempt to smoke where the enemy team will have a very low probability of having vision, or after you have dewarded so that they will be none the wiser about your sneaky smokes.

In addition to this, make sure you bring the appropriate gear to combat the target. If you smoke gank an invisible target such as Bounty Hunter, ALWAYS carry Dust of Appearance or Sentry Wards. If you smoke, go on him, and he goes invisible, you just stand there looking lost and wasted 100 gold as well as precious time which could be spent stacking the jungle or pulling your creep wave.

To summarize: Supports generally buy and use smokes, often early in the game, ganking the middle lane. However, smokes are effective the entire game, so do not make the mistake of seeing it as an item which becomes useless later on. Smoke where the enemy cannot see you. If the target has an escape mechanism such as a blink, make sure that you can properly lock the target down with stuns and silences before they can escape. When ganking invisible heroes, make sure you have detection. Following these simple suggestions might not win you every game, but they are certain to make you a much more efficient smoker. Thanks for reading and good luck in the world of Dota 2!

Sometimes, it is good to be the invisible man.

Oscar Svensson