VALORANT has a wide selection of agents for players to learn and perfect over hours of intense competitive matches. Omen is one of them, and one of the more menacing agents. He can be excellent for flanks, surprises, and setting up plays with his abilities.
In particular, his Paranoia flash is incredibly useful. It almost completely blinds an enemy as long as you’re not within a few meters of the flashed player. On top of that, Omen’s teleport ability (Shrouded Step) paired with a well-timed flash can get you in the perfect positions to stop a rotating player, or even just to catch a player guarding the site off guard.
His other ability is incredibly useful for any player trying to access any site. His smoke (otherwise known as “Dark Cover”) blocks off angles, making it easier for your team to enter the site and focus on the open positions.
How do Omen’s smokes work in VALORANT?
While VALORANT players can sit inside the smoke and see clearly within the smoked area, unlike Brimstone’s, enemies have to time a push through Omen’s smoke perfectly to not get caught sneaking out in the open.
Omen users get two Dark Covers. Just one of these blocks an angle off for 15 seconds and costs 150 credits, so timing your smokes to perfection is necessary. The last thing you want is to be left out in the open with several angles to clear or avoid.
His smokes can go up to 80m and cannot be seen whilst traveling, meaning it’s incredibly effective at selling a fake push onto a separate site.
How do I use Omen smokes?
Omen’s smokes are incredibly useful at blocking off choke points. A choke point is an area that can be completely blocked off by a smoke and is an area where players will have to check several angles before entering or exiting the area.
By blocking off these choke points, you eliminate angles with players potentially hiding around the corner. So, blocking off an entry point into a site or angle players would be holding when you enter the site is the best way to use these smokes.
Use smokes on map choke points
For instance, smoking Heaven and the A link connector towards the A site on Haven would be a great way of using the two smokes available when pushing onto the site.
There’s a ton of variety available with smokes in general. For example, C long on Haven is a stretch of grass with a little cubby for players to hide in. Say you’re defending on the C site and want to do an aggressive play with a teammate waiting on-site to help you push.
Smoking deeper and pushing to get access to the cubby (while obvious) can be an effective way of helping gain map control and making players clear angles while another player (or yourself) assists from the C site.
These types of avenues allow for several different tactics that can be implemented, it’s just up to your creativity.
Again, with C long, if you smoke too close to the C site, you’ll have given the opponents a lot of map control, which allows them to burst out and surprise you when you least expect it. Potentially holding your smokes and using them when they’re necessary is another way to deal with this.
Place smokes in key spaces
Don’t forget to make sure your smokes aren’t too far into the site you’re protecting. Having them stick out gives players more room to try to escape and break out onto the site. Making sure the smoke isn’t too far into a choke point is essential as players can find ways to locate a gap, making you an easier target.
The entrance onto the A site on Ascent, as shown above, is an example of a place to smoke off. Areas like this are essential for the attacking side to push through to get onto the site. If necessary, anything like this is a safe place to be putting your smokes.
Don’t always use smokes right away
As you gain experience, you’ll understand that placing the smokes immediately isn’t always the best option. Keeping your smokes for the perfect time is important. Use them wisely and actually use them to push somewhere or block off an area that’s being abused by the other team.
A classic move you’ll see in a lot of your matches is an Omen placing a smoke and teleporting into the smoked area. This can also happen with his ultimate which can teleport him anywhere on the map, and can easily surprise opponents. However, this tactic is quite obvious. By placing more than one smoke you can make your odds of getting a kill slightly higher.
If you’re defending, using one-way smokes is an incredibly useful tool that can catch players off guard and net some easy kills.
How can I do Omen one-way smokes?
Another feature of Omen’s smokes is the ability to place them on certain angles that create a visible area that the enemy team might not notice at first.
Essentially, you can place a smoke higher in the air, exposing players’ feet. Once a player walks into this area, you’ll be able to spray through the smoke and get an easy kill. Several smoke-wielding agents can do this, but Omen arguably has one of the easiest one-way smoke mechanics in the game.
When you’re using your Omen smokes, you can press “R” to change the appearance of your smokes when you’re placing them. This gives you a better view of your surroundings and makes it easier to spot the blue triangle on your screen.
This blue triangle is the key to placing a one-way. By aiming your smokes higher, and finding things like ledges and bricks to aim the blue triangle on, you’ll see where you can place your smokes.
Depending on how high you place them, there’s a strong chance you’ll have someone trying to sneak behind a smoke without realizing it’s a one-way before it’s too late.
Published: Jan 11, 2023 12:28 am