PROs:
- Great at denying plant or access to the area
- Versatile loadout choices
- SMG as a secondary weapon
- Big clutch potential
CONS:
- Not beginner-friendly
- no ACOG as an anchor
- SMG can be hard to control
Smoke
Defensive operator
Thanks to his utility, Smoke Rainbow Six Siege operator is one of the best anchors in the game.
Best played passively until a late stage of the round.
His potential impact on the round increases with every second passing.
Smoke is also a versatile operator due to SMG being available as a secondary weapon.
Great operator against late pushes and shield operators.
Organization
SAS
Availability
Release
Armor Rating
Medium
Speed Rating
Medium
Biography
Porter was not an academic, although in secondary school, he excelled in science. He took a particular interest in biology and the unit on dissection. During his gap year, Porter enlisted in the British Army, using a fake ID to circumvent parental consent.
OPERATOR VIDEO
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Operator guide
Detailed information on how to play the Smoke R6 Siege
Utility
What is the utility?
Smoke R6 Siege operator is equipped with three throwable gas canisters. Each canister lasts 10 seconds and damages operators (including allies) within effective range.
Gas deals 15 damage per half-second. When Finka’s boost is active, attackers take almost double damage from Smoke’s gas.
Canisters stick to surfaces such as walls or ceilings.
Smoke’s canisters are one of the (if not the) strongest plant denial defensive utilities in Rainbow Six Siege. With proper setup and in the right situation, Smoke can prevent plants or securing the area by himself. Such a scenario occurs mainly when attackers are forced to plant defuser or initiate securing area in the last seconds of the round.
How to use utility?
We want to take a step back here and remind us all what the objective of each side is:
The attackers have to either plant the defuser, secure the area, or escort the hostage within a given time limit.
Defenders, on the other hand, have to stop attackers from completing the above objectives until round time expires (3 minutes in ranked, 3:30 in casual).
As you can see, both teams’ goals are based on time.
Therefore, Smoke’s importance and potential impact on the round increases with each passing second!
We recommend keeping gas canisters available for the later stage of the round, if possible.
The effectiveness of delaying attackers’ push for 10 seconds with 2 minutes of the round remaining is insignificant. On the other hand, the same duration of delay with 15-30 seconds left on the clock can have a massive effect on the round’s outcome.
For some reason, people love waiting with pushes till the “15 seconds” mark, so use that to your advantage!
For some reason, people love waiting with pushes till the “15 seconds” mark, so use that to your advantage!
YOU CAN PREPLACE CANISTERS
Gas canisters are detonated remotely by Smoke, allowing the utility to be pre-placed.
We recommend using them instead as throwables than preplaced traps. Placed canisters can be shot, destroyed by explosions, or zapped by Twitch Shock drone. Bear in mind that canisters do not detonate via any trigger, unlike Lesion Gu Mines or Kapkan’s EDD.
Despite Smoke’s gas covering a vast area, we recommend using them in choke points or objective entrances to ensure an impact on attackers.
Note that Smoke’s gas does not spread through walls or ceilings without holes allowing gas to pass through.
UTILIZE COVER
Furthermore, when playing Smoke R6 operator, we recommend utilizing soft walls to create holes between your position and where you expect a push to come from. Smoke can throw his canisters through such holes without exposing himself to enemies’ clear line of sight.
Such usage of the environment lowers the risk of being shot, which is extremely important.
Similarly, use Mira’s windows to see when and where attackers are pushing and throw your canisters while peeking quickly or via mentioned holes in walls.
Additionally, Smoke can use canisters to limit angles to watch for 10 seconds. In case you do not know where the enemy is going to push objective from in the last seconds of the round, throw a canister at one of the entrances, then proceed to watch the other one.
This technique can be repeated as long as you have canisters or you can mix it up – use the next canister on the second entrance and watch the first one.
YOU’RE IMMUNE TO GAS!
Last but not least, Smoke is immune to his gas canisters. Smoke’s gas is thick enough to serve a similar function to default Smoke grenades. Therefore, Smoke can use canisters as cover for retreating from a dangerous situation by either smoking himself or detonating canisters in the enemy’s line of sight.
Interactions
SYNERGIES
Mira can aid Smoke as her Mirrors can assist with using his utility to stop attackers from completing an objective.
A great example of synergy:
Bank – basement objective.
Placing Mira’s window in the corridor between vaults and CCTV room. Allows control of CCTV for Smoke while minimizing risk.
Placing Mira’s window in the corridor between vaults and CCTV room. Allows control of CCTV for Smoke while minimizing risk.
Oregon – basement objectives.
Mira places a mirror in a small room overseeing the laundry room. Grants full control for Smoke over laundry.
Besides Mira, Smoke synergizes well with any operator with access to barbed wire. Barbed wire increases the effectiveness of Smoke’s gas due to movement speed impairing effect on attackers, thus extending the time spent in a smoke cloud.
Counters:
We categorize Smoke as the main counter for site pushes and attackers completing the objective, such as planting defuser or securing area.
Moreover, the Smoke R6 operator counters shield operators. Gas canister detonated on top of barbed wire can be the shield’s worst nightmare.
Lastly, attackers boosted by Finka’s surge take increased damage from Smoke’s gas.
Countered by:
No specific operator or utility hard counters Smoke.
Main counters to his utility are:
How to play -
Smoke R6 Siege
Playstyle
ANCHOR
Smoke is a sophisticated operator who requires a significant amount of time to develop the right mindset and habits.
He is a 2 speed & 2 armor operator which gives him flexibility in roles from a statistics perspective. However, Smoke is one of the best anchors in Rainbow Six Siege mainly due to the effectiveness of his utility and its active nature.
PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS
Smoke Rainbow Six Siege operator is excellent at delaying attackers’ pushes so being in a position to affect objective site push is vital. To achieve that you need to be in a location allowing using Smoke’s utility, which means being on an objective site or in an adjacent room with a line of sight on a choke point. Similarly, an essential condition to utilize your gas canisters is to stay alive!
From all anchoring-oriented operators Smoke might be the most complex one to use effectively, so we do not recommend him as an operator for new players.
DON’T DIE TOO QUICKLY!
Considering your role and utility, we recommend that when playing Smoke, you are not overly aggressive.
Of course, there are exceptions, but generally, you want to stay alive as long as possible.
When anchors die, roamers are put in a difficult situation where defenders have to retake the site unwillingly.
Additionally, when playing defense time is your ally! Attackers have to push the site eventually. The less time they have, the more predictable the attack’s timing and direction will be.
PREPARATION PHASE MAY BE BUSY!
The preparation phase can be a busy time for Smoke with a shotgun who tries to “remodel” the site as per the team’s plan. We suggest that you start with reinforcing walls and placing barbed wire (if equipped) before focusing on opening holes in walls. This way, you won’t be caught by an attacker while performing late reinforcement tasks once the action phase begins.
GATHER INTEL WHILE IN SAFETY
As an anchor, you might not see much action in the early phases of the round, unless attackers decide to rush the objective.
Use this time to aid your roamers by gathering and feeding intel from cameras.
Let your roamers know which default cameras have been shot and which not. Such basic information feed allows teammates to predict the direction of attack.
In many scenarios knowing where enemies are not coming from can be as good info as knowing where they are!
If you want to read more about playing as Anchor, go to the below link, which contains a guide with more tips on holding angles and peeking.
Difficulty
HARD
R6 Smoke is one of the hardest defenders to utilize properly:
- late-round impact
To impact the round, Smoke has to stay alive and be in the right position in the last seconds of the action. - game sense
Knowing when to use the gas canister and predicting attackers actions comes with experience - map knowledge
His utility requires knowledge about usual plant spots and angles that can be utilized for throwing gas canisters - SMG-11 requires good aim
The recoil of SMG does not allow medium to long-range engagements, besides 1 tap. Thus the player needs to have a precise aim to headshot enemies consistently.
Loadout guide -
Smoke R6 Siege
Available options
Primary weapons
Secondary weapons
Universal gadgets
Barbed Wire
Razor wire that can be placed on flat surfaces, which slows down attackers movement speed and creates noise.
Deployable Shield
Hip-high shield deployable by defenders on flat surfaces. Can be used to protect from gunfire & explosives, as well as an obstacle for attackers to cross locations.
Loadout suggestion
Loadout choices are an individual aspect, and rarely there is a “go-to” loadout in R6 Siege.
Sight choices are purely personal and depend on the player’s playstyle, map, even objective & specific role.
Please treat the below suggestion as what it is – our preferences.
We encourage you to experiment to find your setup.
Remember, just because something works for someone else, does not mean it has to and will work for you!
Suggested loadout:
| Primary weapon | Barrel | Grip | Scope |
| M590A1 | N/A | N/A | Reflex |
| Secondary weapon | Barrel | Grip | Scope |
| SMG-11 | Flash hider | Vertical grip | Reflex |
| Gadget |
| Barbed wire |
Why such loadout?
The Smoke Rainbow Six Siege operator is a versatile defender when it comes to loadout selection.
FOREWORD
Before Grim Sky recoil changes SMG-11 was a clear winner when it comes to secondaries. All secondary SMGs recoil has been significantly nerfed.
As a result, players who find SMG-11 uncontrollable switched to pistol and frequently use FMG as primary to stand a chance in mid to long-range engagements.
SMG11+SHOTGUN SCENARIO
For players who can still control SMG-11 recoil, we recommend using a primary shotgun.
In higher ranks, as well as the pro league, teams frequently favor the “remodeling” objective site.
You almost always want to create lines of sight between bomb sites. Smoke’s loadout option for SMG secondary and primary shotgun weapons comes extremely handy for that purpose.
Additionally, the M590A1 is one of the most consistent shotguns when it comes to killing enemies from a short-range.
The laser can be a useful attachment for most shotguns. However, we pick Smoke’s shotgun mainly for destruction purposes. Hence we do not recommend using it. The laser makes spread tighter, thus increasing the time needed for “remodeling” the site, as well as ammo count required to achieve the same effect as without laser.
FMG OPTION
For those of you who prefer picking FMG, our suggestion is to use Flash hider. FMG has currently a more significant vertical recoil which will be significantly reduced by this attachment.
UNIVERSAL GADGETS
Barbed wire synergizes greatly with Smoke’s gas canisters. Thus we recommend using wire unless you are required to pick a Deployable shield by your team or need it to enhance your anchoring position.
Community Videos -
Smoke R6 Siege
Instructional videos
Gameplay showcases
Other operators
Learn more about other operators in R6 Siege!
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