How to use smoke effectively?

 

Smoke is a means of:

• Gaining Control
• Hiding Information

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While this isn't an exhaustive list, here are a few times to consider it:

• You have strong level 1 kill potential --> Smoke as 4 or 5 and go to the enemy jungle, especially if they have something "greedier" on their team you want to shut down
  • Sometimes this can also be done to scout out lanes early on and force trilane vs. trilane
  • Sometimes you will decide to trilane vs. trilane if you get a kill or two, otherwise you may consider going defensive instead
• Your defensive trilane is semi-pushed out so that your support could be MIA because they're pulling. You also know your carry will be fine 1v1 for the time being. Your supports Smoke up and gank mid to now have a 2nd lane going in their favor
  • Sometimes supports will Smoke early in order to pick off the courier bringing Bottle to the opposing mid
• The other team has been making space for their carry that is farming jungle alone --> grab a few heroes and Smoke up to gank them so that hero doesn't go unchecked
• Your initiator gets Blink Dagger without the other team knowing. You Smoke up and go looking for a fight because you can generally get a guaranteed kill or two since the other team is not expecting a Blink initiation yet (e.g. on a hero like Magnus)
• Your Lycanthrope/Ursa wants to go Roshan, but you can assume that area is warded --> Smoke up and go in undetected by wards
• Your team downs Roshan and now you want to look for a fight with Aegis of the Immortal(since it is in your favor) --> Smoke up and look for a kill or two, then push for Rax or w/e
• Your team is behind so you cannot take a 5v5. You see the other team pushing and they have a hero like Enigma that tends to hang out in the back (i.e. follow-up initiator or something) --> you Smoke up 4 heroes to backstab the opposing lineup and take out that hero as they push into your base
  • This applies to a wide variety of situations where you want to basically take out one core hero to their strategy and then force a fight

Basically

• It's unclear who is leading --> you want to gain an advantage
• You're behind --> gain an advantage
  • The further behind you get, the harder it is to Smoke though since they have more map control & vision --> it is more obvious when 5 heroes are missing from the 10% of the map they are boxed into
• You just got something big and want to exploit it --> you want to force a fight

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The main caveat to smoking up is that it cannot be obvious. Like if all 3 of your lanes are pushed in and your entire team is MIA, you're either all in Roshan or you're all Smoked.

This is why it is pretty effective early game on supports. Supports should be MIA most of the time between pulling/stacking, attempted kills on the offlaner, etc. That way if the offlane has a MIA call, there is an equal chance the supports are Smoke ganking mid as there is they're pulling or even trying to kill the offlaner.

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Are there certain item/hero combos that benefit more from smoke or is it more about what the target is doing and how you approach them?

Sort of.

• Items -- usually just Blink because it's basically a free kill when they have no idea you have that initiation power --> naturally the longer you can conceal it the better (i.e. don't want them to find out via some Observer Ward)
• Hero Combos -- any supports with decent ganking ability; you can also get away with it if their mid is like Shadow Fiend or Sniper -- something squishy and lacking mobility
• Other Heroes:
  • Pudge -- his Meat Hook outrange Smoke, so it will only break if you actually hook someone in; he's also heavily reliant on ganks and applying pressure so they synergize with him in general (you'll see Dendi do this in pubs sometimes)
  • Enchantress/Chen -- their creeps Smoke up too, so often they'll get a Smoke at spawn and then gank with 2 creeps early on (usually mid lane), both are competent solo gankers

How you approach is equally important. Like:

• You do not want to go up ramps if you can avoid it, especially in high traffic areas. As you walk up the ramp, you may be revealed if there is a hero nearby that you didn't have uphill vision of.
• As a support ganking mid, you want to gank from an angle that steers the opposing mid into a bad spot like into your mid or down into the river.

Is it worth buying right away or is it better in the team fight phase?

It can be.

Depends on things like:

• How strong your early level kill potential is (e.g. Vengeful Spirithas high kill potential whereas a level 1 Witch Doctor is kind of underwhelming unless he gets a really good cask off)
• If you are trilane vs. trilane, or 3v1 --> in 3v3, you don't have as much room to work with and it is very obvious when 2 supports go MIA from a 3v3 lane
• Whether your mid needs to win the lane
  • e.g. Viper, Queen of Pain, etc. NEED to win their lane in order to be effective in mid game. Heroes like Dragon Knight don't need to win because they rotate and push well and will generally get some farm out of the lane anyway