If you’ve had enough of dropping down VALORANT’s newest map, Abyss, just for fun and want to master its quirks before its Competitive debut, you may want to know its best smoke spots.
As intriguing as its unconventional “death drop” design may seem at first, Abyss may scare those who want to keep their winning streak in ranked intact. This is especially true if you’re a controller main—the map is tricky for us.
If you’re worried about your smoking game for when Abyss goes live in VALORANT’s competitive queue and beyond, don’t worry—we have got you covered with the ideal smoke spots on the map for every kind of play.
Best smoke spots on VALORANT’s Abyss map
Let’s start with the basic smoke spots on Abyss first.
For A Site, the setup is pretty simple. As an attacker, you want to smoke A Tower without fail. It’s the most obvious angle a defender can hold as you run into the site. Your second smoke should ideally block A Security, which will help your VALORANT teammates establish control over the entire Spike site.
As a defender, however, you should smoke A Main to discourage attackers from pushing in.
Don’t be fooled by A Site’s simplicity—controlling Abyss’ B Site is the real challenge here.
As an attacker, the basic chokepoints you want to be wary of are B Tower and the entrance to the site from B Link.
But it’s not that simple—there are just too many angles to clear when approaching this site. It’s a tactical mystery. But don’t worry. I’ll introduce you to a quirky smoke setup you can try while attacking Abyss’ B Site later in this story.
If you are defending B Site, the basic smoke spot would be where the narrow lane to the site ends and B Nest.
But as you may have noticed already, none of the dome smokes are big enough to properly block the enemy’s line of sight from this chokepoint. To top it off, smoking just this leaves the B Nest angle wide open. Ideally, you have to smoke both B Nest and the entrance to deny a push, so if you are playing agents like Astra, Omen, or Clove, it will almost always leave you with no cover to spare for retakes. Viper and Harbor can better control B Site as defenders while letting your team carry out flexible retake plans.
If you are taking the Mid approach, you are in for an easier time. Make sure to smoke Mid Top regardless of the site your VALORANT team plans to hit.
Additionally, if you are leaning toward a B hit, you may want to smoke the stairwell to the left of Mid Top. For an A hit, you can smoke the entrance from B Link toward Mid Library.
As a defender, if you see enemies going for a Mid approach, you can smoke Mid Catwalk and Mid Bottom to help your team contest the area.
More smoke setups to tackle Abyss in VALORANT
Now that we know the basic smoke spots on Abyss, it’s time to get creative.
Playing a controller in VALORANT is not just about blocking your enemies’ line of sight. From isolating fights to one-ways, there are many ways to use vision blockers to your advantage in the tac shooter. As complex as it may seem, Abyss tests your creative potential to the fullest, so don’t be afraid to make fearless plays. That’s the key to winning.
That said, there are plenty of chokepoints to consider on Abyss other than the basic ones we pointed out above. I’ve highlighted them below, with some unique smoke setups you can try on the map.
A Site
Instead of smoking A Security, I recommend smoking A Bridge if you struggle to tackle defender(s) holding that angle. There are too many sneaky off-angles near the site’s entrance, so blocking A Bridge leaves your team one less thing to worry about.
At the start of the round, defenders will try to take control of A Lobby, especially if their team has strong initiators like Breach and Fade. Additionally, defenders can hold your push with an Operator right at the site entrance. You can tackle this by deploying a one-way smoke on top of the box near A Main.
This may help you pick off enemies holding the entrance, isolate fights, and discourage a push. Enemies who “parkour” their way from A Bridge to A Main will also have a hard time spotting you first if you use this smoke.
One-ways are powerful tools to use during post-plant scenarios in VALORANT, and Abyss’ design lets you deploy a lot of those. If you pick Omen, Clove, Brimstone, or Astra, you can drop easy one-way smokes on the Spike to deny defuse, thanks to the box in the middle of A Site.
You can also use Viper’s Poison Cloud or Harbor’s Cove for post-plant one-ways, but those may require you to memorize complex lineups for ease.
As a defender on A site, you can smoke multiple points besides the basic A Main spot. For example, you can smoke off A Bridge when retaking the site from A Security.
If enemies have control of A Tower and nobody on your team is planning to retake it, you can smoke it off, too.
B Site
You must think outside the box to tackle the complex B site on Abyss.
While tinkering with all the possibilities, I ran into a double one-way smoke setup that blocks almost every critical angle a defender can hold: rafters, tower choke, the platform on the right, and the angle behind the platform on the left. You can use this instead of the basic setup that only tackles a couple of possibilities.
Then again, one-ways are tricky and can backfire if players don’t know how to play around it. Make sure your team is on board with your plan before using this setup.
While defending B Site, if you are playing Omen, I recommend taking control of B Main. As soon as the barrier drops, smoke off B Nest and teleport to the box below the window. Have a teammate offer you support utility. Also, don’t teleport into B Nest because you will almost certainly die to the inevitable bullet spam that comes after.
You can also take control of B Main with other controllers, but Omen is the most flexible VALORANT agent for this job.
When retaking a site, prioritize smoking the Spike for defuse instead of focusing on chokepoints. No matter what smoke you drop, attackers will have an advantage in post-plant in B site, so I’d just focus on pulling off a sneaky defuse wherever possible.
