Ganking showcases | Forums

[Knight_Raime]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zYjXw2nJ_c

Video from Freeze based on a comment from a thread on the competitive sub about ganking. Freeze said he wasn't going to explain the ganks in the video but I feel like giving a bit more detail as context. Ganks involve the knowledge of primarily two things. Hit/block stun and animations. To state it simply there's a 3 hit stun rule which means if you take 3 hits anything followed up with will not really stun. Thus making escaping gank attempts possible. It's why say the follow up for Gryphon's kick is never guaranteed if you try to setup for it because either the kick will be dodgable or the follow up from the kick will be blockable/parryable.

There are moves in the game that can sort of cheese this rule but that's getting more complex than this thread is aimed for. Besides that rule there are 3 types of hit/block stun. Light, medium, and heavy. For the sake of this discussion the only thing that really needs to be acknowledged here is the difference between them is what dictates how long someone is in hitstun/block stun. Knowing what type of hitstun/block stun something does is key to figuring out what you can and can't gank with.

Now i'm not going to touch on every gank in the video. Instead i'm going to explain some of the things being showcased here so you have a better understanding of ganks.

The first one I want to talk about is showcased on Shaman quite well. Shaman's bite due to it's inherently fast speed of 400ms is pretty much guaranteed off of anything. However you typically see it being setup off of the opponent blocking a light. This is the easiest for the gank partner to setup and generates the least amount of revenge. Which is important since you don't want the target popping revenge after the bite finishes thus losing that free heavy follow up after the bite.

Gb setups are also shown here in two facets. The first showing bashes. This is typically done to guarantee a full charge bash because you want to finish someone off. You generally don't lead in the middle of a fight with this because of the amount of revenge it can generate.

Bashes as a start up on their own are important to show for two reasons. The first to show how much extra damage you can net with just a simple dash bash. You're getting a light and a heavy out of one single bash which is a good amount of damage. the second because the person is still in hitstun this limits their ability to really respond. So you usually go for another bash to land a chain heavy.

The other GB setup shown involves blocked lights. None enhanced lights have this funny situation where getting blocked actually opens you up to a GB that can't be teched. This is because it puts you in medium hitstun/blockstun. If nothing else this kind of shows the danger of just randomly committing to attacks in an anti gank scenario.

The video also shows several characters delaying their follow ups. Like orochi's double light, shaolin's triple light, etc. You do this because it forces the person to sit in said animation longer. Which means the ganking partner can do something like whiff into a stronger finisher. In the video this is shown via Nobushi taking the time to hidden stance into her heavy finisher.

Finally the video also shows animation lock ganks. Easy example shown was Warmonger parrying someone. The parried animation guarantees that external attack. The hitstun of that attack confirms Warmonger's delayed impale input. Which then carries to the wall for her special attack. And said attack confirms the follow up heavy. But this doesn't only work this way. It's common to see ganks get setup by forcing the defender to parry or CGB to confirm something for a gank. As is properly shown in the Berzerker gank. The CGB forces the person to eat zerker's zone. Zerker's zone being a multi hit attack makes it easy for the ganking person to land a heavy. And then the zerk GB's for the chain heavy.


At the end of the day ganks themselves are not complicated. You don't really need to have extensive knowledge of whoever you're ganking with. You just need to remember the 3 hit stun rule. That combined with the general knowledge of how the game works and you'll be doing decent ganks in no time.

[MrGrippz]

Very good breakdown! For comp purposes ganking & anti-ganking is crucial.

[LightUpTheEyes]

To me it shows somethings that are also wrong with ganking. In some situations the person being ganked is punished for essentially playing well. For example, Shamans bite should bounce off of any type of block stun or parry lock. It should only land off of hit stun. Same goes for any type of orange move like Cents punch or Shugokis hug ect. Other problems are landing guaranteed hits after bashes while in parry lock, you should be able to block the follow up attack if a bash is landed from block stun, parry lock and counter guard breaking.

Those situations punish the person being ganked for playing well and that just shouldn't happen in my opinion.

[Knight_Raime]

To me it shows somethings that are also wrong with ganking. In some situations the person being ganked is punished for essentially playing well. For example, Shamans bite should bounce off of any type of block stun or parry lock. It should only land off of hit stun. Same goes for any type of orange move like Cents punch or Shugokis hug ect. Other problems are landing guaranteed hits after bashes while in parry lock, you should be able to block the follow up attack if a bash is landed from block stun, parry lock and counter guard breaking.

Those situations punish the person being ganked for playing well and that just shouldn't happen in my opinion.

There is an argument to be made for some of this. Shaman's gank is notoriously difficult to have proper counter play against because it can be setup off of anything. But at the moment her ganks are not done often because of how much revenge they can feed. Same with zerk zone ganks.

If they were to make a change I'd say let people dodge out of their parry animation. This still allows the use of these ganks to an extent. But also has counter play. Meaning of you wrongly read the bite gank and dodge cancel you could get Gbed. Or she could just hold the bite and then get you in dodge recovery.

Imo the only two problematic ganks are set up from parrying on the defender side. And ganks that start with a GB that you get from blocking a light.

Ganks that work off of cgb setups are fine imo because usually you can stuff those on a read. Which is proper enough counter play.

There are some character specific ganks that can be discussed but those are a more complicated topic. So I'm sticking to general gank discussion.

[PhoenixSOS]

gb is confirmed if your teammate blocks a light and your teammate has a confirmed gb if you block a light attack (non-enhanced OR block chain finisher heavy OR light) which has counter play enough of its own. if you try lighting bc of read on shaman gank gb and instead of rushing the gank they wait and block for free gb, that's a read. don't wanna get gb'd? make sure your opener/non-enhanced lights connect and/or don't throw chain finishers, if you feint you can cgb which refreshes tags and/or adds revenge from prior tag.