Smoke Grenade

Nearly universally looked down-upon and often ignored,

The Smoke Grenade is a non-lethal grenade used by the COG. Featured in Gears of War and Gears of War 2, the Smoke Grenade discharges a thick, white-gray smoke that obscures the vision of anyone inside the cloud or outside looking into the cloud. The Smoke Grenade also has affiliation lighting, and will light up red for a Locust user or blue for a Gear user.

[edit] Gameplay

In both Gears of War and Gears of War 2, Smoke Grenades appear only in Multiplayer. All players start the round with one Smoke Grenade, but may choose to discard the Smoke Grenade in favor of Ink Grenades or Bolo Grenades on the map.

In Gears of War, the Smoke Grenade discharged a thick cloud of smoke, obscuring vision. However, the smoke cloud did not disable the reticle targeting system, which lets players know when an enemy is targeted through the reticle by changing the reticle's color from white to red.

In Gears of War 2, the Smoke Grenade detonates with a concussive blast in addition to the smoke cloud, knocking enemies to the grenade or, at the very least, stunning them for a short time. The smoke cloud disperses over a several seconds, but does disable the reticle targeting system. Like the Bolo Grenade and Ink Grenade, the Smoke Grenade can also be be reconfigured as a proximity mine by meleeing the grenade onto an object in the environment.

The knockdown ability was removed in Epic Games' 'Old School Weekend' event. Since then, the ability to knock players over has been removed and was changed to players doing the 'hand-over-eyes' stun animation. However, it should be noted that the knockdown ability still works when the user's XBox 360 is not connected to XBox LIVE (i.e. ethernet cable is unplugged/Wireless unplugged). Whether this was intentional by Epic Games is unknown.

[edit] Tactics

The Smoke Grenade has a number of uses:

The fundamental function of the Smoke Grenade is to create cover. The smoke cloud created by the Smoke Grenade prevents players from targeting enemies in or through the cloud by disabling the reticle targeting system. The Smoke Grenade can be used to provide cover on open-terrain maps (such as Blood Drive) to obscure the vision of enemy snipers. The Smoke Grenade's ability to disrupt the reticle targeting system effectively blinds players using the Torque Bow, Longshot Sniper Rifle, or Boomshot Grenade Launcher, who rely on the reticle targeting system. This can create the moment of distraction a team needs to evade a dangerous area, such as Courtyard or one of the open areas on Jacinto.

If downed while holding the smoke frag near enemies, you can self-detonate, stunning the enemies nearby, and giving a little extra time to crawl away, or to be revived.

The concussive blast added to the Smoke Grenade in Gears of War 2 gives the Smoke Grenade a secondary tactical function. If a player using a Meat Shield is hit exposed to the Smoke Grenade's concussive blast, the player will automatically drop the Meat Shield. The concussive blast is particularly effective in close-range combat, allowing players to gain an advantage over the disoriented enemy. Smoke Grenades can be particularly lethal when used in conjunction with the Lancer Assault Rifle's Chainsaw Bayonet, Gnasher Shotgun or Gorgon Pistol.

The Smoke Grenade can also be used to create a trap or set up an ambush by meleeing the grenade onto a wall. When set as proximity mine next to an Ink Grenade, the Smoke Grenade will disorients any enemy who triggers both grenades as the Ink Grenade deals damage.

With effective team coordination, the Smoke Grenade can be used to signal the location of enemies for allies in a good vantage point with the Boomshot, Longshot Sniper Rifle, or Mortar. The smoke cloud will also make enemies easier to detect, as they will cough loudly if they're near it.

The Smoke Grenade can trigger glitches, causing players to be killed by it. Because the Smoke Grenade swapped from is left behind, Smoke Grenades are quite a bit easier to get than Bolo or Ink Grenades.

[edit] Skorge Glitch

The smoke grenade is the key factor for an infamous glitch exclusive only to Skorge in mutiplayer. The glitch involves pressing the button A, B, X, or Y when the character is in midair or impacting the floor during a smoke grenade explosion. By mashing these buttons constantly inside the blast radius of a smoke grenade, the player will be fling midair again. The glitch can exploited to a player’s advantage as a means of escape, escalating to a higher or lower ledge, or flanking an unsuspected enemy. The glitch can also be used to reach new areas of a map that are normally inaccessible. Depending on the situation, this can be either good or bad (i.e. In the Ruins map, a person can get stuck on the pillars and trapped, or a person can fall into the Imulsion, which does nothing. However ,a player can land in certain part that will fall to his death).

[edit] Title Update 4

Because of numerous complaints regarding to the balancing of gameplay and the exploitation of glitches, the stun effect of the smoke grenade has been replaced with a cringe animation. So instead of being knocked out of his feet when a smoke is set off, the player will now cover his sides and remain stationary for a short period of time. Although after the Gearsiversary week they have altogether removed stun from smoke so it is just like Gears 1

[edit] Tips and Tricks

• On Security, if you place a smoke grenade on the wall in front of the laser gates to either the right or the left of the Mortar/Mulcher spawn and fire at the grenade exploding it, it is possible to be blown through the laser gate without dying. This is easier to do in Matchmaking than it is in custom games for some unknown reason.
• On Flood, if a smoke grenade explodes near you while you're at the Boomshot/Torque Bow spawn, it is possible that you'll get blown into the Imulsion behind you.
• If they are available, a good tactic is to tag a wall with both the Smoke grenade and an Ink or Bolo grenade. This way, the smoke will prevent escape (due to the stun) while the other grenade detonates and kills the enemy.
• A Smoke Grenade can kill a Sire when it explodes, although, no kills are counted towards the player who set or threw the grenade.