Is it viable to use smite in lane?

Lissala·Jul 20, 2019·1 votes·1,277 views

I've noticed some players attempting to use smite as a laner (mostly top, sometimes I see it on ADC as well, rarely mid) and I was wondering about the viability of it. Is it really beneficial to use smite over other summoner spells? What are the advantages, and is it only viable on specific champions or could any laner make a case to use it? On the contrary, is it viable at all or are you just putting yourself at a disadvantage if you choose it?

8 Comments

DuskDaUmbreonJul 20, 20191 votes

I'd imagine it's more of a crutch to get cannon, rather than anything. Might be useful for hard matchups to help stay relevant in CS. Might also be useful for later on, since now you have two champions able to contest baron rather than just one.

Realistically, though, they probably have no idea what they're doing or they forgot they had smite.

BeersteinJul 20, 20191 votes

Soraka can use it for a heal on nearby jg to keep her ADC in Lane longer but eh. I think it's good for people that never use their exhaust/ignite, which is most iron-low silver players, lol. Better smite than nothing.

Midg3tJul 20, 20191 votes

Well youre not at a disadvantage, but what do you want to do with it? If it's for securing jg objectives, that's your jg's job. If it's for securing cannon creeps, you already have a rune for that. And another thing is if it's worth taking over other summs? I would personally say not rly. Other summs are more useful in more situations than smite. And if I remember correctly you get less gold from lane creeps if you have item 1041 . (assuming you wanna build jg item in the lane).

so tl;dr smite in lane has very limited usage and it's not rly worth taking over other summoner spells.

letsfeedtogetherJul 20, 20191 votes

Mages with spell book only.

420 gramsJul 20, 20191 votes

Mages will take it to get the jungle item, which is a cheaper ludens. In lane, you can often walk into your jungle and smite a camp for a small hp boost. Probably still not worth taking it over another summoner spell, but it's not like it's complete dead weight. Be careful of the monster hunter passive though.

Agent CorgiJul 20, 20191 votes

Good question and honestly, it's a tricky one. I think the best answer I could give is that Lane Smite only works on certain conditions.

Toplane: Certain Tanks like Tahm Kench & Sion can make exceptional use of Cinderhulk's 15% Bonus HP. Tahm using it since his Passive Damage scales on HP & Sion can use it with the Demolish Rune.

Hypothetically, you could run it on Cho'Gath since his Ulti scales off HP as well as AP. However I'm sure Cho would rather buy other items over Cinderhulk.

Mid: This is kinda strange, but I can understand it somewhat. Runic Echoes is essentially Ludens Echo, except it lacks Luden's AP/Additional 10%CDR. The upside to getting it is that it's MUCH cheaper than Luden's & you have Runic Echoes Mana Restore passive (procc'ing Runic Echoes on a monster camp restores a percentage of missing mana).

I actually tried running Summoner Spellbook (took smite at champion select) on Malzahar once. Didn't win, but I did hold my own Early to Mid game just fine.

xDogMeatxJul 20, 20191 votes

mages dont need money as much as adcs so as a quick mana restoration for the cost of stats with a hp boost smite vs raptors. it could work to sustain your mana if you desperately need it on some very situational matchups.