Gank

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Overview

Gank is a term created on MMORPGs, which stands for "gang kill".

To gank, or to go ganking (or gangbanging) is to carry out a sudden attack on an outnumbered enemy force for the purpose of killing one or more heroes for many posible reasons:

Ganking in order to slow down farming heroes, wether it is a tier 4 damage item on a carry, a Dagger on an initiator, or any other important item. This ganks are usually small skirmishes done early-mid game.
Getting gold and experience from the kills.
Ganking a lone hero, or a small group, to gain a pushing advantage if the game gets stalled. Killing an anti-pusher hero before attempting to multi push all 3 lanes, for example.

Observer wards are most useful, both offensively and defensively, depending where they are planted.

Wards located on the enemy forest, would give the location of jungling heroes, giving the chance to gank him.
Wards located on your own forest, most likely near the lane where the carry hero is supposed to farm, to warn him of incoming gank attempts.
Warding the rune spots can help allyed bottle users to refill and keep ganking, as well as warning if the enemy gets a hold of a powerful ganking rune (Haste and Invisibility).

On most heroes, a proper balance must be done between ganking and farming. A semy-carry hero who spent more time ganking than farming might end up underleveled and underfarmed compared to the enemy carry, leaving theyr team in a weak position late game if there are no other carry heroes.

List of Strong Gankers

Good gankers are heroes who can deal a lot of damage in a short time (burst damage), have a great mobility, can isolate enemy heroes, have some sort of disable (either a stun or a slow), or more likely a combination of all those.

Roamers are a specific kind of gankers who will spend most of the early-mid game ganking, neglecting farm and experience, leaving theyr lane very early in the game (usually around lvl 1 or 3). Roamer heroes usually have a very poor late game, and need very little items to contribute to theyr team. Some heroes capable of roaming are: Venomancer, Vengeful Spirit, Sven.

Burst damagers

Heroes with mobility

Isolators

Disablers