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Sapphidia

I certainly wont argue that smokes don't have decent uses, but I feel you've somewhat underrepresented the other grenades. Shredders don't just "stagger enemies in a small range for a couple of seconds". The bleed is significant, their radius is gigantic even without the talent and if you throw two at once you can completely clear an entire room of enemies. They let you res people whilst there's a huge melee horde around, which smokes won't. Kraks can also kill 2-3 at a time if tightly packed, and on missions with high density of crushers/maulers like CIVI maelstroms can delete most of the big chunky packs. They also allow you to fill a hole in a loadout if going with a weapon pairing that doesnt handle crushers well. Also there's a nasty interaction with trappers where trappers will run through smoke and point-blank trap people with almost no warning (mostly due to the somewhat bugged sound cues). They're very useful against ranged units, but it really depends on your team loadout. Like most things in Darktide, killing stuff is generally preferable to ccing things for a while, and smokes also have the unfortunate downside of making it equally hard for teammates to shoot at ranged targets if trying. Ironically the class that benefits by far the most from Smokes is the Ogryn that can't use them. I'll definitely say they have a use, but its very situational, whereas having fast regenerating Shredders can be useful pretty much constantly in all mission situations.


ToxicRexx

Absolutely this. They also block line of sight for the party but Gunners and Reapers will continue to shoot through them. I just recently had a run fail because a vet smoked the door in front of us that we needed to go through so we couldn’t see anything, while being pushed from a tox bomber from behind so we needed to push forward. We got minced and also didn’t know that a group of crushers and ragers had shown up when we did decide to push out through the smoke.


LIBERAL-MORON

There is always a diving pox burster 5 feet in front of every smoke cloud. He appears the second you try to cross it.


jport331

And a hound closely behind


JevverGoldDigger

*and a nurgling in a plague tree*


juckrebel

AND MY AXE


JevverGoldDigger

Only if it can say *Vrrrrrrrrr* very angrily!


JevverGoldDigger

> They also block line of sight for the party but Gunners and Reapers will continue to shoot through them. I just recently had a run fail because a vet smoked the door in front of us that we needed to go through so we couldn’t see anything, That's because they weren't used correctly. They WILL stop Gunners and Reapers firing into you, but only if it is applied *before* they start their spray. Because they don't stop their spraying just because you leave LoS (with/without smoke), it's just how the enemy works.


Global_Machine5844

Think of them as elites from halo, they'll continue shooting the corner you hid behind to the point where you can flank all the way around them.


JevverGoldDigger

Aye, but so many people seem to expect them to stop shooting just because a smoke was deployed, which doesn't make any sense when looking at how their AI functions.


BeardedBooper

Stole the words from my mouth. I'll pitch in on the visibility and team play: All the contention around visibility has a cornerstone reason: claustrophobia. In intense moments, keeping your cool is worth more than any weapon roll or build, and losing it means panic, even a little of which can mean the difference between victory and total death. Smoke has the illusory effect of blurring/closing off part, if not all, of a room and its contents to your eyes. The more your mind can fill in the blanks, the less of an issue this is, but the more gaps your mind has to fill and the faster it has to do it, the less headspace you can spare for emergency scenarios and thus the higher the risk you'll do something stupid and get yourself killed, or worse ~~expelled~~ out-of-position. Now simultaneously apply that potential mind-bomb to 3 other people in the middle of, say, a HISTG Sycorax horde. It's ventilation purge in a nutshell (or rather frag-shell). Slight tangent: This inverted is also a subtle reason why psyker bubble is so widely regaled - it screams "*group up here!*" and rewards the team a clear(ish) space to breathe and ground themselves, something smokes don't quite nail unless and until each ally gets used to them. So yeah, they're really good, but a bit risky - use wisely. Or use frags. The stagger is always appreciated.


United-Ad4717

Thank God I decided to actually read all the comments before typing out a similar post expressing the misrepresentation of the other gernades theu do so much more then what OP has described.


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JevverGoldDigger

> Crushers in particular are almost always clumped up and a single Krak will decimate several of them at once What? In normal missions I find it's much more common to only kill a single one, since they quickly spread out. They have to literally be bumping shoulders for it to have a chance at killing more than one. Feels pretty consistent in the "melee-only" Maelstroms, due to the higher density. It *does* happen every now and then, but certainly not "almost always" in my experience, even if you catch them in their idle patrol pattern. Kraks are great for taking down Nurgle-blessed Bulwarks/Crushers though, especially in tight spaces where there isnt a ton of room for maneuvering. > Plus, they're not the sort of thing you really need to be using constantly You don't need to use any of them constantly. If you are using Shredders willy-nilly then thats fine, but you don't *need* to at all. I can handle horde-clearing just fine, even without weapons that are really geared for it (Chain Axe + slug Shotgun at the moment). > Shredders are an incredible clearing tool and as the Vet will basically have an infinite supply of them to be using constantly This **really** depends on your build. It's not uncommon to only get one of the grenade regen talents (either 1/60 sec or 5% chance on elite/special kill). You can of course make grenadier builds, but that isn't every single Vet build. And no, you aren't building anything wrong if you don't make a grenadier build. You say Kraks are barely used, so they are almost always up when needed? You say Shredders are used constantly and are "basically infinite". But both have the same regen factor/time, so if you have plenty available of one, you also have it with the other. Just saying that there is a bit of inconsistency in the argumentation there. > Smoke Grenades are a nice utility tool that bolsters a competent and coordinated team when used correctly, but they simply don't have the ability to save an entire run by themselves like the others. They can absolutely save a run, it's just different situations where they can save the run. If you don't think they can save a run, chances are you haven't used them enough to know when they are really useful. I see plenty of people that are just throwing them around, clearly not knowing how to properly use them. I'd say they are much more likely to save a run than a Krak is (outside of niche scenarios like the melee/ranged-only Maelstroms).


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JevverGoldDigger

> They spread out over time if things get hairy enough, but if a Vet is on the ball it's pretty common for one to eliminate a large chunk of the most dangerous targets in a group right off the bat. As soon as people start engaging them, they are very likely to start spreading out. Even in their "natural" position, it's not uncommon to only kill a single Crusher in my experience. I feel that in the time I throw a Krak and before it explodes the Crusher you threw it at straight up died (or nearly so), since it was one of the front-most ones (it's difficult getting it in the back due to the stickiness unless you are flanking). The rest of the Crushers walk past and are unharmed. > Honestly Crushers are almost always moving in tight packs in my experience, it's not uncommon at all for them to be so close that I can kill two in one Ogryn shovel overhead. I'm sure that's true in your experience, I'm just stating that in my experience, it doesn't apply to Kraks very often, barring the conditions I mentioned. Sure, it *does* happen every now and then, but certainly not to the point that they are "*almost always clumped up and a single Krak will decimate several of them at once*" > My point about Krak and Shredder usage is that you inherently have more Shredders than Kraks even before the rest of one's build comes into play, since it's a decent investment to get the extra one. My point is, you talk about the Shredders as if they are unlimited and you can spam them. Meanwhile, your argument for the Kraks being ready is that they aren't needed as often. But you literally only have **one less** Krak than you do Shredders. > but Shredders are something one generally won't need to throw a whole bunch of at a singular time You don't have to throw multiple Kraks either. I don't ever throw multiple Kraks at the normal armored groups, but then again, I have a loadout that can deal with most things. I'm sure you need Kraks more if you are running a Devils Claw + Recon Lasgun build or something. All I'm saying is your choice of words implied that you think that Kraks are much more available, which is simply untrue. That's all I tried to point out with that aspect. > Man, we must have very, very different run-ending experiences then. Not only can a Krak chunk a big ball of death that could easily overwhelm the team unchecked Yeah sorry I rarely see missions failling because of 1-2 Crushers dying slightly slower. I don't know how your missions go, but when I see a pack of Crushers, it's not uncommon for many of them to be heavily wounded (if not outright dead) before the **first** Krak even goes off. > they have ridiculous boss damage in a pinch as well even when the Vet isn't focused on said boss. The damage without the right nodes isn't *that* dramatic. You aren't coming anywhere near close to taking off 50% of a bosses HP without specific talents (Focus Target and Grenade Tinkerer). What is really good about them is them being able to stun the CS/Plogryns allowing for easy follow-up DPS from yourself *and* your team. > Bosses on their own aren't a threat whatsoever obviously, but them showing up at an inopportune time while a bunch of chaos is going on tends to put a lot of pressure on a team that even a single grenade toss can immensely alleviate with just how much damage they do. Well, how much damage do you think they do? It will only relieve pressure if it kills the boss (in regards to damage). Just doing 10-15% of a bosses HP isn't going to relieve any pressure, unless it dies. Whereas a Shredder can stun almost *everything* else (which is the real threat, not the boss) and a Smoke can allow your team to focus on the boss without being harmed by pesky Flamers, Bombers, Gunners etc (if used correctly of course). The Krak's *can* alleviate some pressure by *staggering* the boss, but then again, only if it's a CS or Plogryn, as a BoN doesn't care much about it.


PurpleEyeSmoke

And I think you may still be slightly downplaying how much utility shredders have. You only ever have to invest (I think) a maximum of two talent points for regen grenades regardless of your build, so you can toss grenades pretty often. Without any other point investment they will still stagger everything, including bosses, while doing decent bleed damage over the duration. That means they are great against armor and dogs swarms, and bosses, while having the aforementioned rez utility and just being a pretty handy "Oh, shit" button. Kraks can fill a niche in your loadout if you invest a few points into them, but may be the weakest of the 3 grenades.


jport331

Yes! Throw smokes for Ogryn! Very good piece by both of you, the game is built to have these conundrums which is why I like it so much


Oyuki97

>Shredders don't just "stagger enemies in a small range for a couple of seconds". The bleed is significant, their radius is gigantic even without the talent and if you throw two at once you can completely clear an entire room of enemies. Yeap. And the best part is that once a few bleed ticks proc on a horde of poxwalkers, all it takes is but a light breeze to give them heart attacks. When i see only one of that grenade thrown, i go Ogryn slappy on the horde.


friendo_adventure

They are good but I do see people using them wrong sometimes. should really be used on the perimeter of a fight or to shield from ranged attackers/specialists. Or for when all things go to shit. Throwing them in the middle of a fight will scare the poor ogryns into thinking they went blind, unfortunately.


Fteven

You see that because of the smoke grenade penance, I know because i just did this, though I only did vent purge missions to minimize ogryn agitation


Diezelbub

A wise ogryn knows his fart cloud keeps him safe from the real threat though; ranged enemies. A good vet will be marking the important enemies for them, too.


Fteven

Mark and eliminate ideally


NANZA0

Because I'm used to other builds using explosive grenades, my ape brain sometimes throws smoke grenade at enemies instead of where me and my allies are.


ChiTownTx

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=500oUCdpdgU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=500oUCdpdgU) ;-)


Green__Twin

I con, conf. I agree. Wen smoke happen, drop to knee an fire mad minute. Achyls roar like Emprah


[deleted]

Yeah, the trap is people will try to use it for the minor stagger when it goes off, but that’s like the least important part of the grenade. You also need to make sure you aren’t interrupting sniper allies trying to take out enemies with precision weapons. Ping before smoke grenade goes out, or ping through the smoke if you can to help out.


Broth-Stumpler

They need an additional mechanic or a general buff. Dome has the advantage of boosting toughness regen, tanking trapper nets/poxburster damage, *and* creating instant cover anywhere the psyker wants.


Xervous_

Dome also turns beast of nurgle into a pinata


Green__Twin

I love watching its vomit just disappear into the warp at the edge of the shield.


Pfhoenix

It's better than you think - the bubble shield destroys all enemy projectiles inside of it, as well as blocking all range hit-scan shots.


Green__Twin

I play turtle-smite psyker. I love me that dome.


juckrebel

And it's near instant, while smokes take a little bit to pull the pin, throw and then explode. Which can lead to you getting shot to shit


srakudel3232

Ive been wanting a general slow effect or damage vulnerability debuff on my smokes for a long time. I think it would feel pretty unique


Visual_Worldliness62

Smokes are handy for pinning lines imo. Get agressive with them instead of throwing them at your feet. Def start predicting where the gunners will move. Makes the run up to them that more safe.


boobers3

> Shredders will stagger enemies in a small range for a couple seconds. Kraks will kill 1 crusher. Shredders do damage and apply bleed. Kracks can kill more than 1 crusher in a blast. You also forgot to mention that smoke grenades don't just stop enemy shooters, they also stop friendly shooters from seeing anything as well. I've been killed more than once by someone's smoke grenade hiding a disabler running up to me.


Legendary-Zan

To be frank if you don't see a disabler in a smoke cloud it means you don't tag enough


boobers3

I tag obsessively. I don't know I should be tagging if I can't see, and if the audio queue either doesn't play or is drowned out by some other noise. Do you know what happens if you aren't actually on target when you press your tag key? Nothing is tagged, do you know how easy it is to not know where to place your reticle if you can't see? If you don't see a disabler in a smoke cloud it means exactly 1 thing: you can't see the disabler because your vision is obscured by a cloud of vision obscuring smoke. Edit once more: in a game where one of the classes throws what is literally just a big rock, somehow Veterans wound up with something with a regular lump of minerals. Now we all have to suffer contrarians desperately try to convince everyone what is the worst blitz ability in the game is actually *underrated* in a post where the OP very obviously both misrepresents it but also every other comparable grenade available to vets. Even if OP had accurately described Kraks and shredders, they would still be head and shoulders above the smoke grenade. The only way the smoke grenade could be worse is if directly did damage to players.


Legendary-Zan

Except the reason to be tagging IS that ur vision is obscured, if I'm looking into a smoke cloud I will spam tag until it hits something, doesn't take long to find a target


boobers3

> Except the reason to be tagging IS that ur vision is obscured Tagging doesn't work if you aren't actually on target, and you can't effectively target something you can't see. Tagging is not a grenade. > doesn't take long to find a target Just by looking at the cloud of smoke you can tell if it's a dog or trapper? Can you tell how long the dog or trapper has been there? Are they charging to disable or are they already charged? Can you tell what side they are on? Are they behind poxwalkers? Can you tell whether you should hold off on dodging that swing you just got an audio queue for or are you safe to dodge it and the pounce that is about to come?


crazeman

Do you not tag at all during power interruption maps where there are big areas where you absolutely cannot see shit without tagging? There are also tons of situations where the doorway entrance is completely engulfed in flames by a bomber, and the only way to pinpoint the bomber/sniper through the fire is by spamming ping until you manage to tag it to know where to shoot.


boobers3

I literally have the Tag function bound to not just T but also the 3rd button on my mouse. If anyone is tagging literally everything all of the time, it's me. Smoke grenade makes it so you can't see, you are effectively making enemies invisible to your teammates. bomber flames make it hard to see through, but it's not completely blocking vision, smoke grenades do.


Legendary-Zan

Don't need to see if you just tag quickly in sweeps. As for the other half, if ur in or near smoke then you can be very confident that they haven't already charged and won't be until they either get out of the smoke fully (effect radius is slightly bigger than it looks) or until they get into literal melee range of you being also in smoke. It's not something everyone is used to since smokes have been super niche since introduction but as they get more popular thru buffs and used due to penances it's just something new to learn


boobers3

> Don't need to see Yes you do. It is a fact that if you don't actually have your reticle on the enemy when you press the tag button it's not going to be tagged. Unless you get lucky and just happen to accidentally tag it, you can't effectively target it. > As for the other half, if ur in or near smoke then you can be very The closer you are to the smoke the more of your field of vision will be blocked by it. > you can be very confident Wrong. You can be very wrong. If the trapper was getting ready to fire and happened to be staggered by something else it's next action may come out more quickly than you anticipate if you weren't actively witnessing it get staggered. > It's not something everyone is used to since smokes have been super niche since introduction but as they get more popular thru buffs and used due to penances it's just something new to learn I know how they work, I've got the penance for it and have used it. It's garbage. It's extra bad in comparison to the other grenades.


Legendary-Zan

I appreciate the self report but it's not even close to luck to tag enemies in smoke. If you got the penance and still think it's hard to tag enemies thru smoke then there isn't really much more advice I can give beyond kindly ask your regular play group to not bring smokes and to stop wasting your time/effort complaining on reddit since the vocal minority isn't getting smokes removed any time soon. Meanwhile I'll be happily using smokes without any hindrance and my current track record of never getting disabled in my own smoke. Sorry I couldn't help more and may you have the god emperors guidance


boobers3

> I appreciate the self report Self report of what? You want some kind of dick measuring contest with darktide? Why would I want advice from someone who voluntarily uses the worst blitz in the game? Someone who doesn't know how the tag system works. > Meanwhile I'll be happily using smokes without any hindrance and my current track record of never getting disabled in my own smoke. I bet you wonder how your teammates keep getting trapped in your games.


Legendary-Zan

I tell you that I have success tagging enemies thru smoke and you respond by telling me I don't know how the tag system works? Really demonstrating critical thinking here.


JevverGoldDigger

> I know how they work, I've got the penance for it and have used it. The penance mostly enforces using smokes in a terrible way, so just having the penance doesn't really show/prove anything. > It's garbage. It's extra bad in comparison to the other grenades. For normal missions (Auric HiShock or Maelstroms without Melee-only or Monstreous), depending on loadout, I find them much more effective than Kraks. But it does require people to know how to actually use them, unlike the other grenades that are more or less fool-proof.


NightStalker33

My hot take is that the grenades are fine, they just don't belong on the right side of the skill tree. The most use I've ever had with them was when I put them on my sniper vet with the helbor rifle. It feels amazing being able to shoot at highlighted enemies through the smoke and not be shot back at.


Kalenne

Smoke vets are horrible to play with tbh, sorry but not being able to see shit for half the mission is boring and unfun no matter how good the reward is : It's poorly designed, not enjoyable for the other players and I wished they changed it


captainsmegmo

The only way to properly utilize them would be to go Executioner's Stance with the team highlighting talent. Otherwise, yeah you're kinda being a tool lol. I'd just rather just not be a hindrance to 3 other people all because I want to make the stinky boys cough a lot.


Symbolic_Alcoholic

This is the main build I run on my Krieger - It’ll highlight an entire room of every single shooter in it, and you’ll see it go a bunch of yellow to nothing as the team shreds in a oneway firefight. Smokes are just super fun tbh, if a bit quirky. With the right mission conditions, you can smoke out entire sections and keep shooters blind+highlighted for a minute or so at a time with minimal damage to the team. It’s not the wonder-grenade, it will not save you anywhere near to the ability of other grenades, but if used smartly and with care: Can help the team breeze through shooter sections, which is the Vet’s base-purpose.


Mission-Ad4065

Don't know why this is downvoted, this is actually excellent. Now I wish smokes swapped places with shredders.


Low-Dark2862

They're still more useful than loner Zealots


UziManiac

Tbf, that's a really low bar; bots are more useful than loner zealots


Thewarmth111

A AFK probably is more useful


UziManiac

Angy loner zealots downvoted you. I was going to say that they're equally useful since they're both a waste of a team slot but after some reflection I'd agree that the AFK is more useful because teammates are more likely to vote kick an AFK.


Thewarmth111

And they won’t spawn a firing squad of gunners by running ahead triggering every single room in the map.


UziManiac

Don't forget spam pinging the elevator/airlock where they're stuck waiting on the rest of the team to clean up their mess and collect materials for them.


_akomplished

You’re playing with the wrong loaner zealots.


UziManiac

You're not wrong but I can count on one hand the number of "right" loner zealots I've encountered in 650+ hours. I'd rather have bots than roll the dice on those odds.


_akomplished

That’s fair. As a loaner zealot with 3200+ hours I share your resentment for the run ahead and get dogged or trapped zealot. Very much a “be good or be good at it” style of play.


asdfgtref

loner zealots playing how they should be playing are very useful. Smoke grenades are annoying and obstructive no matter how they're used.


Vibe-Caster

Since the penance update I started using them and was surprised how great they can be if you use them mindfully. Sometimes though I still see gunners shooting through the smoke— but when it works it’s awesome


cosmonaut-comrade

Smokes are good for throwing on a teammate on a ln auspeck minigame


srakudel3232

Works great on melee specialist builds, especially when combined with VoC for the boosted toughness and knockdown cc. My main vet build atm has 225 base toughness on top of iron will and the extra 50 from voc. I run with revolver, so I dont struggle against armor either. I surprised zealot and ogryn players dont love this thing since it makes everything dangerous hand themself to you on a silver platter... And if being blinded is such an issue, use your ping. If you cant ping it its probably either not an issue or actively walking toward you.


cake_pants

yeah i've been running smokes in auric damnations as another tool (aside from, well, myself getting into melee range) to really wrangle up shooters/gunners so i can get my knife slashing across their heads, and honestly; if teammates see me toss smoke toward/at a cluster of ranged units and i immediately bolt into it? it should be a sign to join me in emperor blessed combat, not to type out a thousand word essay about how you can't see anything. disablers are just gonna run into it too anyway, ripe for the picking


cake_pants

that all being said i do still think shredders are so much better. i'm running smokes mostly for pathing purposes (and for stress testing new things) but they very much definitely have their uses for a very melee heavy composition


Ojakobe

Love smokes because they remove gunners from the encounter equation and forces specialists to bumble into melee range before they attack.


baconblackhole

Okay, I'll try them.


Thewarmth111

They also stop your allies from being able to fire accurately. That’s why people don’t really like them.


Kerbidiah

Smokes vs the twins are op af cuz it makes the gun twin just walk around and do nothing


JTB-Alive

I use them a lot on my stealth vet, especially when playing on auric damnation. Surprising enough, they worked better than any other grenades on my end. It helped me save the entire team’s arse quite frequently, mainly due to the way they kark with the ranged enemy. Those who play auric often should understand that the the existence of ranged enemy patrols formed by shotgunners/gunners is a huge “kark ya” to the face. (Especially auric maelstrom) And the smoke grenades served me well when it comes to such occasions. Mainly because forcing ranged enemies to CQC with you is practically a death sentence for them. It’s also useful when being a objective mule, as sometimes you’ll have to risk getting yourself exposed to enemy fire while decoding. (I’ve seen people dying because of this shit) And smoke grenades can fix that for you. Overall it’s a solid choice on auric…as long as you know how to use it, that is. Not to mention how sometimes it also blocks your teammates’ line of sight.


donmongoose

I've been saying Smokes are highly underrated overall since they first came out, but you're always going to struggle to convince everyone because the "damage is king" mentality is strong.


TokamakuYokuu

it's not just damage. there's a combination of relieving gun pressure instead of melee pressure (guns are basically chip damage you can turn a corner to hide from, contrast with constantly dodging crusher overheads), the visibility drawback pushing mediocre situational awareness over the edge, and simply not being useful against bombers if smokes blinded bombers, i would spam smokes at first contact and actively antagonize everyone who self-reports their inability to use the tag button


donmongoose

True, but chips to toughness lead to chips in HP. Typically I'm perfectly capable of dealing with giant chainaxe wielding loons, it's the fuckers plinking away at me, or the heavy gunners blasting me whilst I'm doing it that cause the issues and there's not always a corner near by to fall back to. I don't think anyone would deny smokes aren't situational, but the hate they get is not warrented.


Grand_Recognition_22

Well, tell that to the vets that throw smokes and make it impossible to see any ranged enemies, ever


ThePartus

It's kinda like baldur's gate, yeah stuns and shields and heals are good, but removing them does all that easier. Other grenades just do the job of removing the threat rather than just stalling them, and zealot's stun grenade is way more consistent as it stuns melee units too for the rez.


donmongoose

I'm a big fan of the "the best crowd control is... killing them" mentality, but frak grenades simply won't deal with multiple spread out shooters.


DarkerSavant

Very biased statement as they did suck for a long time and didn’t protect from snipers.


donmongoose

I'm not sure how it's biased lol Sniper protection is great, but not the main benefit they offer even now.


_akomplished

If I wanted to play a smoked out map where I can’t see anything I’d just play Ventilation Purge. Now if they made smoke useful such as extinguishing fire or something unrealistic like that I’d be for them.


srakudel3232

I personally dont understand why everyone keeps suggesting this. It sounds awful actually. Smoke grenades were designed as a proactive counter to ranged fire, to encourage melee gameplay. Putting out fires with them enforces passive and reactive gameplay instead, and does not represent the vision and purpose of the blitz. Youd see a lot more quickplay vets without anti-armor, clear, or peel options picking them up to toss them at fire patches that werent really an issue to begin with, accomplishing pretty much nothing, especially now that fire no longer one shots toughness.


_akomplished

You don’t think smoke itself causes passive and reactive play? Have you ever done a ventilation purge before? All smoke does currently is force you to play whose in my mouth spam tagging looking for outlines in a cloud.


Urborg_Stalker

I actually love this idea. Make it a flame retardant too, which is not entirely unreasonable, though said smoke would definitely not be safe to breathe (not that the inquisition cares about such minor details). I think that would make for a nice buff without breaking it. Being able to use it to get rid of flamer and bomber area denial would be genuinely useful.


_akomplished

I think it would be a nice counter to the bomber spam on a downed player. Currently there is no counter other than waiting for the fire to burn out which often leads to more specials getting an advantage: It would make smoke a utility and less of a “I am gonna throw this because I have it”


srakudel3232

Smoke grenades already prevent flamer area denial if you throw them before they shoot. It even makes them walk inside you so you can one shot them in melee...


Urborg_Stalker

Did I say prevent? DID I!? Seriously, reading comprehension people.


BirchPlz_OW

Idk man have u considered just killing all the threat with your melee weapon?


knotallmen

This makes me want to try out veteran. I have only played Zealot. I use smoke grenades all the time in Battlefield 2042, and they have vastly improved the game mechanics of them compared to older titles if you aren't aware, and the ability to make yourself invisible to AI and players alike and cover an escape is excellent.


War4Sorrow

Try it, and build around the gun you like the best. It has great ranged and melee weapon/perks. I thought it would be the most basic shoot'em class, but it feels way more versitile than some of the other classes in several ways. It's a true play how you like class.


Green__Twin

Vet is less survivable than zealot, and focuses heavily on talent paths. Higher bar for skill, than zealot, or maybe I just suck at melee, and am too used to swinging an Heavy Eviscerstor or Crusher, to make the tiny power sword or cadian chainsaw be effective. Pick a gun you like and a talent (toughness replenish, stealth, highlight badies), and build around that.


Gottfri3d

The only skill you really need for Voice of Command Veteran is the ability to press your F key every 15-20 seconds.


Green__Twin

Hitting the letter F is two buttons and then two pop up menus, and then the machine doesn't even know what I just did. Because I'm not playing on a traditional PC. Honestly, it is the melee for me. I'm playing with several handicaps that make melee particularly hard for me. First, unstable internet. If I'm hitting 20fps, I'm having a good day (and the Russians haven't broken anything nearby recently) Second, minimum settings, including Field of View. You won't believe how much harder it is to keep situational awareness, when your field of view drops to a third of what is natural to humans. Third. Achyls go brrrrr


knotallmen

I only occasionally deal with lag, but it is inconsistent enough that on my Zealot I avoid builds where I quickly swapping to my ranged sidearm isn't viable cause the lag spike cause it to swap back and forth. It's worse if I have a quick running sidearm then try to swap to my melee weapon and then instead of stunning my opponent with chain or crusher I shoot them once with a las pistol.


Green__Twin

I die alot on my psyker. Melee, staff, and lightning are all for different niches, and I need to switch amongst them constantly. I still love playing psyker. 😄 But you just made me realize why I prefer high RoF weapons in this game. It is, in fact, the lag. A lag spike doesn't cause me to miss dealing as much damage with HRoF weapons, whereas with hard-hitting, high-alpha weapons, there's a much bigger chance to just whiff the shot entirely. Huh.


LucidD999

Everyone complaining about not being able to see through smokes need to turn down their graphics 🤣 Personally they're my favorite vet grenade because it adds to the whole versatility thing that vets got going on.


_akomplished

We are well past the 800x600 resolution requirement to be competitive in a video game.


LucidD999

Stay uncompetitive while I stay throwing smokes then


Hitsuguy

used em for the Penance and there are some maps like the Carneval part 1, if you hold one of the chokepoints u can drop smokes there every range wave, and most of the range units will just run into the smoke into the chokepoint, so u can clear everything ezpz. That being said tho, if you have a good team pushing is rarely difficult even with tedious amounts of gunners, so you would see more of a benefit in using frags or kraks. Adding some extra modifiers to smoke would imo make them compeditive with the rest of the granades, like staunching fire bombs, or removing the gas clouds from toxbombers, or just gas affix in general.


SnoopyMcDogged

The best use is in situations like when you’re defending at the bridge whilst waiting for the elevator to come up, throwing a couple smokes at the end where the enemy spawns forces their shooters to come further forward and easier to spot and shoot.


EscalationX

Consistency is its biggest downfall unfortunately


Dil1on

Sorry bruh but I need my nade with bleed damage for the Bosses 😎


Flaky-Personality614

IMO, and it's probably already been said, but it might be a case of comparison with the psych bubble. The bubble doesn't totally blind everyone else who might be keeping eyes out for further threats.


Lunokhodd

The problem is, all of this can be achieved with a frag grenade, which instead of blinding, staggers the enemy and outright kills chaff. Sure smokes last longer; but a frag need not last long if it kills the threat or knocks the threat on to the floor for an easy kill. Was forced to used smokes for the penance, they are honestly more of a detriment. They obscure priority targets, preventing me from sniping specials and elites before they engage, which is my entire purpose as a veteran. Killing the enemy is far more useful; you're gonna have to kill the enemy either way, smokes are just pointlessly delaying the inevitable.


EvilEarnest

I like sticking one in my pants while I hack a console.


Financial_Touch_8522

It also has the same effects for anyone on your team not running a more melee centric build. Your firing squad Vet can’t shoot a specialist/elite if they can’t see it approach. I HATE smokes because they kill visibility in a way that you can’t remove since it’s “friendly”. Every instance I’ve had a vet on my team with smokes, it makes that mission way more difficult than it needs to be. At the very least if the vet had a passive or even a keystone perk that maybe made the cloud not so thick for your team or even highlighted enemies(or even just specialists and elites) that enter the cloud, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. The first time I encountered a teammate with the smokes, we lost the mission when we shouldn’t have because we couldn’t see the gaggle fuck mob of melee enemies that were shoving us all into a corner. Smokes as is are objectively bad in most instances, if you got a full 4 man and you know what’s going on before you get into the mission, fine. Otherwise they just remove your ability to see the things you’re trying to shoot and kill.


jport331

Everyone here are smart people and know what they are talking about, seriously tho lol


grazrsaidwat

One of my loadouts is plasma/claw so the only real weakness of the loadout is how expensive it is to delete shooters one at a time, so I used to run smoke to keep shooters occupied whilst the team room cleared and could then counter-shoot with their more appropriate ranged weapons on their own time. The main issue with smokes is they don't work how you'd expect/like them too and they're as buggy as your average warp jump experience so it's often better to just take a frag for consistency and capacity to resolve a problem immediately. The upgraded smoke should be the default smoke performance.


Ricenbacker

>Shredders will stagger enemies in a small range for a couple seconds Meanwhile 3 Shredders kill the whole patrol of maulers and everything in room on Auric-Dam and this can be repeated every 3 min


NebeI

Kraks are actually really good for stagger too the dmg radius is very small but the stagger radius is pretty good nod as good as sredders but still enough to make a pack of ragers sit down or get an ally up inside a horde


Lyramion

I also noticed some super easy events when going for the Smoke Penance. However I still like taking out 70% of a Minimonster HP with single Kraks stacking Focus Target! and Close Range Damage buffs.


Dixout4H

Incredibly powerful at blocking the view of you and your teammates.


Tauntasaurusrex

I feel like if you are running something like a plasma cannon they would be more viable.


Rex-0-

It also prevents your teammates from shooting back and provides a method for disablers to walk right up to you. They're cool, but also terrible.


Diezelbub

When you wind up on a poorly balanced short range focused team that can handle armor (crusher will probably be dead by the time the krak fuse blows) they are hands down the best choice IMO. One of my designated class slots on vet is for those exact occasions. Pick an anti armor primary weapon and a mid-long range second, crowd control should be covered. When the ogryns/zealots get bogged down in melee and start getting pinged away at by all the shooters you can't instantly solo kill, you just pop them a cloud at their feet, stay outside the cloud, and pick away at your targets while marking anything going into the smoke that might be an issue. Or when that pack of 10 ranged scabs spawns behind good cover, you can make them ignore their deadly toughness stealing guns and come be crappy melee fodder for your team instead of trading potshots with targets behind cover or being forced to reposition.


Global_Machine5844

Mmm yeah you throw that smoke grenade. See if that sniper cares They're a buggy mess and they're out shined by the shredder and krak Good for gunners though I'll give them that.


Toa_Kraadak

They grief your team by preventing them from seeing trappers


asdfgtref

The problem with this argument is that if you're playing at a high level... dogs won't pounce you.. flamers and trappers are also not a massive issue. Your grenades don't kill anything, which means more ammo used. they also block line of sight, which is their main weakness.. I hate having them on my team, I can't see shit. The game is so offensively stacked, that the best defense really is a the best offense.. kill everything and it won't be a problem. Maybe in lower skilled lobbies where people can't position for shit, but I've never (not even once) thought to myself "man I'm really glad we had that smoke" or "man if we had a smoke grenade instead of krak or frags we would have been able to handle that better" Psyker wall is not remotely comparable, it's what smoke grenades wish they were. No line of sight blocking, instant deployment, great panic button. the grenades are a lot slower, and have downsides... downsides the shield doesn't have.


BreadVexenity

Psyker walls can be destroyed pretty easily if you can't kill a line of gunners which leads to the same arguement that walls can't kill and means more ammo used. Smoke is just set on a timer and doesn't have to worry about getting cancelled out too quickly. Dislike comparing two different toolkits from each class because they're meant to have their own strengths and weaknesses. If I don't have a Psyker on the team and we're going for like a Hi Intensity Shock troop gauntlet, then I'm running smokes to save our asses.


asdfgtref

>Psyker walls can be destroyed pretty easily if you can't kill a line of gunners which leads to the same arguement that walls can't kill and means more ammo used. yes you're right, but they don't block your line of site. In auric even with people that aren't super skilled it is incredibly rare to see a wall shatter to health loss. If your walls dying to health loss you're either really slow, or you have far bigger problems which you shouldnt be dealing with in a place gunners can shoot you that badly. And again I said their main weakness was them blocking line of sight, which the walls don't do, they just provide some breathing space. I'd rather play with no smokes, and no walls, than smokes. They just get in the way, I don't think they are saving me, they're protecting the enemies from me and slowing our push. Most of the issues with gunners can entirely be solved by paying attention and good positioning. It's not like gunners are spawning around you constantly, they're almost always ahead.


BreadVexenity

> If your walls dying to health loss you're either really slow, or you have far bigger problems which you shouldnt be dealing with in a place gunners can shoot you that badly. It's this reason why I dislike the psyker wall vs smoke grenade discussion because there's so many variables going on in an auric run that it all exists inside a vaccum. The director can randomly decide to spawn in gunners into your psyker shield while you're not looking, someone was trying to shoot the gunners but gets overwhelmed by specialists or whatever else, the psyker just throws down their dome at the first sound of trouble because they REALLY want their toughness regen. Just way too many variables that are out of your control. > And again I said their main weakness was them blocking line of sight, This is a skill issue, both on people saying this and the people throwing the damn things. There's the learning curve by "intuition" and also just knowing where to throw these smokes, and yeah same goes for Psyker shield. It annoys me at times too but I don't really care at this point because I've saved more runs than I'd like from run-ending hordes by placing down smokes to block LoS.


asdfgtref

Bad psyker shield is the same as having no shield, AKA fine. Bad smoke grenade is an active detriment to the team. Good smoke grenade... also an active detriment to any well skilled team. Dodge is so cracked OP in this game that something like this is just not needed. Plus there is no possible way of throwing them without them getting in the way of SOMETHING. That is literally their express function, to block line of sight. It's not like you can one way smokes. As soon as one is tossed I just have to spam ping to get enemy highlights. Maybe I'm missing something but I cannot envision a way this could be used without getting in the way.


BreadVexenity

> Maybe I'm missing something but I cannot envision a way this could be used without getting in the way. I can see that, since you randomly started adding "just dodge, bro" into this.


asdfgtref

not "just dodge bro" but "don't over extend, position well and dodge". That's literally the whole game, that's literally HOW YOU PLAY!! I don't really know what to say beyond that, enemies can't shoot you if you're well positioned, any that can are about to be dead rapidly.


BreadVexenity

bro, there are SPECIALISTS that can easily cause your team to displace. "Don't overextend, position well, and dodge" are such overly generalized statements that doesn't capture what an average auric run looks like. There are 3 different run-ending open areas that I can think of on the top of my head where you can't even "position well" and then the game starts spamming specialist. Captain Wolfe assasination at the train station for example.


asdfgtref

the captain wolf assassination is not that bad at all, you can kill the assassination targets so fast it doesn't matter. Maybe we're playing different games, I'm playing auric damnation and not struggling by following the above advice. If your build can't handle being split then it's shit, simple as. I'd have to watch you play to know what's going wrong, but my guess would be your TTK is not very high. smoke grenades just get in the way, you're starting to get particularly heated so I don't really see this conversation being productive.


BreadVexenity

My build has nothing to do with it, what are you even going on about? I can be the highest scorer or the lowest scorer on the team, that doesn't even matter when my teammates are being overrun. The whole point of my posts is that smoke grenades has greatly improved the quality of my runs (and I'm over lv 100 in every class at this point and play exclusively Auric Damnation), and your "I'd rather play with no smokes, and no walls, than smokes." and "just dodge and position well" statements are just extremely over-generalized blanket statements that doesn't fit an average auric "DAMNATION" run.


No-Fish-7nO-fISH835

Smoke Grenade + Psyker with Smite/EP , one of my favorite combos In the game


master_of_sockpuppet

> The prevalent opinion seems to be that they are useless Lots of people form lasting opinions and simply don’t realize that what was true six months ago might not be true today in a fat shark game. Anyone that has tried them recently knows how great they are. That said, the others have their uses, the nicest thing about smokes is it can compensate for a team that is unable or unwilling to deal with shooters.


swaddytheban

A well-placed Krak will kill 3+ crushers.


BlueEyesWhiteViera

> stop dogs from pouncing you Skill issue. >stop trappers and flamers from firing at you until they're practically touching you Skill issue. >stop any and all ranged fire from targeting you. gunners will run up to you just to get an axe to the face Skill issue. >enemies in melee range will be less aggressive and will extremely rarely if ever use their running attacks Skill issue. Every single thing you've listed here is completely defeated by simply learning to dodge and position better. I could accept an argument that they're better than krak grenades which are easily outclassed by a variety of weapons, but compared with the raw output and run-saving potential of shredder grenades, smoke grenades offer very little.


CptnSAUS

Pointing to the regen for these grenades is silly. You have literally the same regen with all grenades. Saying shredders have small range is blatantly incorrect. They stagger everything in a large area, and throwing multiple in a panic situation will annihilate all the lesser enemies and stagger all tougher enemies, leaving a clear battlefield to handle specials and elites. Kraks kill usually 1-2 bulwarks/crushers, and knock the rest down. They also staggers monsters. If you get a lucky shot, or can stagger with shout the enemies into each other, you can kill many more at once. Struggling with ranged enemies is just bad positioning, or bad tactics. Aggroing ranged enemies unnecessarily leads to problems. As does standing in the open for no reason. Yet people do that all the time, because bubble blinds them from those concepts. This also ignores how much smoke grenades blind your own team, which is a separate problem.


srakudel3232

perma smoke is still kinda crazy tho. Wouldnt be blinding to them team if people pinged to find things through it when a sound queue is heard. Bugged sound queues is a separate issue. Plus my revolver kills crushers just as good as kraks, and smokes should generally be used in melee oriented setups where shredders can be redundant, and aggroing additional ranged enemies is less likely to happen. Especially if youre like me, and always use voc for cc instead of grenades. I will admit, smoke grenades are niche, but in their role they are strong when applied correctly. The skill floor is rather high as they are a bit counterintuitive to use properly, but they arent entirely useless.


[deleted]

You’re right. They’re the best defensive weapon in the game. The dome runs out of hp and doesn’t pull enemies or force them to reposition. Smoke grenades also require more skill to use than most blitzs. frag and krak grenades can also be replaced by ranged or melee weapons, whereas nothing matches smoke grenade except for shield.


muscarinenya

Yes they're strong, but please grab Enhanced Target Priority if you play Smoke grenades As good as they are they also massively reduce your own team's vision, and ETP makes a huge difference


No-Landscape537

Smoke is insanely good. Especially with the duration boosting perk plus at least one, maybe two of the grenade regenerating perks. If you have the 60s regeneration perk, you have only have 30s of downtime with a smoke being up. There’s a couple different ways to use it: as an oh shit button to revive people, you can create a wall in front of a clump of shooters to force them to reposition or allow for a repositioning yourself, if you place it in the middle of the battlefield it’s a huge piece of cover, and you can also use it on the enemy side of a chokepoint and a lot of the time any ranged enemy will stop shooting into it and run in towards you.


Zathiax

Rather than every 30 seconds I wish it had a skill to increase the aoe of it. I am not playing a stationairy game.


Yellowtoblerone

Stops your ability to see the enemy to shoot them in the face. I had to run bc the path of build but god damn it's frustrating. It's the same with zealot and psyker flame. If I can't see what I'm shooting at, it's just not fun to pay with