I played a bunch of smoke grenade, exec stance, marksman focus vet on T5 auric today (ty FS for the fix to takedown and surge btw! ^.^) and came away thinking it needs some tweaking. This is not a revolutionary opinion, I know… BUT I think with a little love, smoke could be a solid opinion close to as is!
I was running approx. this → Smokey Vet - Darktide WH40k - Games Lantern
My general gameplan was find a good line of sight spot that was out of my team’s way, drop a smoke at my feet, and ult in smoke. Being in smoke made ranged units forget about me which was super nice and made me feel safe. Like a make-your-own-camo. With keystone stacks, I was 1 headshot’ing entire lines of shooters and gunners. I did start to run into a couple issues though.
-
I’d like it if Specials respected me hiding in smoke. I’m not talking muties or dogs (although it’d be nice if they respected smoke too). Nah, like Snipers and Flamers specifically. They ignored my smoke and fired into it, forcing me out of my hidey hole and wasting my grenade. I think it’d be nice if they were either forced into melee or forgot about you while covered.
-
There’s not enough knockback to the initial grenade puff. I can’t push a boss with it? I think it’d be nice for clutches or cliffs but ok, fair. I can’t push a pouncing dog with it? C’moooooon. I timed the detention to block for a respawn rez and everything! Sometimes I need the grenade as a defensive option and if the initial puff did a similar knockdown to frag grenade or VoC, it’d be a great asset.
-
I think there needs to be a more consistent shape to the cloud + a better visual indicator you’re getting covered by smoke while in smoke. Looking at it from outside it, the cloud feels hazy and I’m unsure when near the edges if I’m actually covered or not. It’d be nice if it was a consistent shape like Psyker bubble. Regarding being inside the cloud, a distinct visual indicator would be nice to let me know I’m “covered”, like stealthing on vet / zealot.
-
The grenade does nothing against melee enemies, especially melee elites. My only idea is that maybe the grenade grants stealth, even if only for the vet, but I acknowledge that might be too strong. I just know it sucks big time that I have 0 recourse from armor with smoke when the other grenades both heavily stagger and do damage to them.
So yeah! My takeaway is that the grenade has some really good traits defensively that I’d like to see enhanced but as is feels pretty underwhelming compared to the other nade options. I’m sure y’all (Fatshark) have seen other feedback on smoke but I wanted to throw my 2 cents in :3