So I’ve seen a video recently discussing about Smoke grenades, and I’m sure everyone the community has their own takes about how it should be buffed, shifted, made easier to use, etc. Feel free to discuss about that too.
I read an idea from the comments of said video (thank you torm0 if you’re reading this) about smoke grenades potentially buffing allies like how the Pox Gas buffs enemies. This reminded me heavily of the recent (to me) Boons in the Vermintide 2 Chaos Wastes about your bombs consecrating the ground and giving things like cooldown reduction, crit chance, attack speed or even just a straight up power buff in a limited area for limited time.
What are your guys thoughts? It seems like a decent change, but with how many nades a Vet can chuck with his grenade regen talents, it’ll for sure have to be toned down compared to VT2. I do like the thematic idea of some sort of stimulant gas though!
It should make you happy, and then hungry 
I am interested in the use cases of smoke grenades, as if they also provide a buff then that would change the decision-making around playing with them. Instead of porta-cover they become a buff area, so throwing it at enemies may be less desirable in favour of sitting in it. Is this what you do typically? I honestly have no idea how to use the dang things.
as far as I know, its a line of sight blocker and reduces enemy visual range… and that’s about it (with some stagger when it first goes off)
this video I think goes over pretty much everything a smoke does and doesn’t do, and is the video I was referring to in my OP. smokes are pretty janky as of right now.
If they were to be made into a buff area, than how they effect dogs and trappers need to change. If you are unable to kill them in time, they will net/pounce you on melee range in the smoke, close enough where you can’t push or dodge them away respectively. This would be huge in even making the current grenade more useful.
As for what the smoke could do? I have no idea. I think they need a radical change to be better, but I don’t know whay that would be.
Smokes continue to be the most misunderstood item in this game, So I shall take this moment to describe there function, as I don’t use them on every build, but they are absolutely INCREDIBLE for the used case they are made for.
And that is for dropping line of sight.
One might wonder what that does? Well, Dogs can’t jump on you unless they are in the smoke cloud, making them infinitely easier to deal with as you often can just mistakenly knock them around by meleeing within it. Trappers are a bit more finicky, but they often have to be a lot more ‘present’ to shoot you, which is also a benefit though often they tend to just say ‘I don’t care’ and shoot you from normal ranges anyway.
But the main thing it does, is make you COMPLETELY IMMUNE TO THINGS THAT SHOOT YOU.
Reapers, no idea where you are, gunners, will lose track of you instantly and ‘finish their volley’ on the outer edge of where they last saw you. Small little annoying guys with rifles? run up to try and melee you cause they got no idea where you went.
It’s basically a Psyker bubble that will ALWAYS last 30 seconds on a 60 second cooldown if you build right. They make doing various objectives a breeze, they make protecting your team a cake walk, and they single handedly make Melee Veteran not just viable, but INSANELY strong (regardless of Dueling sword being broken AF). They can also be used on a gunner veteran to sure up your melee game a little bit with the melee damage node, while also making firing at any high value target infinitely easy as they don’t have the pleasure of firing/suppressing you back. (sure this can be ignored with determined but you also won’t take chip damage from gun fire that isn’t happening).
It’s a niche item for sure, but there’s a reason there’s a full 10% melee damage node right after it. It fills a void and lets a Veteran smoke off choke points that then force all the enemies to funnel and get absolutely demolished, while also being instant cover that lets you drop out of gunner fire and ignore it completely for a very long duration. It’s very effective, made even more so by coupling it with shout, allowing you to to knock enemies out of your smoke cloud, forcing them to re-engage within it before they can start trying to melee you.
That, ALL being said…one buff I did see that I think would be awesome, is if they did what they apparently do in CS, which is snuff out fire. And by extension, ‘push out’ tox bomber gas. I feel that would be an extension of their ‘utility focused’ purpose, while also just being, so friggen useful.
- Larger smoke area (like pox bomber does)
- The possibility to see enemies inside the smoke (it could be a special/elite highlighting, or a thin effect inside the fog and darker outside of the area, I prefer the second solution)
- a suppressing effect to enemies that applies each X seconds until the fog disappears. The idea behind is that the smoke could disturb enemies
But more I think to them, less I would want something that buff… it would make no sense.
But the suppressing effect, I would love it.
Please no. Everytime someone throws one it tanks my framerate. I’ve had crashes because of it and avoid them like the plague, and the last thing I need is someone purposefully throwing them on me.
It reduces my visual range. By about enough that some melee weapons reach further than I can see in them.
I do wonder how we have mods that remove the blocking forcefield from forceswords, makes shields invisible, or reduces the size of flamer flames, yet we have no mod that just deletes the smoke texture. I still wouldn’t use them, but at least I could ignore them.
I personally consider it a point tax on melee veteran: Spend an extra point to path around it or give up the usage of grenades.
I actually thought of the same thing.
The smoke grenade could apply a buff/debuff (that sticks for a few seconds) to allies/enemies, that applies the same outlines to specialists and elites, that the volley fire bonus talent adds.
The clouded vision would no longer matter as much for players, since they would now have an enhanced awareness of dangerous enemies, instead of barely seeing them.
And the grenade could be used as an opener, when entering a room, allowing players to see what is in there, before entering. Or when the team is in a bit if a chaotic situation, where the enhanced awareness (on top of the ranged protection) may help.
Rename the thing to „recon grenade“ and now it makes sense that it produces smoke as well as providing a scanner function.
Alternatively, it could be turned into a flash bang.
Basically like the zealot stun grenade, but with a much shorter fuse time, a larger aoe and short duration (potentially longer duration for ranged units).
Agree, that’s my main concern with them.
That’s why I advocate that the fog should be darker when you’re outside of it and thinner inside.
That’s strange and sad.
You have mods that can lower the particles of smoke grenades, but I don’t know if you can use them (but I suppose as on console I doubt such crashes happen).
It’s a shame IR goggles have been uninvented 40,000 years from now. Then smoke would feel less of a team penalty.
Having a helmet item slot to equip thermal imaging (activated on button press) would be good. Or move the flashlight up there instead; so you get to choose between the two with pros/cons to each. Also you can bring in a cold enemy that’s invisible to IR - etc. You get the idea.
One for DarkTide 2 maybe.
There is one: remove them from the game. I was a proponent of smoke grenades for Ogryn before the talent tree rework. Not anymore, average player cannot be trusted with them anyway. You are supposed to blind enemy shooters with them, not your team, and this is exactly what an average monkey does, blinds their team.
You guys know you can use smoke nades with exe stance? Highlighting all the dangerous guys for your team while completely shutting down ranged threats? It’s the ultimate tactical flex you can run on vet. Gotta be Hella good on your melee though
But I admit the grenade skills are not as thought through for smoke nades as for the other two.
The skill that lets you throw two nades at a time… Maybe it should be fixed to always add a frag nade instead of the currently equipped blitz.
The skill that doubles your uptime while increasing other nades by 50%… Maybe base duration should be longer and this should only add 50% duration. And why is that not a (three) blitz augment node(s)???
5% chance to gain a nade on elite kill… Useless on some maps, overly regen on others.
If it highlighted Elites and Specialists through the smoke for everyone in Coherency it would be significantly better. Removing corruption while standing inside the cloud would also be great without being too overpowered.
True but it’s silly that Exe stance is required to do that. The teammates didn’t ask to have their vision obstructed by smoke suddenly, smokes should be changed so Elites/Specs are highlighted automatically for teammates through the smoke.
I never use that crap on my Veteran because i find it infuriating whenever somebody uses it in a mission.
I don’t know how effective it is on the AI but it sure as F obscures my vision and has a negative effect on the gameplay.
Every enemy that walks through it should be highlighted! That’s F’in no brainer but then again Fatshart has been mishandling this thing since day 1.
IMO Smokes could be like our own Tox Gas grenades - debuff enemies by slowing them, buff us with toughness regen. Throw in stagger when they explode on top of that (enough to interrupt anything except monstrosities, but not throw enemies to the ground like Shredders do) and I think they’d be both pretty useful and in line with other options.
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