Veteran smoke grenades could use improvement

[TwiceBorn]

I’ve been enjoying the Commando line (right side of the new Vet skill tree), but I wonder if the smoke grenades could be made more useful?

Right now, they seem to do absolutely nothing against melee enemies (so most enemies in the game). They can be useful against hordes of ranged mobs, but with the prevalence of Assail psykers nowadays, ranged mobs don’t feel as dangerous as they used to. As a result, I’ve had games where smoke grenades would sit in my pocket for most of the mission, while poor ol’ me faces a wall of Reapers and Crushers and laments that his grenades are of 0 use here unlike the frag and krak grenades.

I’m wondering if something like a “enemies within the smoke cloud take extra damage from the party” effect would be useful? You could justify it as like, the enemies have their vision obscured so they’re less aware of incoming attacks and thus take more damage. It could synergize with the Commando Vet’s stealth ability as well, especially if you take the feat that gives you extra Close damage upon breaking stealth.

[alsozara]

One of the problems with smokes to me is that if I have the time to pull out and aim a grenade to block LoS, I’d probably prefer to just peg a bleed nade or two a bit further down to where the enemies are.

Here’s what would genuinely make me consider smokes as offering some unique utility and application:

If you double tap the grenade button with smokes you quickly throw a smoke nade in front of you which goes off almost instantly. Bonus points if the grenade is also given a brief, light stun on initial explosion. That was it can also act as a decent sort of panic button when you’re pinned by overwhelming ranged fire.