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Smokescreen might be the single most broken ability in the game


Zenix.6198

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@Leonidrex.5649 said:instead of making up that you can JuMp OvEr ThE fIeLd.use daggerstorm in it and see if you are blinded during it. your video proves nothing

pretty sure I just proved you can jump over the field and land attack.

did you see the heartseeker land?

because it did.

so did the bull charge, both attacks hit.

but i am wrong about evading the blind.

im going to make a compliation of all the attacks from all the classes that can deal damage and ways to handle because players are acting like there is nothing they can do.

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@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:instead of making up that you can JuMp OvEr ThE fIeLd.use daggerstorm in it and see if you are blinded during it. your video proves nothing

pretty sure I just proved you can jump over the field and land attack.

did you see the heartseeker land?

because it did.

so did the bull charge, both attacks hit.

but i am wrong about evading the blind.

im going to make a compliation of all the attacks from all the classes that can deal damage and ways to handle because players are acting like there is nothing they can do.

your jump had NOTHING to do with it.you were about 0,5s in the field and charged between pulses.so unless you have 140IQ and can time the pulses, you had 50% chance of landing it, thats assuming the thief stands still and doesnt dodge, or that thief stands in the middle. could have walked to the other end and you would be longer in the field, thus have bigger chance of not landin the hit.

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@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:instead of making up that you can JuMp OvEr ThE fIeLd.use daggerstorm in it and see if you are blinded during it. your video proves nothing

pretty sure I just proved you can jump over the field and land attack.

did you see the heartseeker land?

because it did.

so did the bull charge, both attacks hit.

but i am wrong about evading the blind.

im going to make a compliation of all the attacks from all the classes that can deal damage and ways to handle because players are acting like there is nothing they can do.

your jump had NOTHING to do with it.you were about 0,5s in the field and charged between pulses.so unless you have 140IQ and can time the pulses, you had 50% chance of landing it, thats assuming the thief stands still and doesnt dodge, or that thief stands in the middle. could have walked to the other end and you would be longer in the field, thus have bigger chance of not landin the hit.

Ye, im pretty sure thats what happened there as well. I don't think it took longer than a second to connect those skills as you entered the field in the video, therefor not applying the blind. Im fairly certain it simply connected before the first pulse.Otherwise this would also imply that you can jump over dmging fields....which you can't.

As said. I bull's charged through a smoke screen (tho I was fairly close to it at animation start) and got blinded as I went fully through it.

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@Zenix.6198 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:instead of making up that you can JuMp OvEr ThE fIeLd.use daggerstorm in it and see if you are blinded during it. your video proves nothing

pretty sure I just proved you can jump over the field and land attack.

did you see the heartseeker land?

because it did.

so did the bull charge, both attacks hit.

but i am wrong about evading the blind.

im going to make a compliation of all the attacks from all the classes that can deal damage and ways to handle because players are acting like there is nothing they can do.

your jump had NOTHING to do with it.you were about 0,5s in the field and charged between pulses.so unless you have 140IQ and can time the pulses, you had 50% chance of landing it, thats assuming the thief stands still and doesnt dodge, or that thief stands in the middle. could have walked to the other end and you would be longer in the field, thus have bigger chance of not landin the hit.

Ye, im pretty sure thats what happened there as well. I don't think it took longer than a second to connect those skills as you entered the field in the video, therefor not applying the blind. Im fairly certain it simply connected
before
the first pulse.Otherwise this would also imply that you can jump over dmging fields....which you can't.

As said. I bull's charged through a smoke screen (tho I was fairly close to it at animation start) and got blinded as I went fully through it.

Lol I'll go back and start from the same spot in the ground

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@Crab Fear.1624 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:instead of making up that you can JuMp OvEr ThE fIeLd.use daggerstorm in it and see if you are blinded during it. your video proves nothing

pretty sure I just proved you can jump over the field and land attack.

did you see the heartseeker land?

because it did.

so did the bull charge, both attacks hit.

but i am wrong about evading the blind.

im going to make a compliation of all the attacks from all the classes that can deal damage and ways to handle because players are acting like there is nothing they can do.

your jump had NOTHING to do with it.you were about 0,5s in the field and charged between pulses.so unless you have 140IQ and can time the pulses, you had 50% chance of landing it, thats assuming the thief stands still and doesnt dodge, or that thief stands in the middle. could have walked to the other end and you would be longer in the field, thus have bigger chance of not landin the hit.

Ye, im pretty sure thats what happened there as well. I don't think it took longer than a second to connect those skills as you entered the field in the video, therefor not applying the blind. Im fairly certain it simply connected
before
the first pulse.Otherwise this would also imply that you can jump over dmging fields....which you can't.

As said. I bull's charged through a smoke screen (tho I was fairly close to it at animation start) and got blinded as I went fully through it.

Lol I'll go back and start from the same spot in the ground

I'll put the video up

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@Zenix.6198 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:instead of making up that you can JuMp OvEr ThE fIeLd.use daggerstorm in it and see if you are blinded during it. your video proves nothing

pretty sure I just proved you can jump over the field and land attack.

did you see the heartseeker land?

because it did.

so did the bull charge, both attacks hit.

but i am wrong about evading the blind.

im going to make a compliation of all the attacks from all the classes that can deal damage and ways to handle because players are acting like there is nothing they can do.

your jump had NOTHING to do with it.you were about 0,5s in the field and charged between pulses.so unless you have 140IQ and can time the pulses, you had 50% chance of landing it, thats assuming the thief stands still and doesnt dodge, or that thief stands in the middle. could have walked to the other end and you would be longer in the field, thus have bigger chance of not landin the hit.

Ye, im pretty sure thats what happened there as well. I don't think it took longer than a second to connect those skills as you entered the field in the video, therefor not applying the blind. Im fairly certain it simply connected
before
the first pulse.Otherwise this would also imply that you can jump over dmging fields....which you can't.

As said. I bull's charged through a smoke screen (tho I was fairly close to it at animation start) and got blinded as I went fully through it.

welcome to the world of SBs, mate~

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This whole argument is dumbPeople need to remember that this skill is designed to reduce incoming damage potential and relieve pressure off a thief for a short time.

Yes even all your multi hits wont land which is ok thats the point of the skillYes it hard to fight while standing in it but thats the point of the skill why are you standing in it if you didnt have a plan to handle it?

There are so many skills in the game that will cover the entire aoe of the smoke field hit multiple times and will be promised hits if standing at its edge or even inside itEle, if weaver pulse your aoes and use sword fire 2 you are promised to get a few applications of burn in there remember you wont hit all of them the point of the skill is to reduce incoming damage potential its a defensive skill OR use tempest and just overload air at the rings edge pretty much still covers the entire thing.Necromancers, use literally any aoe skill right on the edge of the ring. OR stand in the ring and press Core shroud 5 then 4, OR stand in the ring and press Reaper shroud 4, OR if scourge stand on the rings edge and use shade aoe, staff marks, etc.Rangers, Stand outside the ring and use long bow 5 OR stand in the ring and use OH axe 5 (promise you they wont stay in the ring and the skill covers the whole thing) You do way more damage than you think and this skill hits so rapidly it practically counters the smoke ring.Warriors, Use resistance or simply cleave through with greatsword attacks. or because you are durable wait it out you have that power.Revs, Staff 5 thats about the best you can do unless condi then just start dumping aoes on the rings edge facing inside the ring.Guardians, just drop symbols and swing (stand at rings edge for better results...) firebrands have no excuse their kits completely counter smoke ring in several ways. in both multi hit resistance categories not to mention you can pull them out of it.Thief, ok yeah so outside of dagger storm you are kind screwd either go invis or just leave for 7 seconds lol stealth wars 2Mesmer, have you tried pushing them with the GS other than that jus wait 7 seconds but thief is a hard counter to you anyways and you should consider that before hand that the matchup is not easy for you.

In a nut shell the skill has counter-play by design of it and everyone elses skills.Stop trying to get it nerfed to the point its not useable just because you dont want to learn how to play around something.This time its smokescreen next time it will be dagger storm or some insanity what ever you think makes you lose.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:People were like "omg it's so bad there's no room to fit it on your bar."

That's because a good portion of people don't think about anything that Metabattle/a streamer doesn't spoonfeed them.It's definitely not a bad skill.

lol even with the longer cooldown the blind interval should by 3 seconds to account for the size of the ring and the projectile destruction.

No. That just lets people walk into the field, tap you, then use a reveal skill. It takes all of the defensive aspect out of it and subjects it to anyone with a reveal on demand.@shadowpass.4236 said:

I say the same about CPC on necro. Perma poison, weakness, and projectile destruction for 8 seconds every 20 seconds while traited is NUTS.

Also, the blind interval needs to be increased on Smokescreen. Black Powder is 2s interval but it has a much smaller radius and doesn't destroy projectiles. The current iteration let me basically facetank on point as anything that wasn't a melee-multi hit wouldn't be able to hit me. Interval should go up to 3s imo.Are we going to talk about Creating Muddy Terrain on heal which applies slow and reducing the application intervals on that as well? Or is healing, immobilizing someone (sometimes from stealth) for free burst ok?

@saerni.2584 said:But you are talking about the Staff acro build that also had super evade uptime. It’s easy to see how that would be busted to add in any duration area blind.

How about this...if we are talking about making a bigger change.

Smoke Screen:
  • Duration: 10
  • Cooldown: 40
  • Blind: 2 second intervals
  • Absorbs projectiles
  • Unblockable

Longer cooldown but longer duration (more chance to use it to stack stealth) but longer blind interval (more subject to cleave than before).

CD 40, 10 duration, 30 second downtime.

The blind interval is honestly way to long here every 2 seconds is enough for a thief to have all their hp erased at most a 1s interval if anythingDuration remains the samePut the cd back to where they originally wanted to move it to which is 35sBlind application every 1sAbsorbs projectilesUnblockable.

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:

god please no, play projectile heavy build and you will realise how miserable smoke field is to play against.10s of kitten you to any proj is too much

But thats the risk you take when using a projectile heavy build i dont agree with the concept of nerfing 1 skill just because "my build is projectile heavy!" when you made the choice to do such a thing. This is bad balancing concept nerf x skill because my build gets shut down by that skill for a short time because i chose to be mostly projectile based. Thats like saying nerf long bow and secpter / staff based attacks because my build is melee only and i have no ranged attacks.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:People were like "omg it's so bad there's no room to fit it on your bar."

That's because a good portion of people don't think about anything that Metabattle/a streamer doesn't spoonfeed them.It's definitely not a bad skill.

lol even with the longer cooldown the blind interval should by 3 seconds to account for the size of the ring and the projectile destruction.

No. That just lets people walk into the field, tap you, then use a reveal skill. It takes all of the defensive aspect out of it and subjects it to anyone with a reveal on demand.@shadowpass.4236 said:

I say the same about CPC on necro. Perma poison, weakness, and projectile destruction for 8 seconds every 20 seconds while traited is NUTS.

Also, the blind interval needs to be increased on Smokescreen. Black Powder is 2s interval but it has a much smaller radius and doesn't destroy projectiles. The current iteration let me basically facetank on point as anything that wasn't a melee-multi hit wouldn't be able to hit me. Interval should go up to 3s imo.Are we going to talk about Creating Muddy Terrain on heal which applies slow and reducing the application intervals on that as well? Or is healing, immobilizing someone (sometimes from stealth) for free burst ok?

So a dodgeable, blockable, no field, 5s duration, single-cleansable .75s-1s cast time 1 second immobilize is on the same level as the 1/2s cast time 7 second duration, 25 second cooldown, full-point projectile denial + unblockable pulsing AoE blinds every SECOND, smoke field from Smokescreen or 8 second duration, 20 second traited cooldown, 40% uptime unblockable pulsing AoE poison + weakness + projectile denial, poison field from Corrosive Poison Cloud?

If you get immobilized for 1 second in a big brown puddle every 20 seconds when you know the ranger has his heal up, maybe swap weapons with cleansing sigil or cleanse + dodge to avoid the burst if the pet gets swapped to something like Gazelle where you want to avoid the Head Toss + ranger Maul. Unfortunately for the other 2 utilities, the only way to counter them is through resistance otherwise your damage is completely neutered for long periods of time (not to mention both classes have and use boon strip lol).

Good comparison though! /s

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@Leonidrex.5649 said:@ZDragon.3046 THis is exactly what balancing is.There is too much reward in this ability without accounting for proj hate. So it kitten you if you dont have proj, and EXPECIALLY kitten you if you do have projectiles.

Sorry no if you chose to be projectile based you shouldnt be upset when skills are used that counter projectiles. There is no point in screaming nerf x or y when you could use other tools that counter those tools or are not subject to the same weakness as being projectile base.

Its the same when you are melee based and someone guns you down because they have mobility to out run you for at least 7 seconds or more making them for the most part perfectly safe. I cant say nerf blink and staff 2 because im playing a warrior.. with no ranged weapon it just makes no sense.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:People were like "omg it's so bad there's no room to fit it on your bar."

That's because a good portion of people don't think about anything that Metabattle/a streamer doesn't spoonfeed them.It's definitely not a bad skill.

lol even with the longer cooldown the blind interval should by 3 seconds to account for the size of the ring and the projectile destruction.

No. That just lets people walk into the field, tap you, then use a reveal skill. It takes all of the defensive aspect out of it and subjects it to anyone with a reveal on demand.@shadowpass.4236 said:

I say the same about CPC on necro. Perma poison, weakness, and projectile destruction for 8 seconds every 20 seconds while traited is NUTS.

Also, the blind interval needs to be increased on Smokescreen. Black Powder is 2s interval but it has a much smaller radius and doesn't destroy projectiles. The current iteration let me basically facetank on point as anything that wasn't a melee-multi hit wouldn't be able to hit me. Interval should go up to 3s imo.Are we going to talk about Creating Muddy Terrain on heal which applies slow and reducing the application intervals on that as well? Or is healing, immobilizing someone (sometimes from stealth) for free burst ok?

So a dodgeable, blockable, no field, 5s duration, single-cleansable .75s-1s cast time 1 second immobilize is on the same level as the 1/2s cast time 7 second duration, 25 second cooldown, full-point projectile denial +
unblockable
pulsing AoE blinds every SECOND, smoke field from Smokescreen or 8 second duration, 20 second traited cooldown, 40% uptime
unblockable
pulsing AoE poison + weakness + projectile denial, poison field from Corrosive Poison Cloud?

If you get immobilized for 1 second in a big brown puddle every 20 seconds when you know the ranger has his heal up, maybe swap weapons with cleansing sigil or cleanse + dodge to avoid the burst if the pet gets swapped to something like Gazelle where you want to avoid the Head Toss + ranger Maul. Unfortunately for the other 2 utilities, the only way to counter them is through resistance otherwise your damage is completely neutered for long periods of time (not to mention both classes have and use boon strip lol).

Good comparison though! /s

Dodgable.... vs making the choice to stand in smokescreen or CpC (which almost no one runs lol atm) passive trati vs active utlities..... hmmmmm just saying ;)

I guess we should just remove all projetile denials from the game because they shut down a small portion of the games weapons for a few seconds at a time.... rightttttttt.... my long bow does not work for x seconds but works for 80% of the cast in the game that makes the remaining 20% with skills like this op... hmmmmmmmm

Yess good argument huehue

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:People were like "omg it's so bad there's no room to fit it on your bar."

That's because a good portion of people don't think about anything that Metabattle/a streamer doesn't spoonfeed them.It's definitely not a bad skill.

lol even with the longer cooldown the blind interval should by 3 seconds to account for the size of the ring and the projectile destruction.

No. That just lets people walk into the field, tap you, then use a reveal skill. It takes all of the defensive aspect out of it and subjects it to anyone with a reveal on demand.@shadowpass.4236 said:

I say the same about CPC on necro. Perma poison, weakness, and projectile destruction for 8 seconds every 20 seconds while traited is NUTS.

Also, the blind interval needs to be increased on Smokescreen. Black Powder is 2s interval but it has a much smaller radius and doesn't destroy projectiles. The current iteration let me basically facetank on point as anything that wasn't a melee-multi hit wouldn't be able to hit me. Interval should go up to 3s imo.Are we going to talk about Creating Muddy Terrain on heal which applies slow and reducing the application intervals on that as well? Or is healing, immobilizing someone (sometimes from stealth) for free burst ok?

So a dodgeable, blockable, no field, 5s duration, single-cleansable .75s-1s cast time 1 second immobilize is on the same level as the 1/2s cast time 7 second duration, 25 second cooldown, full-point projectile denial +
unblockable
pulsing AoE blinds every SECOND, smoke field from Smokescreen or 8 second duration, 20 second traited cooldown, 40% uptime
unblockable
pulsing AoE poison + weakness + projectile denial, poison field from Corrosive Poison Cloud?

If you get immobilized for 1 second in a big brown puddle every 20 seconds when you know the ranger has his heal up, maybe swap weapons with cleansing sigil or cleanse + dodge to avoid the burst if the pet gets swapped to something like Gazelle where you want to avoid the Head Toss + ranger Maul. Unfortunately for the other 2 utilities, the only way to counter them is through resistance otherwise your damage is completely neutered for long periods of time (not to mention both classes have and use boon strip lol).

Good comparison though! /s

Dodgable.... vs making the choice to stand in smokescreen or CpC (which almost no one runs lol atm) passive trati vs active utlities..... hmmmmm just saying ;)

I guess we should just remove all projetile denials from the game because they shut down a small portion of the games weapons for a few seconds at a time.... rightttttttt.... my long bow does not work for x seconds but works for 80% of the cast in the game that makes the remaining 20% with skills like this op... hmmmmmmmm

Yess good argument huehue

Making the choice to give full decap or full cap vs. dealing absolutely negative damage for almost 10 seconds because the utilities cover the entire point?

Hm.. oh wait that's actually a hard decision to make because you're basically going to be eating free damage and dealing none in return or giving up the point. I guess you don't realize that projectile denial is an effective full immunity to projectile weapons for longer than the duration of a full weapon swap cooldown. ie) any ranged weapons get rendered 100% useless as long as the person has smokescreen or CPC slotted and maybe LoS's for a few seconds while the cooldown comes back

Think about people running around with full melee immunities for 7-8 seconds on 20-25 second cooldowns. Sounds busted right? Now what if these 7-8 second duration full melee immunities also pulsed blind, or weakness + poison? Even more busted right? Now what if they covered the entire point and were UNBLOCKABLE? Hmm. According to you, they would be balanced. :joy:

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@ZDragon.3046 THis is exactly what balancing is.There is too much reward in this ability without accounting for proj hate. So it kitten you if you dont have proj, and EXPECIALLY kitten you if you do have projectiles.

Sorry no if you chose to be projectile based you shouldnt be upset when skills are used that counter projectiles. There is no point in screaming nerf x or y when you could use other tools that counter those tools or are not subject to the same weakness as being projectile base.

Its the same when you are melee based and someone guns you down because they have mobility to out run you for at least 7 seconds or more making them for the most part perfectly safe. I cant say nerf blink and staff 2 because im playing a warrior.. with no ranged weapon it just makes no sense.

Smokescreen hard counters both ranged, and melee builds. That's the difference. This isn't just a matter of "Oh he's destroying projectiles I'll melee him" because he has a pulsing 9 second long (The tool tip says 7 but if you test it it's 9 second duration) blind field bigger than almost all conquest nodes. You either have unblockable with range, you have resistance with melee, or your melee attacks are ridiculously faster than the 1s blind pulse like a Reaper's Soul Spiral. That's basically it. This makes Smokescreen practically an invulnerability field against a ton of builds. I'm glad it's getting nerfed at least to a 45 second cooldown.

You compare how Feedback and Wall of Reflection counter range with high up time, and how you can play around those, and how Smoke Screen Counters both Melee and Ranged and how much less options you have for playing around it and the difference is night and day. And yeah, Projectile Reflection is superior to just Destruction, but how hard Smokescreen also counters melee is greater than the benefits of reflecting.

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:People were like "omg it's so bad there's no room to fit it on your bar."

That's because a good portion of people don't think about anything that Metabattle/a streamer doesn't spoonfeed them.It's definitely not a bad skill.

lol even with the longer cooldown the blind interval should by 3 seconds to account for the size of the ring and the projectile destruction.

No. That just lets people walk into the field, tap you, then use a reveal skill. It takes all of the defensive aspect out of it and subjects it to anyone with a reveal on demand.@shadowpass.4236 said:

I say the same about CPC on necro. Perma poison, weakness, and projectile destruction for 8 seconds every 20 seconds while traited is NUTS.

Also, the blind interval needs to be increased on Smokescreen. Black Powder is 2s interval but it has a much smaller radius and doesn't destroy projectiles. The current iteration let me basically facetank on point as anything that wasn't a melee-multi hit wouldn't be able to hit me. Interval should go up to 3s imo.Are we going to talk about Creating Muddy Terrain on heal which applies slow and reducing the application intervals on that as well? Or is healing, immobilizing someone (sometimes from stealth) for free burst ok?

So a dodgeable, blockable, no field, 5s duration, single-cleansable .75s-1s cast time 1 second immobilize is on the same level as the 1/2s cast time 7 second duration, 25 second cooldown, full-point projectile denial +
unblockable
pulsing AoE blinds every SECOND, smoke field from Smokescreen or 8 second duration, 20 second traited cooldown, 40% uptime
unblockable
pulsing AoE poison + weakness + projectile denial, poison field from Corrosive Poison Cloud?

If you get immobilized for 1 second in a big brown puddle every 20 seconds when you know the ranger has his heal up, maybe swap weapons with cleansing sigil or cleanse + dodge to avoid the burst if the pet gets swapped to something like Gazelle where you want to avoid the Head Toss + ranger Maul. Unfortunately for the other 2 utilities, the only way to counter them is through resistance otherwise your damage is completely neutered for long periods of time (not to mention both classes have and use boon strip lol).

Good comparison though! /s

Dodgable.... vs making the choice to stand in smokescreen or CpC (which almost no one runs lol atm) passive trati vs active utlities..... hmmmmm just saying ;)

I guess we should just remove all projetile denials from the game because they shut down a small portion of the games weapons for a few seconds at a time.... rightttttttt.... my long bow does not work for x seconds but works for 80% of the cast in the game that makes the remaining 20% with skills like this op... hmmmmmmmm

Yess good argument huehue

Making the choice to give full decap or full cap vs. dealing absolutely negative damage for almost 10 seconds because the utilities cover the entire point?

Hm.. oh wait that's actually a hard decision to make because you're basically going to be eating free damage and dealing none in return or giving up the point. I guess you don't realize that projectile denial is an effective full immunity to projectile weapons for longer than the duration of a full weapon swap cooldown. ie) any ranged weapons get rendered 100% useless as long as the person has smokescreen or CPC slotted and maybe LoS's for a few seconds while the cooldown comes back

I mean there are ways to deal damage back if you think about itMake the choice to hold the point and fight in a aoe that deals no damage or if they stealth leave the aoe and they cant de cap it. Depending on your weapons depends on how well you can fight in or around smoke screen perhaps the problem is not with smoke screen its just that your weapon set up is countered by it.

I know for a fact that off hand axe 5 on ranger will pretty much make any thief think twice about trying to stand in smoke screen and think they are invincible. Reaper shoud 4 often has the same effect.

I think the issue is that what you use works on the majority so when something comes alone that it does not work against you want to complain about it. Its not even a balance thing at this point its just the fact that your specific setup has finally met a wall it cant overcome because you chose not to adapt and change for that 1 skill and so that 1 skill is something that should be removed from the game.Ranged weapons are fine depending on their skills and hit intervals. Necros with staff (which is a ranged weapon) do not have an issue with smoke screen.Core shroud which is mostly a ranged weapon does not have an issue with smoke screen.Guardian scepter can do ok against it (provided they dont stand in the smoke while uing it) and it does ok against it.

To be honest if you standard set up is gs / long bow i can see why you would have problemsIF you standard set up is mesmer scepter/ pistol and staff i can see why you would have problemsIf you standard set up is something like your typical weaver i can see why you would even have problems

Its not that ranged weapons are useless its that the skill is good against skills not so good against others what you run just happens to be on the counter list and that upsets you greatly.

Think about people running around with full melee immunities for 7-8 seconds on 20-25 second cooldowns. Sounds busted right? Now what if these 7-8 second duration full melee immunities also pulsed blind, or weakness + poison? Even more busted right? Now what if they covered the entire point and were UNBLOCKABLE? Hmm. According to you, they would be balanced. :joy:

Im so surprised how much you are arguing about CpC in all of this and that one is not even a blind pulse you can literally face roll that one with minimal risk. Lets also ignore the self inflicted weakness but thats no matter just necro things moving on...

Thief is not melee immune and its not like the smoke moves with them dont say melee immunity when its not realistic immunity. Immunity implies that you cannot interact with the target by any means but we know for a fact that there are ways depending on your weapons and set up that you can interact with a thief standing inside smoke screen. This makes it not an immunity.

Dont get me wrong smoke screen is a powerful skill and needs the cd increase im not going to argue against that.But trying to over nerf it to the point that its up time is so bad no one willl use it just seems wrong.Nerfing it to the point where you just run into it like a field of flowers because there is super minimal risk associated with doing so is also wrong.Skills should be impactful when used regardless of how high they bump the cooldown if you think i should be able to stand in said aoe and or super minmal things only happen then you sir are wrong.

Thats like when i drop plague lands and people brainlessly run into it because thats how they treat most other aoes in the game because their professions allow them to get away with it then they want to complain about how condi killed them and that the skill is op because brainlessly running into like every other aoe didnt work out in their favor.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@ZDragon.3046 THis is exactly what balancing is.There is too much reward in this ability without accounting for proj hate. So it kitten you if you dont have proj, and EXPECIALLY kitten you if you do have projectiles.

Sorry no if you chose to be projectile based you shouldnt be upset when skills are used that counter projectiles. There is no point in screaming nerf x or y when you could use other tools that counter those tools or are not subject to the same weakness as being projectile base.

Its the same when you are melee based and someone guns you down because they have mobility to out run you for at least 7 seconds or more making them for the most part perfectly safe. I cant say nerf blink and staff 2 because im playing a warrior.. with no ranged weapon it just makes no sense.

you are missing the point brainiac.thief doesnt take smoke screen to counter projectiles, thief takes it as a pseudo mas invis. Proj block is a side bonus that so happens to absolutely shut down projectile classes.I have played with mesmer that use feedback and it was effective, unlike thief they have to SPECIFICALLY sacrafice something to get that bloody dome.Thief gets the best of both worlds, this skill does too many things at once, its bloated. Increasing cooldown just makes it more unfun to use and as much unfun to used on.becouse its still low CD mass invis, it still farts blind and it still makes some builds useless for 7s.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:@ZDragon.3046 THis is exactly what balancing is.There is too much reward in this ability without accounting for proj hate. So it kitten you if you dont have proj, and EXPECIALLY kitten you if you do have projectiles.

Sorry no if you chose to be projectile based you shouldnt be upset when skills are used that counter projectiles. There is no point in screaming nerf x or y when you could use other tools that counter those tools or are not subject to the same weakness as being projectile base.

Its the same when you are melee based and someone guns you down because they have mobility to out run you for at least 7 seconds or more making them for the most part perfectly safe. I cant say nerf blink and staff 2 because im playing a warrior.. with no ranged weapon it just makes no sense.

Smokescreen hard counters both ranged, and melee builds. That's the difference. This isn't just a matter of "Oh he's destroying projectiles I'll melee him" because he has a pulsing 9 second long (The tool tip says 7 but if you test it it's 9 second duration) blind field bigger than almost all conquest nodes. You either have unblockable with range, you have resistance with melee, or your melee attacks are ridiculously faster than the 1s blind pulse like a Reaper's Soul Spiral. That's basically it. This makes Smokescreen practically an invulnerability field against a ton of builds. I'm glad it's getting nerfed at least to a 45 second cooldown.

i dont have issues with it to be honest but im a necro player and my skills are not as hard countered by smoke screen even when im playing reaper.That said ive also played ranger with axe in place of long bow and you cant literally eat a thief in a second by simply walking to the middle of the aoe and pressing off hand 5Especially if they think they are overly safe standing in the smoke.

Keep in mind it is a defensive skill even if your attacks are fast enough to let a few hit slip through dont expect all hits to land i certainly dont the skill would literally be useless if it just let a ton of hits land witin a set time frame for any weapon set or any profession.

Its thief its squishy it either evades, blinds, or camps stealth it gets 1 of these things to work with as is main tools of defense. You get pick one to deal with. You dont get to say no to all 3 options and thats what people having been doing over time.

You compare how Feedback and Wall of Reflection counter range with high up time, and how you can play around those, and how Smoke Screen Counters both Melee and Ranged and how much less options you have for playing around it and the difference is night and day. And yeah, Projectile Reflection is superior to just Destruction, but how hard Smokescreen also counters melee is greater than the benefits of reflecting.

Feedback does lack a bit of utility which is a fair argument to make (ill give you that one :open_mouth: ) how ever that said smoke ring was updated much more recently and feedback was not. If feedback had been reworked recently i have no doubts it would be just as strong if not stronger than smokescreen. In this comparison its more so that one skill is just outdated which is not exactly a fair comparison.Even smokescreen compared to Corrosive poison cloud is night and day but once again one was updated more recently the other was not.Wall of reflection is much of the same how ever guardian unlike thief also has some blind options and block options in plentiful amounts to handle when some one gets close.

IF we were to assume all the skills its being compared to were also updated just as smoke screen was it would be no doubt they would all be just as powerful. UPDATES DO MATTER IN COMPARISONS.

Look at spectral walls usage vs spectral rings usage you see the skill alot more often now than you use to because its update made it more relevant. ITs not so much the idea of saying smoke screen is too gud compared to x and y it more so saying that these other skills are outdated and need to be updated not for power creep but QoL

Smoke screen has been updated for a while and people are just now taking issue with it because thats how thief is. Nerf stealth stuff people stuff that lets them fight in melee nerf those things people go back to stealth my guess is that next people will complain about "One Evade Man's "d/d mass evade spam build which lets thief stall/hold on a point for a very long time. Nerf smoke screen because its too inconvenient my meta build that works against 80% of everything else i put it up against.

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@"ZDragon.3046" said:Nerf stealth stuff people stuff that lets them fight in melee nerf those things people go back to stealth my guess is that next people will complain about "One Evade Man's "d/d mass evade spam build which lets thief stall/hold on a point for a very long time. Nerf smoke screen because its too inconvenient my meta build that works against 80% of everything else i put it up against.

This.Some of y'all are craven, not gonna lie.So afraid about thief we went from Nerf pistol whip to Nerf Shadow Arts to Nerf Smokescreen in less than two weeks, but none of y'all had anything to say when your rotation was one big evade chain.I hope you will be as vocal about anything that overperforms this coming balance patch so the devs can hear you <3 ~

That being said:

'Kay.Nerf Smokescreen so it only pulses blind once every 2 seconds.Increase duration to 8 seconds, so it can pulse four times.Keep the projectile destruction.Reduce cooldown to 40 seconds.

OR

Reduce the radius of Smokescreen.Reduce cooldown to 40 seconds.

You can't have both.

I don't mind playing this game~What else do you want to nerf while you press your buttons for invuln/0 damage/reveal/3 second blocks?

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As it is right now the length of smokescreen allows it to be such little counterplay. There are many things that can counterplay smokescreen, however the thief can just wait a bit or reposition inside the screen to prevent those counters from yielding any results. But, no thief will survive in a smokescreen without 1 sec pulsing blind, theyll just remove the utility. Instead of making skills unusable you could just lower the duration by 2 and keep the 45 sec cd and make the pulse not unevadeable. That still gives the thief windows of pseudo invulnerability but theyre much shorter and further apart.

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@Vallun.2071 said:As it is right now the length of smokescreen allows it to be such little counterplay. There are many things that can counterplay smokescreen, however the thief can just wait a bit or reposition inside the screen to prevent those counters from yielding any results. But, no thief will survive in a smokescreen without 1 sec pulsing blind, theyll just remove the utility. Instead of making skills unusable you could just lower the duration by 2 and keep the 45 sec cd and make the pulse not unevadeable. That still gives the thief windows of pseudo invulnerability but theyre much shorter and further apart.

Good to see you recognize the sheer power of this skill.

Like I said you either have unblockable with range, you have resistance with melee, or your melee attacks are ridiculously faster than the 1s blind pulse like a Reaper's Soul Spiral. That's basically it. Or you just don't have projectiles like Necromancer Scepter and Staff. That's basically it.

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@mortrialus.3062 said:

@Vallun.2071 said:As it is right now the length of smokescreen allows it to be such little counterplay. There are many things that can counterplay smokescreen, however the thief can just wait a bit or reposition inside the screen to prevent those counters from yielding any results. But, no thief will survive in a smokescreen without 1 sec pulsing blind, theyll just remove the utility. Instead of making skills unusable you could just lower the duration by 2 and keep the 45 sec cd and make the pulse not unevadeable. That still gives the thief windows of pseudo invulnerability but theyre much shorter and further apart.

Good to see you recognize the sheer power of this skill.

Like I said you either have unblockable with range, you have resistance with melee, or your melee attacks are ridiculously faster than the 1s blind pulse like a Reaper's Soul Spiral. That's basically it. Or you just don't have projectiles like Necromancer Scepter and Staff. That's basically it.

I want to add, I fully appreciate that the reduction in damage post-patch makes a pulsing unblockable blind AoE a pretty useful utility. And I’m in agreement with @Master Ketsu.4569 about overloaded skills being overloaded regardless of cooldown.

In terms of making it less oppressive I’d rather we reduced the duration of the field and moderately increase the cooldown. I agree with @Vallun.2071 that increasing the blind pulse interval would probably just take it off the bar completely for 95% of thief players.

The cooldown was too low at 25. The duration was also high for combining pulsing blind and projectile destruction. I don’t think stacking stealth with finishers should be considered directly here because those involve burning initiative or cooldowns in other ways–and the field duration is tied to the opportunities to stack stealth in this manner.

We should also discuss the radius. Blinding Powder (OH Pistol 5) is being buffed to 180 radius from 120. 120 is pretty small. But so are some node points. Smoke Screen is currently at 240 according to the wiki (although some contest this to be the case). I think the duration of the field, not the size, is what matters more. In the end, given BPs increase in size, I think we should keep the radius at 240.

My compromise:

  • Duration: 5 seconds
  • Cooldown: 40 seconds
  • Blind Pulse: 1 second Interval (unblockable)
  • Projectile destruction
  • Radius: 240

I’d also suggest Anet consider lowering the cooldown to 35 or even 30 based on how well the utility and thief generally can perform in the new meta.

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