Is Dust Strike not very useful?

[FrancisN.9276]

I wonder if it is the clunky part of the skill or the short reflect frame (1s), but I tested it on skeleton archers in Dragonfall map and everytime I pressed Dust Strike right when the skeleton knelt down to prepare the shot, the shots just went through. The only way to reflect those shots for me was to start Dust Strike BEFORE the skeleton shooting telegraph begins. For a skill that only last 1s, and having to start before the oponent's attack telegraph, that is not very useful, is it? My ping is 70-100ms, which is about the average.

[Zacchary.6183]

While I was playing around with staff DE in Skywatch, I was trying to kill a bristleback that was near a pylon I was trying to CC and used Dust Strike to reflect its bristles back at it. It was pretty effective at it afaik. Did about as much damage as BONK.

[Charybdizs.7490]

Reflect timing does seem a little odd to me, but I'm more disappointed that it came with a big range nerf and a shoddy animation which doesn't even fit.

[FrancisN.9276]

7 hours ago, Zacchary.6183 said:

While I was playing around with staff DE in Skywatch, I was trying to kill a bristleback that was near a pylon I was trying to CC and used Dust Strike to reflect its bristles back at it. It was pretty effective at it afaik. Did about as much damage as BONK.

For consecutive rapid low-damage shots, Dust Strike can reliably reflect some projectiles back because those shots spread over 5-6s duration. However, for hard-hitting shots that shoot out in less than 1s time frame, Dust Strike is not at all precise.