Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General What's the point of Smoke Cover?

At a cost of 2 AP and creating a very small ring of smoke around you for a single turn, I'm just not seeing the point of it at all.

It even breaks stealth when you cast it.

For griefing co-op partners trying to make ranged attacks or heal party members, obviously.

Yeah, the fact that it blocks the vision of your allies for that 1 round of it's useless existence only adds insult to injury. It feels like at best it's bad, and at worst it's counter-productive.

It's just so weird, because for those 2 AP, I could run a long distance for cover, I could throw an actual Smoke Grenade, I could attack the enemy and actually do damage, I could drink 2 potions to protect myself from whatever damage I would be able to avoid with the Smoke Cover (which isn't much, especially when taking AoE effects that can be casted outside of it but still hit you inside), I could do Cloak and Dagger for 1 AP and literally teleport without breaking stealth, and then 1 AP more to simply turn invisible for two turns with Chameleon Cloak, or I could just use Chameleon Cloak to begin with, for 1 AP, and then drink a potion for the other 1 AP.

And that's just the beginning. There's so many different options, and they're all far superior to Smoke Cover.

It's like they designed Smoke Cover before Sneaking in combat was nerfed into the ground, or from before they straight-jacketed Action Points, and then they never actually returned to it.

And on top of it, it has a 5-turn cooldown, so you can't even employ it reliable and consistently if you wanted to.

There's a few other extremely circumstantial but still useful Skills floating around (Breathing Bubble comes to mind) that seem to predate the current system of limited memorization slots, but at least they're usually cheap, but Smoke Cover must take some kind of prize when it comes to being useless.

I just don't see any situation in which I'd use it effectively. It's just plain weird. Somewhere, there's a designer that thought to themselves "This'll be cool" or "This could be useful when...", and I just don't understand what they were thinking.

It should really cost 1 AP, and I agree with it not breaking Steath, and the cooldown should be 3 turns. It's certainly not worth 2 AP. It does no damage, applies no surface, and has a highly situational use.


I've only used it once, I think, to try and block sniping archers from hitting my mages, but I'm not even sure that worked.

In theory, I think Smoke Cloud is supposed to be used to keep arrows and certain targeted magic from being cast on the Rogue, but the AP cost just sinks it.


Many of the crafted skills seem pretty cool too until you try to use them. I've been trying to like them, I really have. For example, Corpse Explosion is a cool concept, but it requires an intact corpse, and those are difficult to come by.

I agree. Modifying...

It blocks los, you can turn it into a damage or healing surface. It's really potent, but it is too costly, really wish there were better versions out there

Yeah, those are almost identical to the changes I was considering trying to make on my own, although I was considering a cooldown as low as 2 turns, because the smoke screen can't be targeted at anyone, and it only lasts for 1 turn (and making it last longer would likely make ALL smoke last longer).

I have the feeling that Smoke Screen was originally thought - way, way, way back when it was conceived and then never touched again - to give you concealment so you could enter Sneak. But with a 2 AP cost for Smoke Screen and a 4 AP cost for Sneaking, and with the smoke only lasting for 1 turn.. well, you get the idea.

And that's before we even consider how bad combat sneaking is.
Yeah, we've been trying to use Corpse Explosion for a while, but since you're most likely going to be a Pyromancer, there'll very rarely be any corpses around.

In our case, the one with Corpse Explosion is even primarily Pyromancy/Geomancy, and for whatever reason, poison also has a tendency to dissolve people. And even when there are intact corpses (in itself a rare occurrence), Corpse Explosion is rarely the best option, because there needs to be opponents nearby and allies.. not.

It's also weird that Corpse Explosion as a Necromancy/Pyromancy hybrid does only Physical damage, and no Fire, but that's beside the point. It doesn't even ignite things like Oil or Poison surfaces, and barrels break but does not ignite, despite the huge ball of fire.

Edit:
It blocks LoS, yes, but how would you turn it into damage or healing "surface"? Smoke cannot be targeted by Bless, for example.

Steam can, but Steam on the other hand does not block LoS.

Smoke is a great way on your first turn to get your enemy to move, for example, you got ambushed by bunch of enemies on high ground from afar, they can hit you but you can't hit them due to high ground range bonus, you can use this turn to self cast buffs as well as smoke cover, this'll force those people on high ground to run towards you and sometimes even cluster a few of them together so you can setup mage combos on them.

Or you killed 3 people with your mage combo and there is another enemy archer left, and you have 2 ap left, use smoke cover to stall a turn to get cds back or get full ap to run away.

I personally think it's a pretty good utility skill.

I create a quick mod and uploaded it here: http://www.filedropper.com/improvedsmokecover

I'm not going to bother uploading it anywhere else, so if anyone wants to take it to the Nexus or whatever, feel free to. Simply drop the folders into the /Data/ folder in the main install directory and it should work like any other mod.

It's not a .pak, because the local-made mods are actually a lot easier to work with, since you can edit the loose files yourself at any point.

I set the AP to 1 (from 2), Cooldown to 2 (from 5!), allowed it while Stealthing (which really doesn't make any big difference, but it felt appropriate), and also increased the size of the cloud to 3 (from 2).

I can only really see that working if you're playing a completely solo game, since they'll go for your friends if they can at all, or if you're deliberately abusing some specifically dodgy game mechanics (such as engaging with only one guy to get all the enemies to go to a specific location or something).

And unless you're Lone Wolf, in the situation you describe, you've only got 2 AP left to do anything worthwhile with, such as buffing - whereas with a single point in Polymorph, you could simply turn invisible for two entire turns for a single AP, instead, and drink all the potions you'd ever want to drink, popping out of Invisibility when and where you want, and do that buffing anyway, at that point.

Or simply throw a Smoke Grenade - in such a specific situation, it's no major loss of investment, and if you've got Ambidextrous, it's even cheaper, and anyone can do it, regardless of points spent.

Or, since we've already spent points in Scoundrel in this scenario, I could Cloak and Dagger out of there to take cover. Really, there are so many different options and they're all superior to Smoke Cover, and will you really memorize Smoke Cover just to deal with the possibility of an unexpected ambush that can, should it arise, be dealt with in so many different other ways?

There is a corpse exploision spell? Does it create lots of blood like the bloated corpse?

1 You can group teammates in the smoke too.

2 It doesn't have to be only lone wolf, with what a rush and glass cannon anyone can get 7 ap per turn, not including flesh sacrifice and adrenaline.

3 Smoke grenade is a consumable smoke cover cost nothing

4 It doesn't work in just that one scenario, that was just one of them that I described, you can cloak and dagger, but I'd rather cloak and dagger to high ground and then smoke so the next turn I get free shots at enemies who ran towards me without having to spend ap to move.

5 And yes I'm playing solo lone wolf and it works wonderfully for me, and yes I memorized it, so the skill is not as useless as you think.

Yes there is and no it doesn't. It's created by combining any non-source Pyromancer Skill Book with any non-source Necromancer Skill Book, requires Necromancer 1 & Pyromancer 1, and is sorted as a Pyromancer spell.

However, it does 100% Physical damage, explodes in a big fireball, and zero blood is involved.

A lot of fun things could've been done with Corpse Explosion, but nothing was. It could've exploded with physical damage and spread blood, poison or even oil, or it could've done physical+fire damage and spread some fire, but it actually does nothing.

The effect is pretty cool, though, but the fact that it only does physical damage and ignites nothing, along with the fact that it's very circumstantial, is sad.

Just wanted to through this out there... when modifying stats with the editor. As we know, not everything is in there or I'm not looking in the right place, data.txt for example. So what I do, is edit what I can in the editor, the rest in Notepad++. Those I edit in Notepadd++ I copy into the Editor location for the mod. When you compile and publish it to Steam, it will take and use those loose files to.

while chameleon cloak might be generally better for hiding, chances are you just might have used it already. it's like instead of discussing what's better - tactical retreat or cloak and dagger, why not have both.

Am I mad? You can turn clouds into electric/poison and then bless them to make them heal. You can do that, right?

In any case, backlash into smoke it's a good setup to force a ranged enemy to move and if they have ripped tendons it's better.

)This is actually exactly what I do too, now. It's a lot easier to work with, and before sharing, I also get a chance to throw out the extra folders and the Localization files that get created in the editor (which screws up the entries in-game), forcing the game to load the default entries.

Otherwise names are altered to things like "|Wings|" (instead of, in this case, "Spread Your Wings"). Handling mods the non-Steam way is really superior.

In theory, it should hide you from enemy attacks for a turn, as an alternative to stealth. In a lot of other games, you could also attack from within it in, but you can't here. Magically though, enemies can hide in smoke all day, and you cannot target them, but they can shoot you just fine.

Becuse memorization slots. Chameleon Skin is consistently useful. Smoke Cover is, at best, extremely circumstantial and expensive to use. I'd almost take literally anything else.

Honorable mention: Vaporize. Under an unassuming description and targeting reticle hides an amazing utility spell that can turn entire areas into permanently covered in steam. It can even turn fire surfaces with 1 turn remaining into 2 turn burning air, at which point your fire mage can put out another fire surface. Strangely, it does not work on oil: should've turned oil into smoke or simply poison gas. Or something.

You're confusing Smoke with Steam, 100%. You can't Backlash into Smoke, afaik. Smoke blocks line of sight. I could be wrong, though. Backlash does require Line of Sight, no?

Yeah, there are several crafted skills who look good but they are very situational or weird to justify the waste of slot on them. Smoke cover, corpse explode or sabotage for example. Others are very fun to use , apart from vaporize I like Erratic wisp to teleport, turn oil, throw dust or the explosive traps.




Sounds pretty cool, I will try it, thanks! I wanted to use it with my rogue but ended droppin it until now.

You're right, but you backlash first and then smoke. That leaves a target with no option but to move to attack in many cases.