Guild Wars 2

It has no advantage in pve whatsoever
it still leaves you open to aoe attacks and lasts no time whatsover.
can this skill get an upgrade please

Sure. You have a trait which increases duration by 1 second, and a trait which makes stealth abilities heal. Instant upgrade!

Eh. with the way so many people complained about how “hard” it was to kill Thieves in the beta (it wasn’t, people were just bad and relying 100% on the finisher), I doubt they’ll be buffing this anytime soon.

i use Blinding Powder all the time in PvE. not sure what your complaint is. stealth isn’t invulnerability. what were you expecting? it makes bad guys drop their target and not hit you directly. just roll away from the AoE. it keeps you alive very nicely.

It’s an AoE blind that stealths nearby allies and yourself. What more do you want it to do?

The time on the base ability (the downed version anyway) could use at least 3s. 2s isn’t even enough to make the mobs turn away and attack someone else… They turn away, I pop back out of stealth, they turn right back and finish me off. It’s ineffective as an aggro break. It only works as an interrupt of pvp finishers. That’s it.

Guys, Smoke Bomb is not Blinding Powder or Smoke Screen. Smoke Bomb is the Downed skill, the third one, which stealths you.

oh lol. my mistake.

thats just a downed skill. who cares? it gets like 2 seconds of extra bandage time to help buy some time for a team-mate to revive you. thats fine in my opinion.

Know what you mean, the skill only works when you have someone to dump the aggro onto or “sometimes” when facing a ranged mob at long range.

Work fine for me most times, consider FIRST teleporting away from the mob and THEN smoke bomb and most times it will drop the aggro

best use of smoke bomb is you get the poison/cripple stealth attack on 1. So it buys you a little more time against a PvP stomp, and allows you to cripple/bleed your foe, then port away giving you more time. Still wont save your *ss most of the time, but occasionally delays things enough for help to arrive. PvE, yeah, mostly useless i guess

in pve, the most effective way i’ve found of using smoke bomb was to wait until you can use both skills in unison.

Teleport as far away as possible from attacking mobs and smoke bomb.. usually due to the distance gained the mobs will lose agro and you will be able to rally.

I don’t think it’s a good ability at all in pve.. but really, getting downed is a bad place to be regardless of what class you are

I’ve used it in conjunction with the teleport when i can. but the shadow step while downed is half the distance of the normal one and although it turns the mobs away from me for 1 second (if i’m lucky) as soon as i’m out they’re all over me.

i’m not saying make it uber, i just want a reason to be able to use it while downed in pve. Maybe have it release blinding powder as well? That wont make it OP but it will give an extra second or so

GummiBear.2756:

Work fine for me most times, consider FIRST teleporting away from the mob and THEN smoke bomb and most times it will drop the aggro

actually if you want it to work, you have to do that in reverse… stealth first, then teleport, in the 2s that you are stealthed melee mobs won’t get far enough away to reset or target someone else. You will pop out and they will finish you off. Happens every single time I try that. Problem is when you stealth it screws up the camera, making teleporting really hard in that short time frame.

I still say it needs at least 1 more second (without speccing into shadow arts. Shadow arts is not a good spec for sword thieves) of stealth.

Defintely stealth first and then teleport straight after.
Reason:
Once you go stealth, the mob will lose aggro and start walking away towards their spawn spot. You then teleport in the opposite direction to create optimal space and hopefully once you come out of stealth, you will be out of their range.
If you teleport first, the mob will auto walk towards your new location before you’ve even started stealth. Chances are, you will Reveal before the mobs get out of range and they will return to bring back the pain.

Never works they still hit through the stealth, thief down state is a pile of crap.

If anything smoke screen needs a buff

In general both abilities are useless in PVE though, especially if you’re soloing. The teleport is great in group boss fights but again the stealth is practically useless there. I think they both need a significant buff or outright replacement, I’m always pleasantly surprised when I’m downed on another char and the abilities make it easy to recover, just because I’m so used to the crapshoot that is the thief!

You people do realize that you can make Smoke Bomb blind your opponents by taking 10 points into Shadow Arts right? I always take blind upon stealth because I always have off-hand dagger.

It is pretty hilarious to be able to dodge 2 finishers in a row… and then some. But I haven’t really tried it in pve.