Sticky Smoke

[tiger_eye]

The rogue talent Sticky Smoke should be more attractive to use and levelup (especially now that it should work more correctly). One idea is to simply turn it into an area effect. For example, apply it to NPCs within a radius: floor(0.5*talent_level). Hence, the radius would be 0, 1, 1, 2, 3 for rogues with 1.3 mastery in Traps. Too strong? Heh, maybe, but it still takes a turn to use, costs stamina, doesn't actually do any harm to the targeted actors, and it requires skillpoint investment, so I would be tickled if players actually began to think that Sticky Smoke was too powerful. One more thing: actors under the effect of Sticky Smoke--Dim Vision--shouldn't prevent another actor from entering Stealth, so please make an exception for Dim Vision in the "on_pre_use" function for Stealth.

Other ideas are of course welcome.

[SageAcrin]

The radius idea sounds good to me.

[darkgod]

done

also smoke bombed foes do not prevent stealthing, even at close range

[Daemonjax]

I know this thread is old, but it's the one google search came up with for me.

I could be wrong (I don't think I am, though), but it seems that sticky smoke doesn't interact with Unseen Actions for a guaranteed re-stealth from those affected by Dim Vision -- as the tooltip suggests (imo): "Creatures affected by smoke bomb can never prevent you from stealthing...".

Was that intended?

EDIT: I'm just trying to find a reason to put points into it besides the one on the way to trap launcher. I like the idea of the Rogue class being a bag of useful situational tricks, but I haven't found a situation (as of yet) where I'd want to spend a turn + stamina on throwing a sticky smoke bomb, especially considering how many enemies are immune to its effects and even if they're not it might get resisted -- which could be worth the risk if it did something useful. But I might be missing the whole point of it... maybe it's only supposed to be used to basically extend the range of of the trap launcher (allowing you to get closer before the enemies can see you), and otherwise only useful for when you don't have a blind infusion or it's on cool down AND Hide in Plain Sight failed AND you can't run away to break line of sight or get a few spaces away AND stealth is not on cooldown AND they don't resist. That's a lot of and's, but again I might be missing the point of the skill entirely and it shines on very small maps where you can't easily break LOS like in the Arena... that would be too situational to invest in (imo) during normal play.

EDIT2: Furthermore, while it does seem to guarantee a successful Hide in Plain Sight, you cannot simply re-stealth when an enemy is too close, as the tooltip description "... even if their proximity would normally prevent it" suggests. When I try it says I'm being observed too closely, and there was only one enemy on the screen and he was affected by the dim-vision effect.

[Bormoth]

Dim vision is actually pretty good on every one with ranged attacks you want to come closer or run to you through the traps. What it actually does is reduces sight range significantly(I haven't checked so can't be sure, but it is 1 square?) so if enemies can't see you then unseen actions can restealth you. I think it is what it ment(but there could be again some intricacies like with fears requiring you to see affected targets and not vice versa to fear prolifiration work.
If you ask me smoke bomb for alchemist is actually more useful, not only because you can turn it to damage, but also because, it just always hides you.