I use Smoke Flash a lot, and consider it a great power. It doesn't Hide you, but it does placate all enemies it catches, allowing you to break line of sight. If enemies can't see you when they "wake up," they won't aggro on you, allowing you to break an encounter, re-hide and attack with the element of surprise all over again.
At least try the power. It's very useful, unless you prefer to scrap on your Stalkers a lot.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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This. I personally have a history of despising the power; for my playstyle its usefulness is limited, and when I found out it broke hide I promptly dropped it from my build.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
At least try the power. It's very useful, unless you prefer to scrap on your Stalkers a lot.
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Test Rat, if he reads this, will chime in and tell you it's great for mitigating ambushes, and he's got a good point. Me? I use waterspout for that. When I19 rolls in with inherent fitness, I *might* try it out again, but I don't expect my opinion to change.
But I'll always come down in favor of trying out a power and judging for yourself.
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
There's a temp power of the same name that is almost exactly the same thing (I think the recharge is the only difference); just keep a few of those and use the extra power choice to keep retsu.
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The temp has no enhanceable accuracy (Smoke Flash does have a to hit check to see if it placates). I like the whole AS -> Smoke Flash if I am in a large mob, all by myself. The placate lasts a long time, so it lets you pick off some of the tougher mobs first.
Your character does not have capped defense. Depending on your AT the cap is between 175% - 225%. Your defense is not teal in the combat window, it can go higher. STOP SAYING IT IS CAPPED! The correct term is Soft Cap.
I enjoy playing in Mids. I specialize in Melee Characters, other AT's usually bore me.
Both the power and the temp power seem to have a listed accuracy of 1.4 (at least on tomax), which is very high. Both should also be affected by any global +acc or +tohit. I would consider slotting accuracy instead of recharge a waste, if I actually took the power.
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Just to reiterate for the O.P. SmokeFlash doesn't return you to hidden status, so you'll be picking off those tougher mobs without the benefit of a guaranteed critical. In fact, it breaks hide, so if you were to use it before the AS you would have wasted your critical.|
Originally Posted by _Pine_
The temp has no enhanceable accuracy (Smoke Flash does have a to hit check to see if it placates). I like the whole AS -> Smoke Flash if I am in a large mob, all by myself. The placate lasts a long time, so it lets you pick off some of the tougher mobs first.
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Smoke Flash is designed to do little more than drop aggro to get you out of a tight spot. IMHO there are better powers to use if you want to stay and keep fighting.
I've found Caltrops to be a much better choice for the use you're describing. Thrown at your feet just after the AS, it works with your defenses to all but eliminate incoming damage. Slotted with two slows and damage procs, it can also take out minions for you while you work on those harder targets.
Can Smoke Flash do that?
The Scrappers' Guide to Dark Melee | Kheldian Binds and Strategies
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I'm not sure how useful Smoke Flash is for that, personally. I guess if you use it like a Sleep... Personally, I tend to use it to get an easy critical, possibly an easy Assassin's Strike. If you smoke an entire spawn, this allows you to run around a corner and regain your Hide status before they awaken. And if they awaken and they don't see you, they should lose aggro entirely.|
Originally Posted by _Pine_
The temp has no enhanceable accuracy (Smoke Flash does have a to hit check to see if it placates). I like the whole AS -> Smoke Flash if I am in a large mob, all by myself. The placate lasts a long time, so it lets you pick off some of the tougher mobs first.
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It's basically a pause and reset for a battle. Given that Stalkers do their best damage right at the start, that helps.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Some people like it.
Personally I always found it lacking for want of slots and too long an animation time. I always WANTED smoke flash to be a panic button power, but the cast is too long for that. Not only that, but with the way I'm built I'm pretty heavily invested in my blinding powder and heal so it doesn't free up much room to slot it to get the rech or acc I'd want out of it to make it worth the cast time.
Its not an utter crap power, and it can be a really potent sleep as mitigation, but it's pretty much a choice of whether you want to take caltrops OR blinding, as the trops will completely break the powder, and most people don't have the slots to really trick out both powers to use them situationally.
That said, I dropped it long ago (with caltrops) and unlike the trops, won't be picking it up with I19. Strangely enough, I'm taking whirlwind as my panic button in stead 
Has anyone had any good experiences with Smoke Flash or is it just utter pants? Never used it before, but from what everyone tells me, it's near useless.
With i19 coming, I'm debating on taking it in my builds, but if it's useless, I may as well just stick with Kuji-In Retsu for defense debuff cascade emergencies.
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