Real talk

Why are so many people in ranked dogshit at smokes? Talking about orb smokes in particular, so not viper/harbor

I'm in fairly high elo and so many people literally can't even do the basics right. I know it's not as brainless as running it down on reyna, but it's not that hard.

Like on ascent A heaven they're putting them all the way out so people can walk out with them. Or they're just not smoking when you're hitting site and only do it after you've basically lost the round dying to crossfires

And then when you mention it "BRO I don't play smokes !!!"

smokes are boring so most people dont play that shit (im a plat warrior)

the I dont play smokes thing is bullshit tbh, but it seems most people who play smokes are terrible at it

they usually are the one's who fill in but they can just say i am not comfortable on smokes and chose a different agent in which they are comfortable on ig

There are a couple reasons but the main one imo is taht smokes are a lot about timing so in a solo setting with little to no comms its very difficult to get the correct timing on the smokes with what your team is trying to do.

damn maybe you should be the one playing smokes then

You gotta make them feel self-conscious about it so they don't use that excuse. Especially if they're being bitchy about you requesting default smokes

My go-to line is: "Is this your first time playing smokes? i won't say anything if it is"

As a controller main, no clue, honestly

idk I ended up filling smokes for so long bc I don't trust randoms so I just main smokes now

I hate when people do that shit imo. It's very easy to just throw some smokes normally on any controller. I do understand if they don't do midsite smokes or one ways but not knowing how to throw a normal smoke for site hits or to defend a site hit is crazy.

Comes for other problem, the problem is:
ITS NOT WORTH TO PLAY SMOKES

Let me elaborate as a former smoker main (I dont play val anymore).
Smoker are a role who depends of the team, some less, some more, and depending of the agent, its hard to learn how to play properly and abuse you smokes or skill in generall.
For me, smoker is the hardest role in the game to solo queu, but even with that, its the role who most recieve trash talk from the team, and, if you win, you gonna get less RR than the others who just baited.

Second point is: Lets say you good at smokes and know how to overplay you enemy, unfortunuly, you team doesnt.
They gonna rush while u trying to smoke, when u smoke, they gonna waste too much time and the smoke will be gone.
And if you try to make a diferent smoke to counter someone, like blocking the whole A long at Lotus, to block a operator, they gonna say "Fuck you Astrea, i cant trade shoots".

In generall, its a hard role, who teamates dont treath well, either Riot.
This cause people to avoid play smokes, and bc of that, happens these things that happend to you.