Aftet the critical hit update, I'm finally having some good fun. They finally fixed Cryo Rounds (which was supposed to be the way it currently is since January) and I can now use it as both an offensive tool and a defensive tool. Smoky critical hits now ignore protection modules, so my Supercumulative Rounds Smoky isn't as impractical against protection modules as it was before. Healing Juggernauts with the new healing critical hits has never felt so rewarding to me. I now enjoy healing Juggernauts even more.

My instant-win button has finally arrived. ( ͡o ͜ʖ ͡o) Looks like I won't need to depend on the crumbs of Ultra Containers anymore.

I'm just saying that I prefer the gameplay of "Stock Smokies", i.e every augment except Autocannon and High-Precision Aiming System.

Having a large and potent splash damage radius is infinitely more practical for a ranged turret like Gauss. The fact that Gausses had to risk self-destruction at a seemingly far distance away from the target being sniped shows how broken the splash damage distribution was before.

Yes, they botched the Hopper nerf (just as I expected). They completely removed Wasp's retention period with ease in 2019. It pisses me off that Hopper still has one even though it's supposed to be like Wasp now. I don't see what's so different in 2021.

If this is what you think about Adrenaline then I don't see why you think it's so different to Stock. It holds almost the same parameters as Stock and the same playstyle, is what I was trying to say when you mentioned Autocannon. Adrenaline is Stock Smoky with a built-in bonus. It acts and plays the same as Stock Smoky, which is what you're comparing it to. And it should be a given that if you're going to constantly use a Stock turret at endgame, you invest in Adrenaline for it.

Adrenaline comes from Stock. At full HP, I'm a Stock Smoky.

I will not say that there is no reason to use Stock at Mk7+. If you want maximum potential power, sure use Autocannon there. But I would rather use Adrenaline personally.

Nothing changed for Smoky at Mk7+, it still has a maximum critical chance of 50%. Everything lower was nerfed. Mk7 slightly nerfed. Mk1 significantly nerfed.

Your maximum chance for a critical hit is 35%. Not high, but not too low. Unfortunately, low modification Smoky has it bad after this update. On the plus side, Autocannon has been nerfed significantly in the lower modifications, which has been a problem since April, 2020.

What is the current description of Stun and EMP Rounds for Railgun? Does it state anywhere that the chance for a critical hit is decreased? They updated augment descriptions for some augments and maybe they did it to those two.

There are not many areas in the available MM maps where Smoky is able to make good use out of the ricochet feature. By next week or the week after, I should have some posts showing the areas I use frequently with Smoky here.

Yes, and that will one-shot a medium hull without DA.

I disagree that Smoky has been outclassed. Maybe at the lowest modifications, but not at the highest modifications. My scores have gotten better because crits ignore protection modules. I still top the leaderboard just as easily as before.

...is this to say that Smoky is now outclassed?

What exactly do you mean by ruined?

A Crisis with Round Destabilisation can one-shot a medium hull with DA.

Sledgehammer used the same damage range as Stock Thunder. The damage range being referred to in the update is the range of numbers within which you could deal damage. Mk7+ Thunder's damage range was 740-1,020. It could deal anywhere between those two numbers, but tend towards the average, 880. Every turret that had a damage range like this had this removed and was replaced with a fixed number equal to the average damage of the damage range. For example, Mk7+ Magnum's damage range was 1160-2330. It could deal any number in between but tend towards the average, 1,745. The current Magnum has 1,745 as it's fixed damage. Sledgehammer has a penalty on the parameter called the maximum damage range, which is different to what is being referred to in the critical hit update.

Yes, it seems to be about 5 metres now.

It was not removed completely. Gauss still has a splash damage range on the sniping shot. It is just much smaller now.

I still take very long to kill players with 50% Vulcan protection. Those critical hits are very small.

...and so does every other turret????? You're overestimating how influencial those crits on Vulcan are for killing the target.

But its critical damage is very low, which is justified.

Smoky's one-up is that is has a higher overall critical hit chance than the other turrets, besides Railgun of course.