#First, background aka part 1

The jist: when you smoke an entrance, keep the edge of your smoke flush with the entrance. Otherwise, the enemy team can use YOUR smokes as cover to push up onto the site and take control of that space.

Sounds simple right? The vast majority of the time, this is what you want your smokes to do: minimize the ability for the enemy to use your own smoke as cover against you.

I made this original graphic, and I'm back at it again with a part 2: why this concept makes viper bad at smoking.

#Here it is

As shown before, good smokes minimize the amount of area the opponent can push up into using your smoke as cover, and limit the number of angles that the opponent could come into an area from so you can easily watch them and hopefully take control of the area. This is tried and true, and is the way players smoke entrances at pro level.

When you "cut a site in half" with viper wall, you don't really gain proper control over the site at all. The enemy team can push up and get onto site, taking any number of angles on site behind your wall as they want, and you will not be able to see them doing it.

The wall is just begging for the enemy team to push up behind it. Instead of limiting the number of angles they could come from behind the smoke, viper wall expands them.

For all of the principles of good smokes, viper wall typically does the exact opposite.

#You have to basically pretend viper wall is a regular smoke in order to smoke flush with entrances with it.

This is the case for the vast majority of sites in the game.

Either viper's wall is benefitting the enemy team somewhat, by giving them control of critical space, or viper's wall is doing a good job at smoking, by pretending to be normal smokes. In which case, just pick another controller who can do that cheaper, faster, easier, and better.

Where viper wall doesn't work well (most places), viper wall is an active detriment to smoking effectively, and you have to try and use it like a regular smoke in order to get good area control out of it.

Where viper wall does work well (Icebox B), it's because those are some of the few places in the game that are shaped just right for it to be able to smoke flush with entrances there.

We already know that the best smokes are the ones that smoke flush with entrances.

Regular smokes can do this anywhere. Viper wall just can't, by design. It being a huge straight wall is not an advantage, it's a limitation.

That's why viper is bad at smoking.

Making her smokes do tons of damage is just a bandaid on this fundamental issue.