[Jupiter_Storm]

I was also observing this at the time, and the general atmosphere that it offered the battle seemed to heavily detract from the roleplay of the encounter, which seemed to plummet from an exchange of strategy and skill to a display of cheap slap-stick and quoted memes.

Powerful smoke effects have their place, and should be considered a significant threat to be wielded by characters of a very specific nature... But a generically available class capable of applying an almost field-wide effect that changes the game so drastically is not appropriate for day-to-day roleplay.

It simply has no place in normal encounters that any character can participate in at any time, as evidenced by the way other characters react to such a significant threat: "Oh yeah, I see this all the time. It's really annoying and stupid. Blah time to meme."

So. Not only is it mechanically unnecessary, it's also excessive as something available on the fly, because of how it affects in-character behavior when employed.