Title. I'm with a strong urge to adquire it simply because of how it sends "fake" signals on someone's minimap -- which may give me a edge or even a "cheap" kill in some situations.
How so?I could use it for, say... to distract a tank while I run behind it and blow it up with two C4 bricks... as a engy.
I have tried the decoy grenade before and did not notice anything it did. I did not notice any special noises, nothing showed up on my minimap, or anything else to indicate it was doing anything worthwhile. Maybe it only shows up for the enemy, but if that is the case, it would be nice for the person who threw it to see that it is actually doing something. I haven't tried it recently, so maybe it is actually doing something now, but it wasn't before.
I tested it a while ago with some friends and I'll describe what we experienced. Feel free to correct me if any of this has changed. When you throw the decoy grenade, your enemies will see a round dot on the minimap, just as if you were shooting. This round dot will then disappear and reappear moving slowly in a random direction roughly in line with your throw. I won't swear this under oath, but I seem to remember noises of gunfire coming from the positions of the dots. The problem is that this one dot that moves around is only really noticeable if the minimap is completely zoomed in and someone is actually paying attention. The noises... meh. There is nothing to see, no holographic image of you moving around, no muzzle flash, no tracers, nothing. As far as I know, none of my friends who play infiltrator regularly make any use of these devices as just about all other grenades are a straight up better choice for the throwing slot.
It's the least useful (or most useless...) consumable in the entire game. I suppose it will be reworked sometime in the future, but for now you're better of using any other grenade.
I have never found decoy grenades ever to be useful since beta or the games release. You can’t carry very many, even with the grenade bandoleer only 3. Better to have a regular grenade, not that grenades do much, the mechanics are bad.
This actually sounds incredibly useful for fights at low pop bases, where you pay attention to every little sound because you only know that there's about two to three enemies but not where exactly. And the kinds of enemies to appear at such a base are liable to be experienced solo players, which makes intel and positioning even more important.
Or, like I said before -- against a tank to "bait" him into thinking there's a newbie shooting at his tank so you can jump in and C4 his **** up. Eh... think I'll "put my neck on a knife" and unlock decoy grenades for the sake of it. Not like there's anything "gamechanging" w/ the ASP perks, anyways.
Decoy grenades have ONE clear use: It draws fire from automated turrets. Spitfires and construction base AI turrets go for the grenade. Not sure if AA and AV turrets as they don't react to normal infantry.
No need for a decoy 'nade for that. I've made several attacks were I've seen a friendly heading to C4 a tank and I've made a show of peppering it with my carbine, if you're not at point blank range you can reasonably expect to survive one shot. And taking his attention for even a few seconds can be just enough.
Okay. So I unlocked the goddamn nade and tried it out against two HA just right around the corner. I spotted em and threw the nade right where they came in. And the results were... ...satisfactory.
Hard for me to get rid of my emp nade, as it is very helpful to take out motion spotters and spawn beacons, but I will try playing with the decoy nade again for the fun of it.
...or I can always use decoy nades w/ grenade bandolier and have my own army of invisible and blind LA ambushers. Please do. It's hella fun... and useful.
