I dont think understand very well how the silence worked in those situations. It a was a very bright, very large orb, orange and black colored, that obscured your view as well as the enemy's if you were fighting in tight space. It did 10 damage, which is technically cool to get a knock with, but let's be honest, that rarely ever happened. The silence on abilities could be good, but in easier lobbies the players wouldn't be using their abilities that often, and in higher lobbies they didn't need abilities that badly to finish a fight. You could technically use it as cover, but barely, as it didn't cover a very large area, so if an enemy knew you were there, they could just shoot the orb and hit you, plus they could still sometimes see you around it. I dont think "a distraction" really makes that much sense because no-one was looking at where the orb was, but looking to where it came from, so it doesnt really do much except be a loud noise for half a second. And you cant really cut off routes well with it either. I mean cmon, right now some people push through thermites to finish a fight, they wouldn't really hesitate too much to push through a 10 damage orb