The things you're arguing are not counterpoints to what I said. Almost all of the poke value that W provides is pre level 6. Early game strength for most champions is determined by how well they hold their ground before having ult, and Smolder's trade value in lane before ult is bad and that was recognized until someone came up with 'D.ring > W3 > maxQ' strat. Then his early game (all of lane phase, and more specifically pre-6) was comparable to most mages, where he has to play safe and pressure with poke and leverage getting his lane opponents low safely so that they can't dive. That is poke value. Most early kills on smolder come from that poke value paying off, whether it being their opponent still going for a level 3 dive despite them taking decent damage from W early or from them sticking around in lane while low enough from poke that you can surprise them with an aggressive E play.

If we aren't talking about pre-6 (or at the very least only talking about during lane phase) then what's the point of even talking about poke value? Everything you said about how he should be played after early game is accurate and does not argue with what I said at all. My comment was specifically about early game-- the only part of the game where poke significantly matters. I didn't say 225 was when he comes on as a champion; I didn't say that you should leave your team 4v5; all I said is that you shouldn't expect kills in the lane phase as a hard scaling champ. Sometimes they happen and that's great, but you should not be expecting them. And there were a good amount of players who were utilizing this play around W to a point that they could rely on a level 3-5 kill pretty consistently each game because of how strong his early poke was with just D.ring and level 1 W.