Pretty simple solution, I like it.
Also think the OP suggestion of smite being directional (cone or pipe) would be pretty cool. It would force the psycher to manage target priority.
Which target is getting too close? Quickly smite them…then some others are getting close too. Psycher will have to choose which to smite and which to release.
A fun dynamic!
Any thoughts on changing electrocute and how it applies to enemies? Making it spread similarly to soulblaze or making it a stack that can either hinder enemies or apply a stagger debuff to them? So far just people saying leave smite as is cause it’d take too long to fix.
I think what Smite does is fine. It’s a good tool with a purpose. The problem is its frequency of use - you can just use it way too often, and it builds bad habits in people who grow reliant on it.
Yep. I favor upping the peril cost a lot, and giving it more damage against “trash” mobs. Because roasting them en masse with lightning would be fun. Make it really worth going “Bwahaha!”
(I mean, you can do it when you just stun them, but then you all just stand there awkwardly while you keep stunning them.)
Balancing peril can be tricky - note how Assail has a cool down mechanic in addition to peril - but roasting poxwalkers isn’t too difficult to balance.
There’s still the stun effect against tougher foes, but that’s where the higher peril cost could shine.
A quick cool down to delay stun/quell/stun might be necessary.
No, better: Make the peril cost vary from second to second, so psykers risk blowing up if they Smite at high peril. Players should blow themselves up more frequently. (I’m looking at you, plasma gun!)
Allowing smite to blow the psyker up would also be pretty cool. Not sure why it’s randomly exempt from Psykers main mechanic
This has always been my issue with smite. Its overuse and overreliance by what seems like damn near all the psykers out there, means the smyker turrets inevitably end up being a millstone. It’s frustrating for the rest of the team to say the least, not just missing out on team DPS but always having someone lag behind, get cornered and downed, and often getting yelled at for not “killing the stunned stuff”.
It’s like the mirror of the stealther knifer loner memer rusher, but equally aggravating if not more. The smyker actually forces a different playstyle on the rest of the team and often it’s just easier to ignore the turret and play as if you were missing a person.
OTOH, I’ve only seen a handful of smites that were OP as @Murderer mentioned it being, and they deleted stuff, maybe someone should go around telling them how to do it. Seems the controller peeps especially love the Tesla coil turret mode.
I barely play psyker and I’m no guru, but it seemed to me like smite is a giant noob trap that gimped many users in the long run and kept them well below the “useful teammate” threshold. There’s a giant swath of psykers who never improved or made an effort to because they all agreed they didn’t need to, and that no, it’s the children who are wrong (in complaining).
please no. the knockback from smite makes clearing hoards harder. if smykers start quelling itll make smite worse.
Let’s be realistic, they’d just blow themselves up and there would be no smite for a couple minutes. Net benefit
All this talk got me thinking. As Elodie said there’s a lot of ‘solutions’, but I feel fundamentally changing the ability (especially after Psyker already got a bunch of focus and help with the recent talent changes and such), would be a bit much to ask for at this point. Not to mention what OP wants is ‘Ekinetic staff but a blitz’, which is dang cool but steps on the staffs toes (As has also been brought up). I feel it’s used case as ‘horde stun tool’ should probably be kept in tacked, and it’s ‘current functionality’ be largely copied over as it would make the dev cost of changing it be lessened.
But I’m thinking, we shift it to a proper ‘tesla coil’.
By which I mean, smite will only ever guarantee stun the enemy in front of you, the ‘coil’ if you will. From that coil, electricity spawns out from it in an arching pattern. Instead of making new coils like it does right now, this pattern hits an enemy, stuns them, but then moves on. Alla the surge staff, but it does this through out the entire wave/through out every enemy present.
Once a target is hit, they are left enfeebled (this being backed into the ability), debuffing them, and while they are enfeebled, they can not be stunned by smite again, except as the ‘coil’ node. Give it a 5-10 second debuff timer, so a wave can’t be ‘held’, only momentarily stopped, as the lightning flows through it.
Left click does this quickly, instantly stunning anything in front of you, but doesn’t generate this ‘arcing web’. It’s point is to momentarily hold something in front of you in place (like a big elite) and enfeeble it, but to then ‘cancel early’ and deal with it properly, or hold it until a team mate deals with it (likely in the case of Bulwarks). this can be buffed to two targets with the associated talent node.
Right click does the same charge it does now, then sends out the up to 2 tesla links like the left click. But this is the one that will then cause ‘stun chains’, arcing electricity through the wave in front of you, momentarily stunning things hit for lets call it a stagger length. The tesla coils start it, but after holding them for a bit and sending out ripples, you can end the smite and the ‘arcs’ will still happen until there are no more enemies to jump to. This makes the ‘charge’ still make sense verses the instant cast as you basically ‘charge’ and then send out a chain reaction, stunning and weakening everything in front of you, likely generating a set amount of peril each hit until you’d overload, this likely ‘fizzling’ the chain. But, in accordance with that, you could ‘stun’ two targets, get the chain going, then drop the first two and slide off quelling. You’d generate peril basically as a passive as it bounces like scriers, while also weakening everything. And when it ‘runs out’? you can start it up again!
One could even make the heavy attack electrocute node also apply this new microstun, giving it an actual purpose as a quick and easy way to stun things while the chain goes in front of you, verses being encouraged to be the tesla coil yourself at the detriment of your team.
I think this would be pretty neat, while keeping it’s ‘horde stun’ ish capability as you could fire off a charge into the wave, and as things get staggered they’d cause other things to bump into them before they’d get staggered to, and the cycle would repeat as you get ready to blast them all down with your action of choice. Would encourage you not lock yourself in place unless you REALLY needed to be a stun bot for a couple particular enemies right in front of you, and could work off the systems/animations in place, just implemented slightly differently. And most importantly, this would stun enemies FOR A BIT like a stun grenade, not just hold everything in place until the Psyker gets back hit and drops it.
But, that’s what popped into MY head at the very least xD.
Just make change the way some enemies interact with Smite to make the user actually have to interact with the game.
Holding Smite past a certain amount of time should make the user’s aggro shoot through the roof.
Mutants should be Smite immune.
Poxbursters should be Smite immune.
Bulwarks should drop into shield stance and stop Smite from spreading from them when hit with Smite.
Crushers should not be able to be perma-stunned by Smite.
Reapers should just keep shooting in the direction they were shooting when hit with Smite when firing.
Ragers should not be able to be stunned by Smite once they start their combo.
I am using smite a panic button and i think it’s fine as is, it becomes totally useless as soon as boss comes into game, so even if game has smite spammer he get’s down fast on 1st boss. But maybe it would be good to combine it with weapons or ultimates like you suggest, but how good it would be is a big question, if like node that gives some electro damage, then smite will become completely obsolete node and worst blitz in game, worse than smoke grenades.
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