I’ll keep my point brief, interactivity and engaging with game mechanics is very fun in this game. Smite directly disables this via being way too spammable and way too big of an aoe. I’ve taken to leaving every lobby with a smite user in it because it simply trivializes everything to the point of being completely boring. The last time I remained in a smite lobby, I kept track and counted the amount of elites I was killing that werent stunned: 3 total (auric damnation, hi int shock troop gauntlet)
I understand players are fans of it because it allows you to circumvent learning MANY mechanics, but I hope devs will come to the same conclusion as me (circumventing mechanics is bad game design, ESPECIALLY when it’s forced upon teammates)
I am not sure what changes must be made for it to be less anti-fun. If it was up to me I’d just replace it with a new concept entirely. A no cooldown aoe stun that has virtually no downtime simply has no place in a game like this.
It needs the Assail treatment. They nerf’d Assail’s reuse into the ground saying they don’t want people to just Blitz but left Smite in a state where peril can’t blow them up and there is no disincentive to discourage perma use.
Yeah I just run assail for the nice node proximity and fact that I don’t have to commit boring for it to activate. The horrendous funneling around auras doesn’t help build variety.
It’s not a blitz that’s made for active gameplay, that’s for sure. If what you want is something that rewards you for playing well, Smite is the exact opposite of that. It just dumbs everything down. In terms of game mechanics, it’s a deeply uninteresting skill.
In fact, Smite is so mechanically uninteresting that it’s actually tough to think of a good way to improve it, assuming you wanted to. My two cents would be to just rip it out and start over. And give the psyker a less restrictive talent tree while you’re at it.
Yeah I agree with the sentiment, when I just started playing I enjoyed having smite psykers on my team but now that I am better I find it even more of a hassle as while in melee enemies are more spread out because they are staggered instead of moving towards you and becoming a big compact horde which makes killing a group take even longer in melee than it would without smite.
I’m not certain about implementing ALL of those. I’d be amicable to a slight nerf to Smites’s Peril generation, whilst the rest of the points that you bring up are only problems when they’re done by Venting Shriek Psykers (as they’re able to do them near-constantly) and… well, that’s the root of the problem, not Smite.
Us Smite/Telekine Shield Psykers are the best Psykers that you can ever hope to have when the going gets tough.
Edit 1: The AOE is what makes Smite and we can’t afford an exodus of Psykers changing to Assail because it’s a very selfish (I’d even say that it’s toxic when I’m in a worse mood) Blitz for a CO-OP video game.
Edit 2: I don’t want Smite to be Surge Staff 2: Electric Boogaloo either, thank you very much.
The point of disagreement here is that when the going gets tough, I want to be playing the game, not kill target dummies while the smite psyker holds down his blitz. When the going gets tough, that’s what’s fun to fight. The actual risk of getting merked by a bunch of elites is what makes fighting the elites fun, and it’s what makes it feel good when you manage to dodge all the overheads and not die.
The design is fine for things like zealot chorus, because that has a very long cooldown and limited duration and the zealot does 0 damage while channeling it. But it’s crazy that smite achieves the same thing without cooldown, set maximum duration, and even has a bigger AoE when doing it, AND it even does some damage.
My point of disagreement here is that Psykers have fewer options than both Zealots and Veterans in general. Anything that keeps Assail/Venting Shriek Psykers less viable because (again) those players are straight-up toxic teammates.
Edit 1: Veteran Shredder Frags are like Smite, but they stack bleeds - so they’re pretty balanced when put up against Smite when it comes to usability. Zealot Blades of Faith are like Assail, but not as toxic or broken and they really do help with Flamer builds as a ranged utility. My point is that both Veterans and Zealots have the potential to be just as (if not more) broken, and that Smite, like TS, is fine in its current state as a Support utility. This is not to say that Smite shouldn’t be more in-depth, though.
The common factor of psyker blitz complaints is spammability. The secondary factor for lighting is the zero damage.
If I may, I think an ideal lighting spell should have two effects: the left click should be your CC lighting with up-to 4 targets and your right click should be closer to shredder nades in damage, still reward the team with suppression, but come with a minute cooldown and cap the peril generation on cast. And lots of psychic screaming about doom on cast, of course.
The secondary factor for lighting is the zero damage.
That’s just because people don’t understand how to build it. If you just take Smite as it is, it’s a quick interrupt / hard CC spacing tool and nothing else. You pull it out only when you absolutely need it.
A quick LMB tap is all you need to catch a dog even mid air, push a pox burster or interrupt a netter, flamer, trapper or bomber and cause them to through the ‘gather yourself’ animation.
But you can absolutely build Smite for damage. The key is to use the Warp Siphon keystone, Battle Meditation and all Soulblaze related damage. Perilous Combustion cannot trigger from kills made by Soulblaze only but when the targets are under smite it will always trigger.
This results in some hilarious and “super engaging” gameplay as you can see below:
What if they added something like an aggro meter to the game that shows how aggressive the AI Director is currently. It would steadily climb as you play through an area and reset at certain objectives and checkpoints. At higher difficulties, it would also react to more player actions like ability spam, enemy kills, player downs, or other stuff to be decided.
