PSA to smite users

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
21

There was a lot of giga scrubs in the games that I played and everywhere in the online discussions, with people crunching numbers pre-stagger rework apparently. The argument was that only bad teams/players needed a shield, and that dodge dancing allowed a player to hit the breakpoints to mow through enemies.

Same arguments being used against smite was used against shield users in VT 2 pre-rework, but they all evaporated as soon as they made it so stagger contributed to damage.

Was also the same arguments that were used against the Ogryn’s shield last time I put time into the game.

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22

I mean, proper smiting is situational. You use it when it’s the best move, and when that staff or whatever is not.

But like I said it isn’t even about that. I don’t want to be disrespectful here but it’s very clear that you’re not very experienced in the endgame spewing theories like that which just have nothing at all to do with practice.

I’ve literally left games for no other reason than bc of how easy and boring smite makes them. Like I said, if there’s a smite spammer in my group I can typically solo the whole lot of the enemies in far less time than it takes for them to run out of peril. Headshots, lining up those perfect cleaves or AoE’s with the biggest impact, picking out specific priority targets first, all of it is a joke when the enemy can do nothing but stand defenselessly still while you don’t have to worry about defending yourself at all.

And that’s the thing. There’s no nice way to say this, but anyone who thinks smite is useless or a burden on the team bc damage would make more of a difference… effectively outs themselves as someone who can’t themselves do enough dmg even when the enemy is completely disabled.

The only valid criticism against smite is how trivially easy it makes T5+ (aside from nurgle blessing Maels ofc). All experienced players know this, and that’s why they don’t like it. It’s too strong. The only reason they haven’t nerfed it and hard yet is just bc the average player can neither use smite nor capitalize on it well enough.

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23

Seconding what Cheese says here.

Firstly, oh my god Shield weapons are so good in VT2. TBH they’re so excellent man. I was a Handmaiden main and that spear/shield combo was, and still is, just chef’s kiss. And any of Bardin or Kruber’s shield combo weapons are versatile, fun, and intense.

Secondly, yes on Smite. You can knock over what feels like a dozen+ guys at variable enough ranges for so, so cheap and then they’re all functionally at your mercy. Great for catching specials mixed in with a crowd.

Smite is fine. It does have limitations but they can be handled by solid positioning and by playing it to its strengths. Although it is not the only determinant in whether or not a piece of kit is well balanced, it is one mark of a well balanced piece when it is frequently stuationally useful.

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24

Again, people don’t complain about smite, they complain about those that ONLY smite. I shouldn’t need to qualify that for you, and I’m gonna assume your smite buddy does a helluva lot more than just smite.
Your entire reply and dig was basically against a man made of straw, a strawman if you will.

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25

I play auric maelstrom every day if you must know. But I don’t main any class, I play all four which gives me a broader perspective on things. It’s why I know that your statements quoted here verbatim:

“Smite is by far the most powerful blitz in the entire game, and especially in the endgame meta.”
“The real threat is never just one enemy, but dozens to a hundred of them all at once. Smite is the only thing in the game that addresses all that easily at the press of a button”

Are incorrect.

Smite will stun a whole screen full of enemies and “buy you time to assess the situation”. You know what’s better than stunning a whole screen full of enemies? Why, killing them dead of course!

Want to guess how many enemies you can kill with two frag grenades? Dozens, possibly hundreds, as many specials, groaners, poxwalkers, scab/dreg bruisers shooters gunners shotgunners zerkers as you can fit within the AoE, which is a lot. Veterans with the right perks have enough grenades to do this twice in a row, not counting enhanced blitz maelstroms that give them even more. In the time it takes the game to drum up another 100 enemies to send at us (more than 2 minutes) I will have regenerated a pair of grenades, so it’s effectively infinite killing power. Not even counting the grenades I will regenerate randomly from killing elites which is usually all of them as I bleed 30 shotgunners/gunners to death with a single double-click.

But wait you might say, what about maulers and crushers? You can’t bleed those to death with frags right? Want to guess how many crushers and maulers a single veteran can kill in a row using krak grenades and an ammo crate that reloads grenades, plus a grenade regenerated per minute (if the engagement even lasts that long), plus the kraks you get back from killing elites left and right? It’s a lot, it’s even more than enough damage for that veteran to kill several monsters in a row by themselves if necessary. Kraks are by far the meta blitz for any maelstrom with mini-monsters and smite doesn’t even come close.

Hell smite itself isn’t even the best way for psykers to deal with “a screen full of 100 enemies”. Don’t get me started on wildfire builds, or have you seen the utter insanity you can get up to with a surge blessed void staff? Add on the blessing that refunds peril with headshots and the talent that vents peril on kill and you have essentially unlimited peril, unlimited void bolts. Why smite the crusher patrol to “buy time” when you could just kill them outright? And just to dab on the enemies some more you could let your peril get to 100% and hit venting shriek, which does enough soulblaze damage to kill almost unlimited numbers of horde enemies and even hits things through solid walls because y’know, that’s totally balanced.

Tbh smite is something of a noob trap. It is most useful in desperate situations in order to buy time, but in any other circumstance it just runs up the clock. If you’re stunning enemies you’re not killing them. If we spend an extra 5-10 minutes per map because only 3/4 players are actively killing mobs we may have to fight several more horde events we could otherwise have avoided. I’ve experienced that dynamic many times, especially in maelstrom where people seem to think smite psykers are the safest way to farm the survival penance.

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26

Btw with the recent addition of bolt pistols and bleeds I got an idea and made a pure smite build as a joke, and it turned out to be quite good based on a few runs.

Note that this isn’t intended to be a “build”, I just did it to check what would happen. But that smite killed stuff like nobody’s business, so anyone who doubts it or smite is free to go and have fun (or not, gets boring as I said). Here’s a few bullets on what makes it run:

  • Malefic Momentum (+4% warp dmg max 20% on non-warp kill) - Procs and refreshes on bleeds, any bleed kills during smite will keep it capped for both smite & Vent
  • Wildfire - Just to maximize the duration of Soulblaze from either vent or Perilous Combustion, keeping those DoTs ticking as high and long as they can
  • Smite/Enfeeble - Persistent rumours claim it doesn’t work for primary. Enhanced Descriptions mod and a short test I just did claims otherwise. Honestly I’m still not sure, but it seems to work. It’s hard to test on account of smite’s spammy dmg popups.

Gameplay-wise it’s a basic semi-crit gunpsyker build, where you spend most of your time being ultra mobile with the knife & bolt pistol, while keeping your crits and bleeds going. When there’s cause, smite → wait until above 80% peril → vent & keep smiting → stop before you hit 100% to end the smite with that huge stagger.

With some biggies you can also end smite and blast Vent at the same time, to stack both their staggers at once while you slide back & quell, then smite again.

Boring. But very effective.

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28

:rofl:

Mate - you should definitely put that on a signature somewhere. That’s ace. :+1:

29

Smite’s pretty chill. I had fun with it when I was working on penances. I really don’t vibe with the forum hate aimed at it. The only thing I’d like to see is making it so it can blow you up. It feels a little too safe as is.

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30

Tell me how you went from discussing the most disgusting and useless Staff on psyker to Smite?

31

What more information do you need if you can’t tag it? If you can tag it, how can you not know what a something is? Their silhouettes are pretty distinct…

You say noob trap, I say utility tool to buy you time while you wait for your walls to recharge when an ambush event happens and the enemies are coming in from all sides and your solo queue party isn’t ready to handle it.

In this, you’re able to set up walls that communicate visually to your teammates where the lines are and they will generally follow them, and now you have time (once you have a wall up) to start using your heavily offensive staff or your melee weapon. Me? I use a Surge Voidstrike and a DS4.

Granted, I wouldn’t use it during a nurgle blessing mission. Melee only? Absolutely. Sun Tzu would agree that an enemy that doesn’t fight back is the best course to victory “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”

Mind you, subdue is not the same as defeat. “Subdue is to to conquer and bring into subjection; to bring under control especially by an exertion of the will.” (Mirriam-Webster)

Of course, using smite in itself is not skillfull, and one can even fumble its use by excessive use. However to subdue an overwhelming enemy before the fight has began, while allowing your group to gain better positioning, is not a display of “noob-ness” but rather the more patient and strategical mind who seeks to play to the weakest link of the team.

This game is about teamwork, and Smite is the apex teamwork blitz thanks to its crowd control that gives player copious amounts of targets to hit, rather than the single target you’re hitting that they might not be looking at. It’s further represented for team play by its minimal damage output which amplifies the need for teammates to work together with you.

I can understand why Smite may slow down the game for some. There are many reasons why this can be, and I am sure your experiences are valid on this front as I’ve also seen some really wacky smykers. But perhaps if the game slows down with a skilled smyker, could there be other issues that are causing the slowdown? Because I’ve found teams where we’re going faster than we could if we just outright used evasive tactics to kill the enemy rather than having them hold still for us and be easy weakspot hits.

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32

I have a different proposition.

Instead of Smite being able to blow Psykers up, it should have limited uses that passively regenerate over time just like the Ogryn’s Big Friendly Rock or any of the Veteran’s Grenades with Demolition Stockpile.

With my suggestion, Psykers can’t constantly spam it but the people like me who use it properly won’t really be affected at all.

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33

I pick smite because its the best build path for warp charges and BB is useless if i dont pick up the upgrades which is impossible if you want the last point in warp siphon.
pls dont quit if you see it i use it once every 5 games its the best build for surge

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34

What why, no.

Do either of them let players FORCE LIGHTNING like a sith? I don’t think so.

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Unless FS can ever find a better alternative to rock Sith Lightning, this will always be popular.

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35

I’m still pissed about the changes to surge staff because back when it could actually hit 6 targets it was THE sith lightning fantasy.

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36

It really just comes down to using smite too much, or using it at the wrong time. Being a “good smiter” isn’t the same thing as being a good teammate. Every use of smite comes with a loss of potential DPS, so using it on something the party can kill without needing help is unnecessary. Especially if the psyker could do the killing themselves using a staff or whatnot.

In the worse case it can even be counterproductive, one easy example of this is psykers smiting a single mutant charging towards the party when there is a zealot with a thunder hammer standing right there. Smite won’t kill the mutant but any experienced player knows a thunder hammer will send it to the shadow realm in a single hit, so stunning the mutant at a distance doesn’t help the zealot who now has to walk over to it. It’s a minor issue but add up enough of those combined with the loss of DPS and you can easily waste enough time that an extra horde spawns before the end of the mission that we otherwise wouldn’t have to fight. This is especially true in maelstrom where the mutators often add additional layers of spawn waves.

37

You don’t find it helpful when you’re faced with a detachment of bulwarks with a set of crushers, ragers and maulers behind it, while being flanked from behind by flamers and horde?

I think the reason why a smite player would choose to smite a single mutant is because 1: they’re protecting potentially other unaware teammates 2: getting the mutant to hold still so the inexperienced psyker can bullseye the headshot with their melee weapon as it dies, holding still.

So long as they aren’t stopping the party, it shouldn’t be an issue. Should it?

Regardless, our points have been made, as well as others that there are applications for Smite. There are also instances where it’s not as useful as other blitzes/choices of combat.

I’ll sum up my cases for not-smart-psykers in auric maelstrom who use smite in Auric Maelstroms.

  • Using smite when Nurgle’s blessing is active.
  • Monstrous enemy modifier
  • Pox Gas.

And that’s about it.

If I see a psyker using smite on those modifiers, I get real suspicious of their ability. Though, I’ve seen psykers use smite with their maul which gets benefits from electrocuted enemies. I’m not sure if they’re still considered “electrocuted” as after the smite blitz stops, they still have arcs of electricity running all over them. In which case, this allows for applying that very quickly to a large number of things without having to hit them already to benefit from that blessing.

38

This is my least favourite part of Smite, and feels like a bug or at least an oversight. Although maybe that defibrillation is just what that rager needed after getting thunder-punched up the bracket! Clear!!!

Really messes with Skullcrusher though…

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39

Silhouettes get camouflaged by the fire the same way they do by regular fire. Picking out the thing to tag is not nearly so effortless when everything around you is a supersaturated blue flare.

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40

Helpful yes, but if people are skilled enough to play maelstrom comfortably then smite won’t make as much of a difference because the squad will just murder their way out of the situation. It would be more helpful for the psyker to just start blasting. That’s why I don’t support the idea of smite being meta because plenty of teams survive just fine without it and often complete missions faster.

41

this is a general issue with the game, staggers can be overwritten leading to an enemy in a heavy stagger state being bumped into a lighter stagger state

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