Hi, I run Auric Maelstroms and I am currently downgrading the mission difficulty because the PENANCE system declares that in order for me to get the penances completed, I needed to use smite and kill 2500 enemies from either kills or ally kills
The issue with smite is that even specced into Empowered Psionics smites damage is so negligible on its own you cant get Empowered Psionics to proc because you need to KILL ELITES (not your team) in order to get a stack of empowered psionic!
You’re forced to spam it for this penance that you come out doing 1/5 the damage of your teams entire damage combined and it really feels bad!
ive NEVER ran smite before this, as ive always found smite users to be terrible players/low damage/low value/bringing nothing to the team in value but their 2 seconds of CC makes them think it has value NEW FLASH: Death is the greatest CC… just do more damage!
This has opened my eyes to just how bad this blitz really is though, by forcing me to use it for the penance I have realized that out of every class, every skill tree, this is the WORST ability in the entirety of the game.
Currently, this skill needs INSANELY massive buffs, or take it out of the penance because it griefs your entire team.
Smite is among the BEST blitzes in the game if you treat it as the CC tool that it is. It’s like a stun grenade that you can spam. The amount of space you can open up with it is unmatched by any other skill or weapon in the game.
And this is an easy penance to get. Literally just electrocute hordes and let your teammates cut through them.
What I’d like to know is whether the knockdown counts as “affected by smite”. If so, that’ll speed up this penance a LOT.
This is really not the case, i tried the thing, completed the penance in 2 runs, i’ve seen other players topping the scoreboard with that combined with the warpfire talents
not to mention its just a bliz, its not meant to make you complete the game with just that like old assail
Well its another trash penance since its just a giant grind for no reason encouraging you to spam in on hordes. Why couldn’t it have been stop X number of attacks on allies with Smite instead. As for usability I think its the best one. Assail is obviously far and away the best combat tool but it locks choices up on the right. Brain burst is literally dog crap without EP which is easily the worst keystone on Psyker atm with the DD rework.
Smite lets you grab everything good on the tree (since you aren’t suffering the Plinko style descent from the middle) and is good in all situations except a boss. I don’t even use it to stun and hold anything, I just charge it and knock over gun enemies or shields out of the way. Or a group of ragers. Its pretty decent. Just the whole spark plug ‘I must use smite 40% of the game’ psykers have contaminated everyone’s view of it. I was one of those people biased against it.
The thing is that you’re not supposed to just stand there and hold down your attack button, you’re supposed to get a good chain going, then release it to knock everything down, then use that space to kill things. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
That’s why I want to know if enemies that were knocked down by smite count for the penance, because that’s how it’s best used. Training people to just stand there zapping all game isn’t really doing anyone any favours, either in-game or as a training mechanism.
How to measure that? Surely you could register the attack that is queued when they are first hit, but all the subsequent attacks they might have made while instead doing the hokey-pokey is impossible to tally.
When it first came out, I tested it with a buddy (by using the tracking functionin the TAB menu) and it seems that it does. At least as long as they have the visible static de-buff. Which I believe coincides with the damage received debuff as well, so long as that talent is taken, of course.
If that’s true, OP is just under the same impression as a TON of others, that you actually have to stand there like a moron zapping things until they die from it to get any value out of smite as an ability, to say nothing of the penance.
You can exploit and make it do damage via elite explosions proccing themselves. Otherwise its meh. It’s unfun to play with a smite psyker if nothing else
Where in the skill does the display text tell me how that works or better yet the penance?! that doesnt make us a moron that makes us IGNORANT of the actual interaction and it would be nice if fat shark detailed that a bit more.
It doesn’t. The skill is poorly described and the penance wording trains people to use it poorly.
I didn’t call you a moron. I’m agreeing with you that standing there, trying to fry enemies with smite alone, makes the ability seem far weaker than it actually is.
Smite is for crowd control, not for damage.
That‘s what you have weapons (and the other two blitzes) for.
Just because you have constant access to smite, you should not necessarily constantly use smite.
Just kill a few elites with your melee or staff, if you want your stacks.
You are forcing yourself to spam it, because you want to rush the penance.
You can play normally and use smite when ever useful.
It’s neat insight into the mind of the current generation of players. “B-but the text says to do it so I have to do it 100% of the time. I am literally being f-fo-forced!”
Imagine being this unable to have fun and control things on your own terms. It’s shocking really.
I found that Smite is a great CC tool, but for the most part, the team will do the actual killing.
But I agree when we have a good choke point and psykers don’t let the hoard into it before they stun everyone, they make the others run much more + they have to get out the cover the choke point gives against ranged enemies.
+1: the empowered psionics penance is much easier using BB … just saying
Ok this was news to me … neat
(I’m usually rolling with the Surge staff + BB, so never tried to learn how Smite works other than getting the penance. )
