We are probably imagining different scenarios. When it’s a medley of crushers n’ things, they can stay right where they are thanks!
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There just needs to be restrictions in place to prevent excessively frivolous usage of smite. This will likely require buffing smite so that the psyker doesn’t need to constantly channel the thing. Make into some kind of effect with a short cast time that will keep enemies locked down for a given period of time. Then place the ability on cooldown for a minute or so.
Nobody has a problem with smite psykers stunning the crusher blob. That’s exactly what they should be doing. Stunning a wave of ragers is nice too. Stunning a special that does their thing is a bit questionable since you could have just shot him, but maybe you couldn’t guarantee a kill in time or something. Stunning that lone mauler is just kind of dumb since why didn’t you hit him with your sword? Stunning the group of ~7 groaners is what everyone in this thread is complaining about and is beyond the pale and justification for reworking the whole skill. You should not be able to spam smite to the point where you can afford to waste the skill on a piddling group of trash.
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So, to summarise…
And leave those bloody poxwalkers alone!
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It’s just a problem that the average smite psyker has essentially been given a hammer and in turn they start viewing every problem as a nail. Crushers?? They smite that. Ragers? Smite. Specials? Smite. Hordes. SMIIIIIIITE.
Brainburst psykers can’t afford to BB 24/7. They won’t be able to keep up with the masses. Assail is still kind of spammy but ever since they assail nerfs they can no longer solely subsist upon assail and still need to make use of their other weapons for a large percentage of their fighting. Smite psykers are the ones who smite, and smite, and SMITE, and SMIIIIIIIIITTTTTEEEEE to lock down EVERYTHING.
Crowd control shouldn’t be constantly in play. At best it is slowing down the pace of the combat and making things boring for the other players. The preferable state is to KILL enemies rather than stun them. The CC effects job is to come into play when your team has bitten off more than you can chew and you can’t kill them all before being killed in turn. “Wasting” CC on non-threats should not be encouraged. Smite psykers should be more akin to holy relic zealots. They should have a very powerful crowd control effect that provides a high impact during emergencies. They shouldn’t be able to just put the game on pause constantly.
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Its an ability that badly needs a rework. This is not just something you buff it to make it work because it can easily trivialize many encounters when its too spammable.
I’ve personally hated the concenpt since the inception, pure CC abilities are just not that interesting to play with.
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I sorta agree. I do think it’s imbalanced for the reasons previously mentioned – the uptime does seem pretty insane, and I think abilities with more obvious tradeoffs (cooldown, cost, etc.) are inherently more interesting.
This whole bit about pausing the game is an oversimplification – the game’s on, but a wedge of enemies are stunned. That’s all.
CC versus kill… we could be here all day. The whole point of having powerful CC is that it doesn’t kill, or it would be imbalanced. Can you imagine if Smite killed everything as easily as it stuns it today? Right, so there’s a balance to be found.
It still makes more sense to me to keep Smite as a CC ability – there are already single target and AoE damage spells if that’s your flavour. If you don’t like CC don’t run it, and if you love lightning there’s a staff. If you can’t stand Smykers on your team… I guess you’ll have to figure that one out!
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Sorry bro, just doing my penance and ripping the bandaid off as quickly as possible. I miss my brain burst…
Smite is one of the rare abilities that actually encourages teamwork. Let’s not nerf it.
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What if smite would spread faster and build up peril faster?
Then it would be more like a flash bang.
It could be used to repeatedly stop enemies in their tracks for a shorter time, but not to keep them from moving for longer periods at a time.
It would have more downtime, because players would need to vent more often.
If you need to vent more often and spend more time venting than smiting (or equal time on both), you are probably more likely to also do something else, than to constantly just „smite, vent, smite, vent“.
Same thing as with a gun, where the mag is small and the reload takes a while. You are probably not gonna spam that all the time, even if you have a lot of ammo.
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It’s a good idea but a lot of the “something else” also generate peril so the smyker might struggle to use them if they’ve been smiting.
i dont hate u u clearly know how to use it and dont use it all the time thats my problem many ppl just over use it and it makes the whole round boring even tho i would love to have it not in my game i dont mind if ppl use it intelligently like u keep it up big man
u are one of the intelligent ppl in here u get it my man
even tho i love the idea of smite idk if making a nerf would be great i think it needs more of a complete rework or smth else to take its place like a thunderbolt type shet but making a nerf could be enough too well see it whenever they release an update in 1-3 years
idk if a nerf is enough i think it needs a rework or a thing that takes it place like a thunderbolt but idk
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I ain’t gonna say no to epic lightning bolt business.
Big damage to the target, and shock AoE. Give it a cooldown, some interesting psionic empowerment… maybe a good boss damage tool at last!
Not sure how Smite enjoyers would feel but sounds cool on paper!
I can’t remember if I’ve said this in the past re: surge staff. Anyway;
Electricity. Metal. Electricity … Metal.
Perhaps surge/smite should respectively do more damage to carapace > flak > unarmoured, or more stun in the same order.
I assume the behaviour we want to inhibit is mindless spamming on all targets, but preserve a role where it holds up a bunch of crushers for a few seconds?
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I don’t think nerfs are appropriate. The ability is presently anti-fun. The prospect of nerfing smite ignores the problems and just tries to coerce people into never running it. Instead the ability should be fixed so that it no longer is so annoying.
IMO the problem is that it is a channeled skill that stuns things for the duration of the channel. The problem is that this forces the psyker to do nothing but smite for the duration. The other problem is that there is nothing that prevents a psyker from doing NOTHING but smiting. Good psykers know that oftentimes there are better uses of their time and that in most situations it is better to use their weapons to clear the enemies quickly and that they should save their smite as a counter for any curveball that gets thrown their way. The problem is that nothing stops bad psykers from using smite so often that their teammates have forgotten what weapons the psyker brought into the mission.
My proposal would be to rework the ability into a cast one instead of a channeled one. The pysker should be able to charge the attack to increase its area of effect but also have the option to just instantly cast it to hit a small area in front of him. Non-monstrous enemies hit by the effect should be stunned for X seconds regardless of how long it was charged. The ability should have an “ammo” supply of Y uses before the pysker is unable to use the skill. The “ammo” should replenish at Z rate.
I’m not sure what appropriate final numbers should be. One possible starting point would be that the ability stuns enemies for 10 seconds, they have 3 ability charges as their ammo supply, and their “ammo” replenishes at a rate of one per minute. The numbers should be adjusted depending on how things perform in practice.
This would give smite psykers a stun effect that frees them up to actually kill things or rez a teammate while the enemies are stunned. The effect can be quickly cast at individual high priority targets or empowered to affect a larger area. They have enough “ammo” to keep the battlefield locked down for an extended period of time or lock down multiple different groups during high intensity mission events. They DO NOT have enough ammo to frivolously waste it on every pack of groaners that walks by.
I’m unsure if monstrous enemies should be immune to the stun, staggered instead of stunned, or stunned for a fraction of the time that non-monstrous enemies are stunned.
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I would like to see it changed into an aoe dmg tool vs infested or chaff, instead of an aoe stun tool vs everything (thats how I use it now anyways, would hate to see that aspect nerfed into the ground)
I really don’t enjoy the other blitzes as much.
that would also make the blitzes have their respective niches:
Brain burst vs heavy elites, high damage but slow
assail vs medium enemies, medium damage, quick to throw but has charges so can’t spam
smite vs chaff hordes, low damage vs anything that isn’t a poxwalker, but can spam into hordes and it spreads.
smite go bruh
the issue with smite is that it’s simply not fun to play with imo, I get that this is a big ymmv type of thing but I really dislike the idea of having a dude running around with essentially a permanent pause button on combat. Ruins the whole vibe of the game for me.
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