Full disclosure: I forgot smite was a problem until last night I just wanted to relax with fun-maxed builds and noticed a bubble-smyker in every game last night and ended with a very entertaining monstrous specials pox gas and snipers nightmare maelstrom run and landed in a game with 3 smykers that were just… trying real hard to smite a beast of nurgle. I was rooting for them, but it was never meant to be.
Smite is still a not-okay blitz. It’s not just a crutch, it is the mobility scooter at Wal-Mart carrying new psyker players from sedition through damnation without having to play the game and as soon as they venture into mildly challenging content they get clubbed like baby seals. It’s legitimately holding players back on the class that I think still has the highest damage potential (that’s still true, right?).
Smite still needs to be reworked or maybe it’s just wrong to let it be a noob trap. Maybe channeling duration is too long, maybe Empowered Psyonics needs to be rethought.
Am I wrong? I feel like better players, from my casual observations, really only need 3 seconds to stun and push enemies to stabilize a bad situation and that’s not a high skill play, that’s just a quick cast and then switching back to your weapon to hit something. Can we childproof smite so Palpatine cosplayers have to put their feet on the ground and engage with the game?
what if smite was a single target quick cast ability? you could smite a target while hitting it if you smite it for long enough or hit it while smiting it it gets stunned
I don’t think smite is that bad… Maybe the alternate fire should do something else like knock back or single target with heavier stagger. Maybe even slows (not staggers) monsters with high peril cost.
The real issue is if you’re trying to do a staff psyker trauma and flame are pretty good for area control and damage already. Especially flame staff. Why use smite? Maybe to help res a player but spamming left click on the flame staff does heavy stagger anyways.
The void strike just isn’t that good compared to other classes and their sniping potential. I think smite could be ok if you had a staff that was focused on single target damage. Void strike and lightning staves I think will fall off compared to a veteran or other classes that spec for it, so as psyker you end up going more into a crowd control role.
And if you go gun psyker to do well at sniping and taking out elites, assail or brain burst is your better pick depending on the gun for kinetic flayer or assail to save on ammo and help with mobs and concentrated gunners.
TLDNR: I would legitimately use smite more if I had a strong single target staff. Otherwise I will play gun psyker or another class for sniping, and smite is obsolete with other guns, abilities (venting shriek and assail) and staves that handle crowds fine.
Edit: It’s good for that one maelstrom modifier with mostly melee enemies and no ammo pickups.
I’ve been saying for a long time that Smite needs some kind of rework.
but It’s been ignored all this time. The CM doesn’t tell us anything, so I have no idea whether the devs or the team think this current state is fine, or if they actually have something in mind.
it’s not just about the damage being low, the real issue is that the mechanic where all enemies essentially turn into training dummies is just not fun. the game basically goes into a full pause, and enemies that are supposed to be threats are just left waiting to be killed.
and the fact that this Blitz can be used almost endlessly is a serious problem too.
I’ve been immediately quitting any match where there’s a Smyker for a long time now
I’d dislike Smite less if the Peril climbed a lot faster, so you could only use it in bursts.
OTOH, Quell can be pretty quick, so it might just work out to some sort of suttering strobe effect. Bleh.
What if it stopped affecting a target once they hit the push stage, and couldn’t hit it again until it was no longer electrocuted? And so maybe extend electrocution duration. Basically some sort of cooldown tied to individual targets rather than the psyker.
Or just leave it as is, and accept that being a Smiker is punishment enough.
It needs to be reworked. It shouldn’t be a blitz that is readily available in the way that it is currently. It should be like Assail, where it has a limited amount of charges for Secondary fire.
They could be replenished automatically over time, or maybe players are required to get kills in order to fill charges.
Either way, charges should be limited. Primary fire is quick and easy to use, just a simple stagger on one target. Not to the ground like Trauma, just a stun for attack openings.
Secondary fire should be a directed blast that hits ONE target, chains to a bunch more targets and stuns everyone it chains to for a set amount of time OR knocks everyone to the ground, then they can get up soon like Trauma does to Crushers at full charge.
i’ve been saying the same for a years now. smite is a crutch that allows one to stand in a corner and freeze the game, so the player has little incentive to learn to melee and even feels rewarded for this behavior. to make matters worse, smite is surprisingly effective for how little it demands and it can be spammed. it’s a zealot stun grenade available anytime.
the upgrade has synergy not the blitz itself. now since havoc got reworked the blitz itself doesnt do much aside from fun minimizing in auric for everyone the caster included
