i’m not 100% sure i understand how this talent works. it says 1st hit counts as staggered. and staggered target takes 20% more dmg. so everything always hits 20% more dmg? so isn’t 20% more dmg always better than the 7% increased power? is there a situation where 7% increased power is better :O?
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Smiter works like its worded. The first enemy you hit with a swing gets hit like he is stage one staggered. The second, third and so on take normal damage.
So in most cases its not worth it, since the 7% will also count for your range weapon, which has smiter automatically.
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Normal stagger gives 0/20/40% damage boost depending on how many stacks of stagger the target has.
Smiter changes that to 20/20/40%, but only on the first targert hit by each weapon swing. All other targets get 0 bonus. This makes smiter REALLY BAD since it seriously nerfs your cleave. It’s only upside is that it boost boss and CW dps by 20% since they are almost never staggered anyway.
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Yea, you want to always pretty much stay away from Smiter. 7% is nearly always the best choice for every class. As it gives better first hit damage than mainstay and boosts ranged DPS. Most mobs die in 1-3 headshots anyway, at least with the weapons I use. So 7% or Assassin is nearly always the best choice.
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hang on, if smiter lets the 1st hit u do deals 20% more dmg, and the 2nd hit (which the target got hit on the 1st hit and is now staggered) should also do 20% more dmg shouldn’t i ?_? cuz its staggered cuz you hit it once :o…?
or just always pick 7% on all the characters across the board ?_?
No, it just changes how you interact with stagger states on the enemy. Normally, enemies have three possible states of stagger: 0, 1, and 2. By default, these correlate to a 0% on 0 stagger, 20% on 1st stagger state, and 40% on 2nd stagger state.
Smiter causes your interaction (only with the first target you hit, so if you cleave three enemies, this only applies to the first one) to get 20% bonus even on 0 stagger, the same 20% bonus on 1st stagger state, and then 40% on 2nd stagger state.
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But, correct me if I’m wrong, smiter stops the stagger bonus on the other targets. You only get that full stagger damage on the first target hit.
You can compare it to 7% and it’s normally 1 damage more. Meanwhile 7% is boosting your ranged and still effecting multiple stagger targets. As even with 7%, you still get those stagger bonuses.
I think for smiter to even be worth it, it should give full stagger damage on the first target hit, 40%.
Now, again, correct me if I’m wrong. But I haven’t found a single enemy that using smiter would of let me 1 hit kill. Maybe if their was a breakpoint for a fast weapon like dual daggers or Dagger, S&D, rapier or something that you could 1 shot with. But I dunno, I just don’t see smiter ever being the best choice… wait… does kerillian even have smiter? Most of her weapons sync so well with Assassin
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Bulwark + 2h hammer seems like a team-friendly choice though. Too bad that 10% dmg bonus works only for 2s but anyway it should increase the overal output and msybe even make it worthwhile? 
And yeah I’m also curious if it really removes stagger bonus from other targets, I mean, this doesn’t even make sense, but it’s Fatshark…
Assasin beats smiter and it’s skill based.
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In my opinion, bulwark should give 10% for 5 seconds. Tanks tend to send the mobs flying back into the horde in which case the bonus is useless. You need to cut down the front mobs to even get to them. And then how exactly is the bonus calculated? Is bulwark bonus added just from hitting a enemy? Or do you have stagger it to stagger value 1 or 2?
But yea, still a better choice then smiter.
3 Likes
I think this again loops back to the annoying descriptions on the Talents…
To my understanding, none of the stagger Talents completely disregard the system. In Smiter’s case, the system stays the same, but in addition on every strike the first target hit is considered to be staggered once, whether they really are or not, gaining the 20% damage bonus. If that supersedes the actual stagger state of that enemy, it should be considered a bug and would certainly make the Talent very questionable as it’d actually reduce damage if the target was in stagger state two.
In general, I believe Smiter is meant to be used with low-cleave weapons and to partially bypass the stagger system. I don’t agree with the assessment of some other users that it’s useless or even nearly so; rather I think it’s the choice to make when you a) have a very low-cleave weapon (like 1-h Axe or Daggers) equipped so that you get the effect on pretty much everything, or b) want to interact with the stagger system as little as possible, as Smiter helps you ignore some of the enemy stagger states. Personally, I consider Extra Power to be the Talent with widest application but least effect (though even that one leaves the stagger system intact).
i’m quite sure it’s way worse than that.
Normal mechanic 0%/20%/40%
smiter first target 20%/0%/0%
smiter secondary targets 0%/0%/0%
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ExI’m pretty sure for 1st one it’s 20/20/40. But does it really remove the stagger bonus from 2nd target? It’s so dumb I really have trouble believing…
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Just went in-game and tested it against dummies; using 2H Sword on Handmaiden (with Smiter), my damage against the first target was 19* on first and second hit, then jumped to 23* on the third hit - that means it’s 20-20-40 bonus.
Against the other two dummies I had lined up to cleave against, it did 9* against the 2nd target, and 7* against the 3rd target. This did not change no matter how many times they were hit, suggesting that yes, Smiter removes stagger bonus from enemies beyond the first.
*There were fractions on the tails of these numbers, for full disclosure, but they did not change and didn’t seem relevant enough to warrant writing down in light of that.
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Yea, so that pretty much backs up what I thought. Smiter removes stagger bonus from additional targets hit. Making it the worst possible choice even for weapons like dual daggers. As even they hit 2 targets… And of course, again, you’re talking about getting ONE, that’s it, 1 damage more than 7% on most weapons. Or two more damage on weapons like the glaive, which you have now nerfed. It’s just not a good trade off in my opinion.
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That sounds so stupid that I have to believe it’s an unintended bug.
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To be fair, most of combat right now is an unintended bug. Kappa
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Smiter can be really good if it helps you hit a one-shot breakpoint on some enemies that you couldn’t get otherwise. It also increases your melee dps vs bosses and CW, which are generally resistant to stagger.
While it does remove stagger damage from enemies beyond the first enemy hit, it’s important to remember that most weapons have massive damage falloff after the first hit, so you aren’t really missing out on much damage anyways. For example, if your weapon does 6 damage to the 2nd target hit in a swing, and then 4 damage to the 3rd target and beyond, missing out on the 20-40% stagger bonus on such small numbers is fairly insignificant as long as Smiter is helping you guarantee a kill on the first target hit every swing.
All that said, I believe Assassin is the strongest stagger talent; it helps just about every character that has it hit several headshot/crit breakpoints on unstaggered enemies. But, Smiter has its place and I’ve used it to great success on a couple of classes who don’t have Assassin. If neither of those help me hit a breakpoint or I absolutely need the extra 7% power to hit a ranged breakpoint, then I’ll use Enhanced Power.
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That certainly sounds like a bug, and severely limits the usefulness of the Talent (namely, to only the couple of weapons with very low cleave to begin with, and with them generally having good crit chances, sounds questionable on even them). It’s very probably worth making a bug report on.
I’m pretty sure it’s intended, I had heard this description of it before.
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Yea, it’s intended. Assassin is nearly always the best choice followed by 7%. Which is why I’m not a fan of the stagger mechanic in general. When the best choices either ignore the the mechanic altogether or try and avoid it.
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