I want to make it clear that I’m not blaming people who enjoy playing smykers. I’m a lifelong fan of utility & support builds and prior to Darktide basically always mained them when possible.
But I find myself at an impasse. Almost every single match lately has had a smyker. I play T5 Aurics / Maelstroms exclusively and outside of the nurgle blessing it literally renders the entire game into nothing but an afk shooting gallery. It’s boring as heck. Once in a while, I can take it that’s fine. But it’s increasinly starting to feel like 9/10 matches are like that. I’ve just now left 5 matches in a row, each one had at least one person who did nothing but hold smite from start to finish, every single fight.
I mean we’re talking about what’s supposed to be the most challenging, most engaging and hardest form of play. The endgame. Can we just do something about smite, please?
There has to be a better way to make a support blitz than making all things in the screen afk. Seriously.
Its my favorite build for pub games atm literally dosnt matter how dodgy your team is you can stop them getting shot! you can stop them getting squished! its amazing…
If I did that I’d just be imposing on them, being confrontational and making them uncomfortable. I don’t want that.
This whole issue is something I’m really not comfortable with. I mean there’s enough toxics around as it is and I don’t want to add to that. I don’t want to ruin their fun but on the other hand with smykers around I can’t have fun either, so idk what to do.
it’s too effective for simply holding a key, so people use it. so effective that it discourages them from even attempting other means. that’s why i stay away from smite with my psyker, i don’t feel confident in my melee skills when i can just freeze the game.
i don’t think this discussion will stop before smite is not reworked into something more sensible that can’t be spammed.
Ironically most of my Smykers hit the floor because they have zero situational awareness and they’re not killing anything in Damnation. It’s pretty much griefing to some extent because it’s one player down in the team that isn’t prioritizing Specialists and Elites. The CC is nice but I would rather they just take a Voidimpactwhateverit’scallednow AOE staff.
They can keep trying to buff Smite but I don’t think it will ever be good in Damnation. Sadly that makes every other difficulty suffer from explosive power creep buffs.
Just imagine for a moment you join a public lobby with random people and ask them not to use their build because you dont like it. Would you do that? What kind of reaction do you think your going to have?
If you join a public lobby you have to expect to see whatever is available to be used by all kinds of people that’s half the fun even if you dont like certain builds or playstyles thats public lobbies. I for instance find stealth builds really anti team and annoying but i either make a cheeky comment and play it out or just leave. That would be the reasonable thing to do.
I only made a psyker a week or two ago and was experimenting with builds… made a full support talent setup with the force shield and smite to stun/hold mobs… personally i don’t like psyker as a class and only made one to complete my penance grind. ./shrug
Trying to tell people what they can and cant play in pubs seems wrong to me i dunno.
When I see one, I tend to just not help clear their back.
They might die at some point, after all.
Sadly, sometimes they are actually good. It’s annoying.
It could have been so easy to make it less so, too.
There is a world of difference between Smite and both Stealth ultimates. Stealth ultimates have a heap of issues associated with them, but none of them ruin the game in the way smite does.
Can a stealth player run ahead, aggro everything and either die or start mid events? Definitely. But not only is this only a problem when they don’t die and far rarer than smikers, but also far less inhibiting. The rest of the team still gets to play the game and fight the enemies.
So yes it’s easy to see someone asking you to not use or spam smite. Because it effects everyone, not just yourself.
I personally don’t. Because I am a person who thinks that people should be able to play what they enjoy. So if there is a build that the community considers toxic/boring/annoying, me included, then I will just leave that lobby instead, or rawdog it.
That said, I don’t see anything wrong with asking. In Sweden, we have a saying that is roughly translated to “it costs nothing to ask” or “the question is free”. We’re all people, and it shouldn’t be an issue to ask, in my opinion. But this all stems from the idea that the build/ability is disliked by many players.
Assail was like that when it first came out. And just like Smite, I would ask if players minded it, since it was overwhelmingly disliked. And you’d see people leave lobbies left and right. I can survive without playing Assail every round, even though it was new and exciting. Or I can just dip into another lobby.
Edit: “Trying to tell people what they can and cant play in pubs seems wrong to me i dunno.”
I just want to underline that I would NEVER tell anyone that they can’t do anything in a video game they paid to play. In case that wasn’t clear. I would, at most, merely ask.
I can understand your point of view. I personally believe in that you are free to ask a question. To make a request. As long as you don’t demand something from another player who paid the same as you to enjoy their time in a game.
You could try joining the Darktide Discord and find players who want to run together and avoid using certain abilities/builds. Otherwise, I personally would just leave the lobby and find a new one, if I didn’t at the very least, want to request them to stop using it.
I play a lot of Psyker, and I really don’t like multiple Psyker groups. I’m not sure why. Because I love other Ogryns when I play Ogryns, and I don’t care when there are more Veterans or Zealots when I play them. But as a Psyker, I don’t like it.
I don’t like how Smite interacts with other stagger sources, especially as Ogryn. Like mate, you were just on the floor and now you’re doing an electro-jig!!
Make Smite’s charged attacks have limited uses (like Ogryn’s Big Friendly Rock) and then rework Smite’s uncharged attack to be an insta-stun against a singular enemy with the typical unlimited uses. Charged attacks would end when the Smyker either stops the flow of their Smite manually or reaches critical Peril. Let’s say (for example) that it has 2 charged uses with a 60-second cooldown per replenishment, taking a total of 120 seconds to fully replenish them both.
That way, Smykers could use an uncharged Smite attack against a singular enemy at any given time but would be left vulnerable to any enemies that they haven’t stunned. The charged Smite attacks being limited like Ogryn’s Big Friendly Rock would completely nip charged Smyker spam in the bud while forcing Smykers to actually strategise about when and where to use them.
That’s certainly a more creative idea than what I had in mind.
But still, I think it another idea worth considering would be to simply half the effectiveness of peril cost reduction effects for Smite specifically. Peril cost reduction would still be useful but not as OP when it comes to smite in particular and builds without it would be unaffected by that change.
I feel that this more simplistic change would fail to completely nip Smyker spamming in the bud. Smyker spammers would just quell their Peril more often and continue the status quo of turning missions into the Psykhanium.
