Actually that was the first stealth/knife rusher I have dealt with in over 500 hours - and I still stand by everything I said. The idea it’s even a possibility shouldn’t be a thing
This “giant wall of text” was a try to address your points in dept.
But have your own cake and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine!
FA! <— Short enough?
Loner aura my beloved… you will be missed. My stealth knife flanking build was never the same after that 
loner really did not do anything the dodge talent did not already do
Zealous is like genuienly so much better for stealth knife lol
Loner literally did nothing due to slot system.
Just because something exists in the game and some people like doesn’t mean it couldnt be objectevely bad design. Smite and stealth are the prime example of what should not have happened in the first place. By that logic we still could have camo for vet because some noobs sweared by it, while it was just a terrible thing to have in the game.
i’ve ranted against smite many times, precisely because it turns the game into a snoozefest for me, kills talents like +crit on dodge, and makes people who don’t do more than hold a button look important.
imo, the culprit is the ability to spam smite, or go stealth too often or for too long. make potentially toxic abilities regenerate slower, and / or deplete faster, and players will have to think better when to use them or save them for a bigger threat.
A player who doesn’t see Smite as a problem either doesn’t understand the fundamentals of Tide combat, or simply likes it because it’s easy.
In this game, being able to completely stop enemies from acting is obviously extremely powerful. That’s exactly why tools like stun grenades and shock mines are limited in quantity.
Smite completely ignores that restriction. It’s essentially the same as giving players an unlimited stun grenade that can be used anytime, with no meaningful limit.
