Do we need to spam smite on everything, all the time?

[Dumbledood]

No, the answer is no. If you see another player about to kill whatever it is you're planning on smiting, maybe hold for a minute to see if they need help. That's just common sense. You wouldn't try to kill the thing someone else is about to kill if you see them going for it already, unless you think you can do it first, and it presents a danger to the team. It would be better to kill something else.

Smiting can actually cause the enemy to twitch, making your shots miss, wasting time and ammo. It can also cause enemies to stop their charge, making melee shots miss. The worst is when Psykers smite a burster when someone is obviously getting ready to push it, sometimes leading to it exploding while they're in melee. Seen this happen to others, and its happened to me.

I played a smite Psyker right when the update came out, and to me it felt like a selfless playstyle because the damage sucked, but the cc was amazing. At the time no one knew to kill the things you were smiting which was annoying, but people (including myself) generally know what to do now, especially on higher difficulties.

I think it's a minority of Psykers that do this, because you have to either lack common sense, or be a bit rude to smite things that don't need it when others have it under control. Just a PSA.

Also, FS, I don't know if you can optimize smite so that it doesn't slow my PC down to a crawl, but it's really bad at the moment.

[PJ]

No, I'm going to keep stunning everything. Sorry about that one shot you missed, but also not sorry.

[Prince Ian]

The way I see it, is the longer you smite, the longer you're not doing any damage to the enemies and putting all that burden on the team. I use smite only when we are completely overwhelmed. Otherwise I am spamming my damage abilities.

[Dumbledood]

@PJ

Then understand that you play for yourself and not the team with this playstyle. This is a team game, it's not an RPG where you're the main character. At least stay out of the top difficulties with that attitude, because it's not helpful. Every class has its strengths and weaknesses, and you should play your strengths around other's weaknesses, and vice-versa. You'll see more success in games this way.

For the record, it wasn't one shot, obviously (are you dense?). Smite lord on my team made me miss countless shots because he just pressed the one button all game long like a drinking bird. And I have no doubt that happens in his other games with other players.

[Dumbledood]

Originally posted by Prince Ian:

The way I see it, is the longer you smite, the longer you're not doing any damage to the enemies and putting all that burden on the team. I use smite only when we are completely overwhelmed. Otherwise I am spamming my damage abilities.

You, sir are doing the emperor's work. That's how I use it too, to anticipate and control situations that look like they might get out of control. Otherwise, it's actually worse than handling things with my other tools or letting others handle it.

[Harukage]

No, there is literally no point in using Smite nonstop. You will do better with just your Voidtrike/Trauma staff. Use Smite when you encounter a huge group of elites, or need to give your team a breathing room to recover.

[PJ]

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

@PJ

Then understand that you play for yourself and not the team with this playstyle. This is a team game, it's not an RPG where you're the main character. At least stay out of the top difficulties with that attitude, because it's not helpful. Every class has its strengths and weaknesses, and you should play your strengths around other's weaknesses, and vice-versa. You'll see more success in games this way.

Yeah. When I stun enemies to make it easier for the team to kill them, and make it less likely the team takes damage, that is certainly a very selfish playstyle that does not involve team work. Truly being a support CCer is the most selfish lone wolf playstyle.

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

For the record, it wasn't one shot, obviously. Smite lord on my team made me miss countless shots because he just pressed the one button all game long like a drinking bird. And I have no doubt that happens in his other games with other players.

And after countless missed shots you never once thought to adjust your playstyle to better play to the strengths of your teammates?

[Dumbledood]

Originally posted by PJ:

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

@PJ

Then understand that you play for yourself and not the team with this playstyle. This is a team game, it's not an RPG where you're the main character. At least stay out of the top difficulties with that attitude, because it's not helpful. Every class has its strengths and weaknesses, and you should play your strengths around other's weaknesses, and vice-versa. You'll see more success in games this way.

Yeah. When I stun enemies to make it easier for the team to kill them, and make it less likely the team takes damage, that is certainly a very selfish playstyle that does not involve team work. Truly being a support CCer is the most selfish lone wolf playstyle.

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

For the record, it wasn't one shot, obviously. Smite lord on my team made me miss countless shots because he just pressed the one button all game long like a drinking bird. And I have no doubt that happens in his other games with other players.

And after countless missed shots you never once thought to adjust your playstyle to better play to the strengths of your teammates?

Ha. I see what you did there, but how am I supposed to adjust my playstyle? I can't change my gun mid-mission, so I would have to go for body shots, wasting ammunition, and at that point, it's not a good gun to use. If I go into melee, it's fine if there aren't a lot of enemies, but if there are my screen is moving at a snail's pace, and it's not fun at all. If I whiff a thunder hammer mega bonk because something stopped while being smited, then no damage was prevented that would've landed anyway, and now the enemy is still alive. Sure, if the Psyker started smiting it before he saw me heading into melee, charging my hammer, etc., then I could adjust, but in this example of a real thing that happened, it was the other way around, and they should be the one to adjust. It's polite, and it's optimal. But I shouldn't need to adjust, Psykers shouldn't be smiting everything all the time. It's not good. It just isn't, sorry. How is CC-ing things that would be dead otherwise helpful?

It's one thing to reasonably expect players to kill things that you smite to help prevent damage to the team, it's another to expect them to go kill things for you because you wanted to use smite, when you could've killed them yourself using something else. Also hard to expect them to enjoy it when their PC is smoking in the background while it's happening (To be fair, this isn't Psyker's fault, it's an optimization issue). This was as Zealot btw.

If it's a situation where it's needed, then fine, no complaints from me. Good on the player for smiting things. But if it's not, then you're literally Ralph from the Simpsons meme going "I'm helping."

[Gabriel Greybeard]

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

Smiting can actually cause the enemy to twitch, making your shots miss, wasting time and ammo. It can also cause enemies to stop their charge, making melee shots miss.

So no explosive weapons or grenades either? Sorry Ogryn folks that Rumbler has to go.
Oh wait, that also means no Shovels or shields for Ogryn's because those also stun enemies and cause them to "Twitch" making you potentially miss your shot. You mean to tell me you're saying "don't make this SINGLE enemy twitch in place because it might make me miss a bullet and I can't be bothered to move my mouse a few pixels"
Sorry but CC'ing things to make the team safer takes priority over your bad aim.

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

The worst is when Psykers smite a burster when someone is obviously getting ready to push it, sometimes leading to it exploding while they're in melee. Seen this happen to others, and its happened to me.

Someone doesn't realize that Smite *also* pushes Busters back. Oft-times the Smite is used to save teammates from a buster just as often as they accidentally explode on someone. In the GrimDark of the far future: ♥♥♥♥ don't always go according to plan, sometimes it's a bad call, sometimes it's the right call, deal with it.

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

smite things that don't need it when others have it under control.

Yep, that teammate literally thinking to hold your enemy still for you that they see might be helpful in the middle of combat instead of sitting there watching what's happening to YOU SPECIFICALLY during said combat is a massive detriment. Maybe we can string them up because they don't fit your exact playstyle ideal. Or maybe you can just deal with the fact that "hey, lots of stuff is happening, teammate seems to have somethin big on them, maybe I should hold them still to kill easier"

The suggestion to adjust your playstyle is a good one, sometimes you gotta aim at a target that moves(or in this case... moves *exceptionally* little).

[PJ]

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

Ha. I see what you did there, but how am I supposed to adjust my playstyle?

Shoot enemies in the chest or take out that neat sword of yours and go cut their heads off.

[Red_Theory]

Dead things don't need to be stunned. That said, there are good times and bad times to mass stun stuff. I've seen bad psykers run around constantly stunning stuff even if it's just one or two enemies when they can be better served by just taking them out quickly and moving on with the group.

[The_Gay_Agenda]

I pointed out in an other thread that Smite is basically the most useless Blitz due to its lack of damage and people doing nothing but spamming it. At the same time in T5 Auric Maelstrom with crazy spawn modifiers you really will be glad your Psyker has it and uses it WHEN THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO.

Multiple people started frothing out the mouth about how Smite is supposed to be spammed and its the teams job to do the damage. I'm really glad I never see the people on this forum in game lol.

[ﾏｿｿｿ ₒ❤]

clearly not, but hey

they paid for the whole perils bar so they gonna use the whole perils bar and that's understandable

[PJ]

Originally posted by Red_Theory:

Dead things don't need to be stunned. That said, there are good times and bad times to mass stun stuff. I've seen bad psykers run around constantly stunning stuff even if it's just one or two enemies when they can be better served by just taking them out quickly and moving on with the group.

I don't think we really need to min-max optimize an encounter with 2 groaners.

[Jackie Daytona]

But I want to smite my enemies and the enemies of the Imperium.

[Dumbledood]

Originally posted by Gabriel Greybeard:

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

Smiting can actually cause the enemy to twitch, making your shots miss, wasting time and ammo. It can also cause enemies to stop their charge, making melee shots miss.

So no explosive weapons or grenades either? Sorry Ogryn folks that Rumbler has to go.
Oh wait, that also means no Shovels or shields for Ogryn's because those also stun enemies and cause them to "Twitch" making you potentially miss your shot. You mean to tell me you're saying "don't make this SINGLE enemy twitch in place because it might make me miss a bullet and I can't be bothered to move my mouse a few pixels"
Sorry but CC'ing things to make the team safer takes priority over your bad aim.

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

The worst is when Psykers smite a burster when someone is obviously getting ready to push it, sometimes leading to it exploding while they're in melee. Seen this happen to others, and its happened to me.

Someone doesn't realize that Smite *also* pushes Busters back. Oft-times the Smite is used to save teammates from a buster just as often as they accidentally explode on someone. In the GrimDark of the far future: ♥♥♥♥ don't always go according to plan, sometimes it's a bad call, sometimes it's the right call, deal with it.

Originally posted by Dumbledood:

smite things that don't need it when others have it under control.

Yep, that teammate literally thinking to hold your enemy still for you that they see might be helpful in the middle of combat instead of sitting there watching what's happening to YOU SPECIFICALLY during said combat is a massive detriment. Maybe we can string them up because they don't fit your exact playstyle ideal. Or maybe you can just deal with the fact that "hey, lots of stuff is happening, teammate seems to have somethin big on them, maybe I should hold them still to kill easier"

The suggestion to adjust your playstyle is a good one, sometimes you gotta aim at a target that moves(or in this case... moves *exceptionally* little).

I'm not talking about Ogryn stuff, so you're just going off-topic. I'm talking about people over-using smite. And the reasons why that's bad. Not talking about grenades, or shovels, or whatever. So please don't take this out of context, it's not productive. But you did mention that CC-ing takes priority over my bad aim, okay, first of all, bite me, second, CC-ing doesn't take priority over killing the thing. That goes for basically every situation you mentioned, sure use your tools to control the situation, but also know your teammate's abilities and try to gauge whether or not you'll be helping or hurting. That's what I do. If I've got a hellbore vet on my team, I might not hit a bunch of elites with a Rumbler because they'll be dead sooner if I don't. Or I might do it one pack, and not the next. Sharing is caring.

Do you honestly think that people should be using smite on every enemy, all the time? Really? Because no, if I have to say it, they should not. How is this debatable? It's not fun for others. I'm surprised that its fun to smite things all the time as the Psyker, but to each their own. I suppose an argument could be made that CCing everything all the time is good for the team, but it's also boring as hell for the team, and requires everyone to adjust their entire playstyle to the Psyker. Not to mention it's taking everyone else's time up because the Smite lord isn't doing any damage.

As far as using smite on bursters, to repeat myself, it's all about what's safe in an evolving situation, or who has priority. So *someone* needs to work on their reading comprehension, and not make assumptions. If they get smited before someone is close to the push, okay cool. If they get smited as they're being pushed, then your homie pushing might get blown up. Yeah, ♥♥♥♥ happens. So, yeah, deal with it, but also learn from it. It goes both ways.

Otherwise, I don't get why you're so upset that I'm mad about not being able to hit things? I was using a gun with a vertical spray that means I have to adjust my aim down as I spray in short bursts, if something is twitching left and right I can't hit any heads. I guess I could try to learn to adjust my spray to the twitching, but FFS, that's a lot of adjustment when I could just have already killed the ranged without smite. My aim is fine, you grundle beast.

And okay, cool, I can respect trying to help your teammate with a mob, but all the time? No, empathy goes both ways. I'm playing on Auric Damnation as a Zealot (and Psyker/Vet, just Zealot in this instance). I thrive in the melee mechanics, I enjoy learning to dodge, and adjust my weapon arc around enemy swings, or shields, etc.. So, yeah, when things are smited, excluding the fact that it can make you whiff, it could've already been dead, etc., it's also just boring to fight against as a melee.

I know I'm not alone in this, lol. It's basically the same thing as the irritation at assail. It's over-using something which results in removing a dimension of the game mechanics that other players enjoy. Sure, whether or not its a detriment is situational. But honestly, I'm not talking about smiting a pack of crushers. I'm talking about smiting a couple ragers or a pack of ranged that I could've easily dealt with. Okay, thanks for the help, maybe next time let me get it? I'm talking about extreme examples of people using it all the time.

Smite isn't as good as any staff at killing things. If the enemy doesn't need to be CC'd, then there's no need to smite. If you wanna shoot lightning out of your fingertips, I get it, but do it in moderation out of respect for others.

I think the negative attitudes have convinced me to just not kill things that don't need smiting if they get smited. If the dude wants to smite that badly, he can deal with it.