Smite

“Why all the hate around smite? It can lock everything down and allow your team to kill them for you.. surely this is great.. right?” You'll often hear this opinion from one of the following types of Psyker player:

• Just downloaded the game and have <100 hours played
• Have >100 hours played, but only played psyker and barely touched other classes
• Have >1000 hours played, but rarely plays havoc

Smite is a Psyker Blitz ability that creates chain lightning across multiple enemies applying heavy crowd control and relatively low damage at the cost of peril generation.

Smite is bad because:

• It slows down the pace of the game significantly by “pausing” all the enemies
• Slow pacing results in punishment hordes and bosses, especially when playing in havoc
• Slow pacing also causes games to go on forever which allows for more opportunity for mistakes and potentially team wipes
• Smite is awful against bosses because they cannot be crowd-controlled and smite does negligible damage to them
• It forces your team to go out of position and cover to kill enemies for you, and enemies are often more spread out which decreases the effectiveness of cleaving attacks
• You are extremely vulnerable while you are channeling smite
• In havoc there are modifiers such as Encroaching Garden or Final Toll that allow enemies to ignore crowd control
• In higher densities, smite may not be able to control every possible enemy, especially if they are coming from many different directions
• Smite doesn't do very much damage when compared to the potential damage that a Psyker can pump out using other builds
• Smite's crowd control is unpredictable because it is based on your Peril; when you reach max peril, enemies suddenly start attacking again and can catch you and your team off guard
• Many classes depend on successful dodges to gain damage and survivability; smite disables this which ultimately reduces the overall effectiveness of your team.

The following are all talents and blessings that are commonly used by other players/classes that are essentially disabled when you smite enemies (From most affected to least affected):

• Second Wind: Replenish 15% toughness on a successful dodge
• Duellist: +50% Finesse damage for 3s on a successful dodge
• Good Balance: +25% Damage Reduction for 2.5s on a successful dodge
• Riposte: +5% Melee Damage after Successful Dodge. Stacking 3 times. Lasts 8 seconds.
• Inebriate's Poise: Gain 3 Stacks of Momentum for Inexorable Judgement Keystone on a successful dodge

Zealots depend on dodges for crit chance, finesse damage, and survivability. They have a whole keystone that uses dodges to build stacks which then translate into additional attack speed, damage, and toughness regeneration per second. Critical hits are necessary to gain +100% ability cooldown reduction for zealots that take Invocation of Death.

• Quick and deadly: +15% close range damage for 3s after a successful dodge
• Float like a butterfly: Successful dodges grant 20% crit chance
• Regained posture: +10% stamina on successful dodge

Hive Scum depend on dodges for crit chance and stamina. Crit is extremely important because it allows hive scum to generate more toughness from Precision Violence and proc Chem Toxin on melee crit strikes via Coated Weaponry. Chem Toxin application is a major mechanic for certain Hive Scum builds - it is an enabling or enhancing condition for 5 other talent points that either provide +damage, +survivability, or +stimm cooldown reduction.

• Reciprocity: +5% Crit Chance for 8s on successful dodge. Stacks 5 times.
• Veterans that run Shock Trooper require critical hits for their Las-weapons to consume no ammo.

• Arbites Revelatum: 15% Damage for 5ss after successful dodge

99% of Arbitrators will run this talent.

The following are all the commonly taken melee weapon blessings that depend on dodge to activate which Smite will essentially disable:

• Precognition: +% Finesse damage on successful dodge
• Riposte: +% Crit chance on successful dodge

Melee weapons that benefit greatly from these blessings are combat blade, dueling sword, tactical axe, shivs, transonic blades, blaze force sword, force greatsword, etc. There is also a Ranged weapon blessing that is not as commonly taken, but provides a significant crit chance bonus:

• Desperado: +% Crit chance on successful dodge

The drawbacks for smite for both you and your team are significant and heavily outweigh the benefit that it brings. There are also other options available for the Psyker that can do comparable levels of crowd control while doing significantly more damage. Remember: The best form of crowd control is always death. PS: Other unintended side effects of bringing Smite may or may not include:

• Suddenly finding out that your team left you behind because they like dodging enemies and playing the game
• Suddenly finding out that every barrel in the game wants to blow you off the map
• Suddenly finding out that your team might just lead the nearest boss to you so you will stop smiting
• My bombastic side-eye 👀
• We might disown you if you seriously make this your main ability (and are not trolling)