I want Warlocks which are great at Runes of Battle, but with a passable Smite capability.
If I have one Farseer, using Smite in a pinch should do some real damage, but if I run 2 farseers and a Spirit Seer, they shouldn't each be smiting so strongly.
This is why I like the -1W each successive cast. Each GK Squad can still smite. They usually do 1 damage each, so it does the same thing. A solo psyker in the list can still smite at full strength. Two psykers, and one is still full and the other is good. 3+ psykers, and it starts dropping off.
If every psyker gets full-smite with no change, that puts a fairly high floor on the value of a psyker regardless of powers, stats, etc. But if either some psykers (Warlocks, GK Squads) get mini-Smite, you can still have Psykers that don't need to pay full price for Smite.
So our options are:
1) Make Smite less cinematic game-wide (weaker smite)
2) Put a high cost floor on any Psyker in the game (Warlocks, Primaris, and Maelifics now need to cost 50-100 pts each)
3) Implement a change that reduces Smite effectiveness as it gets recast.
The reason I like #3 is because Psyker powers are inherently once-per-turn, and Smite can only be recast by a specific rule. So it seems very light-touch to change that rule.
(Also, a -1W per Smite cast, min 1, wouldn't hurt Strike Squads much, because they usually do 1 MW already.)
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