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I think Smite is a good thing for the game; it's a source of nearly unavoidable damage. That means if something's really tough or "just about" dead, a Smite can help finish it off. That's huge against some things that go from 0 to busted, and helps keep the game honest by making sure that super-elite, super-deadly, super-resilient forces don't get the upper hand.

I would agree that the main reason Smite *can* be a problem, even though it rarely is a problem, is because of there being a few units that are far too inexpensive for the Smites they can throw. The ability to Smite needs to have an internal points cost "Access to Smite = 75 points" or something like that. Smite-lite is totally fine from the sounds of it, so things below that 75 point threshold, like Primaris Psykers and Malefic Lords should only have the "deal 1 damage" Smites, Alternatively, Smites for such small models should, perhaps, come at a difficulty increase, so that they have a harder time getting the Smites off in the first place.

Generally, this isn't an issue in the casual scene, and only comes up in tournaments from what I've seen. It's not overly strong yet either, as it's not totally taking over tourney's, however it would be helpful to nip this in the bud as it were.

Gotta say I agree with the statement that Smite isn't the problem here. Nobody's complaining about smite on Chaos Sorcerers, Librarians, Inquisitors and the like. It's the odd things, Astropaths, Primaris Psykers and Maelific Lords that are the problem and that problem is simply points. Back in 7th Primaris Psykers were 50pt, or 75pt if you upgraded to L2. I think around here is where the bar should be set for Psykers. No psyker should be 30pt, no matter how terrible their stats are.

Fhanados wrote:
Gotta say I agree with the statement that Smite isn't the problem here. Nobody's complaining about smite on Chaos Sorcerers, Librarians, Inquisitors and the like. It's the odd things, Astropaths, Primaris Psykers and Maelific Lords that are the problem and that problem is simply points. Back in 7th Primaris Psykers were 50pt, or 75pt if you upgraded to L2. I think around here is where the bar should be set for Psykers. No psyker should be 30pt, no matter how terrible their stats are.

Well, you could up both of those to around 70pts each and let them cast 2 powers per turn.

You know, as more things come out and Chapter Approved's come out yearly..

I'd like to see more options for baseline abilities that aren't smite, a general choice of "How do you want your caster to deal with things".

Maybe from a few general options you'd have aside from smite. Along with that idea that weaker, cheaper casters get less stronger variants because there is a difference between like someone say Ahriman and a minor psyker.

Smite really makes me wish that psyker mastery levels were still a thing. An easy fix would be to cast a power a psyker rolls dice equal to its mastery level. Then make the super cheap psykers ML 1, so they roll 1 dice. Smite going off on a 5+ on a single dice would be fine. Then your 40 point psykers would average D3 mortal wounds per 120 points spent. Doing that would also have made GK easier to fix, just make them 1 mastery level per 5 models in the squad.

Then if you think that weaker models should be able to cast better do something like make smite Cast Value 4 -deals 1 mortal wound, D3 mortal wounds if more than 5, D6 if more than 10

You do know that almost all of the GK smite abilities only do 1 mortal wound to non-daemon models (and that's regardless of the die roll)?
It's hard enough being a GK player. At least make a unit equal to 2 dice(5 men costs at least 105points). You can't take units above 10 men so by your method the best you could get would be 2 dice for a minimum of 210 points.

Smite should be 6 to roll. I like the already proposed idea of increasing difficulty. First D3 smite is 6, for every additional D3 smite +1 will be added to the target number. First smite is 6, next is 7, next is 8, etc. This will not hurt baby smites, but put an end to cheap psyker smite spam.

p5freak wrote:
Smite should be 6 to roll. I like the already proposed idea of increasing difficulty. First D3 smite is 6, for every additional D3 smite +1 will be added to the target number. First smite is 6, next is 7, next is 8, etc. This will not hurt baby smites, but put an end to cheap psyker smite spam.

Is there a cap on that? If a Weird boy rolls a 11 and has +4 from being near enough Ork boys, does that make it 9+D3?

I feel adding 1 to the WC value of Smite for each subsequent cast wouldn’t help fix Spam.

It would only really impact armies with more than 4 psykers, which is kinda the point.

One alternative could be that the result of the spell be relative to the size flor the enemy unit like some guns apply. For example:

1-10 models, 1 MW
11-20 models, D3 MW
21+ models, D6 MW.

That would also ensure that the effect in game is somewhat relative to the points spent on those affected units.

So small elite units would only ever take a single MW from a Smite.

Horde units would take ether D3 or D6. That would be a way to balance the impact of Smite across various army types.

If the problem is limited to three models, why are we trying to fix smite and not those three models?

Give malific lords, primaris psykers and astropaths weaker smites, and we're done.
The next cheapest spammable smiters are inquisitors and weird boyz, with one simply not being a good model overall and the other exploding sooner or later, unless supported by another 75 point character.

30 pt psychers usually cast smite on a 1d6. Means they basically pay ~45 pts per mortal wound.

If they target something like a vehicle that costs ~100 pts and has 10 wounds and 3+ armor.

A devastator with lazcannon costs 38 pts. Has easy access to re-rolls and even without them inflicts an average of 1.94 wounds - that's ~19.6 pts per wound. Besides, it's not limited to closest target and has 48 range instead of 18.

Things start to change somewhat when the target gets invul saves, is harder to hit or is a unit of multiple expensive 1-w models. But LC are not ideal vs this anywayz. There are a ton of other factors like LC getting easy access to buffs that improve it's performance and smites being able to hit targets in CC (but it's not such a big deal now). Another thing is platforms. But anywayz.

30 points to cast on 1d6? Astropaths are 15.

 Jidmah wrote:
Give malific lords, primaris psykers and astropaths weaker smites, and we're done.

And Primaris Psykers are never taken again. Boy, what a fantastic fix.

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Give malific lords, primaris psykers and astropaths weaker smites, and we're done.

And Primaris Psykers are never taken again. Boy, what a fantastic fix.

Yep, because there is totally no middle ground between 18" d3/d6 and "can't smite, ever".

I also think GW under-estimated the power of smite, and therefore didn't account for it properly in some units' point cost.
Increasing the cost of malefic lords, primaris psykers and astropaths would go a long way towards fixing the smite spam problem.
No one spams farseers or librarians just to cast smite, which means there isn't necessarily a problem with the spell itself.

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Give malific lords, primaris psykers and astropaths weaker smites, and we're done.

And Primaris Psykers are never taken again. Boy, what a fantastic fix.

Yep, because there is totally no middle ground between 18" d3/d6 and "can't smite, ever".

We've certainly seen no evidence of middle ground from the 'nerf everything related to imperial guard' crowd.

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Give malific lords, primaris psykers and astropaths weaker smites, and we're done.

And Primaris Psykers are never taken again. Boy, what a fantastic fix.

Yep, because there is totally no middle ground between 18" d3/d6 and "can't smite, ever".

We've certainly seen no evidence of middle ground from the 'nerf everything related to imperial guard' crowd.

So, you think 40 point smites are fine and are in no need of tuning down?

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Give malific lords, primaris psykers and astropaths weaker smites, and we're done.

And Primaris Psykers are never taken again. Boy, what a fantastic fix.

Yep, because there is totally no middle ground between 18" d3/d6 and "can't smite, ever".

We've certainly seen no evidence of middle ground from the 'nerf everything related to imperial guard' crowd.

So, you think 40 point smites are fine and are in no need of tuning down?

Yes, actually. I am not sure what nightmare armies people are playing, but I see 4 or 5 Malefic Lords or Primaris Psykers in most tournament winning lists.

That is 8-10 mortal wounds on a target of the opponent's choice, largely. And that is if they get the power off every time, aren't denied, and the closest unit is not immune to psychic powers (e.g. Culexus).

I think the best way to nerf smite is to have every army access to powerful psychic defense. Necron pariahs with the Psychic Abomination rule, Chaos dark mechanicum artifice that causes a psyker to automatically suffer perils if it is targeted by a power, that sort of thing.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
You do know that almost all of the GK smite abilities only do 1 mortal wound to non-daemon models (and that's regardless of the die roll)?
It's hard enough being a GK player. At least make a unit equal to 2 dice(5 men costs at least 105points). You can't take units above 10 men so by your method the best you could get would be 2 dice for a minimum of 210 points.

Yes but in my method you would not need them to be nerfed to 1 wound because they would be capped by dice. So a 10 man squad could do D3 wounds or D6 wounds, where as a 5 man would only do 1 wound ~50% of the time. Characters and Libbies could also be made higher level. I think overall GK would be better off, with my suggested change.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Give malific lords, primaris psykers and astropaths weaker smites, and we're done.

And Primaris Psykers are never taken again. Boy, what a fantastic fix.

Yep, because there is totally no middle ground between 18" d3/d6 and "can't smite, ever".

We've certainly seen no evidence of middle ground from the 'nerf everything related to imperial guard' crowd.

So, you think 40 point smites are fine and are in no need of tuning down?

Yes, actually. I am not sure what nightmare armies people are playing, but I see 4 or 5 Malefic Lords or Primaris Psykers in most tournament winning lists.

That is 8-10 mortal wounds on a target of the opponent's choice, largely. And that is if they get the power off every time, aren't denied, and the closest unit is not immune to psychic powers (e.g. Culexus).

I think the best way to nerf smite is to have every army access to powerful psychic defense. Necron pariahs with the Psychic Abomination rule, Chaos dark mechanicum artifice that causes a psyker to automatically suffer perils if it is targeted by a power, that sort of thing.

I don't like that idea at all, as it makes every army have auto-take units as a hard counter to psykers. Better to fix the power, otherwise those counters just make all psykers unusable.

So basically, you see two units constantly taken which tend to be the problem.. And the idea is to now produce counters, which not only counter mass smite spam, but counter people who take one or two psykers rather then dealing with the units that CAN smite spam?

It really sounds like I need to get in on this Smite game before I start rolling dice at the FLGS.

M.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yes, actually. I am not sure what nightmare armies people are playing, but I see 4 or 5 Malefic Lords or Primaris Psykers in most tournament winning lists.

That is 8-10 mortal wounds on a target of the opponent's choice, largely. And that is if they get the power off every time, aren't denied, and the closest unit is not immune to psychic powers (e.g. Culexus).

I think the best way to nerf smite is to have every army access to powerful psychic defense. Necron pariahs with the Psychic Abomination rule, Chaos dark mechanicum artifice that causes a psyker to automatically suffer perils if it is targeted by a power, that sort of thing.

So, you'd rather render all of the three dozen perfectly fine smiters useless than change the two that are actually a problem?

So you see a spam of psykers in the winning tournament lists, and you decide that... it means that cheap-psyker and smite spam is ok? And the problem is lack of defenses?
Theres enough psychic defenses when the enemy has 1-3 psykers that cast others powers that aren't Smite. The problem is just with smite-spam.
Fix the damm smite-spammers, and stop reflecting it with "Omg you just want to nerf Imperial Guard AGAIN!". Malefic Lords are even a bigger problem that Primaris Psykers. But that doesn't mean they aren't both a problem.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Yes, actually. I am not sure what nightmare armies people are playing, but I see 4 or 5 Malefic Lords or Primaris Psykers in most tournament winning lists.

That right there, is the problem summed up. If you bring 4-5 hive tyrants, farseers, librarians, sorcerers or demon princes, then you are paying a LOT of points for those smites.

On the other hand, if you are playing chaos or imperium soup, then you have a source of really cheap standard smite in the Malefic Lords and Primaris Psykers. The solution is very straightforward: Reduce the smite of Malefic Lords and Primaris Psykers to a single mortal wound, or up their points to about sixty, which is slightly less than a weirdboy

Someone already mentioned Guard players not bothered about smite spam (blob is good defense) but I think there's more to it.

To me the smite problem is exactly the same the lasgun problem. It's only problem because it's new. Suggesting further uses of smite should be more dangerous or difficult to cast is the same as suggesting that after your 4th lasgun, every consecutive one in a unit should decrease the unit's accuracy, or give the model a chance of a power malfunction or something. It is what it is and there are ways to beat it. People no linger complain about Guard Lasgun blob spam because there are ways around it. Seems to me that people just don't like the way around beating smite (blob/deny/snipe). It's like all those people who flip the table because you can steal first turn. If your army is based on one specialised specific tactic or unit and crumbles without it then build a better army.

It's the nature of the game that, as a new edition comes out lots of rules will be updated and changed. Because of this people who have built a "one plan army" can feel seen off. Understandable.
So adapt.

Theres many armies that literally can't blob, deny or snipe 5-7 cheap psykers before they totally destroy them because they are a elite army.

And it is not like they are facing those psykers alone. Those 5-7 spykerrs are like 240 points. Thats other 1760 points to deal with supporting those psykers.

 spoonlamp wrote:
Someone already mentioned Guard players not bothered about smite spam (blob is good defense) but I think there's more to it.

To me the smite problem is exactly the same the lasgun problem. It's only problem because it's new. Suggesting further uses of smite should be more dangerous or difficult to cast is the same as suggesting that after your 4th lasgun, every consecutive one in a unit should decrease the unit's accuracy, or give the model a chance of a power malfunction or something. It is what it is and there are ways to beat it. People no linger complain about Guard Lasgun blob spam because there are ways around it. Seems to me that people just don't like the way around beating smite (blob/deny/snipe). It's like all those people who flip the table because you can steal first turn. If your army is based on one specialised specific tactic or unit and crumbles without it then build a better army.

It's the nature of the game that, as a new edition comes out lots of rules will be updated and changed. Because of this people who have built a "one plan army" can feel seen off. Understandable.
So adapt.

I am curious as to what you think the counter-play would be for, say, a pure Dark Eldar force would be against 7-9 psychers? Or Tau, or Necrons. Would love to know.

Sniper Drones, obviously

Galas wrote:Theres many armies that literally can't blob, deny or snipe 5-7 cheap psykers before they totally destroy them because they are a elite army.

And it is not like they are facing those psykers alone. Those 5-7 spykerrs are like 240 points. Thats other 1760 points to deal with supporting those psykers.

Darsath wrote:

 spoonlamp wrote:
Someone already mentioned Guard players not bothered about smite spam (blob is good defense) but I think there's more to it.

To me the smite problem is exactly the same the lasgun problem. It's only problem because it's new. Suggesting further uses of smite should be more dangerous or difficult to cast is the same as suggesting that after your 4th lasgun, every consecutive one in a unit should decrease the unit's accuracy, or give the model a chance of a power malfunction or something. It is what it is and there are ways to beat it. People no linger complain about Guard Lasgun blob spam because there are ways around it. Seems to me that people just don't like the way around beating smite (blob/deny/snipe). It's like all those people who flip the table because you can steal first turn. If your army is based on one specialised specific tactic or unit and crumbles without it then build a better army.

It's the nature of the game that, as a new edition comes out lots of rules will be updated and changed. Because of this people who have built a "one plan army" can feel seen off. Understandable.
So adapt.

I am curious as to what you think the counter-play would be for, say, a pure Dark Eldar force would be against 7-9 psychers? Or Tau, or Necrons. Would love to know.

Add psychic defense and then bring them in your armies.

If we are going to change the rules, then the best rules change in this situation is to add psychic defense to armies that lack it.

You can completely shut down those 5-7 smites by having a Culexus the closest model or anywhere nearby, for 1/3rd the price. 3 Culexus could completely obviate those psyker's smites and eventually outright kill them. That sort of psychic defense on everyone should be accessible.

And no, it won't hurt armies with fewer psykers as badly because they are often doing things with those psykers other than smite. All a Culexus does when you're, say, buffing a friendly unit, or using another targeted power that can pick targets, or the like is impose a -2 on the casting roll, which is hardly "shutting down."

But culexus assassins hard-counter smite spam, specifically because the target is not controlled, they can be the closest model to the psykers without fear because of their Etherium, and smite simply is incapable of harming them, so it fizzles.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Galas wrote:Theres many armies that literally can't blob, deny or snipe 5-7 cheap psykers before they totally destroy them because they are a elite army.

And it is not like they are facing those psykers alone. Those 5-7 spykerrs are like 240 points. Thats other 1760 points to deal with supporting those psykers.

Darsath wrote:

 spoonlamp wrote:
Someone already mentioned Guard players not bothered about smite spam (blob is good defense) but I think there's more to it.

To me the smite problem is exactly the same the lasgun problem. It's only problem because it's new. Suggesting further uses of smite should be more dangerous or difficult to cast is the same as suggesting that after your 4th lasgun, every consecutive one in a unit should decrease the unit's accuracy, or give the model a chance of a power malfunction or something. It is what it is and there are ways to beat it. People no linger complain about Guard Lasgun blob spam because there are ways around it. Seems to me that people just don't like the way around beating smite (blob/deny/snipe). It's like all those people who flip the table because you can steal first turn. If your army is based on one specialised specific tactic or unit and crumbles without it then build a better army.

It's the nature of the game that, as a new edition comes out lots of rules will be updated and changed. Because of this people who have built a "one plan army" can feel seen off. Understandable.
So adapt.

I am curious as to what you think the counter-play would be for, say, a pure Dark Eldar force would be against 7-9 psychers? Or Tau, or Necrons. Would love to know.

Add psychic defense and then bring them in your armies.

If we are going to change the rules, then the best rules change in this situation is to add psychic defense to armies that lack it.

You can completely shut down those 5-7 smites by having a Culexus the closest model or anywhere nearby, for 1/3rd the price. 3 Culexus could completely obviate those psyker's smites and eventually outright kill them. That sort of psychic defense on everyone should be accessible.

And no, it won't hurt armies with fewer psykers as badly because they are often doing things with those psykers other than smite. All a Culexus does when you're, say, buffing a friendly unit, or using another targeted power that can pick targets, or the like is impose a -2 on the casting roll, which is hardly "shutting down."

But culexus assassins hard-counter smite spam, specifically because the target is not controlled, they can be the closest model to the psykers without fear because of their Etherium, and smite simply is incapable of harming them, so it fizzles.

Except if your buffs are already a CA 7, it pretty much hard counters those by taking them to a CA 9 (drops to a 27% chance to get the power off, from 58%), further if your opponent has a psyker to deny with that makes it even worse. Most powers seem to be CA 6 or 7 so a -2 is a pretty big debuff Also any solution where it becomes, your army must take x specific unit to compete is a bad fix. It ends up where all competitive armies look the same. Weakening smite for cheap psykers is a much better fix.