Guild Wars 2

So you may have noticed me around pointing out how I don’t quite like where scepter and sword are sitting for Guardians, anyway, I’ve been doing a little testing with the scepter and I noticed with Smite only ONE damage number ever seems to come up at a time. You may say, ‘Well it hits fifteen times, what are you worried about?’, what I’m worried about is that this means that Smite becomes less effective the more enemies there are.

An AoE skill…. that’s less effective…. against multiple enemies…..

In addition to that, as we all know, it already doesn’t do reliable damage anyway considering it can miss something that’s standing smack in the middle of the AoE.

I really hope a rework of scepter is in the works (also making sword more worthwhile would be nice! ) because this just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Against five or more enemies even Symbol of Faith or Symbol of Protection easily out-class Smite… Yes I know it’s pretty spammable but it doesn’t DO anything interesting at all, if it applied, say, a short weakness or something, then I would be able to tolerate it only every hitting one thing at a time. I certainly hope I’m wrong about all this and I will continue testing it out but what I’ve said is what I’ve found so far.
What I would prefer is that Smite be changed into a symbol but there’s exactly two hundred threads on that already*

*This is a hyperbole.

As far as I know, Smite does deal aoe damage (i.e., each pulse would hit multiple enemies). However, many people note (read: count) less than 15 hits. However, with more enemies, you’ll have a better chance of having all 15 hits land, though no single enemy will take 15 hits.

I do agree (as do 200 potentially non-hyperbole threads) the scepter could benefit from more pizazz

Are you certain? I’ve rounded up a bunch of foes and thrown it on them and cancelled any other attacks and I still only saw one number at a time. Granted, it is hard to test as the damage is randomly dispersed around the area of effect (another thing wrong with it, we all agree) so I could just be unlucky and they only ever hit one enemy by chance but it has done that every time I tested.

Yeah I agree that more enemies == more chances for the thing to hit, however, not many other aoe’s behave in that manner plus it still would be less effective due to its total damage being spread out amoungst multiple foes as opposed to normal AoE skills just hitting all (five) foes for roughly the same damage.

I’ve noticed that Smite spreads damage when there are multiple foes inside of the ring. Which bothers me since its an AoE, so it should perfect for clusters of enemies. Instead it just slaps one at a time. Also, I’m starting to believe that the individual fists are what count for damage, meaning the player has to be hit by a fist to take damage. May explain why people are reporting less than 15 hits in ideal situations. So would this be a sort of projectile AoE that stops the moment it hits something?

Ghotistyx.6942

As far as I know, Smite does deal aoe damage (i.e., each pulse would hit multiple enemies). However, many people note (read: count) less than 15 hits. However, with more enemies, you’ll have a better chance of having all 15 hits land, though no single enemy will take 15 hits.
I do agree (as do 200 potentially non-hyperbole threads) the scepter could benefit from more pizazz

No, Silver is correct. Smite doesn’t pulse damage, it send out 15 attacks in an area. It works kind of like Meteor Shower. Meteor Shower doesn’t do anything if the meteor projectiles don’t actually hit something. Smite sends out 15 attacks in the area, but unlike Meteor Shower, its attacks don’t have a damage radius so each attack only hits one enemy.

edit:

Vaught Redford.3940:

I’ve noticed that Smite spreads damage when there are multiple foes inside of the ring. Which bothers me since its an AoE, so it should perfect for clusters of enemies. Instead it just slaps one at a time. Also, I’m starting to believe that the individual fists are what count for damage, meaning the player has to be hit by a fist to take damage. May explain why people are reporting less than 15 hits in ideal situations. So would this be a sort of projectile AoE that stops the moment it hits something?

Exactly

I used the word pulse, because I was still unsure if smite literally does run off the fist animations. It definitely seems like it but to be safe… (pulsing would be preferred in any case)

I can test things again, but as far as I’ve seen the fists do “Pierce”, though the numbers might not always pop up.

The problem isn’t so much the damage distribution as it is the fact that damage drops of severely if the target is even slightly off-center from the AOE. I would gladly trade some of the max damage (and keep the distributed damage across targets) if only Smite would hit consistently on all targets within the radius.

Yeah, I keep telling people scepter is garbage. I only use it in SPvP. Wish Guardians could use longbows… sigh

@Ghotistyx I’ll do some more tests on each fist hitting multiple enemies, I’ve not seen them hit more than one, most other skills that hit foes in close proximity have multiple numbers, so I’m not entirely sure why they’d suppress that on this skill alone.

To be honest, I think tiny little ghost fists flying around making mosquito noises next to the glowy tennis balls we’re launching out just makes scepter feel lame on top of having pretty mediocre skill effects although Chains of Light is pretty good I guess.
No finishers, no boons, no conditions (aside from Chains of Light and Virtue of Justice), no combo fields, just plain old, easily avoidable, boring damage.
SMITE SHOULD BE A FREAKING LIGHTNING BOLT FROM THE SKY! (+weakness and/or burning)
Orb of Wrath should look similar to how light field affected projectiles look, move at a similar speed and maybe have a tiny little blue explosion (pop!) at the end that hits three or so enemies! Even a complete rework! I don’t care as long as it’s cool!

Anyway, I digress, I went and looked at every profession’s weapon skills and the weapons that were more single target than anything else all seemed to have additional effects suchs as conditions, control etc with the exception of Guardian’s scepter, just damage with the occasional handy immobilise.
Sadness.