Smiting Prayers needs some changes immediatly...

I've been thinking lately on ways to make smiting prayers worth while... As the rate things are, namely the last nerf to Smiter's Boon that someone should start caring about it.

So I'm going to present some suggestions of how smiting prayers should have been.

All kinds Holy Damage should be affected by armor, but with a catch:

Divine Favor

For each rank of Divine Favor, allies are healed for 3.2 and foes are damaged by 3.2 whenever you cast Monk spells on them.

Damage dealt this way would still be armor ignoring, compensating the overall nerf to Holy Damage.

And as a cherry on top of the cake, the following skills should be changed:

Balthazar's Spirit: 10 Energy 2 Cast 45 Recharge.
Enchantment Spell. For 36...55...60 seconds, you are attuned with Balthazar. You gain 1 Energy plus 30% of the base Energy cost of the skill whenever you use a Smiting Prayers spell.

Besides being used by farmers, who else use this skill? Nobody that’s who. At least this way, monks wouldn’t start screaming after a couple of spells casted. Too elementalistish? Maybe, but couldn't think of something better.

Banish: 5 Energy 1 Cast
Spell. Target foe takes 20...49...56 holy damage. This spell does double damage to summoned creatures.

A spammable Smiting Prayers spell for monks. Is that too much to ask?

Retribution: 10 Energy 1 Cast 15 Recharge
Hex Spell. For 2...6...7 seconds every time target foe deals damage that foe takes 33...66...81% of the damage it causes (maximum 10...50...64 damage).

A non-PvE only version of Pain Inverter.

Holy Strike/Soulstone Strike: 5 Energy 3/4 Cast 8 Recharge
Touch Skill. Target foe takes 10…46…55 holy damage. Health lost from Divine Favor is doubled from this spell.

A better version of a very conditional skill. This way people wouldn't had to go arround in circles to pull a Knock Down off before using it.

Holy Wrath: 10 Energy 3/4 Cast 12 Recharge
Enchantment Spell. For 4 seconds, whenever target ally takes more than 60 damage from the next 1…2…2 attacks or Spells, this Spell deals 45…81…90 damage back to the source.

A Smiting version of Spirit Bond.

I could give more skill ideas but just this ones would be somewhat marvelous for the average smiter.

By the way. This isn't a contest of /signed or /unsigned, drop some of your own suggestions instead of just sticking your tumb up or down and then leave, please? Thank you.

Lots more things can be done about buffing Smiting Prayers, and I'd say you're on the right track. I'd say that the issue with buffing Smiting Prayers though is that Monks are already the most prominent healer class in the game, and giving them the ability to deal damage and heal at the same time can be dangerous to balance, as seen with Smiter's Boon.

My favorite suggestion of yours by far is the Divine Favor change, although I'd be careful with how much bonus damage you'd be giving them.

How about this for smiters boon, why not have it elminate the healing bonus to divine favor and change it to a damage bonus instead. That way a monk would have to pick either healing as a focus or smiting. Smiters boon would be usable again, but not overpowered.

I like the OP's idea for banish.

/signed

I like the idea of Divine Favor buffing the damage on Smiting Spells, instead of the healing bonus.

Good idea mate, but I still prefer the conditional knockdown on Holy Strike/Soulstone Strike. I always thought that Holy Strike was more of a secondary for Warriors using the old school Holy Hammer build.

I can see plenty of balance issues with this. The divine heal/smite bonus just makes the monk an overpowered class, and with your suggestions, a spamable 100 damage skill screams broken.

Then let Anet takes care of it


This would be a great buff toward both divine favor and smithing
But can we say 3.2 holy damage instead of overall spells? Seems a bit overpowered
/signed

/signed

Completely agree with a spammable Smiting Prayers spell. Think you are on the right track. Although the class could become very unbalanced very quickly. I think a few changes for smiting prayers would be refreshing. Just a few to make it more attractive as an offensive class.

Smiter's Boon is a key skill in smite-heavy PvP teams that were generally overpowered and which too strongly discouraged the use of hexes and conditions. Their combination of healing, damage, and removal invalidated a lot of alternative builds within Team Arenas and has had a negative impact on GvG combat.

quote from Dev Update. Bolds from me. Smiting is already a strong attribute.

And if this goes through, and when they nerf the shit out of smiting, you're gonna QQ moar.

Don't change [Retribution] and [Balthazar's Spirit]... Me want's to farm

/notsigned monks are a support class and they shouldnt be doing a crapload of dmg by themselves...besides if divine favor would work like that every1 would use a build with: shadow step, reversal of damage, Holy strike, Stonesoul strike, holy wrath, and ofcoure youre batlhazars spirit. that way you deal loads and loads of damage, heal yourself and protect yourself from dmg thanks to reversal of damage...

Looking at this i remember realising, that all my monk ever did was heal/55farm. There was literally NO incentive to use smiting prayers, it's in my opinion one of the least used attribute branches in GW, buffing it up likethis would certainly make me a happy smiter, as all smiting prayers is at the moment is a huge list of signets that do practically the same thing.
/signed

Stop trying to ruin 600/smite.

/not signed

And Spawning Power needs more attention than Smiting Prayers. Smite Prayers are a side option for Monks. Spawning Power is supposed to be the Ritualists' primary attribute.

I like OP... smiting prayers need to be changed. Even if monks are a support class it doesn't mean they must have a crap attribute like smiting as it is now... After 3 years we finally need something new

Smiting is a fairly decent attribute, still as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed. Spawning Power needs more help. Smiting does have its uses - specialised uses, yes, but they're there.

Regarding Retribution - I'm pretty much convinced that Pain Inverter was originally conceived as a Mesmer elite for Chapter 4 before it got canceled. Mesmers face enough competition from Necromancers as it is - they don't need Monks getting in on the act as well.

Unfortunately, you are one of the few that are smart enough to see that one skill change isn't going to destroy the line.

It's like the same as if I yelled "OMG I CANT US FIR MAGIX ANYMOAR CUX MBLAS GUT NURFED"

My monk's smiting build is mostly signets so energy is not an issue for me. Granted, the damage is not exactly pwnage but it gets the job done nonetheless.... in PvE, anyway.

I have a smiter character coming up through Prophecies (currently in Dragon's Lair), and I've been quite pleased so far with his damage-dealing ability in general. (He's using a direct smite build right now, with Castigation as the only signet.) I'll be interested to see how he does in the Shiverpeaks and Ring of Fire, but he's already blown through areas that gave my ele some trouble at the same level.

I agree that some improvements are needed, and that mixing healing with damage was a bad choice from the beginning. I like the OP's suggestion of some kind of "attunement", which can probably be done by reworking some other crud skill rather than spoiling Balthazar's Spirit for the farmers. I also thoroughly support the idea of changing Banish to a spammable.

One thing I would like to see is a change to Symbol of Wrath, making it castable on a target foe, rather than just affecting adjacent foes. Lower the damage if necessary to keep it in balance, but it would be nice to have a little direct nukage equivalent to what a smite-support build can do by buffing a physical.

@Zahr Dalsk: how is Smiting Prayers any more of a sideline than Healing Prayers or Protection Prayers? A monk should be able to choose his major emphasis -- just as a warrior can choose among axe/hammer/sword -- and all should be equally viable choices.

The primary attribute exists simply to support the chosen secondary skill line in some significant way that can't easily be replicated by taking it as a secondary profession. Granted that Spawning Power may need some work, so does Divine Favor, as it does not currently make a good match for the smiting line.

I like the idea of Divine Favor being changed so it is the favor of a different god, and behaves differently, depending on which type of skill is in use. Say Dwayna for healing, Balthazar for smiting, and Melandru for protection. Choice of healing, damage, or shielding bonus.

As it is, if a smiter doesn't need to depend on the healing bonus, he can run with a DF of zero, do just as much damage, and reach a full rank 12 in some secondary profession line without sacrificing much. How many other professions can just ignore their primary attribute like that?

Ritualists.

I don't think Smiting is a bad line. Maybe a tweak or two would help it, but now that Smiter's Boon is out of the way for PvP I'm fine with it.

Devine Favour gives out the bonus healing in all attributes if they did what you suggested it would stop the bonus in healing prayers as well as protection.Smiting is fine as is I would look at the skills not Devine Favour itself.

I, for one, am against the divine favor buff. It would be overpowered.
However I like the other buffs mentioned.
Balthazar's Spirit looks very interesting for monk E-management and by even be fun to use in hybrid builds. A buff to banish is a must.
It was crappy to start out with anyways. Why not?

I may as well join in the bandwagon:
Spear of Light: 5 Energy 1 Cast 15 Recharge
Spell. Spear of Light flies toward target foe and deals 26...80 holy damage if it hits. Target foe suffers from Cracked Armor for 5...20 seconds.

It was too similar to Smite.