There really isn't any, since it doesn't do any damage unless you have flaring UAC gear that will flare on undead. Even then, those flares can't be aimed, so it's just a second timesink. The only tactical advantage I could think of would be if you aimed at a location the mob was favoring at the time, in order to make the SMITE corporeal effect last longer (possibly?) and potentially tier up (...possibly?!).

So given that I noticed it too, I set up my SMITE Stormfront macro to /xaimclear/rsmite/r, which clears whatever I may have been typing (a failsafe), clears my AIM location (because of that RT), then SMITEs (le desired effect).

Personally, I have that mapped to SHIFT+TAB, because TAB is /xaim head/rambush/r, and CTRL+TAB is /xaim left leg/rambush/r. You don't need to do similar, but that's a glimpse into how I deal with noncorporeal undead- turn them corporeal with a Smite, then just brain them. Easy peasy nice and squeezy.

-james, bristenn's player

---

You think to yourself, "FFF-"

A giant white bunny hurls a powerful lightning bolt at you!

You evade the bolt by a hair!

Wow, looking forward to seeing what the upcoming unarmed combat update is going to be.

And, thank you!

>So, since we had an unarmed combat update this week that did not include this update, is it fair to infer that we have another combat update coming that will include this?

I was wondering if someone would notice that. The inference is reasonable, yes. Although in fairness, when I said that, I actually did intend to put it in for this update. It was easier to let it go out with the next one (guaranteed) however, rather than juggle different code versions now.

Is this change still in QC?

Ohh, sweet it does look like it went through. Now I can smite in 4 seconds, its going to be much more useful. Many thanks!

I thought 5 seconds was the minimum expiry time.

Wow, that couldn't have been the design intent (I remember an old name in red post saying that there should be sufficient time to follow up against a "smitten" target).

If you are going to wait till you get to excellent, you'll normally be better bleeding it out. Non corps usually have relatively low hit points. Decent is only going to pay if you have a weapon, because even if you get a UAC attack in before it expires, you aren't going to tier up to the point where a kill shot is possible.

Those timings mean that in my experience, a haste effect of 1s is worth 60,30,20 on the die roll at decent, good, excellent and if you want to make more than niche use of smite you should have some means of getting that. Qstrike worked fine for me once its syntax was sorted for UAC. If the attack that got me good position gave an opening for excellent, I'd take it, but my normal tactic was qstrike smite at good position. (I also found qstrike useful for speeding up tiering when I needed to make an ineffectual attack like jab or grapple to gain a tier - if jab opening then qstrike jab)

Another problem with using smite is that it forces me to kill fading critters at the wrong time for looting. I'd still get to loot half of them, but the timing requirements of smite negated the tactics I have for making that 90-95% if I'm bleeding them out. The extra couple of seconds from qstrike is also significant for getting loot when using smite.

>(I gave it about half a second of thought with my archer before deciding I just wasn't that big of a masochist).

Its the density in the basement that was the reason I left town when I started getting those bounties. No chance of getting to use a smite because of the swarms. Bad enough trying to tier up before getting swarmed, but tier up and smite and get a follow up before getting swarmed just wasn't possible in there.

I was able to get a swing in with 4 second smites, just before the creature turned back.