On average, a Smeeta Kavat will use its resource booster Charm effect around once every 16 minutes of active gameplay time.

[RealPandemonium]

Bringing a Smeeta to a Kuva, Cryotic, or Traces farm is quite unsatisfying, and the chance for a resource booster is the only compelling reason to use the Smeeta in the first place.  Is this intended?

[TaylorsContraction]

My experience has been pretty random. Sometimes they use their buff pretty often, like 2-3 times in a row or short succession. For kuva farms it's always been a hit or a miss with the smeeta buff, but I don't believe there is any average time in between. It's all RNG

[RealPandemonium]

6 minutes ago, TaylorsContraction said:

My experience has been pretty random. Sometimes they use their buff pretty often, like 2-3 times in a row or short succession. For kuva farms it's always been a hit or a miss with the smeeta buff, but I don't believe there is any average time in between. It's all RNG

It can proc once every 27 seconds, with a 28% success rate, and if it succeeds it has a 10% chance to be the resource booster buff.  The math works out to once every 16 minutes and 4 seconds on average.  RNG can make that worse or better, but that's the baseline if you just go by the odds.  

[YUNoJump]

The randomness of the buff is 100% intended. They couldn't just add a reliably-activated free resource buff, nobody would use anything else and farming would turn into "wait don't touch that yet i'm waiting for my buff to come back up".

The Smeeta is designed to give random, crazy, unpredictable buffs, which is why one of its possible buffs is objectively better than the only unique ability on the Adarza. Don't treat it as something you should think about, just play normally and be happy when you get the buff as a random bonus, nothing else.

[AuroraSonicBoom]

Thanks, Obvious Dax. :D Not sure what you expect with such a powerful boost.

[TrinityPrime]

It was never clear to me to what extent the smeeta buff is shared. Like every so often when I'm using a sentinel and a teammate has smeeta, I'll see a clover buff icon appear, or does that icon belong to something else?

[YUNoJump]

1 minute ago, TrinityPrime said:

It was never clear to me to what extent the smeeta buff is shared. Like every so often when I'm using a sentinel and a teammate has smeeta, I'll see a clover buff icon appear, or does that icon belong to something else?

I believe the clover icon is used by The Adarza for the team crit boost, as well as Argon Scope and Hydraulic Crosshairs. If the clover icon appeared the Kavat might have been an Adarza, not a Smeeta.

[DrBorris]

If I remember correctly the buffs won't trigger if you are not moving.

 

I get why DE put that restriction in place, but it sucks for any defense style mission. 

[RealPandemonium]

While the idea may be to create a fun, unpredictable companion buff, the effect is that the cat does next to nothing most of the time, and isn't substantively good.  It's almost like a developer joke; "look at these guys bringing the cat for a tiny chance at extra resources" kind of thing.  Might as well bring a sentinel (which does a host of useful things on a consistent basis) and avoid the crummy aftertaste of the Smeeta.  

[AperoBeltaTwo]

On 01.08.2017 at 5:33 AM, RealPandemonium said:

Bringing a Smeeta to a Kuva, Cryotic, or Traces farm is quite unsatisfying, and the chance for a resource booster is the only compelling reason to use the Smeeta in the first place.  Is this intended?

DE hate pets for some reason. Or don't understand them. Half of the pets are completely useless, the other half suffers heavily from being unpopular for the lack of vacuum. 

Edited August 2, 2017 by AperoBeltaTwo

[DreamsmithJane]

On 7/31/2017 at 7:33 PM, RealPandemonium said:

the chance for a resource booster is the only compelling reason to use the Smeeta in the first place.

What? Blocking hits/gaining overshields, instant reloads (both of these lasting until used), 30 seconds of godlike crits, 10 seconds of free powers, and extra chances at any rare resource you happen to be farming throughout the mission aren't compelling to you? Nor the invisible cat with free decoys, that almost never dies, unlike most other companions? Armor stripping, knockdowns, 50m radar? None of those sounds useful?

On 7/31/2017 at 8:57 PM, TrinityPrime said:

It was never clear to me to what extent the smeeta buff is shared. Like every so often when I'm using a sentinel and a teammate has smeeta, I'll see a clover buff icon appear, or does that icon belong to something else?

Charm is not shared. It only benefits the owner. The clover used to represent the Charm buff, but for some reason, they changed it to a Smeeta symbol, and gave the clover to Adarza's Cat's Eye buff. Cat's Eye affects allies within 25m (including specters and Nekros' Shadows) in 30 second cycles (10 seconds on, 20 cooldown).

[RealPandemonium]

1 hour ago, DreamsmithJane said:

What? Blocking hits/gaining overshields, instant reloads (both of these lasting until used), 30 seconds of godlike crits, 10 seconds of free powers, and extra chances at any rare resource you happen to be farming throughout the mission aren't compelling to you? Nor the invisible cat with free decoys, that almost never dies, unlike most other companions? Armor stripping, knockdowns, 50m radar? None of those sounds useful?

Charm is not shared. It only benefits the owner. The clover used to represent the Charm buff, but for some reason, they changed it to a Smeeta symbol, and gave the clover to Adarza's Cat's Eye buff. Cat's Eye affects allies within 25m (including specters and Nekros' Shadows) in 30 second cycles (10 seconds on, 20 cooldown).

Adarza's crit buff comes out consistently every 20 seconds and stacks with other sources of crit (enabling you to get higher "colored crits",) and affects nearby squad members, whereas Charm's crit buff will come out on average every few [hopefully] minutes and overrides your crit chance with a fixed 200%, affecting only the cat's owner.  IMO Adarza is the way to go if you want a crit buff.  

The free hit/overshields and instant reload are forgettable, the free abilities for 10 seconds doesn't really matter if you have a properly modded frame and is too inconsistent to be relied upon, and the instance of a rare resource is marginally useful to a newer player and totally useless for veteran players while sharing the resource booster's odds of one per 16 minutes (also only even useful on some planets, as well.)  

The other things you mention can be equipped on the more reliable (if less survivable) Adarza.  If your post highlights anything, it's that the Smeeta is way more survivable than other pets, to the point of being an outlier among pets in that regard (perhaps to compensate for its other ability doing little or nothing most of the time?)

 

I was once a champion of things nobody likes on these forums, and I tend to agree with posts that sound like yours, but this is a "feature" that nobody has a compelling reason to like in the grand scheme of things.  

Edited August 2, 2017 by RealPandemonium

[DreamsmithJane]

1 hour ago, RealPandemonium said:

The free hit/overshields and instant reload are forgettable

You can forget them if you like, but they matter a lot over the course of an entire mission. And unless you are constantly reloading or constantly taking hits, the ability to store these buffs until they're needed means their infrequent activation is not a problem.

2 hours ago, RealPandemonium said:

the free abilities for 10 seconds doesn't really matter if you have a properly modded frame and is too inconsistent to be relied upon

Even a "properly modded frame" doesn't have infinite energy, and a lot can be spent in a short time, to great effect. Mag's entire kit and Resonance Banshee Sonar spam come to mind. How about RJ? Safeguard Nezha dropping Warding Halos on everything in sight? Or have you ever used Harrow's Thurible during the Charm energy buff?

2 hours ago, RealPandemonium said:

the instance of a rare resource is marginally useful to a newer player and totally useless for veteran players

Definitely false. I've been playing for years, and it's still useful to me. It's not like new research isn't a thing. Look what just dropped. Do you know how much that costs for a moon clan?

The point is that if Charm did any one of these things, it would be underwhelming. But it does all of them. A couple of better but less reliable versions of things other companions do, and a couple of things you can't get anywhere else. I have a playstyle that incorporates many different tasks, and I don't spend a lot of time doing just one thing. Don't get me wrong. Adarza is great, and I always bring mine when I'm focused on teamplay. But I heartily disagree with the assertion that there is only one compelling reason to use Smeeta. On the contrary, Smeeta is not a companion you bring for just one reason, ever. That would be a horrible decision. You need to value everything it does, or you'll be disappointed. The total value Smeeta brings is worth it, to me. If all you want is the occasional 2 minute booster, it actually doesn't seem that compelling on its own.

By the way, if you take that math to its logical conclusion, it's a 100% increase with almost 1/8 uptime on average. I don't know about you, but 1/8 more pickups and affinity, completely free (assuming you were going to maintain a pet anyway), sounds pretty good to me. Even works on ammo and energy, and that has saved me a few times in sorties. In practice, I usually see it at least once, maybe more, during a 10-wave defense mission. Are you sure it's a 10% chance? There are six buffs. Are they not weighted evenly? That would mean 9 minutes and 38.5 seconds, which sounds more accurate, and translates to just over 20% uptime.

[RealPandemonium]

2 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

You can forget them if you like, but they matter a lot over the course of an entire mission. And unless you are constantly reloading or constantly taking hits, the ability to store these buffs until they're needed means their infrequent activation is not a problem.

Even a "properly modded frame" doesn't have infinite energy, and a lot can be spent in a short time, to great effect. Mag's entire kit and Resonance Banshee Sonar spam come to mind. How about RJ? Safeguard Nezha dropping Warding Halos on everything in sight? Or have you ever used Harrow's Thurible during the Charm energy buff?

Definitely false. I've been playing for years, and it's still useful to me. It's not like new research isn't a thing. Look what just dropped. Do you know how much that costs for a moon clan?

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt here but, at least to me, it's a rather big stretch to say that these features are legitimately useful enough to justify bringing a Smeeta over its competition.  They can be kind of neat when they do happen to hit the spot, and they can have niche interactions with certain gameplay aspects, but they are far from legitimate candidates of being the reason you choose a companion, even taken all together.  

2 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

But I heartily disagree with the assertion that there is only one compelling reason to use Smeeta. On the contrary, Smeeta is not a companion you bring for just one reason, ever. That would be a horrible decision. You need to value everything it does, or you'll be disappointed. The total value Smeeta brings is worth it, to me. If all you want is the occasional 2 minute booster, it actually doesn't seem that compelling on its own.

The booster is the only feature of Charm that you can leverage to create a unique, decidedly significant result that no other piece of equipment can give you.  Everything else is just a frill at best, at least to me (I would wager that most would agree with me on this judgement.)

2 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

By the way, if you take that math to its logical conclusion, it's a 100% increase with almost 1/8 uptime on average. I don't know about you, but 1/8 more pickups and affinity, completely free (assuming you were going to maintain a pet anyway), sounds pretty good to me. Even works on ammo and energy, and that has saved me a few times in sorties. In practice, I usually see it at least once, maybe more, during a 10-wave defense mission. Are you sure it's a 10% chance? There are six buffs. Are they not weighted evenly? That would mean 9 minutes and 38.5 seconds, which sounds more accurate, and translates to just over 20% uptime.

Boosting resource acquisition rate by 12.4% seems good, but in reality it is of piddling usefulness in most contexts.  For example, it's totally useless if you're on a planet that doesn't have desirable resources, and you are unlikely to find a planet's rare resource (assuming that it's desirable in the first place) during the buff's duration.  Similarly, a 12.4% overall increase in experience gain is unlikely to be felt during normal play, but could be useful during affinity farm, if you're willing to give up the convenience of a sentinel or other companion.  For most players, giving up Vacuum for this effect is already a deal-breaker, to say nothing of the numerous other perks offered by sentinels or even by other pets.  

10% chance is taken from the game's code; I had assumed an equal weighting until I was shown otherwise.  Booster and rare resource generation are both 10% while the others are 20% each.  

The only times where the resource booster offers an advantage that is otherwise unattainable from equipment is during Kuva, Cryotic, or Void Trace farming.  In these cases, it stacks with existing boosters and "double weekend" bonuses to magnify the results significantly (of course, its effect is still significant on its own, WHEN it happens to proc,) saving a great deal of time and effort for the user.  No other ability or equipment option can expedite these farms on this level, because their yield is only affected by booster effects.  That's where the money is, so to speak, in this ability; every other function of Charm can be obtained elsewhere in a consistent or on-demand form, and with less headache and little or no cost involved.  That's why I stress that, on a practical level, this effect often feels like little more than an in-joke from the developers.  I think that many others besides my self would like to see Charm's resource booster (as well as its other RNG-layered procs) elevated beyond the unsatisfying bait that it often feels like now.  

Edited August 3, 2017 by RealPandemonium

[ashrah]

for farming remove all attack mods from smeeta and put in first slot  smeeta buff....  first skill alwayes works best

[DreamsmithJane]

18 minutes ago, RealPandemonium said:

they are far from legitimate candidates of being the reason you choose a companion, even taken all together.

And yet, my experience is that Charm justifies itself handily, when I already wanted a) a kavat, and b) Mischief over Reflect. I bring Adarza when I am determined to maximize the whole squad's potential, but I seldom have a reason to attempt that (regular content is far too easy, and I can't always rely on randoms to take advantage of what I'm doing) rather than take a marginal farming boost, and additional kicks to my combat performance and efficiency.

27 minutes ago, RealPandemonium said:

Boosting resource acquisition rate by 12.4% seems good, but in reality it is of piddling usefulness in most contexts.

It is an average of about 11% reduction in farming time (maybe I'm lucky, because I seem to get it more often). You might not consciously notice it, but that's real, and if you're putting a lot of hours in, it adds up.

27 minutes ago, RealPandemonium said:

For most players, giving up Vacuum for this effect is already a deal-breaker, to say nothing of the numerous other perks offered by sentinels or even by other pets.

Vacuum is garbage. It does nothing but waste whole pickups on marginal deficits and save you minuscule amounts of finger motion. It doesn't even save time, because it doesn't actually make missions any shorter. The fact that most players use Vacuum, and not only that, but find it so important that they won't give it up for real benefits and won't explore any other options, is just embarrassing. There is limited mod space on sentinels, and that is what people choose? I mean, none of this is important, but LOL. The best part of The Vacuum Within was that Carrier got a real precept with value.

Putting aside my utter disdain for the Vacuum fixation, most companions have benefits, and people choose the ones they appreciate the most. There's nothing wrong with that. The fact that I find Smeeta more valuable doesn't mean others are wrong to make the choices they do. Preference is not a zero-sum game. You said Smeeta is not compelling. I disagree.

Now, I wouldn't complain at all if they were to buff the success chance of Charm a little — say 9% per rank (36% max). Right now, every two times it activates, it is slightly more likely than not to do nothing. But you understand, if Charm's booster alone became "compelling", it would be more broadly used than Carrier ever was. DE is undoubtedly not keen on creating yet another situation where one companion among 15 gets 80% usage.

[TaylorsContraction]

Real SmithJane I agree with you wholeheartedly, op just has it out for the smeeta and nothing your say matters. It's a great companion for new players because of the rare resource pick up. Instant reload, crits and an energy bust is nothing to scoff at.

[Skaleek]

Can you cite your math please? I get one far more often than 16m. Like, way more.

[iPlayPwnsGames]

2 hours ago, Skaleek said:

Can you cite your math please? I get one far more often than 16m. Like, way more.

He did that based off of pure numbers, theoretically it can take 16m, but you will likely get it more with just a shred of luck.

16 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

Vacuum is garbage. It does nothing but waste whole pickups on marginal deficits and save you minuscule amounts of finger motion. It doesn't even save time, because it doesn't actually make missions any shorter. The fact that most players use Vacuum, and not only that, but find it so important that they won't give it up for real benefits and won't explore any other options, is just embarrassing. There is limited mod space on sentinels, and that is what people choose? I mean, none of this is important, but LOL. The best part of The Vacuum Within was that Carrier got a real precept with value.

Putting aside my utter disdain for the Vacuum fixation, most companions have benefits, and people choose the ones they appreciate the most. There's nothing wrong with that. The fact that I find Smeeta more valuable doesn't mean others are wrong to make the choices they do. Preference is not a zero-sum game. You said Smeeta is not compelling. I disagree.

Now, I wouldn't complain at all if they were to buff the success chance of Charm a little — say 9% per rank (36% max). Right now, every two times it activates, it is slightly more likely than not to do nothing. But you understand, if Charm's booster alone became "compelling", it would be more broadly used than Carrier ever was. DE is undoubtedly not keen on creating yet another situation where one companion among 15 gets 80% usage.

Vacuum is a lot better than you say -- if you are farming  with mass AOE damage, it takes a lot less time to walk in the general direction than to pick up everything. Vacuum definitely makes farming missions less of a hassle, and by that nature; shorter. 

The only useful buff to smeeta is the double resource, and it rarely procs.

Edited August 3, 2017 by iPlayPwnsGames

[Tesseract7777]

Luck cat is supposed to be luck cat though. Luck isn't reliable, it's really random. 

 

DE does not like loot giving powers too strong, think of it as an invisible cooldown to keep it from being "too strong". Remember what they did to Hydroid? 

[Tesseract7777]

33 minutes ago, iPlayPwnsGames said:

The only useful buff to smeeta is the double resource, and it rarely procs.

LOL. What? 200% additive crit chance for 30s isn't useful? Warframe ability cost refund with possible free channel for 10 seconds isn't useful? 

Can I have some of whatever you are smoking? 

[DreamsmithJane]

27 minutes ago, iPlayPwnsGames said:

Vacuum is a lot better than you say -- if you are farming  with mass AOE damage, it takes a lot less time to walk in the general direction than to pick up everything. Vacuum definitely makes farming missions less of a hassle, and by that nature; shorter.

It really doesn't make missions shorter. There is an order of magnitude more down time in any mission than you actually need to collect loot, and collecting loot a little bit faster (definitely not "a lot") neither causes the objective to be completed faster nor gets you to extraction sooner. It is sheer laziness, not anything resembling efficiency or saving time. Don't get me wrong. It's fine that people are lazy about looting. Looting is boring. But Vacuum is not productive. It's actually less efficient, because, as I said, it forces you to gather nearby pickups you definitely don't need for 10 energy or 5 bullets, or to stay far away when you see pickups on the ground you know you'll need later.

38 minutes ago, iPlayPwnsGames said:

The only useful buff to smeeta is the double resource, and it rarely procs.

No. Just...no. The crit buff lasts 3 times as long as Cat's Eye, and guarantees orange crits on guns and easily level 8 (!) or higher crits on Blood Rush melee (pushing DPS into the millions in the right circumstances). The free reload can save you a few seconds in the middle of a fight, if you use a weapon with a huge magazine that finally runs out. The reinforced shields can save your life if you're good at avoiding hits, because usually, the only thing that can eventually hit you will one-shot you.

The resource and affinity booster is definitely nice to have, but I don't think "useful" is the correct word for something so passive, especially when compared with everything else Smeeta can do. You and OP can doubt if you want, but Smeeta is extremely useful.

[iPlayPwnsGames]

5 hours ago, DreamsmithJane said:

It really doesn't make missions shorter. There is an order of magnitude more down time in any mission than you actually need to collect loot, and collecting loot a little bit faster (definitely not "a lot") neither causes the objective to be completed faster nor gets you to extraction sooner. It is sheer laziness, not anything resembling efficiency or saving time. Don't get me wrong. It's fine that people are lazy about looting. Looting is boring. But Vacuum is not productive. It's actually less efficient, because, as I said, it forces you to gather nearby pickups you definitely don't need for 10 energy or 5 bullets, or to stay far away when you see pickups on the ground you know you'll need later.

No. Just...no. The crit buff lasts 3 times as long as Cat's Eye, and guarantees orange crits on guns and easily level 8 (!) or higher crits on Blood Rush melee (pushing DPS into the millions in the right circumstances). The free reload can save you a few seconds in the middle of a fight, if you use a weapon with a huge magazine that finally runs out. The reinforced shields can save your life if you're good at avoiding hits, because usually, the only thing that can eventually hit you will one-shot you.

The resource and affinity booster is definitely nice to have, but I don't think "useful" is the correct word for something so passive, especially when compared with everything else Smeeta can do. You and OP can doubt if you want, but Smeeta is extremely useful.

Vacuum is not inefficient at all. It is the biggest QoL ability in this game. If you claim that losing out on 10 energy or 5 bullets is a problem when you are in a horde based shooter, then you are doing something wrong.

The crit buff is a static 200%. Blood rush has no effect, and it only allows weapons to orange crit, and relying on rng to make a weapon better isnt that great.

The shield buff is very minuscule (only like 200 overshields)

The reload buff once again, you shouldn't be relying on rng to make a weapon better, just avoid the damage you would take while reloading by bullet jumping.

Resource is good for kuva/trace/cryotic, all of the other buffs are able to be obtained by some other means on a much more consistent basis.

If smeeta was as good, and vacuum was as inefficient as you claim, why are sentinels still used over smeetas?

[Skaleek]

7 hours ago, iPlayPwnsGames said:

He did that based off of pure numbers, theoretically it can take 16m, but you will likely get it more with just a shred of luck.

Can you show me the pure numbers? Cause i get way too many charms for "one charm per 16m average" to be even kinda true.

[OvisCaedo]

8 minutes ago, Skaleek said:

Can you show me the pure numbers? Cause i get way too many charms for "one charm per 16m average" to be even kinda true.

Well, his claim is that the resource doubling SPECIFICALLY is on that average timing, not any charm buff at all. Still not quite sure about where his claim of the resource doubling being a 10% chance, though, I'd always assumed the chance was evenly split between the 6 random buff types.

Edited August 4, 2017 by OvisCaedo