While playing normally, I noticed Smite would cast with noticeably increased frequency on occasion. This occasion seemed to be when kiting, or even just giving a movement input immediately after a cast, then attempting to cast again. I found it to be rather easy to replicate, Demonstrated in This Video.
If cast speed refers only to the time before a spell goes through and not the wind-down animation, then I can see this as being fairly skill intensive tech. It felt that it required an amount of precision timing to be able to do reliably. In the demonstration I noted that moving backwards was seemingly more reliable, but I don’t believe direction has much to do with it. I now think the character facing the opposite direction just provided a handy visual indicator of when to start attempting the next cast.
If that is not the case, if cast speed is to refer to the rate at which you cast the spell per second, this seems unintended. More efficient and precise cancelling of the back half of the animation than what was shown did result in increased casts per second, I was just unable to do so consistently enough to capture, likely due to my own lack of rhythm.
The occurrence was on a relatively low level character, I have no idea if investment in cast speed would render the “technique” moot, or if it would make it even more potent, but I’m keen to test it.
Additionally, I had observed that casting Smite, attacking with Multistrike, then again casting Smite in rapid succession resulted in near-instant back to back Smite casts. Take this with a moderately sized grain of salt though, as I could not replicate it, which admittedly made me speculate that this may have been from myself unknowingly smacking destructible scenery in the Risen Lake with the Flanking Strikes and Hallowed Arsenal nodes specced in.
My Skill and Passive Trees can be found Here, with both Player Logs attached as I am unsure as to whether or not I had relogged before attempting it again.
I’d be happy to provide any additional information if need be, and just as happy to find that this is intended, everyone likes a higher skill ceiling.
Player.log (4.2 MB)
Player-prev.log (220.9 KB)