You're seriously claiming that damage on a hit that doesn't take a bonus action, cannot be stopped by counterspell and silence, and doesn't have a rider effect = a spell that takes a bonus action, can be stopped by both counterspell and silence, does damage on a hit and has a rider effect that carries a saving throw with it?
One does not equal the other by a long shot.
You are essentially arguing, completely seriously, that if I gave fighter's the ability to make two, non-action, non-bonus action free AOE attacks that ignore non-magical resistance that those are completely different from normal action attacks that are single target and effected by resistance, and therefore cannot be considered against each other in balance.
Yes Max, having two abilities that do similar things, but one is cheaper in action economy, less counterable, and does more damage does make those two things different. The difference is one of those two things is unbalanced and has a much higher power budget. Stop using the things that made Divine Smite out of alignment with the Smite spells to try and argue that they shouldn't be balanced against each other.
Either they are correct that the 2014 paladin and 2024 paladin are roughly equal in balance or they are wrong. They are claiming the former. Are the right or wrong?
I'll tell you when we get a 2024 paladin and not a playtest attempting to fix their mistakes from 2014.
Why would I advocate for something that doesn't need to be in place? There was literally nothing wrong with smite not being a spell and the different spell smites being spells.
Wrong. There was a lot wrong with it. The Smite spells took an action that Divine Smite didn't. They were affected by counterspell, silence, and anti-magic. And they did less damage. They were so much weaker than Divine Smite that they were essentially never used by the majority of tables.
A major difference is a major difference, not being pedantic. There's no way you can equate the non-spell smite with a spell smite and be anywhere close to accurate. There are too many significant differences.
"These two things were unbalanced, therefore they should not be balanced." This is a pointless position to take, because you are agreeing with my points, yet denying they mean anything.
Ahh, resorting to attacking the person and no the argument I see.
Not an attack against you, an acknowledgement of all the times we've had this dance.