It's still REALLY BAD. If you cast at the normal level, Searing Smite does 2d8 damage (+1d8 vs Undead or Fiends), thus averaging 9 damage to normal enemies. Searing Smite does 1d6, so average 3.5 damage, then at the START of it's next turn, it makes a CON save (usually the easiest save to make for monsters), or takes another 1d6 damage, and so on. The CON save prevents the damage and ends the effect. You'd need at least TWO failed saves over two rounds to very slightly exceed Divine Smite!
This is my mistake, I edited my original post but you might have missed it. This is no longer true. The creature takes the damage at the start of their turn, then makes the save. So they only need to fail a single save to do more damage than Divine Smite, and averages 7 damage, not 3.5
It does improve notably from upcasting now, to like, mediocre rather than actively bad - if you cast it with a 3rd level slot, it does 3d6 damage per instance, so 11.5 damage on hit, and then 11.5 damage per failed save (until one passes). It's still CON so easy to make, but it's closer - a level 3 Divine Smite does 5d8 damage, so 22.5 damage. So you only need 1 extra round and 1 failed save for it to be equal - but you still two rounds and two failed saves for it to be better. Which is extremely unlikely. The best use is perhaps annoying DMs with it by putting it on monsters with Legendary Resistance and seeing if maybe they'll make the probable tactical error of wasting a Legendary Resistance on it. More likely they easily make the CON save though.
Yeah, a 3rd level searing smite does 6d6 before the save, meaning it is 21 damage at least. I think this is a clear case of how a minor change [the damage being before the save] makes a MASSIVE difference in the spell.
Still terrible unless you're next to a cliff or similar. None of those "buffs" do anything to genuinely compete with Divine Smite or even other Smites. Especially as it targets STR. Scales really badly unlike Searing, too.
Knocking an enemy back and prone is good not just when the enemy is near a cliff.
Still mediocre to bad. Upcasting this is an absolute trap, never do that. The damage increase is negligible, you'd only want to do it if you didn't have a better slot. It's basically just Cause Fear, except you have to be next to the target and hit them with an attack, and get a pathetic amount of Necrotic damage (literally 1d6) in exchange for positioning dangerously and having to use both an Action and a Bonus Action to deliver it.
Oh no, a paladin in melee, whatever will they do. Interesting you mention Cause Fear, because this is an concentrationless cause fear that also works on undead and contructs and deals necrotic damage (despite the public perception, a lot of undead are not actually resistant to necrotic damage). And even if you never upcast it, the ability to do so is now there, and well... you need 1st level smites don't you? Do you think giving disadvantage to everything an enemy attempts, without concentration isn't valuable? This is really a superior version of another 1st level spell.
You mean Shining Smite? Upcasting it is a trap. That's not a meaningful buff. Nor are the other changes except the Advantage one. It's okay but it requires concentration and requires the target to be alive. It's basically Faerie Fire except:
L2 not L1, only effects one target, rather than a whole bunch, required Concentration and does a pathetic amount of damage. I guess it's a Bonus Action at least? Not a great deal.
Basically Faerie Fire except... no save. You can't dex save against it, you can't legendary resistance it. You get hit with it? Everyone gets advantage to hit you. Yeah, it takes concentration, but as I pointed out, against an invisible opponent? This is a game changing move.
This one is solid. It's not perfect, but it's solid. Like it actually situationally competes with Divine Smite - but only situationally. You essentially 2d8 damage for a no-save Blind which saves at the END of a target's turn - that is, in fact, worth it in a lot of cases. You can probably make people have Advantage against a target and mess up at least one round of it's attacks for 2d8 damage. Upcasting only ever makes sense if you absolutely have to, but it's not an actual trap unlike Wrathful Smite upcasting is, because it scales up as well as Divine Smite, it just stays 2d8 down.
For a 4th level spell, it's pretty bad, but at least has situational uses, not unlike the Monk stun. Again most of what you're listing isn't a meaningful buff, it's just extra verbiage to try and make it look like they did more than they did, which you know perfectly well is disingenuous. But changing it to a stun is a buff.
No, it isn't making it seem like they did more than they did. It is showing what they did. You consider using your bonus action to cast Divine Smite a massive nerf, but for every single one of these smite spells, not only did you have to use your bonus action, you had to use it before attacking, and you had to use your concentration to activate it. That killed many of these spells. That is a tremendous buff to all of these, to not have to cast it ahead of time, but cast on a hit.
This is a BIG nerf! It still only works if they have 50 HP or less, but now it ALSO requires a saving throw both to work, and to keep them there, every round. Previously there was no save. This seems like a fairly senseless nerf, done solely to keep it "in line" with another spell, which is obviously not necessary given Banishment does NOT require the target to be under 50 HP.
And the original banishment didn't require extra saves, while Banishing smite still required the 50 hp limit. They just included the nerf they were giving banishment into the Banishing Smite. I don't like it either, but it is consistent. And perhaps they reversed it by the time we get the book, because I remember a lot of people not being happy with that.
So yeah, I'm not seeing "massive buffs". I'm seeing two which were genuinely improved are genuine situational alternatives to Divine Smite - Blinding Smite and Staggering Smite, where you ditch damage to do inflict a condition. But Banishing Smite, already super-situational, inexplicably got nerfed because a different spell with much easier conditions got nerfed (?!?! They could have at least removed the 50 HP bit!). And Searing Smite if upcast is better, but that's pretty niche because of how short 5E combats are and how easy CON saves tend to be.
The rest of the changes had long been required, and you repeating them over and over doesn't make them "massive buffs". It just means rescuing the spells being completely worthless. Some still pretty much are.
I think that changes which "rescue spells" are pretty massive changes. I think you are also too focused on the small bits of damage and underestimating how much battlefield control is hidden in these abilities.
