smite help

[taylorg]

hey im going to make a smiter but have no clue what to max and so on. i dunno anything and i need all the info i can get my hands on, if some 1 can link me to a guide...

[ThePunisher]

Max fanatacism, Holy Shield, and Smite. Fanat. will give you +IAS and a bigger damage boost than concentration at higher levels. Holy Shield will give you a nice boost to smite damage. In fact you'll gain more damage by adding to holy shield that to smite, for the most part. Make sure that you use a weapon with a fast attack speed, because your smite speed is based upon weapon speed. Since you won't use your weapon much you shoud also look to get some nice mods like +resist, and not worry about the damage on it. Also remember that your AR is meaningless for smite, so you only need to worry about dex. for blocking purposes. Once you have these 3 skills maxed (easily doable by clvl 60, probably before) try adding into 1 pt wonders like vengeance. You could actually max out another couple skills, so you could even make him an avenger/zealot hybred. If you want to pvp you could finish by maxing charge and one of its synergies.
Also remember that leaching doesn't work with smite so get something with Life Tap on it if you want to life leech. Smite doesn't do very much damage so get CB, DS, and OW as much as you can.

[taylorg]

how bout str and those stats? does vigor make u go up faster? i would need that
^^ thanks tho

[taylorg]

how bout str and those stats? does vigor make u go up faster? i would need that
^^ thanks tho

[ThePunisher]

Str: enough to use your equipement, which is going to depend on how rich you are. If you can afford Enigma, great, if not, you'll need to pump strength somewhat. I recommend getting at least 89 str so that you can wield HoZ. Testing HoZ vs. Alma Negra I found that I get comparable smite damage, HoZ's skill + makes up for the slight reduction in base smite damage.
Dex: Minimal to equip. Smite auto hits, so you don't need to worry about AR, and holy shield should take care of most of your blocking problems.
Vit: As much as you can
Energy: none (boost your mana with charms, but remember you can't leech mana so either carry a couple blue potions or else use zeal on hotkey switch with a mana leech to quickly replenish mana when needed).

Does vigor make u go up faster? Not sure what you are asking here. If I were making a smiter, I would add charge as his secondary attack skill, in which case maxing vigor would add as a synergy to charge and would also be useful for running faster when running is more important than damage. However, vigor does not give +IAS like fanatacism does, if that's what you mean.
Note that if you are goign to use charge as a secondary attack, you will need to improve your AR and so dexterity is a bit more important. If on the other hand you intend to make a vanquisher (smite + BH) then obviously AR is still irrelevent.
A couple other things: try to get damage reduced in your equipement, and high resists. I would use standard equipement for a melee character generally speaking (shaftstop + HoZ + verdungo's, etc). Elemental damage doesn't work with smite, so you could use any +IAS gloves, not necessarily lava gouts. Also for this reason you will absolutely need to either have some way to cast amplify damage, or else make a vanquisher, if you intend to get through hell by yourself. Smiters make good boss killers, however, so your only real trouble will be physical immunes. Although smite is not the best pvm skill anyway. For my smiter I intend to max charge + 1 synergy as well, and also I intend to use some sort of throwing weapon (demon's arch most likely)in case I need a backup of a ranged attack for pvp. But that's fairly unconventional and I haven't tested it before.
Good luck with the build. If you need a guide, there's one on the planet diablo website, I believe.

[Hardcore_Virus]

IMO i agree with everything said here,except that for a full smiter i would max defiance as 4th skill.Since it adds a huge defence bonus to holy shield.And since casters usually arent a problem for smiters.For excample ww barbs or sins can hurt you real bad if you dont have very good defence.I have built 4 smiters over the time i played diablo II and i m the most sattisfied with the one with max defiance. For a complete pally build my favorite is the v/t