zeal/smiter PvM?

[OU Fiji]

No, this is not another question asking how to make a L33T pwn ur m0m r0x0rz ur s0x0rZ uber trist pally, so please read. I was wondering if the typical zeal/smiter that people use for uber tristram purposes is actually viable/useful as a regular old PvM paladin build, or if its just a waste of time other than running the ubers.

[AnimeCraze]

Zealot with 1 point smite works better than zmiters for general PvMing, but zmither does it well enough. As long as you are using an actual weapon for zealing, of course (like heaven's light, stormlash, grief, and not like black). You will still have max block, nice damage, stacked resist, and attack speed.

[kingdryland]

Viable it is but it is inferior to 1pt zealots both in pvm and pvp and 1pt smite zealots can be about as good as zeal/smite hybrids vs ubers so ,yes the hybrid is a waste.

[Bladewind]

But can you imagine the power of a Grief toting Zsmiter ? Smite adds 300% ED at lvl20 alone. :)

[cowpaste]

Viable it is but it is inferior to 1pt zealots both in pvm and pvp and 1pt smite zealots can be about as good as zeal/smite hybrids vs ubers so ,yes the hybrid is a waste.

Punctuation....

[Xiamet]

A Zmiter does very well in PvM, especially if he's set up with 50% or more Crushing Blow. With a good % of CB, you'll hardly notice the difference in damage between a Zmiter and a Zealot, since CB is doing most of the work anyway.

CB compensates for the lack of synergy damage from Sacrifice, a skill you'll never use anyway. Whereas Smite synergizes with Holy Shield, and both skills will be useful to you. A Zmiter is more efficient in it's use of Skills and Synergies IMHO.

My Zmiter zeals away most anything in players 8 hell, and when it comes down to smiting that last sliver of life left in Baal, and CB loses it's effectiveness, the extra damage from a maxed Smite comes in very handy.

Unless you're using a weapon like Grief, where your weapon damage is actually counted with your Smite, I'd reccomend maxing Smite.

-X

[kingdryland]

What you say is that crushing blow is the crucial thing. Partly correct but a fully synergized zealot is more damaging than a zmiter in pvm,when they both have the same amount of CB.

You have to realise that a maxed smite/maxed holy shield/maxed fanaticism/elite shield combo won't produce more than 2k average damage unless you use fortitude+phoenix+loads of combat skillers (expect 3k then) or some +damage weapon. 1pt smite with maxed holyshield/fanaticism/elite pala shield will bring your damage to 70% of that of a pure smiter.The lowest grief combined with 1pt smite will easily give 5k+...
Maxing smite is a big waste. As you say,crushing blow does most of the job,and cb is the same with 1 or 20 in smite.

[Xiamet]

What I'm saying is simply this...your weapon damage doesn't matter very much when it comes to CB and Smite, because CB is what's dropping the monster's life, moreso than your actual damage.

This is the reason why people can use a Black runeword in a flail, of all things, and still drop the Uber's health quickly. The flail's damage sucks, but with good amounts of CB, you'll hardly notice.

The only time weapon or Shield damage really makes a difference is in those last few slivers of life, where CB's effectiveness is greatly reduced. And you certainly don't need to do goo-gobs of damage to finish off a few hundred points.

As far as Zealing goes, whether you apply CB with a 3k damage weapon or a 1k weapons, both are going to reduce a monster's hitpoints about the same rate. Think about this...

Sure, it's great to have an uber runeword to flash around, as well as maxing out your Zeal synergy, but in the end, with a good % of CB, it's not neccesary, and IMHO, doesn't make much of a difference. Points wasted in Sacrifice could be better spent elsewhere.

-X

[kingdryland]

Again you missed my point. Damage wise 1pt smite and 20pt smite are very near and will get the last few thousands of hitpoints away from the ubers in a similar time...So 20pt smite is a waste. As for 1k zeal or 3k zeal,let me inform you that with grief you can deal 6k-13k avg, per swing (depends on ed% on gear and total deadly strike,my +365% grief/forti/85% ds zealot deals 11k per swing). And that makes a HUGE difference in hell pvm. We make griefs and botds for a reason ,if cb was be all end all we all would be using stone crushers or so.

Think of that. A grief/forti/50% crushing blow/1pt smite zealot can waste the ubers in about the same speed as a non grief zmiter,and a non grief zealot isn't much slower either. And they are both way more effective in general pvm. I've used pure smiter,death zmiter,stormlash zealot and grief zealot to find that the last one is probably the most complete meleer in the game this moment.

[Xiamet]

Actually, I didn't miss your point, I just disagree with it, and I think I've stated my reasons why rather clearly.

All this damage you're going on about reminds me of the same argument about Uber damage Hammerdins....at what point does the damage become redundant and overkill? How much damage do you need to kill a Quill Rat?

So you can configure a Paladin with expensive runewords to do a gazillion points of damage. Joyness. But does the average monster in D2 even require uber damage? No. Of course not. Even the Ubers in Tristam don't require uber damage or uber gear. Just some thought out choices in gear and skill selection.

You can opt to go for the expensive gear and runewords, dump all your points on skills to pump your damage sky high, or you can use cheap CB gear, pump skills you'll actually use and get results that are just as effective....without the gazillion points of damage. Speaking of effective...

The original question for this thread wasn't about the most effective build for PvM, it was whether or not a Zmiter is effective in PvM. It most certainly is, and it doesn't even require an uber setup.

nuff said
-X

[AnimeCraze]

I think what kingdryland trying to say is that zmiter is less effective than a zealot in PvM with the same quality of gear, and that a zmiter is not much more effective at killing ubers with 1 point smite, grief or no grief. Therefore, zealot with 1 point smite is preferred.

You see, the more the hp, the less actual damage matters, since CB takes away most of the hp anyways. However, with little hp, actually damage matters a lot since CB takes away much less, while actual damage remains the same. So, maxing smite makes dealing with the last silver of the Ubers faster, while maxing zeal synergy makes general PvM faster. I would rather it be faster general PvMing then uber killing, since I don't kill ubers a lot, especially compared to common enemies. If you are running an uber service, then that's different.

The cheaper the gear, the more obvious it becomes that a zealot is more effective. Yes, CB is nice, but actual damage reflects rather well on normal hp enemies, since it makes the difference of 1 hit and 3 hits (heaven's light is not necessary strong enough to kill enemies in 1 hit, especially relatively "high" hp ones, like 5~15k hp). Try zealing with a black flail and a nord's and REALLY see the difference, on stuff like fallens. Or use a char editor and make 2 chars with same speed, same CB, but one has 2k total damage and one with 1.5k (max sacrifice and don't max sacrifice), then try clearing out WSK, or worse, fallen camps.

On a 4k hp enemy:
1k zeal:
CB is going to drop hp by 1k, and damages it with 1k of actual damage, 2k remains.
CB is going to drop hp by 0.5k, and damages it with 1k of actual damage, 0.5k remains.
CB is going to drop hp by 0.125k, and damages it with 1k of actual damage, killed.
3 hits.

3k zeal:
CB is going to drop hp by 1k, and damages it with 3k of actual damage, killed, or very little hp left over for the next hit.
1~2 (average 1.5) hits.

In other words, actual damage > CB on lower hp enemies. It does make it that much faster. For an extreme example, CBing with your fist is not going to kill anything, just like a sorc trying to static a norm fallen to death.

Another way to put it: Once Baal's hp is low enough for smite damage to matter, the amount of hp he has is just like a normal enemy. We will assume that OW is triggered and he doesn't regen. Now, maxing smite will kill him faster in the same way as maxing sacrifice will kill common enemies faster, and at about the same rate. Now, how many common enemies do you kill compare to how many Baals you kill? The trade off, obviously, favours zeal, regardless of what items you use, simply because you kill common enemies a lot more than you kill Baals and Ubers.

[kingdryland]

I agree almost totally with what you say. Note also this:

A zmiter is a hybrid designed for fast uber trist.What I'm arguing is that he is less effective in pure pvp than a pure smiter and less effective in pvm than a pure zealot. Both pure classes can do uber trist easily (the smiter could use his 1pt zeal that usualy they put for leveling which would go high with +skills items). So I find the zmiter hybrid an unecessary luxury. I feel that people that make this build don't realize that the same job can be easily done by classic builds as well.

The grief zealot now,is a special case that does uber trist in the same speed than a zmiter and perhaps with greater ease.Huge smite damage from grief=last hps of ubers dissapear quickly while grief+zeal=minions are thrashed in seconds. And of course in pvp a zmiter with maxed smite will probably be totally obliterated by the 1pt grief smite. So grief is invaluable in my book. Although it is already popular people haven't realized what strength it gave to fanatic zealots ,it is the 1h star weapon,botd is second a mile away. It is not a luxury ,it worths every single resource one will spend to make it.

[Xiamet]

Anime

Thanks for the detailed explanation of how CB works. While I'm already familiar with CB's workings, hopefully the info will help shed some light on it for others.

While it's true my Zmiter does Zeal most of the common enemies, I find that it doesn't take more than a maxed Zeal and Fanaticism to get the job done, whether solo or 8 players. The damage output, with CB, is more than enough.

I guess I'm just not a powergamer, and I'm not one of those who needs to be able to 1 hit kill everything in the game. Why play, when nothing presents a challenge to you anymore? Reminds me of the BFG in Doom...ridiculous.

Anyways, I think the bottom line is, having that extra damage helps when CB's effectiveness is lessened, and whether you choose to add that extra damage via Smite or a synergy comes down to personal preference.

But, since the original topic wasn't about how wonderful Grief is, but instead, whether or not a Zmiter is effective in PvM, I'm satisfied that the question's been answered.

-X

[mainaman]

well i use zeal/smite hybrid and he is perfectly capable of doin all in PvM
i also use death ettin and grief smitewize grief is the best weapon,but for zeal death works just as fine at 5k zeal with 5 hits per sec its 35k per second zeal dmg (correct me if im wrong)
so zeal/smiter works really good in pvm
Also i think with the right equipment this build will work pretty well in pvp too

[kingdryland]

Check my first post,I said right away that a zmiter is pvm viable. That doesn't mean I'm not entitled to compare this build with other similar ones,especially when the author brought the older pvm builds as the standard of comparison. My posts include many more views than just grief admiration.

[kingdryland]

i also use death ettin and grief smitewize grief is the best weapon,but for zeal death works just as fine at 5k zeal with 5 hits per sec its 35k per second zeal dmg (correct me if im wrong)



Actually that would be the ideal but unfortunatelly it doesn't work like that,not all your hits will land. I also feel that a 50-60% cb setup based on grief may be as effective as an 70-80% cb with death since with grief (itd) you hit normal monsters more often...People tend to forget that as well,in order for cb to be effective you need your hits to land. And of course raw damage matters when facing uniques/superuniques where cb is less effective.