Excess skill points on a 1pt smiter

[robertn]

I am not sure were to put my skill points now, i have maxed fanatacism, zeal, holy shield, sacrifice. 1 pt in smite, defiance, salvation. What would you guys suggest?

[Cast_Raider]

I am facing the same problem. I have 13 left over skill points. Most are going to recommend blessed aim, for the hidden AR bonus; or defiance, for the holy shield defense synergy. I'm probably not going with BA because I plan on having a grief, which ignores defense. But I don't get hit much as it is, so I'm not sure defiance is the way to go either.

The idea I'm really toying around with is, getting conviction. Killing physical immunes with this guy is pretty annoying. Baranar's on switch? It just tickles them, even on 1-player games. Lacerator? Actually this would work very very well with it's 33% to cast amp--but A) it casts terror too and they run off everywhere, and B) you always end up casting life tap from Drac's and overriding the amp. So for the most part, I kill them with 1-point vengeance + fanatacism.

My question would be this: Is low-level conviction (1~6, boosted by items) even worth having? Vengeance converts a percentage of physical damage into elemental. By switching to conviction, yes you lower their resists, and increase your elemental damage. But by turning off fanat, you are losing physical damage, and thus you have less damage to convert into elemental. Right?

Soo...which is better?

1) Lvl 1 vengeance + lvl 5~6 conviction

2) lvl 10 vengeance + lvl 20 fanatacism

3) Neither, keep using lvl 1 vengeance + lvl 20 fanat, because the above 2 options are a waste of points

[Superflymdf]

Hi Cast I too once shared you pain with PI, but after i made a lawbringer PB and Tiamak shield they really dont bother me anymore. Plus, the sanctuary aura is great to run thru durance and kill mephisto. I usually just zeal with my switch weapon but now im curious if i should add vengeance skill to the off weapon.

[Ed from Russia]

Defiance for passive bonus to defense.

[robertn]

I didnt know BA gave a AR bonus, But i use Grief so AR doesnt matter i guess. I have a tiny amount of elemental damage so i kill PI's with grief and low ele damage lol. My defense is 15k with max block so i dont think i need defiance so i am kinda stuck

[robertn]

Also my 1 point vengance doesnt do as much damage as my zeal against PI's with low ele damage, i actually dont know were my physical damage comes from either lol

[Cast_Raider]

Hi Cast I too once shared you pain with PI, but after i made a lawbringer PB and Tiamak shield they really dont bother me anymore. Plus, the sanctuary aura is great to run thru durance and kill mephisto. I usually just zeal with my switch weapon but now im curious if i should add vengeance skill to the off weapon.

Hmm. I had just typed out a post saying how gimmershred didn't work too well...but just now I re-tested it, and it works just fine. At least vs. the swarms of itchies in Upper Kurast. I'm guessing that my AR% and/or char. lvl wasn't high enough to hit consistently last time. Of course, they don't have many hitpoints to begin with, so I will have to see how it works vs. a unique with physical immunity + an elemental immunity.

[babaganoosh]

i would max the rest of smite, just for the added bonus to pk

[RequiemDeath]

i would max the rest of smite, just for the added bonus to pk

If you are using this for PvP, you're going to get eaten by every other build out there, unless you are killing lowbies, or morons... If you want to PK, then use zeal... It's the skill that is maxed, and synergized...

Adding extra points to smite does very little extra damage when you are using weapons like Grief... You won't notice it...

Put those points into defiance for the extra defense and boost to holy shield... They will do you more good overall... (This has been a copy and paste response that has been used 7 times. Not really, but it seems like it... lol)

*Requiem_Death

[Eilo Rytyj]

i would max the rest of smite, just for the added bonus to pk

Don't even think about it.



Have you got 2 (two) hard points in each of the Resist Fire, Resist Cold and Resist Lightning skills? They're staples of pretty much all of my PvM Paladin builds who have skill points to spare at the high levels. They not only give you those auras to use, but raise your max resist by 1% with every 2 hard points.

I also put my last skill points into Defiance. More defense is always good for melee characters even if it's only a small boost, it helps. But then again, so is AR, so Blessed Aim is also good. Grief's ITD doesn't work on Bosses/Champs/Uniques, so you're going to need at least some half decent AR against them.

[AnimeCraze]

Grief doesn't work with vengeance, IIRC.The +damage is unfortunately not translated to vengeance damage.

[Lanceor]

I feel that the extra defense from Defiance gives better value for points than the extra AR from Blessed Aim. I have no problems Zealing anything except Hell Baal and the Ubers/mini-Ubers, which I use Smite anyway. However, the bags of extra defense helps me to tank anything physical.

An Azurewrath or Rift on switch makes problems with physical immunes a thing of the past, so I didn't see any point in a relatively weak secondary skill.

However, I do agree that a few points in Conviction and some +skills + Gimmershred or other nice elemental weapon will really speed up fights against physical immunes. In particular, Gimmers plus Conviction will help a lot against those dreaded Oblivion Knights.

As for maximum resistances, I was able to get +max resistance and some absorb from equipment, so it wasn't necessary to spend points to get the passive bonus. A point in Salvation was well spent however.

[kingdryland]

Depends on your gear and what you like to do with the char.A safe bet for general pvm play is to throw 10 in res lightning,1 in salvation and the rest defiance.

[sorcguy]

However, I do agree that a few points in Conviction and some +skills + Gimmershred or other nice elemental weapon will really speed up fights against physical immunes. In particular, Gimmers plus Conviction will help a lot against those dreaded Oblivion Knights.


I seem to do better using fanatacism with gimmers rather than conviction. Of course I only have 1 natural point in conviction and maybe +5 to skills...

[Lanceor]

I seem to do better using fanatacism with gimmers rather than conviction. Of course I only have 1 natural point in conviction and maybe +5 to skills...

A big chunk of Gimmershred's damage is physical, so Fanaticism does help in that regard. Though I haven't done any tests or calculations, I would imagine a level 15 or so Conviction paired with a good elemental weapon would make a strong secondary attack.

I'm also quite fond of Gimmershred as while it is not the best ranged weapon nor the best elemental weapon for a Zealot, it performs both functions quite well.

[Morgant]

I would do Defiance and/or Resists for synergies/passive bonuses.