The 1pt smiter guide to Uber Tristram v 1.0.

**Ed C** · 31-05-2006, 06:48

Junts,

thanks for the simplistic explaination. There are so many options with the game that it is easy to forget some of the possible combonations.

**dallemar** · 31-05-2006, 10:53

Well.. I'd figured it all out, made spreadsheets, sold all my best geat so I could buy good gear just for this one character. Keys were all ready. I wanted to venture into uberland, so I was going to go to the game end tonight. I was ready - I was quickly burning through the acts by myself, hit lvl 82 entered act 5.... went right to ancients with a TP help from a friend. Everything was going quite well. VERY well, never really dipped in life - prepared for uber land after all.

Toric fire exploded I died. Keep in mind that i had max resists plus dwarf star. still died.

This is my third uber character who died without ever seeing uberland. The first two were tppk'd when i was around lvl 77ish, just leveling in public baals to get some extra stats.

Well, i was trying to keep the monster life low, so I was playing alone - also wanted to test myself on non ubers... also (maybe mostly) didn't wnat to get tppk'd again.

Anyway... so now I'm broke. Everything gone. Perfect Kira, 6/5 CTA. not to mention all the other gear... LW, 199 ed upp'd socketed HOZ, tgods et c etc... awsome merc gear.... you name it. And of course I had all my back items in the stash because I was still testing variants.

Never saw uberland... maybe never will. I think if you can be bad at this game... I must be very very bad.

Bad night.

**kingdryland** · 31-05-2006, 15:00

Hardcore,right? What can I say,try have a friend to loot your stuff next time?

**AnimeCraze** · 31-05-2006, 19:40

That burns, ancients...... 2 Options from here on:

1. Play SC.
2. Use budget gears that you don't mind losing. If Poorman can do it, so can you. :laugh:

**dallemar** · 31-05-2006, 22:15

Originally Posted by AnimeCraze

That burns, ancients...... 2 Options from here on:
1. Play SC.
2. Use budget gears that you don't mind losing. If Poorman can do it, so can you. :laugh:

Thanks... I can't play SC, just wouldn't be fun... dying isn't fun either.

So - some friends are offering to help me rebuld and I'll probably go the grief route this time. I guess helping people in the past can pay off.

QUESTION... since the damage for smite is really coming from the grief, is there any reason I couldn't use a Heraldic shield instead of a zak or guilded? reason is... I have one with 45 resists and 3 sockets (could build a super sanctuary)... the other option is a 42 resist zak shield with no socket which I'm assuming would get 4.

Does the 20 points difference end up making a large impact?

**kingdryland** · 01-06-2006, 03:32

You can actually use a cracked buckler with grief and have enough damage/leech. The reason we prefer elite pally shields is the blocking stats mainly and defense/resale value too.

**Junts** · 01-06-2006, 05:39

I'd use the zak for the blockvalue but yeah.

**HolyManifest** · 01-06-2006, 11:06

Actually Zakarum shields are only the second best block rate of the elites; the Kurast shield has 3% more at 55%.

The average smite damage is the same as the consistent damage (46) of the Zak shield. So technically you will be doing better and consistent damage (PvM) with the Zak shield but can achieve higher damage with the Kurast Shield.

**HolyManifest** · 01-06-2006, 11:26

1: resist stacking vs using salvation, I think its easier to use salv for Mephisto. His conviction should be -100ish or so, so you'd need a ton of stacking +fade to be safe without it, I'm not exactly sure how big his hit is.

***I am starting to agree. I think I have to sacrifice a lot to stack all this, and I would rather be well-rounded, with solid MF and the ability to key run. However, does losing all the IAS from Fanat mean that you may die because of not reaching the smiting fastest framerate? Or is it okay to go a little bit slower as long as your Life Tap has activated?
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2: PDR% is nice but not required. Alot of people go in with nothing more than the 15% from Treachery fade and maybe 11-14% more if they use string or Dungos: alot of people go in with none at all. Its nice, but not requried. I personally run 35% (14 dungo, 10 rockstopper and 11% from Lastwish fade)

***Good to know. I have ~30% and I am using Last wish, so hopefully about 40% active around good times. It seems like I don't get damaged that much from regular monsters but I don't know about UberTrist.
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[QUOTE]3: Fortitude is never completely necessary, but its HUGE in effect and you should always want to have it in the end if possible. Fort isnt that expensive to make so chances are your ubering will eventually make you enough to buy a fort anyway. You can get by without it, but its alot slower and more difficult (same as going without grief; not using both makes it mess yand hard, but you can do it)

***I have a 399 Grief and Fort, but I have yet to even try them because I think that Last Wish is so beautiful, and my Chains of Honor Sacred armor has so much defense and resists it's hard to walk around hell without it. I cringe at the though. But I will definitely give it a try and see how it is.
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4: Lastwish has base WSM of -30, with a level 25ish fanaticism, you need around 11-12%? I think it is to hit max smite and max zeal is a point or two different from that. Its less than 15 and more than 10. If using lastwish, I personally advise that you use Highlord's Wrath as your amulet and make up resistances elsewhere. I use a lastwish phase and highlords myself.

***Ah. Why Highlords? I'm currently using Laying of Hands, which gives the same IAS. And I'm using a (nearly perfect! yay) Mara's. As I understand it, DS doesn't work with Smite anyway, so... is my setup still okay? (Plus, I am, very nerdily, enamored with the RPG appropriateness of having my Paladin use Laying of Hands). Also, since Chains of Honor and Laying of Hands have a combined +% damage to demons addition of 550%, is this not just as good as Fortitude? Or is the 300% ED on Fort applied differently... this confuses me. I'm hoping that the combination of LoH and CoH against the Ubers will be as good if not better than using Fort.
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5: Mephisto's damage is lightning. As much of the damage from Mephisto comes from his skeleton mages, who throw all 3 elements. You hvae cold sorb from raven, you want lightning from tgods and you can generally get by without fire res (though Diablo is mostly fire attacks, Diablo is by far the easiest uber and hes never come close to killing me). Baal and Diablo do do elemental damage (fire nova, pink lightning hose, baal fire nova, hoarfrost) but generally it isnt what hurts you - with them its the physical attacks/hoarfrost pushback (so you must have raven) and minions all around. Meph/diablo do have alot of fire damage, but fire damage isnt so daunting in d2 as we well know. I generally ignore it completely with no fire sorb, and you wont have to use salvation or worry abotu res stack once mephisto's dead.

The Furnace of Pain spawns mostly act 4 monsters, including Oblivion Knights most of the time but not all the time. The Matron's Den spawns Dark lancer/ranger type enemies and succubus witches. The Forgotten sands monsters Ive honestly never seen because duriel is just north of the portal and you dont have to fight them at all to kill Uber Dury.

***Well, I am using a Raven, of course. With Exile that gives me 80% cold res and 20% absorb, which should be good. Um, I just switched to T-Gods so I'm losing some vita and DR from Verdungo's but I think the str bonus and absorb from T-God's is pretty lovely. The FoH may be annoying but we'll see.

I still haven't faced the ubers yet; I want to get to lvl 85 first. But seriously, I'm deathly afraid. Thanks for all your advice, both past and forthcoming. If anyone else has anything to add I'd be glad to hear it.

I will be sure to make an update of my first experience with the ubers and with this char. 'Night.

Edit>>>So very pertinently, does LoH and CoH +% damage vs. Demons work with Smite? And does it work with your leech, as well?