What is the best smiter build/guide?

[hubb]

This should be very useful.

[mysticc]

This should be very useful.

That's a neat article.

Too bad it's too focused on getting max damage. I think it might favour getting more damage than crushing blow. He minimizes the difference between 50% and 83% for example... but he really shouldn't as this % increase makes a massive difference with respect to damage being dealt quickly.

He did confirm though that Fortitude is a better armor, but surprisingly, not by a whole lot. Like I suspected, it doesn't add 300% to damage - more like an additional 25% once it's all factored in. This is still nothing to be sneezed at... however, running with Chains of Honor wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for me as long as I had enough crushing blow.

What would be more interesting is factoring in the crushing blow and the damage of the weapons/armors to see which combination is the most efficient - to discover just how much or how little you need of either crushing blow and damage to find the most optimum set of equipment.

Another interesting facet to all of this is safety. I think Chain of Honor and Last Wish are easily safer options because they give more Damage reduction, as well as Fade. Of course, you can trigger Fade with a switch armor too. Using a Crown of Ages would add even more safety.

I guess when it comes to smites, balancing damage, crushing blow and safety are the 3 real spots on the triangle of trade-offs... and finding which combination is best would be an interesting study.

[mysticc]

Oh, and another thing: He mentions that 1 point in Smite and 20 points in Smite are very little difference... but in actuality, the damage boost is even better than having a Fortitude than not having it.

I wish he did the same calculation between 1 Smite and 20 Smite without Grief - but with the other weapons. With the Grief, 20 points in Smite take the damage from 5726 to 7209. This is nothing to sneeze at. I would say that this damage increase is way significant and is worth a 20 point investment.

If 20 points in Smite could take Last Wish's damage from 1567 for 3067 for example, the that increase is bigger than any gear choice choice you could make. It'd be nice to know if it really did add 1500, or if it was only a small % based on some kind of stat.

It's safe to say too that 20 in Smite is always better, and I am actually quite sure the 1-point Smite doesn't have a place if you're just doing Ubers with it.

[hubb]

The difference being that maxing Smite costs 19 points while Fortitude costs your armour slot. For most people that's going to be a waste, if you're not going to do anything else with the pali then you'll obviously want to max it. Smite adds ED% (not +dmg like Holy Shield and Grief) so the boost to LW will be around ~300 damage.

I guess when it comes to smites, balancing damage, crushing blow and safety are the 3 real spots on the triangle of trade-offs... and finding which combination is best would be an interesting study.

We don't say that Grief's +damage makes it the obvious choice and that more than 50% CB is unnecessary because we're theory-crafting or guessing...

[mysticc]

The difference being that maxing Smite costs 19 points while Fortitude costs your armour slot. For most people that's going to be a waste, if you're not going to do anything else with the pali then you'll obviously want to max it. Smite adds ED% (not +dmg like Holy Shield and Grief) so the boost to LW will be around ~300 damage.

We don't say that Grief's +damage makes it the obvious choice and that more than 50% CB is unnecessary because we're theory-crafting or guessing...

Well, I can totally see that being able to max Zeal/Sanctuary would be better than maxing Smite if you plan on using the Paladin for other things. This makes sense. Good thing in 1.13, you can respec.

I'm pretty sure the difference between Last Wish and Grief is negligible against the Ubers. While the Lash Wish would appear to kill faster at first, the Grief will appear to kill faster near the end. Both will kill in 40-45 seconds. Grief will probably be a few seconds faster.

Interestingly enough, Astreon's Iron Ward kills even faster than Grief. It's mods are a mix between Last Wish and Grief, and it's probably even cheaper than a Grief is, although it's probably not as good of a weapon to Zeal with.

Of course, safety is something to consider. While Damage Reduction may not be entirely necessary, resists and absorbs really help. It's easy to RIP very quickly in a split second if something goes badly and you're fighting with only CB and +damage gear. This makes me to believe that CoH (unless you prebuff with Treachery), Exile, Thundergods, Last Wish (more life tap) and CoA (although in hindsight, probable not needed now) could potentially offer a lot more safety. It'll require me to run it many times with different setups just to see.

[Powerfulenemy]

If you are looking at pure smite then I would say Last Wish over Grief, as you said the killing speed of a single boss in UT will be pretty much the same.
If you are looking at killing anything else, grief is the go to weapon.

As for 20 vs 1 pt smite, crushing blow will be doing 90% of the damage anyway, so it will add mere seconds onto your kill time. If you have 1pt in smite, you will kill the bosses a little slower, but be able to clean up the trash mobs quicker. (Assuming you spend the points in a 2nd attack skill)

[magicrectangle]

I've never made a last wish, but I can tell you from experience that grief with 50% crushing kills ubers much faster than death with 100% crushing.

How long it takes to get through that last sliver of life is a very big deal.

[Krupa]

last wish kills the ubers faster than grief does - someone did the calculations on this forum. it is the better weapon - if price is not an issue - for a pure UT-smiter.
however if u intend to do something else too with the character, grief will be better, as it deals more raw damage (however i think the kill speed of a last wish phaseblade is sufficient against mobs as well - but grief is superior there)

the rest of your equipment should be assembled around your weapon choice

for organ collecting i'd keep an enigma in stash, just for the convenience

personally i would never use a torch on a character designed to get a torch out of ut

i was very happy with this setup
LW Pb | shako 'shael' | up'd HoZ | CoH | mara | TG | raven | gores | stat res ring | ias stat res gloves

[MrSnaps]

Yuck... it turns out that % damage to demons doesn't work the same was % damage to everything. In the former case, it doesn't work with smite... while fortitude does.

When I read 300% to damage and 200% to demons, I actually expected these mods to work the same way - just one to be more specific than the more generalized one.

Now the decision is actually a lot harder, and it's entirely possible that fortitude is the best armor, or duress. I wish I actually had my character built to test what 300% actually meant - because it's not really 300%... it get applied somewhere in the formula and it works out be a lot less. So a good question is HOW MUCH less

I have a 1pt smiter that I finished building (to a sufficient point) last night. I decided to make Fortitude, and honestly Im going to have to do some research, because according to my character sheet, it only raises smites damage by 3. Yes, Three. Three minimum and three maximum damage. So I'm going to have to look up weather it's real damage is hidden or something. Because if not, prepare to be disappointed.

I imagine it would increase damage more with a full smite, but tbh I don't think it would because mine is level 5 with +skills and weather it's level 1 or level 5 fortitude only raises the listed damage on my character sheet by 3.

[hubb]

How much of a difference does it make when you switch Fanat on and off?