kinlaw

And a few other odd questions that someone in here, especially Shiflet,
might be able to shed some light on.

My Zealer/Smiter has been using a Kurast shield with 3 sockets, and it had
27 to all to begin with, so it is 84 to all, and 55 blocking. Arreat Summit
says smite damage is 10-82.

Now I have found a Zakarum shield, no holes (I have plenty of socket quests,
and not much to do with them), with 17 to all. So socketed up it will be 93
to all. Arreat says smite damage is 46-46, and it is 52 blocking.

Same average smite damage, but the Zak seems more consistent. Is this
significant? A little less blocking for 9 more res all. Anyone want to weigh
in on which they think I should use?

I know a pally shield with higher res, or an upped HOZ would be better (this
is non-ladder by the way), but I am not worried about "best" right now, just
the better of these two.

Can you make CTA in a scepter? Is there a best weapon to use, or just
anything he can equip?

Would it be a huge waste to make botd in a non-ethereal berserker axe? I
have the runes, but I am getting tired of looking for a weapon for them
(this is again my non-ladder chars. If this was on a new ladder I would
wait). What are the other highly recommended weapons for botd? I am under
the impression that the two elite spears and the two elite poles that can
take six sockets, and are ethereal, are the others. Are there any more?

I am really just messing around, waiting for the new ladder (yes, I know it
is not real imminent), so none of this is critical. I'm just curious.

patrick vervoorn

I'll give it a try, and will probably be corrected or added-to soon enough.


I personally like the Zakarum shield most, since it at least delivers
very constant and consistant Smite damage. This is nice in UT when you
are depending on the life leeched back via Life Tap, when taking large
chunks of damage. This way you know how much you leech back with each
Smite, vs the variable damage with the other Elite shields. If you get
two low-damage Smites with one of those, you might not leech enough
back.

Of course, this also depends on your other gear; if you already have a
Grief Phase Blade, the average Smite damage is already pretty high.


It ccan be made in any weapon, so that includes Scepters. It's not often
used as a melee weapon, so a Crystal Sword or Flail.

That's about it. If you have Zods and Vexes coming out of your nose,
what you make in is somewhat irrelevant.

Hope the above helps.

Regards,

Patrick.

kinlaw

Ah, very good. (Akara, lol) Going to try the ubers with this guy, so life
tap will be important (I have the Dracs).


Actually, I do have a grief pb, thanks to the aformentioned Shiflet (thanks
again for that mate, many times over!). I am new to pallys, so I am unused
to the stats. So smite damage is calculated taking the main weapon into
consideration? Arreat's doesn't say much about that (that I can find
anyway).

Isn't there a mod on the main weapon that is not applied to smiting? I seem
to recall reading something like that here recently. I will have to go over
some recent posts about Pallys.

Right, just going to be using it for the BO. (Doing the ubers with a friend
who has one, so it's not critical)


I wish! No, not rolling in any high runes. I traded with a friend for the
vex and zod; they're not dupes. I still need two of the runes for cta in
fact. I know, good luck on that! Well, we'll see how that goes.

Thanks so much Patrick, that was a very quick response!

shiflet

I prefer the consistent damage of the Zak shield myself.

Yes, they can be made in scepters. One of my hybrid pallies(my
charger/foher) uses an eDeath zerker and Phoenix on 1 weapon slot, and a CtA
in a +3 FoH/+2 Conviction scepter and a Spirit on his weapon swap. Mainly
fights in melee with his charge gear, but that way, in mid-fight I can still
swap to an FoH oriented weapon and still have my CtA. Most people just uses
flails or crystal swords though, cause of the low requirements.

If you plan to use it on a shield using pally(or axe barb), an eth zerker is
the ONLY recommended weapon for it. If you're making it for a shifter druid,
a thunder maul, ogre maul, or great poleaxe are good choices. For a
charger(or act 2 merc, assuming you can't get an aura granting weapon), a
war pike is a popular choice. All of them assume you have an eth weapon.


Only the ogre maul and thundermaul, which are both semi-common among wolf
druids(and rarely barbs).

kinlaw

The zak it is then.


Figured, ). Seems like I am never going to find the right ethereal weapon.
Oh well, I will have to be patient.

I really wanted something with huge sick damage to deal with the D clone, if
he ever shows up again, but from what I've been learning here about smiting
it seems that with the grief pb you gave me smiting him ought to do it. I
could also use it for my might merc. I have an insight (another gift, from
Engram I think), but I didn't think the meditation would be that critical
for a smiter. Maybe I should rethink that.

Thanks for such a quick response Shiflet.

I thought you would be sleeping, ). (I think Patrick is in Europe, so he's
already up for the day I guess)

Take care.

deathsabyss

In general, *none* of the mods on your weapon carry over to your smite
damage.
About the only exception is Grief's "Damage +340-400 (varies)" and
Astreon's Iron Ward "Damage +40-85 (varies)". I believe there is only
one other unique weapon with that particular mod.

In these exceptions, what happens is something like the +damage mod is
added to the shields smite value, and then multiplied by your Smite
skill, which at level 20, is 300%. And since the average smite damage
of an elite pally shield is only in the 46 range, you can see how
adding 340 - 400 to it before multiplying it by 300% can really boost
your damage.

Oh, and while none of the mods carry over to your smite's damage, some
abilities do, like chance to cast on attack, crushing blow and open
wounds. +elemental damage doesn't though.

Here's the listing from the Arreat Summit anyway. It looks all
correct.

* Smite always hits a target in range, so Attack Rating does not
matter when using this skill.
* Smite does not work with Life/Mana % Steal.
* Smite is a weapon skill and thus is affected by Attack Speed
(e.g.'Fanaticism') and is not affected by Cast Rate (e.g. -of the
Apprentice).
* Smite works with any "X% Chance to cast level Y (spell) upon
striking" ability on your weapon.
* Smite does not receive added damage vs. undead with the Sanctuary
aura.
* The Fire/Cold/Lightning damage added to attacks with the Holy-Fire,
Holy-Freeze, and Holy-Shock auras do not add onto Smite damage.
* Smite can steal life with life tap cursed on target.
* Smite can also deal crushing blow and open wounds damage, but not
deadly strike and elemental damages.
* Using Smite will reduce the durability of your weapon NOT shield


Ashen Shugar
--
The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule!

shiflet

Main weapon's damage is irrelevant. However, smite speed is based on weapon
speed, so you want a fast main weapon when smiting. Likewise, if the main
weapon has Crushing Blow, Open Wounds, Prevent Monster Heal, or a chance to
cast proc, those will apply to the smite as well. And of course, there's the
flat +damage bonus on Grief and a few other weapons that apply as well.


Leech, Deadly Strike, Enhanced Damage, and any form of poison or elemental
damage do not apply.


Then definitely save them for an eth weapon.

kinlaw

Thanks Ashen. I didn't know about the difference between +damage and %ed as
regards smite until tonight.

Years after I started playing this game I am still learning new stuff about
it.

Thanks again.

kinlaw

deathsabyss

If you're going to be smiting stuff, Grief is almost certainly the
best way to go.
Though if you're going to use that Pally for other stuff as well,
there may be situations where a different weapon to use while Zealing
or the like could be more effective, though a Grief weapon does pretty
good at Zealing too.

Actually, one possible (and unlikely I guess) situation where you
wouldn't want to use a Grief while smiting is if you don't have any
crushing blow on your armour and need to get it from your weapon with
something like the Black or even Strength runewords. I suspect that
even with the crazy smite damage from wielding a Grief, if you don't
have any crushing blow, it's still going to take *ages* to take down
the D-Clone or any of the ubers.
And really, in many ways, getting a good level of crushing blow is
more important to taking them down than anything else. I recall using
a Strength Ataghan for the longest time near the start of the first
ladder season that had the Ubers. Had to be repaired from damn near
broken every run, but it did the job quite adequately.

Ashen Shugar
--
The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule!

shiflet

Damage doesn't matter when smiting, and frankly, Grief's damage compares
just fine with eBotD(it just doesn't show it) so even zealing it's fine.


Meditation is not overly useful for a smiter, no. However, for a smiter, I'd
rather have an eth Doom, for the Holy Freeze.

I sleep during the day, and an online at night.