Dac's Guide To Smiter Shields - Topic

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Jul 24 2011 04:35pm

So I would like to start by discussing a bit of background game mechanics that regulate the damage of the smite skill:
(This information is from Ewya and I have personally confirmed it)

The following things work with Smite Onscreen:
- Bonus damage from STR (each point of STR adds 1% ED) (new for 1.10)
NOTE: Bonus damage is *not* based on the weapon type (e.g. for daggers each point of DEX adds .75% ED along with a similar bonus for STR). See Tommi's page for details: http://users.tkk.fi/~tgustafs/weapondamage.html#DamageBonuses (Verified by Technomage-C01) (Thanks to Technomage-C01 and Saken)
- +Skills
- Crushing Blow (including CB on the weapon; e.g. "Black" runeword)
- Open Wounds (new for 1.10)

The following things work with Smite but do *not* display on the Character screen:
- Enhanced Damage which is off-weapon (thanks to Grimble for bringing this to my attention; thanks to Mikeandroe for helping test) (new for 1.10)
Note: The %ED actually does *sort of* display. Each 100% ED increases damage displayed by 1. (Thanks to Talamek for testing in 1.11)

The following items increase the shield damage: Redeemer, Astreon's Iron Ward, Stone Crusher, "Grief" runeword (Redeemer confirmed by Stopherson) (new for 1.10)

- Damage +X, which is the attribute that the above items have, is added directly to the shield damage just like the Holy Shield bonus. This means that any %ED bonuses which work with Smite will apply (e.g. Fanaticism). (Thanks to Mikeandroe for helping test).

The following consideration will be based primarily on Damage +X, off-weapon ED, Strength, and skills and will explore shield options for smiters and v/ts.

Lets look at some shields:
Upgraded Herald of Zakarum
Jeweler's Sacred Targe of Deflecting w/ Knights mod 65/121 (empty)
Jeweler's Sacred Targe of Deflecting w/ Res mod (empty)
Rare Kurast 2 paladin/knights mod (65/121) /deflecting/2 os (empty)

(note all of these shield bases have exactly the same 46 avg dmg so i just picked bases that are popular)

Up'd HoZ:
This shield is a heavily used shield for smiters lets take a look at how it behaves mechanically:

These are the modifications on this shield that affect damage:
2 skills
2 combat skills
20 str

So for the 2 skills this applies to smite and fanaticism as well as holy shield (which we will be discussed later in this guide), the 2 combat skills apply to smite and holy shield, and the 20 str acts as offhand ed.

This means this shield has an equivalence of 114% ed (calculated by 64% from the 2 skills, 30% from 2 combat, and 20% from str)

Knight's Jstod (empty):
This shield has a base equivalency of 65% ed and while this is not impressive as it is about half the damage of up'd HoZ, it has4 open sockets.

That means by using jewels it can attain a maximum damage equivalence (assuming 1 socket is used for a ber rune) of 212% ed (3x 40ed/9str jewels)

That is almost twice the effective damage equivalency of up'd hoz!

This shield also provides flexibility: for example one can use ed/str/dex/lr or ed/str/ar/res jewels to create a shield that has higher damage equivalency than hoz, more base lightning resistance than hoz, and more attack rating than hoz.

Lets take a look at that in detail:
If socketed with average jewels of 27ed/9str/50ar/25 lr then the shield will have an equivalency of 173% ed (65(base ed)+27 (str)+81(ed)) and have 75 base lightning res with 271 base attack rating

This makes it a higher damage, lower requirement, higher resistance, higher attack rating shield than hoz. For those that use phase blades this can also be jeweled with similar jewels that have 9dex instead of ar and will greatly assist with meeting the dex requirement (which in turn acts as 81 boable life, assuming all 27 points of dex can be used).

Res Jstod:
This shield will act essentially the same as the knights jstod but with 65% less ed and 45 more all res.

That means in our final calculations it will have a maximum damage equivalence of 147% and if jeweled with the 3x 27ed/9str/50ar/25 we used in the other example then it will yield 108% ed equivalence (very close to hoz) with 150 ar and a whopping 120 lightning res!

Note that the health gained if jeweled with our variant dex jewels will be significantly higher than hoz, the damage will be very very close, but the gain is mostly found in the massive lightning stack.

Rare Kurast 2 paladin/knights mod (65/121) /deflecting/2 os (empty):
This is an interesting shield, lets take a closer look at it mechanically:
2 skills + 65% base ed equates to 65+30+34% damage equivalence. That means that there is 129% Base damage equivalence, higher than HoZ!

Now assuming that 1 socket is used for ber rune that implies a maximum equivalence of 178% (40ed/9str jewel) which is not as high as the knights jstod but still higher than up'd HoZ. However this is a neat shield for a v/t in that it yields 2 to all paladin skills which will impact foh damage (this impact will be discussed shortly).

Now recall this shield can be jeweled flexibly, it can be jeweled with 30%/9/9/30lr, but this is NOT the best shield to jewel for flexibility. This shield will only be able to yield 30 lr, compared to the knights jstod that means it will have less lr (30 vs 90) and less damage equivalency (168 vs 182 if jeweled with the same 30/9/9/30s).

However this may be one of the best V/t vs smiter shields in the game:
If jeweled with a 40ed/20 life that yields a 169 damage equivalence with 20 boable life. While this is a lower damage equivalence than knights jstod, it is higher than Hoz. However, it has the vital +2 paladin skills which affects foh skill levels and conviction levels (important for canceling). While it is 2 foh skills less than HoZ, it is a higher damage shield and yields the same conviction level. However, this shield can be socketed with a 5/5 facet which Greatly impacts FoH damage (raising it higher than hoz) and will have higher smite damage equivalence (base 129 vs 114).

In the end, what does this damage equivalence mean for real damage?
Lets assume we have a level 96 smiter using 20 stat anni/torch, 9x pcombs, mp enigma, ber shako, 400 dmg pb grief, 15 str gloves, dungos, maras, bk, and raven frost (a typical build) that statted str for gear, dex for pb, and rest into vitality and is bc/bo'ed and holy shield was cast using +3 hs cta and spirit.

Average damage this smiter will do:
With Up'd HoZ: 9074 * .17 (pvp penalty) * .5 (dr) = 771
With Knights Jstod w/ 3x 27ed/9str/50ar/25 lr: 9430 * .17 * .5 = 801
With Res Jstod w/ 3x 27ed/9str/50ar/25 lr: 9037 * .17 * .5 = 768
With Rare 2 Pal Knights w/ 40ed/20life:9406 * .17 *.5 = 799

While these discrepancies appear small, lets take a look at how this applies in game.

If a target has 4800 hp, a common number for a smiter, this means that the knights jstod and rare 2 pal knights will kill the target on average in 6 hits (we are assuming no cb and no OW and no charge/foh damage) while the other shields require an additional hit.

As all of these shields have the same attack speed that means if two smiters with 4800 hp duel and A uses hoz and B uses the above jeweled knights jstod, b will on average win by one hit in pure smite.

In practice, the one using the jstod will not only have higher damage, but also higher life and more resistance as well, a big plus over HoZ.

Net net:
For V/ts the Rare 2 pal knights is arguably the best shield for dueling pure smiters due to higher damage, similar skill damage, and flexibility.

For Smiters, a well jeweled knights jstod can prove to be the highest damage, highest resistance, and highest life yielding shield in the game. Note it does not have to be a jstod but any jewelers/deflecting knights base shield.

HoZ is a great basic shield but in the upper echelons of competition there are better shield options that yield higher damage, resistance, life, and attack rating!

I hope that this guide was informative and will prove useful for those that join the ranks of dueling smiters and v/ts.

dac

This post was edited by dac on Jul 24 2011 04:59pm

IrishBoy5150

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Jul 24 2011 05:06pm

this is almost cool, cept no comparison to exile or spirit, two of the most popular smite shields...........

dac

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Jul 24 2011 05:12pm

Quote (IrishBoy5150 @ Jul 24 2011 04:06pm)

this is almost cool, cept no comparison to exile or spirit, two of the most popular smite shields...........

all of these shields will out damage exile.

exile has 2 base offensive skills (34% damage equivalency) , and a perfect knights version has damage equivalency of 99%.

I did not include this because exile has life tap proc and is not generally used in gm smiting.

Spirit is also out damaged by all of these shields with a base damage equivalence of 2 skill = 64%. The res potential on spirit is nice, a perfect knights version of spirit will have 129% damage equivalence with 35 res all, outpacing the HoZ.

dac

This post was edited by dac on Jul 24 2011 05:16pm

ggssti

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Jul 24 2011 05:20pm

Quote (IrishBoy5150 @ Jul 24 2011 03:06pm)

this is almost cool, cept no comparison to exile or spirit, two of the most popular smite shields...........

Exile is lower than any but proc tap is nice.

Spirit is just gey.

Quote (dac @ Jul 24 2011 03:12pm)

nice info

Jolteown

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Jul 24 2011 05:25pm

Quote (dac @ 25 Jul 2011 00:12)

Dps is the only factor when deciding equiment?

Oh, and exile is gm on most realms (on NL anyway).

CraZeeY

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Jul 24 2011 05:26pm

Quote (Tails chao @ Jul 25 2011 12:25am)

Dps is the only factor when deciding equiment?

Oh, and exile is gm on most realms (on NL anyway).

Fyi "NL" isnt a realm its just the ladder type.

Thanks for this useful information

Well done. Have this stickied!

dac

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Jul 24 2011 05:29pm

Quote (Tails chao @ Jul 24 2011 04:25pm)

Dps is the only factor when deciding equiment?

Oh, and exile is gm on most realms (on NL anyway).

this is not simply a discussion of damage per hit of each shield.

it is explained above that jstods can be specd to hit harder, yield higher life, and more resistance than HoZ and spirit.

Exile is somewhat of an oddity and in practice is usually more useful in pvp. However,if the dueling rules place a ban on exile then this discussion is not rendered moot.

Quote (CraZeeY @ Jul 24 2011 04:26pm)

Fyi "NL" isnt a realm its just the ladder type.

Thanks for this useful information

Well done. Have this stickied!

Thank you

dac

This post was edited by dac on Jul 24 2011 05:30pm

Jolteown

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Jul 24 2011 05:29pm

Quote (CraZeeY @ 25 Jul 2011 00:26)

Fyi "NL" isnt a realm its just the ladder type.

Thanks for this useful information

Well done. Have this stickied!

I didn't say it was? @_@

Quote (dac @ 25 Jul 2011 00:29)

Wait, so if that's the case, why is Spirit instantly ignored simply because of lower damage output?

Spirit isn't used for damage/life, it's used for fcr. I could care less about HoZ, I think it's a poor choice.

While I do agree that Exile is moot in an environment where it's BM, that's usually not the case...

This post was edited by Tails chao on Jul 24 2011 05:31pm

Aube

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Jul 24 2011 05:30pm

WHERE IS SPIRIT????

dac

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#10

Jul 24 2011 05:32pm

Quote (Aube @ Jul 24 2011 04:30pm)

WHERE IS SPIRIT????

Spirit is also out damaged by all of these shields with a base damage equivalence of 2 skill = 64%.

The res potential on spirit is nice, a perfect knights version of spirit will have 129% damage equivalence with 35 res all, outpacing the HoZ in damage but under it in terms of res.

The problem with spirit is that it can not be ber'd which leaves 8% dr to be made up elsewhere.

In my experience this would require coa or vgaze instead of Shako which would impact your damage by 1 or 2 skills and have a large impact on life, mana, and 6 useable attributes.

While some life is made back by the +2 skills on the spirit this is neglected due to the fact that bo is generally occuring on the other side.

Compared to Jstod (arguable the best option for a smiter) This leaves the decision of which is more important: Res + damage + life or fcr.
Compared to HoZ this leaves the decision of Damage+life vs fcr+res or res+life vs fcr and damage.

As this is not a discussion of builds I would rather leave it at that and finish that if the spirit is res base hoz will do more damage (by 50% damage equivalence) and if knights base, that spirit will do more damage (by 15% damage equivalence) but have less res.

dac

This post was edited by dac on Jul 24 2011 05:48pm

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