Thana's Uber Cheap Smiter Guide - Topic

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Sep 30 2009 12:19am

Thana’s HC Uber Cheap Smiter Guide

INTRODUCTION

The new ladder season is soon approaching, and I thought it would be a good idea to start brainstorming some cheap solutions for a Uber Tristram Smiter. This guide will explain all you need to know about creating a very survivable and effective Smiter, without spending a mass amount of HRs or FG. This guide is assuming two basic things:

1. You have little wealth.
2. You are making this character exclusively for Uber Tristram.

Even though we won’t be getting the so called “GG” items, all the items that I recommend have a specific purpose, and when they combine together with your skill point allocation, you have a Smiter that is just as good as a Smiter that uses “GG” equipment. This guide is specifically designed for HC players, so survivability is our number one goal. If you play on SC some of my suggestions may seem silly, but on HC dying is not an option, and our build must be built with that into consideration. The main goals of this build are:

1. Max resistances after Meph’s Conviction aura.
2. High percentage of CB (Crushing Blow).
3. High amount of life.

Max resist is very important for Uber Tristram. This is because roughly 90% of the damage you receive is elemental. The more resistances you have, the greater this damage is reduced. Moreover, it is imperative that you cap all your elemental resistances at 95%, this is achieved by equipping items that have +Maximum Resistance modifiers.

Getting Max resistances may seem difficult with a Smiter, especially if you have little to invest into him. This is because the majority of CB items don’t have +Resistance modifiers. Meph’s Conviction Aura lowers your resistances by 125. This means you will have to have 270 resistances to get an even 75 resist all. With 95% resistances, a staggering 295 is needed. Most importantly, we will need to achieve this amount without compromising our %CB. It may seem difficult at first glance, but it is incredibly easy.

With that said let’s first look at our skill point allocation, because it has a direct impact on what kind of equipment we will be using to properly balance Resistances with CB.

SKILL POINT ALLOCATION

First let us look at an overall list of how your skill points will be allocated—completed at level 90.

10 Smite
20 Fanaticism
20 Holy Shield
10 Resist Cold
10 Resist Fire
*20 Conviction

Conviction vs. Salvation:
When you activate a level 21 or higher conviction aura against Uber Meph, it cancels his level 20 aura, making your resistances and defense stay exactly the same. This would bring our needed resistances to 165 for our capped 95 resist goal. A similar skill to conviction is salvation, which increases your resistances. Let us take a look at these two similar skills.

Salvation level 21
1. +108 Resistances
2. Works on all party members

Conviction level 21
1. +125 Resistances (Meph’s canceled aura)
2. +90 Enchanted Defense (Meph’s canceled aura)
3. Only works for yourself

In comparison, Conviction has better modifiers than Salvation. The only downside is that party members will not be able to reap the benefits of it. However, this guide lets you run Uber Tristram by yourself, you don’t need any help--- go ahead, be greedy.

*Note: You need to have at least +1 Skills modifier in order for Conviction to work. It is safe to say you will have at least one +1 modifier. In fact, one of the items I highly recommend has it.

Maximum Resistances: Resist Cold and Fire:
We put 10 points in each of these skills because it has a passive modifier of +.5 Max Resist per level. This means that with 10 points in each it will increase our Maximum Resist of Cold and Fire by 5. With our gear and these skills we will achieve 95/95/95 in elemental resist (Our gear will give us capped Lightning Resist without points into Resist Lightning).

Holy Shield:
This is standard fanfare. Holy Shield Increases our Defense, Chance to Block, and Smite Damage. This is our bread and butter skill—max it.

Smite and Fanaticism:
Both of these skills increase our Smite Damage. Fanaticism offers a slightly higher increase in damage and also decreases the amount of IAS gear you will need to hit the 6 frame break point. For these two reasons points in Fanaticism is favored to points in Smite. Many call for maxed smite, however the difference in damage between level 10 and a level 20 is minuscule—we are talking about 200 or so damage. Moreover most of you damage comes in the form of CB; high smite damage isn’t necessary.

Level 0: Defiance, Zeal, Sacrifice
As said before, 90% of the damage you receive is elemental. For this reason, we spend points on resistances instead of points in increased defense for physical attacks.
We will not put any points in Zeal or Sacrifice. We are Smiters designed for Uber Tristram and nothing else. We will not be wasting points in skills that have little use in Uber Tristram.

This wraps up the skills section; basically we are spending 1/3 of our points in resistances, and the other 2/3 on Smite damage. After level 90, if you ever go that far (I think level 90 is a good amount of Baal runs but not too much), you could put more points into Smite or add some points into Defiance. The choice is yours.

EQUIPMENT ALLOCATION

Now let us move onto the biggest part of the guide, equipment allocation. We will be looking for four things as we choose our gear:

1. Crushing Blow
2. Resistances
3. +Life (Also In the form of +Vitality, +Strength, +Dexterity)
4. Increased Attack Speed and it’s IAS Breakpoints

We will look at all the available items that have good modifiers, and single out the ones that truly shine. The biggest variation we will have is in the weapon, so we will save this for last. The first thing I will mention is the pre-buff armor Treachery.

PRE-BUFF: Treachery Runeword. This item is simply godly for Smiters. Treachery has a chance to cast a level 15 Fade when struck. A level 15 Fade adds 60 resistances and 15% physical damage reduction. We simply go outside and get hit by monsters until Fade activates, then we switch Treachery for our regular armor and go into Uber Trist. This will add +60 to our resistances and lasts for 5 minutes, plenty of time to kill all three ubers.

SHIELD: 4os Sacred Targe/Rondache with 4 P. Diamonds This is where we will get ALL of our resistances from.

We choose one of these shields because it has a low strength requirement without a loss of Smite damage. This adds +121 resist with a perfect base; you only need +105 resist so a shield with a +29 mod or higher will work fine.
You may want to vary the sockets and throw an IAS jewel in there depending on what weapon you choose. If you do, you’ll want a higher base resist shield, and a few resistance charms to make up for it.
Hoz and Spirit are also nice shields but you will need a Torch and Anni to make up for resistances, and that is outside the budget of this build. Sanctuary will get you about the same resistances but is also too expensive.

So here is the summary of our resistances:
60 (Treachery) + 105 (Shield) + 30 (Mara Scrolls) – 100 (Hell Mode) = 95 Resist All
Now this is how we get that extra +20 Max Resist ….

ARMOR: Guardian Angel. This armor adds +15 Maximum Resist All. With our extra +5 Max Cold and Fire Resist from our skills, and +10 Max Lightning Resist from TGods we get out caped +95 Elemental Resist with +90 Poison Resist (doesn’t matter in UT). In addition to Max Resist it also adds +1 Skills and 20% increased blocking (a.k.a. +150 life if you max block). You can socket this item with 15% IAS depending on what weapon you choose or a P Ruby (+38 Life).
There are other armors available let’s take a look:

Duress: 15% CB, Resistances, 15-20% Enchanted Damage
15% CB is overkill (your CB will at 90-100 without it), Resists are pointless, and Enchanted Damage is minuscule.

Lionheart: +20 Vit, +25 Str, +15 Dex, +50 Life. This translates to +230 Life (+185 if you don’t max block). It also has 20% Enchanted Damage and +30 Resists (Both insignificant). This armor is basically one giant life booster. But when compared to a P. Ruby GAngel it only adds an extra 42 life. This one stat alone cannot compare to the mods of GAngel.

HELM: Guillaume's Face. Kira’s is often used by Smiters, but we don’t need any more resistances—enough said. Here are GFace’s mods: 35% CB, +30% FHR (with 20% more in charms you reach max FHR BP), +15 Str (a.k.a. +45 Life). We can socket this with a 15 IAS Jewel or a P Ruby (+38 Life), depending on the weapon you choose.

GLOVES: Dracul’s Grasp. This is where we get our Life Tap, which is necessary to leech life with Smite. Other mods are the +15 Str (a.k.a. +45 life) and 25% Open Wounds, which stops the Ubers from regenerating life.

BOOTS: Goblin Toe. These boots have 25% CB, the highest CB boots in the game. We need every bit of CB we can get, so these are chosen over the 15% CB we get from Gore Riders.

BELT: Thunder God’s Vigor. TGod’s has +20 Str, +20 Vit (a.k.a. +120 life), +10 Max Lightning Resist, and +20 Lightning Absorb. This belt in conjunction with GAngel caps your Lightning Resist at 95%, and the Absorb heals you when get hit with lightning.

Another alternative is Vergundos Hearty Coil. It adds the same amount of life (+90-120 Life), and comes with 10-15% Physical Damage Reduction. DR isn’t really necessary in UT, so this one stat alone cannot make up for the impressive mods of TGods.

RINGS: Raven Frost and Dwarf Star. With these two rings you get 20% Cold Absorb, 15% Fire Absorb, Cannot Be Frozen, +15-20 Dex (a.k.a. +45-60 Life if you max block), an extra +40 Life, and +40 Mana.
These two rings contribute to our approach on elemental defense. In conjunction with TGods, we “absorb” all elemental damage.

The only ring that could be substituted for is Bul-Kathos for its +1 skill. But again, it’s outside our price range.

All of the equipment can be glitched with +27 str. Find two rings that add up to +27 str and switch them on and off to save yourself 27 str (a.ka. 81 life).

AMULET: Cat’s Eye(30IAS)/Random +2 Pally Amulet. You will probably want to switch out your +Skill amulet for Cats Eye when you fight Uber Mephisto to reach a higher FPA Smite (you won’t be using Conviction).

SWITCH: Random Wand with Life Tap Charges. It sometimes takes a while to cast Life Tap with Drac’s, so keep this on switch and cast it over Ubers to get your initial LT.

WEAPON: We have a lot of choices here, and I’m not going to pick for you--there is no clear winner. You may have to add IAS jewels in your gear to hit BP’s. Here are the breakpoints for smite.

[0] BWS 6 frame BP with Fanaticism: 55
[0] BWS BP’s 8/7/6 without Fanaticism: 48/86/180
[-10] BWS 6 Frame BP with Fanaticism: 35
[-10] BWS BP’s 8/7/6 without Fanaticism: 30/60/129
[-20] BWS 6 frame BP with Fanaticism: 20
[-20] BWS BP’s 8/7/6 without Fanaticism: 16/40/92

Keep in mind you won’t hit the same BP when you use Conviction. A good idea is to have enough IAS to hit 6 Frames with Fanta and 7 Frames with Conviction.

This is the list of all weapons available:

Astreon's Iron Ward (Shael) [-10]: 30 IAS, 33 CB, +2-4 Combat Skills
Extra IAS needed with fanaticism, conviction 7/6: 5%, 30%/100%

Heaven's Light (Shael, Shael) [0]: 60 IAS, 33 CB, +2-3 Skills
Extra IAS needed with fanaticism, conviction 7/6: 0%, 10%/120%

Black Flail[-10]: 15 IAS, 40 CB, +30 Life
Extra IAS needed with fanaticism, conviction 7/6: 20%, 55%/115%

Stormlash (Shael) [-10]: 50 IAS, 33 CB, +3-9 Lightning Absorb
Extra IAS needed with fanaticism, conviction 7/6: 0%, 10%/80%

Fleshripper (Shael) [-20]: 20 IAS, 25 CB, 50 Open Wounds*
Extra IAS needed with fanaticism, conviction 7/6: 0%, 20%/75%

Here is an example: I want to use Stormlash as weapon. I don’t need any extra IAS from my equipment to hit 6 Frames with Fanta, but I need 10% IAS to hit 7 Frames with Conviction. Therefore I can use Cats Ammy while I fight Meph and switch to my regular amulet when fightning Diablo and Baal. Since I only rely on Cats Ammy I can socket my GFace and GAngel with P Rubies to get extra Life.

Another example: I want to use Fleshripper to hit 6 Frame with both Fanta and with Conviction. Therefore I socket both my GFace and my GAngel with IAS jewels and switch to Cats just as before. I still need 15 more IAS, so I put a 15% IAS Jewel in my shield along with 3 P. Diamonds. I will be about 10 short on my resistances so I will have to use some random +resistance charms to make up for it.

As you can see all of these weapons have their own strengths and weaknesses. You choose the one that’s right for you. Fleshripper is the only weapon I recommend going 6 Frames with all the way. The other weapons require two IAS jewels in your shield; this makes you lose a big chunk of your resistances.

In my opinion Black is the least favored here. For an extra 7% CB you lose out on +skills and about +50 life (when compared to Heavens Light and Asterons).

Here is your Final CB with these items:

Heaven's Light: 93% CB
Black Flail: 100% CB
Stormlash: 93% CB
Fleshripper: 85% CB

The last part of the guide… asks a question…

TO MAX BLOCK OR NOT TO MAX BLOCK? THAT IS THE QUESTION!!

As far as stats points go, you want enough Strength for equipment and the rest in Vitality. BUT should we put points in Dexterity for max block? We are talking about an extra 108 points here @ level 90. This is equal to 324 life. Most of the damage is elemental in Uber Trist, BUT still there are some ghosts, skeleton warriors, and casters that randomly strike you.

I’d like to leave it at that note. If you made it this far than congratulations you read one heck of a long guide. I hope you all liked it—constructive criticism please. :thumbsup:

This post was edited by thana on Sep 30 2009 12:31am