Curse

Vermilion Okeanos · Aug 30, 2005, 07:41 AM // 07:41

Currently 70-90% of the team in tomb are running smite focus builds... With the smite armor ignoring damage doing 80-90% of the damage dealing, armor have alot less effect than it used to.

There are also plenty of other choice to look at...

Share your thought.

Cerra.nova · Aug 30, 2005, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Damage done by Zealot's Fire is fire damage, which in this case would not ignore armor...Healing Seed can make Smite damage completely useless and Enchantment stripping of Well of Profane can easily mess Smiter up...

Scaphism · Aug 30, 2005, 08:12 AM // 08:12

Please read the FAQ in Riverside that discusses the various types of armor. I wrote it myself and it still applies.

Holy damage does not ignore armor. Some smiting spells do. Zealot's Fire is not one of them.

Besides that, +5 defense mods are usually your best bet over prolonged fights, on top of not being in a non-competition slot.

What are you going to do, run a bow with a marksmanship grip?
If you're a caster using a stave you have two armor mods you can take. Unless you need to use a +20% enchanting part, defense definitely goes on the suffix. You could make an argument for an insightful head but you're generally far better off with the extra 5 defense and adding a weapon set to quick-swap to when you need the extra energy.

+5 defense mods not dead yet.

Zeru · Aug 30, 2005, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Smiters are too common to be too much of a threat.

Bring a decent mesmer and someone with ward against melee and you pretty much kill their offense.

I haven't gotten to play since pvp extreme started but from what I'm hearing smiting is more than just flavor of the month.

If you're really having trouble take ward elements/harm which will completely maul zeal fire.

White Designs · Aug 30, 2005, 11:57 AM // 11:57

No, its just flavor of the month.

Everyone's doing it, easily countered.

Scaphism · Aug 30, 2005, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion Okeanos

Currently 70-90% of the team in tomb are running smite focus builds... With the smite armor ignoring damage doing 80-90% of the damage dealing, armor have alot less effect than it used to.

There are also plenty of other choice to look at...

Share your thought.

I have no idea where you pulled those numbers from. 70-90% of teams use smite and 80-90% of their damage is from balthazar's aura and other holy attacks? Unless you back that up with a numerical analysis I'm going to call bullshit. I still see plenty of warriors and rangers in tombs and their attacks are not ignoring armor. Or did you mean to say that you're facing entire teams that use armor ignoring smite damage?

If you're fighting a lot of smiters, say it, don't make up figures.
Even then teams rarely rely exclusively on smiting's armor-ignoring damage as their sole (90%) damage source.

Smiting is used best in conjunction with an attacking warrior and guess what? They use weapon attacks. You don't die from a 25 damage per second Balthazar's Aura...that's 12.5 pips of degen. It's ok, but you can easily outheal that without breaking a sweat. You die from constant AOE whittling down multiple targets then suddenly getting spiked out by axes or knocked down and being unable to move while you get pounded on. The majority of the damage is still going to be done by a warrior, but a good smiter can amplify a warriors damage, at range, and create a moving area of effect. Personally I'd be surprised if the smiter's damage made up even 40% of the damage that matters- attacks that kill.

Balth's Aura + Zealot's Fire + Ether Renewal + Draw Conditions + Reversal of Fortune is solid, sustainable damage with a movable area of effect, and it leaves room for another area of utility as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Smiters are too common to be too much of a threat.

And

Quote:

Originally Posted by White Designs

No, its just flavor of the month.

Everyone's doing it, easily countered.

When did this attitude develop?
Smiting is popular because it works, and it's not particularly easy to counter. It's incredibly resilient to energy drain (which normal elementalists fear), it has self healing, and provides good defensive options as well (Earth and Protection mainly).
It's popular enough that you should expect to encounter it every trip into tombs, unless you make a habit of losing in the early rounds. Popular enough that you should plan a counter for it- but just because you should plan a counter doesn't make it easy to dismiss. That's flawed logic.

Diversion is definitely one of the best ways to stop the zealot's fire+draw conditions spam you see. Another good option is to carry lots of enchantment removal to nail ether renewal on the E/Mo. A fast-cast rend is probably the best option as they will probably have a few layers of chaff enchantments up immediately following Ether Renewal. You'll probably want a few copies of spot removal around to deal with Warriors chasing after you with Balthazar's Aura on top of them. Diversion and a fast cast rend can go on a mesmer, but the spot removal is best spread around. We've run drain enchantment on our monks for a while now and we're pretty happy with it.

Arathorn5000 · Aug 30, 2005, 05:31 PM // 17:31

BTW, I thought up a little combo for a blood necro to use against smiters. Slap Soul Leech on the E/Mo while he's spamming spells, and then cover it with parasitic bond to avoid getting removed right away. What do you think?

zehly · Aug 30, 2005, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Can someone provide me with a mathematical analysis to prove the benefits of having the +5 armor versus a +30 hp?

Nash · Aug 30, 2005, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Yes, the search feature will be more than happy to help.

stryphe · Aug 30, 2005, 05:46 PM // 17:46

The best you can do IS enchant removal, it's unfortunate that nature's renewel no longer removes enchants when it comes on the field anymore, as that WAS one my tactics to slowing down a smite group. Enchant removal should be a big part of any build anyway, so why not bring them. It has always helped vs prot monks, and even eles to kill any energy enchantments they use. And, on my monk, I've been using drain enchant for a while, it has a two-fold bonus, one I get more energy, and two they lose an enchant. Definately go with that on your monks if they are /Me. Smiters aren't invincible, just takes teamwork. And I think Scaphism covered pretty much everything you need to know vs a smite group. Well of Profane can work so balth aura can't be placed on warriors, but since the monks/Emos are at a distance, it's difficult to get them into it. Rend is your friend in this situation, linguring may not be a bad choice either, but dang that energy cost hurts, hopefully something dies.

Good luck Peace out.

Kaylee Ann · Aug 30, 2005, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arathorn5000

BTW, I thought up a little combo for a blood necro to use against smiters. Slap Soul Leech on the E/Mo while he's spamming spells, and then cover it with parasitic bond to avoid getting removed right away. What do you think?

ER + 3 enchantments will negate the damage, and not stop the smiter from smiting. Why waste an elite when you can bring rend, and stop atleast the spamming part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehly

Can someone provide me with a mathematical analysis to prove the benefits of having the +5 armor versus a +30 hp?

Use the search button. It has been posted atleast twice in the past month.

Quote:

Originally Posted by White Designs

No, its just flavor of the month.

Everyone's doing it, easily countered.

Easily countered? This comment is laughable. One smiter can be dealt with pretty easily, but what happens when there are more? Here, lets look at a simple example of a group:

3 war knockdown, interupt, whatever floats your boat

3 smiters 12 smite, 10 prot, 12 energy
balths, ER, AoR, zealots, draw, RoF, aegis, smite hex or res sig

2 healer monks

Now what are you going to do? Permanent aegis, 3 spells that can be cast to get rid of crappy diversion spam before you even get to any of the juicy spamables, 58 heal RoFs flying everywhere, and huge amounts of splash damage to everything in your group. Rend isn't even going to dent this group, and neither will spot enchant removal. The 3rd smiter can swap around on his allies and can smite off monks if they are taking the heat. In this case replace AoR with divine boon on the 3rd smiter for even more healing power. Healing seed is laughable against this group also. Well of profane is an annoyance at best unless you manage to get one off in the middle of this group, but even then you can still cast into it, so a whole 3 seconds to walk out of it and begin some more.

I was using this group during PvPx in place of ganking because the matches actually went faster. 1v1 this template is a monster of damage. People who actually weren't ganking were wiped in 30 seconds. We didn't even need a flag runner because everyone died before they could cap anyways, and if we did, one of the wars peeled off and did it. The people who had the most success against this were groups running life barrier. Then, it was just going through the pain staking process of trying to kill the prot monk. So, lets improve this group slightly and see what we come up with.

Replace one of the wars with a mesmer.

The third smiter is an off target smiter that smites off of whoever is taking damage in the group, while healing him at the same time. The mesmer goes and rapes your teams mesmer, necro, or bonder to eliminate the threats to this group. GG.

It is a severe issue when even the most noob of group can take this template and completely wipe 95% of the groups out there using absolutely no skill what-so-ever.

ElderAtronach · Aug 30, 2005, 06:47 PM // 18:47

Quote:

3 war knockdown, interupt, whatever floats your boat

3 smiters 12 smite, 10 prot, 12 energy
balths, ER, AoR, zealots, draw, RoF, aegis, smite hex or res sig

2 healer monks

Quoted for being a complete pain in the ass to deal with.

Scaphism · Aug 30, 2005, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Ensign's post on which mods to unlock: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...20&postcount=5

Ensign's post on +5 defense mods vs +30 health mods: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...42&postcount=8

Do people need these stickied?

Arathorn5000 · Aug 30, 2005, 07:16 PM // 19:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Please read the FAQ in Riverside that discusses the various types of armor. I wrote it myself and it still applies.

Tried searching for, couldn't find anything. Can you link to it?

Scaphism · Aug 30, 2005, 07:48 PM // 19:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arathorn5000

Tried searching for, couldn't find anything. Can you link to it?

It's buried within the post titled:Useful Threads on Many Topic under the link The Official Guild Wars Guru FAQ.

The relevant part is at the bottom of the page.

Zeru · Aug 30, 2005, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

When did this attitude develop?
Smiting is popular because it works, and it's not particularly easy to counter. It's incredibly resilient to energy drain (which normal elementalists fear), it has self healing, and provides good defensive options as well (Earth and Protection mainly).
It's popular enough that you should expect to encounter it every trip into tombs, unless you make a habit of losing in the early rounds. Popular enough that you should plan a counter for it- but just because you should plan a counter doesn't make it easy to dismiss. That's flawed logic.

Diversion is definitely one of the best ways to stop the zealot's fire+draw conditions spam you see. Another good option is to carry lots of enchantment removal to nail ether renewal on the E/Mo. A fast-cast rend is probably the best option as they will probably have a few layers of chaff enchantments up immediately following Ether Renewal. You'll probably want a few copies of spot removal around to deal with Warriors chasing after you with Balthazar's Aura on top of them. Diversion and a fast cast rend can go on a mesmer, but the spot removal is best spread around. We've run drain enchantment on our monks for a while now and we're pretty happy with it.

If one build occupies a large majority of the enemy groups you face then bringing a strong counter to it is not going to hurt your chances much since so few teams are going to be using other competent builds. ER is absurdly overpowered but smiting itself is not; there are viable counters and if you run a complete anti-smite build, you probably won't do too badly because too few times will be running a non-smite based build. That's how I understand that the situation is now; I won't be able to play for probably another week though to check for myself.

I dismiss it because its too direct; its very powerful if you manage to snare the enemy monks, as the ZF+draw/BA/JI/SoH/Warrior damage is going to be pulling some excellent pbaoe damage and the buffed warrior damage is not light either. However, you have very little disruption. As putrid chains are not viable anymore you don't need to stick a 5th character as a necro with a 3 monk team letting you either take a character for snares or a character for disruption. Before the update smiters were really crappy, partially due to the possibility of NR spam, but otherwise because 2 /me could shut down the ether renewal on both el/mos permanently with QZ up. QZ isn't the QZ of the past and neither is signet of humility, making that not as effective. The lack of a putrid necro lets you either take a water ele for snaring purposes or a mes/ranger for disruption, making it much stronger than before.

You listed a bunch of counters yourself: enchant stripping works well, particularly because rend is on the exact same timer as ER and ZF. Drain is a nice addition too as it accomplishes two purposes. Ward against melee will severely gimp the warrior damage, as will aegis or various hexes/snares. Ward against foes is excellent for any non-altar map (though that's not really a big deal), though at least 1 warrior on the smite team should be using that to help keep the enemy casters in place. Running 2 mesmers wouldn't be that bad of an idea either: if they run standard 2 elmos you can sic 1 mes on them and let the other mes handle 2 monks. If they have 3 elmos, a mes, or some other caster, the 2nd mes can handle that one and a monk. Ward against harm is also quite a solid skill here that certainly deserves its place.

Smite isn't a multilayered build which has lots of ways to dish out damage and disruption. Its very powerful at what it does but is also very vulnerable to disruption and has little of that itself. The main advantage to it imo is that its very easy to pull off and do well with, a lot easier than something like air spike which actually does require a pretty good team to get good results.

Scaphism · Aug 30, 2005, 08:43 PM // 20:43

I agree with what you've said- smiting doesn't offer much in the way of disruption. Gale is probably your only playable option, but it is a good option at that.

However, the point I was trying to make is that Smiting's ubiquity does not lead to it being easily dismissed. If anything, it's the opposite- you are almost guaranteed to face a team using Smiting if you make it to the Hall of Heroes. You need to bring counters because you can almost plan on seeing a team with a smiter, and it's a strategy that works well (for reasons you listed).

It's not easy to counter because it's common. It needs a counter because it's common. We listed a few possible counters but smiting is still resilient- and it managed to operate very well even in the old nature's renewal environtment. Quickening Zephyr didn't hurt it at all- it meant they could get up Ether Renewal more often, which fuels the entire build.

Dismissing smiting because it's too direct is a mistake, because it beats teams by amplifying the already strong warrior. It also covers his weaknesses- you remove conditions (warrior's bane) allowing him to attack unhampered by blind and cripple, his nemeses, and at the same time you complement his physical weapon-based attacks with passive AOE elemental damage, which breaks up monks huddling inside a ward against melee (another foe of the warrior) very nicely.

Ward Against Harm might get some more playtime now, but I'm not yet convinced it's worth the elite when you can still grab Ward Agaisnt Elements. If you're already playing a Water Ele and you don't want to bring Trident, fine. But first you need a reason to bring a Water Ele. That still doesn't make E/Mo smiters ineffective or easily dismissed- especially since no one has seen a water Ele for a while, and it's the first time they've been mentioned in this thread.

Phades · Aug 30, 2005, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Warriors dont like 50% miss rates (better than block/evade)and snares either, which water eles also have, but there are more ways than that in other skill and job lines that also counter warriors well. The other jobs and skill lines could be argued that they counter warriors better than water ele options as well, but things like ward against harm is more of a blanket coverage rather than overly effective on the spot hate against one thing or another.

Honourable_pimp · Aug 30, 2005, 09:29 PM // 21:29

[Quote]
If you're fighting a lot of smiters, say it, don't make up figures.
Even then teams rarely rely exclusively on smiting's armor-ignoring damage as their sole (90%) damage source.

Smiting is used best in conjunction with an attacking warrior and guess what? They use weapon attacks. You don't die from a 25 damage per second Balthazar's Aura...that's 12.5 pips of degen. It's ok, but you can easily outheal that without breaking a sweat. You die from constant AOE whittling down multiple targets then suddenly getting spiked out by axes or knocked down and being unable to move while you get pounded on. The majority of the damage is still going to be done by a warrior, but a good smiter can amplify a warriors damage, at range, and create a moving area of effect. Personally I'd be surprised if the smiter's damage made up even 40% of the damage that matters- attacks that kill. [Quote]

I have come across on a few occasions in hoh where their party was all Smiting Monks. All their dmg was smiting and they completely owned our group like there was no tommorow. They had killed 3 of our guys in less than 5 secs and that was just our warriors. Not even another 15 secs from that 3 more guys disapear from our party due to a large splash of smiting dmg. I know what skills they used since I was watching them but it can be done indubitibly. A metor shower and Meteor might have done its dmg to them if not killed 1 or 2 but if they caught you casting that spell your a dead man before you could get either one of those spells unless you caught them on the recharging of thier skills.

Scaphism · Aug 30, 2005, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Pimp-

We've fought all-smiting teams before as well. We even invented one of the variants, which was subsequently nerfed. All-smiting teams are still rare- nowhere near the 70-80% mark.
At best your case is anecdotal evidence that can be thrown into the pile if we're trying to collect info.
We'd also have to consider what your group did in the situation.

I don't think it's clear evidence that + armor mods are useless, but you didn't say anything specifically in your post- you just popped in to tell the story and leave.