Curse

Vermilion Okeanos · Jun 09, 2005, 03:49 AM // 03:49

Smiting own close range battle... however... a smiting VS an Ele both made to focus fire... ele will take down the smiting almost anyday. However, in other situations the smiting monk does indeed shine.

Padre · Jun 09, 2005, 03:54 AM // 03:54

ran into a team in HoH once that must have been half smiting monks... they used a war/mo as a walking bomb and kept balthazar's aura on him 24/7 and spammed some healing or protection skills of some sort with zealot's fire on... pretty much anything that got close to him got clobbered.

Shaubarak · Jun 09, 2005, 08:10 AM // 08:10

Many teams are using wards in tombs now to help counter air ele builds (instead of just getting decent prot monks). Balthazar's aura/zealot's fire is pretty decent in that or a king of the hill situation.

Smite hex is always awesome, of course.

Focus fire smiting sucks the big one.

βlitzkrieg · Jun 09, 2005, 08:17 AM // 08:17

I have a Me/Mo I started for fun, and yes, I agree with you 100%.

My mesmer skills I used to weaken the enemy, and then Open up with smiting skills, which deal huges ammounts of damage. it place eneimies in a difficult position for comback witht he right mesmer skills on.

tastegw · Jun 09, 2005, 11:09 AM // 11:09

the air ele has nothing when facing a well skilled earth ele.

you guys gotta remember every build has its weaknesses.

lay out your combos and make them wisely.

Obsidian Flame - Spell
Deal 22-94 damage to target foe. This spell ignores armor. This spell causes exhaustion.

Obsidian Flesh {Elite} - Enchantment Spell
For 8-18 seconds, you gain +20 armor and cannot be the target of spells, but move 50% slower.

at lvl 16 earth magic, flesh lasts 21 seconds and flame deals 118 dmg(if i remember correctly, not logged on atm)

and forgot bout armor of earth adding in another 60+ AL and a few wards.
combo this with a few smiting skills and that air ele is useless untill changing targets.

Myodato · Jun 09, 2005, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xellos

Zealots fire is decent, but it'd require the monks to spam, which causes problems by itself, since monks need to conserve their mana to heal.

Spamming for Zealots fire is not a problem at all, because you just spam heal. Cast Zealot's fire, send your warriors in nice and close to draw aggro, then spam heal anyone taking damage whilst standing next to the enemy with a nice cheap spell like orison to keep them alive and do (all but) free damage on top.

I'll admit that smiting can be more useful in PvE than PvP, because you're more likely to get massed groups to hit with AoE effects, but under the right circumstances there's nothing better. So what if a lightning spell can do 100+ damage to one target, that's won't do you much good if there are 8 people hitting away at you.

Seriously, why would someone possibly want to compare a DoT AoE spell with a single target spike spell ? You might aswell say that Healing Breeze is better than final thrust. Are they trying to display there knowledge of the intricacies of the game by stating that a skill that offers the highest number they can get without using a calculator is uber ? Sorry, but that kind of thinking puts a person in the same category as those who think a self healing W/Mo is the best class in the game in my opinion.

Santanus_Perro · Jun 09, 2005, 02:32 PM // 14:32

I have a w/mo build, and was historically a tank with my sword adrenal skills, maybe 1 energy sword skill, and two healing skills, plus rez

If I have our guild leader with me, that all changes. He is a top notch healing monk, so I get rid of healing all together, go smiting, and bring one smiting skill, an enchantment that does +7 dmg per hit. With the sword I have, while enchanted, I do an additional 12% dmg, in addition to the 20% dmg for customization. Per hit, I am doing something like 27-36 dmg!!! Sword attacks are fast, plus with bleeding, deep wounds, pure strike, savage slash you have a w/mo that is a dmg dealing fiend, and still really tough to bring down.

Bazooka · Jun 09, 2005, 05:10 PM // 17:10

IMO W/Mo make better Smiters. They can scourge heal runners then change targets or activate Balthazar's Aura or Symbol of Wrath while "blocking" a chokepoint

All that and they still have armor and some pointy sticks to hit you with

Playing a decoy to draw people into your smite? Thats a lot of cooperative enemy positioning you're hopeing for.

I agree that you'll be catching a lot of ADD folks with this, but no serious team is going to fall for it in GvG or HoH.

Moskel · Jun 09, 2005, 05:27 PM // 17:27

The drawback to smiters is most of their damage is based on enchantments, one N or Me can pretty much shut down their damage where the E damage is from spells that can be interrupted but they don't have huge recycle like Balth Aura.

grimmolly · Jun 09, 2005, 06:48 PM // 18:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xellos

My Lightning Orb hit a monk for 186. How much skills are you going to use to keep up with my one spell?

Protective Spirit - Enchantment Spell
For 5-19 seconds, target ally cannot lose more than 10% health due to damage from a single attack or spell.
10 3/4 5

Add banish, smite, signet of judgement, symbol of wrath, or balthazar's aura for teh win. And please, it's "how many skills."

Zeru · Jun 09, 2005, 07:39 PM // 19:39

Smiters were good when balthazaars aura stacked. Now...they are extremely special use if anything at that.

Most of you are missing Xellos point. It doesn't matter if you can add protection spells to null his 186 dmg lightning orb. You will be severely suboptimal if you play a smiting monk like a holy elementalist beyond a few rare situations where a mass of people are grouped together and you shouldn't make builds around those generally.

Saying air ele is worthless is just laughable. Earth eles are not where full focus should be. Earth you put in like 6-10 points in with a minor for the defensive boosts it gives (wards are very nice). you are not going to be a one man damage machine with obsidian flame for very long.

grimmolly · Jun 09, 2005, 08:41 PM // 20:41

I'll say it. Air ele is worthless. It has become too common, like the paladins used to be.

As for smiters, they function fine by enchanting the warriors and using zealot's fire, but you do need to tailor the team build to smiting and the expert counter is to disperse and run away if you're targetted.

Mak · Jun 09, 2005, 08:54 PM // 20:54

I consider myself a healing monk Mo/E, that has symbol of Wraith, and balthazars (no zealots fire, I like to avoid enemies). I cast these on either myself or other monk to backoff warriors, the best defense being a good offense. When a monk is not being attacked I cast it on my warriors. I've found it works better in certain situations than going protection. It softens up the oppent, making easier kills on enemy warriors (korea) that gang up on players.

tastegw · Jun 09, 2005, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Smiters were good when balthazaars aura stacked. Now...they are extremely special use if anything at that.

Most of you are missing Xellos point. It doesn't matter if you can add protection spells to null his 186 dmg lightning orb. You will be severely suboptimal if you play a smiting monk like a holy elementalist beyond a few rare situations where a mass of people are grouped together and you shouldn't make builds around those generally.

Saying air ele is worthless is just laughable. Earth eles are not where full focus should be. Earth you put in like 6-10 points in with a minor for the defensive boosts it gives (wards are very nice). you are not going to be a one man damage machine with obsidian flame for very long.

i never said air ele is worthless, just in that situation.
and earth is a nice branch to learn. i have a pve ele with a earth setup with lvl 16 earth magic, and its fun to play.

rii · Jun 09, 2005, 09:39 PM // 21:39

i was under the impression that smiting was a pve line predominantly (zealots/divine boon/shield of judgement = cool video to post on any forum for a lol), and occasionally you might use smite in a flourish build. maybe one or two things, but ill go with the common people and say its more pve/support damage oriented.

Of course, if you strung a long chain of smites you could reach 500-ish damage (cba to actually look). And once you get over 500 it doesnt matter whether its sustained or more or better..... 530ish is someones health bar, so disregarding healing its what your aiming for.

EDIT;

well i just went and was arsed on team builder; i remember someone saying holy damage was armour ignoring, so assuming that to be true:

monk/mesmer
smiting: 12+4
inspiration:12

balthazars aura
banish
bane signet
holy strike
signet of judgement
smite
symbol of wrath
mantra of resolve

erm

a total damage (if stringed correctly) of:
=805 damage.

Exactly how much do you need :S (ok its a rubbish build but thats not the point

)

o yeah and if your facing a team of necros youve got twice that (1610 damage). and you know, thats three people dead. like its ever going to happen.

EDIT EDIT: mo/me and me/mo are so goddam good.

john little · Jun 09, 2005, 09:56 PM // 21:56

The advanatges of using smiting spells with an E/Mo is that you will hardly ever run out of energy. The negatives are that the spells are largely defensive in nature and don't do huge damage. Shield of Judgement is one of my favourite skills, it is really useful in protecting your team's monk or hero. I only ever use the 'smiting build' in PvE now (where you are likely to be melee'd by quite a few mobs), it simply doesn't do enough damage in PvP.

The Man · Jun 09, 2005, 10:19 PM // 22:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Padre

ran into a team in HoH once that must have been half smiting monks... they used a war/mo as a walking bomb and kept balthazar's aura on him 24/7 and spammed some healing or protection skills of some sort with zealot's fire on... pretty much anything that got close to him got clobbered.

i was playing tombs the other day, and ran into the same (or similar) team. we wernt in HOH yet. we wer on a relic map (non-door). a few of us body-blocked the stairs, wile the others did their jobs. then, ther came the other team (at least 6 of them), a couple smiting monks and that w/mo charged out in front. in about 2-3 secs 2 of us were dead and the other at low hp (i was there, just not body-blocking, i was on hero duty). our other 2 body blockers scrambled (one of these ppl was on hero duty, jus thot it was a good idea...). both of them wer at very low hp. we wer scattered, a mess, and takin completely by suprise. we got it bak together but it was too late, they got the early relic capture and stopped out 1st attempt at the relic. they had also killed our hero. once we wer reognized we managed to cap their relic and they only capped ours once more (they won 2-1). if we werent takin by suprise (this was a random pickup team team), we would have won imo. so, i think the smite team build is a suprise build. but smiters in general, i dunno.

Zeru · Jun 09, 2005, 10:27 PM // 22:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by grimmolly

I'll say it. Air ele is worthless. It has become too common, like the paladins used to be.

As for smiters, they function fine by enchanting the warriors and using zealot's fire, but you do need to tailor the team build to smiting and the expert counter is to disperse and run away if you're targetted.

Worthless and common are different.

Paladins were always bad before they were common. A warrior is not going to be given priority targeting; a warrior is supposed to use everything they can do perform maximum damage. Paladins were completely counter to that.

The air ele is the staple ele. Ele's are chosen for damage spikes. If you want a damage spiker, you go with air or water ele, and in rare situations fire. Earth is a support line and best used as a secondary (ex. for a protection monk). Wards are incredibly useful to have but not to devote your whole character for.

That being said, I prefer water's snaring ability over air. Slightly less damage yeah but straight up damage isn't all there is to this game.

john little · Jun 10, 2005, 08:05 AM // 08:05

i think any of the elements can be the basis of good builds, i don't subscribe to the view that any of them are 'best'. The AoE of fire is superb defensively or as a tactic to move enemies around the map, the spike damage of air has been well publicised, water has a lot of attitional effects (haven't used it much), earth is very good as a 'spare' element but an E/Mo build designed to do as many knockdowns as possible could be interesting...

something like:

earth attunement
earthquake
aftershock
stoning/ward against foes
ward against melee
bane signet
shield of judgement [elite]
res spell or whatever

Myodato · Jun 10, 2005, 10:38 AM // 10:38

Wow, if I'd have realised so many people didn't realise the potential applications of smiting I'd have used it more often in PvP. The element of surprise is so important against other players; they can't counter if they don't know what's going on.