The Vanquisher, defined - a guide to smite/hammer paladins <
- Thread starter Quietus
- Start date
the boss said:
I use letter keys, I find them much easier to find with my fingers than the fkeys. I have worked around the normal keys that are assigned (that is, R=toggle run/walk, W=weapon switch, C=character screen, Q=quest screen), because those are naturally intuitive.
I have ASDFEZX as my letter hotkeys.
E : Blessed Hammer
A : Smite
S : Redemption
D : Concentration
F : Teleport (when wearing enigma, obviously)
Z : Charge
X : Vigor
And for less often used things, I keep those bound to the Fkeys.
F1 : Battle Command (with CtA)
F2 : Battle Orders (with CtA)
F4 : Holy Sheild
F9 : Cleansing
There's no real rhyme or reason as to why I don't move cleansing to F3, I'm just used to it being on F9.
the boss said:
You could always buy a nonupped hoz, and put the 15 jewel in the new one, if you'd rather save the upped. The damage increase from nonupped to upped isn't huge, and is in fact rather negligible if you're using grief, and the defense bonus again isn't exactly the most important thing ever.
The 1 point fana thing, hasn't impressed me so far. I've had to put my ladder vanquisher on hold, as I was using a borrowed shako and borrowed upped vipermagi on him, and my friend has reclaimed those for a sorc he's making, but when I had him going, I had over 700 damage smite with my wizardspike using concentration, and 450 with fanatacism. I suspect the difference isn't quite as huge when you have a lot of +skills, but if you have the wealth to buy the +skills gear, I expect you would also have the wealth to simply get the ias with a phase to do the job with concentration, and end up with higher damage in the end.
However, once I replace those items.. I do intend to continue working on that vanquisher, and see if I can't tweak it a little.
rudedog said:
That depends on where you intend to take your Vanquisher. Given that the places most often run are Chaos Sanctuary and Baal at high levels, and that this build is uniquely suited to handling the ubers, a mercenary can be quite helpful - however, it's worth noting that all three of these areas can spawn Oblivion Knights, and you get to deal with the dreaded Iron Maiden. For that reason, if you intend to do Diablo, Baal, or Uber runs, I actually recommend against an act2 mercenary, and against an act5 as well. I don't have a great deal of experience with the Iron Wolves of act3, but have never found them to be incredibly helpful - my favorite merc for them is the act1 rogue.
Which, of course, opens a great many options - faith, for one. If you are going to use your vanquisher for PvM, a faith mercenary will give you the fanatacism needed for meeting 6 frame smite, while you still run concentration. She won't be as helpful once you get into the hellfire quest, and enter Tristram, so you still need to consider your attack speed without her, but she can add a little oomph under normal circumstances. For her armor, I am a fan of duriel's shell, and I like the Crown of Theives or Tal Rasha's Mask helms for life leech - vampire gaze can also prove useful, but she shouldn't get hit all that often anyway.
If you want to use an act2 mercenary, I recommend either the Might or Holy Freeze one - in either case, give them the biggest painstick you can find for them, and look for life leech, and resists/defense on the armor/helm. Cannot be frozen is an awesome mod to get on them (duriel's shell is nice again, but low defense - an upgraded ethereal one, however, would be absolutely beautiful), and if you stack their resistances high enough and are very careful, I've even had mercenaries survive in Tristram with me - though mine were always Rogue mercenaries, with the exception of one time I had a Desert Guard survive.
MageChick
New member
10k isn't bad at all. Remember that it's magic damage. Except for the ubers, enemies don't have any magic damage resist. You should also have about a 5k smite, which isn't interubtable or blockable.
I solo baal all the time with my MF sorc (meterob) and I'm normally doing like 7k fireballs (which enemies do have resist against) and like 700 point frozen orb's. I have no problems.
I solo baal all the time with my MF sorc (meterob) and I'm normally doing like 7k fireballs (which enemies do have resist against) and like 700 point frozen orb's. I have no problems.
ChekMeight said:
That's approximately correct. 10k damage is MORE than enough to handle any monster in the game with the exception of the Ubers themselves. Smite, with it's crushing blow, tends to bring the top off of bosses faster to begin with, but hammers can actually be faster at the end - for exactly this reason.
OK so your tellin me when Nord the Tendirizer comes at me with all his groupies the 10k hammers will lay em all down witch a couple left to smite? Will I have to be potting the entire time? Is castrate is fast enough with all that smiter gear? I was hoping to use enigma cause im addicted to teleporting. Will I be innefective? Sorry for so many questions but for me to get all this gear will basically take all my worth+ and if I cant baal run and do ubers fast I will be poor for a long time :grin:
ChekMeight said:
I wouldn't worry about that too much.
However, that gear I listed is with my uber-killing setup. The lack of cast rate might hurt you, depending on your play style - with no faster cast, you'll want to stay back from melee monsters and let them approach you, while you spin off your hammers. That will, with 10k damage hammers, be enough to lay waste to most things in the game, with just a little mop up left after.
Another option would be to replace the trang belt with arachnid mesh, dracul's grasp with magefists or trang's, and one of the bk's with a ravenfrost. Doing this essentially means you're trading a strength boost for a dex boost, and gaining 40% faster cast while losing life tap. In my opinion, life tap isn't really necessary if you use redemption, unless you're fighting the ubers, or possibly doing pvp.
sorcyone said:
You'd probably actually be better served looking for a 2 socket phase and making Steel. Tir + El, it'll give a 7-frame smite, and gives 50% open wounds. If you can pick up 25% ias on your other gear you could use Strength, which will provide 25% crushing blow, which will be an awesome help.
A slightly more expensive version would be Crescent Moon. Shael Um Tir, it provides 20% ias (you'd need 5% more on your gear somewhere), 25% chance of open wounds, -35% to enemy lightning resist - which will help to ensure that the 7% chance to cast level 13 static field will be of great use.
On Ladder, Lawbringer (Amn Lem Ko) can be of use, if you aren't going to use dracul's grasp. These provide a 20% chance to cast decrepify (awesome curse, but as mentioned, it will override life tap, making it incompatible with drac's), a Sanctuary aura to knock back undead and let you damage undead that are immune to physical, gives Slain Monsters Rest in Peace to ensure that things don't get raised - however, you would need 25% ias on your gear with it.
But yes, you could theoretically smite with a call to arms. It'll give you enough speed for a 7-frame smite (quite enough for pvm), the 1 skill will help your hammers and smite, and it has the benefit of saving having to switch weapons for casting battle orders. If you can afford this and nothing else, and don't want to bugger around getting ias on your gear, it can by all means be used as your primary weapon.
As far as the phase goes - I'd put three shaels and wear something like Nosferatu's coil belt, or Bloodfist gloves. Both cheap options that will give you that 10% remaining, along with other nice mods - faster hit recovery and life on the gloves, slow and strength on nos.
DuffMacane
New member
I admit I stopped reading quite shortly but I must say I confused this with a novel. GG descriptive writing +1
DuffMacane said:
Thank you. In all honesty, I think I could've done better, but I think it got my point across. I've been debating whether to take that out when I update it or not.
And yes, I know it's long. I need to see if there's a way to shorten it, but in all honesty, I think that a lot of what I have here, would lose it's punch if it were cut down to bare bones.
quietus said:
I was planning on Draculs, I think there is no need for more than 1 source of open wounds, it should trigger constantly even with only 25%. So no beneift in Steel, although I did consider Black in a flail.
If I put only 3 shael in my phase blade what should I put in the remaining 3 sockets ?
