vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

[vXXXv]

vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

INTRODUCTION:-
-----------------------

To those who are not familiar, this is a guide focused at providing you with the all-in-one, do-it-all character to compelete every aspect of pvm required in diablo 2, on one toon with a simple switching of gears from stash . Hdin will cover all act 1 - 5 mfing/rushing needs, and with smite gear switch your toon will be able to complete full ubers.

Stats
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Strength- enough to wear your gear ( base str with zero addition possible with the right anni/torch etc). Please note both hdin and smite gear has to be factored in.

Dex - Enough to attain 75% block aka Max block build recommended. (This is debatable but from my experience the extra dex u need to get 75% block outweighs the amount of hp you would attain from vitality.

Vitality - Everything else.

Energy - None.

Skills allocation
----------------------

20 - Vigor
20 - Blessed aim
20 - Blessed Hammer
20 - Concentration (your primary aura)
20 - holy shield
base one point smite as pre-requisite to Holyshield
1 - meditation (optional but recommended in situations where you do not use an insight merc or your merc is dead+ mana burn bosses ie. baal without an insight merc)
1 - redemption (optional but highly recommended; does 2 things, gives you back mana and life for free when u need it quick and clear corspes for certain fights where boss has revive or mobs have revive)
1 - salvation (optional, may be necessary if you do not have the wealth to maintain proper base resists for uber meph fight )

Gear - Hdin
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Helm - Shako / 2 skill 20fcr circlet
Amulet - Maras / 2 skill fcr rare/crafted
Weapon - Hoto
Body armor - Enigma
Belt - arachnid's
shield - herald of zakarum or pally spirit shield
Rings - bk/soj , 2 sojs or 2bks (with permanent insight merc)
Gloves - magefists / trang's
boots - Sandstorm treks

Weapon switch - Cta / spirit

You will want to reach either 125 fcr 86 fhr or 99fcr 86 fhr on your hdin with shuffling of gear/charms.

Gear - Smiter
--------------------

Helm - Guillaume's face ( with 15ias jewel or 15ias/15 resist jewel )
Amulet - highlord's
Weapon - lastwish pb (eternal debate of LW vs grief, after much experimentation, conclusion is LW for ubers, grief for pvp)
Body armor - Enigma or COH (depending on how much u need the resists, my own din clears full ubers wearing nigma, no issues)
belt - thundergod's
shield - exile
rings - bk/ravenfrost or soj/ravenfrost
gloves - dracul's
boots - no need to change

weapon switch - cta / spirit

The additional ias from highlord's switch and 15ias in helm makes up for the lack in fanatism aura. You will be smiting with concentration aura up. No point for base 1 point fanatism, it will be wasting your max conc aura.

Mercenary
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For overall gameplay, recommend insight merc with prayer. Certain other merc combinations may do better in different situations ie: chaos runs where iron maiden is a concern. After much testing, i find insight merc still better especially if your hdin also does uber spinning.

Mercenary gear
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Eth insight - type of polearm depends on how much ias u have on your helm/armor
Eth coh - provides decent defensive stats and most importantly life leech for this setup
Guillaume's ( same helm u wear when smiting ) swap when u are soloing.
- gives nice pluses like cb for boss fights ie: baal in /player8 games
- also to minimise stash space usage

Some Tips
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This setup allows u to teleport to all ur uber bosses, tp and switch gear, to smite, all in one char or no requirement to switch gear for tp if your char stats allow you to use enigma on smite setup.

Pre-buffing fade from ur lastwish might be a good idea if your base resists are bad as well. You can do this by going into uber tristram portal and moving to the fire just to the right of the portal and standing in it till fade triggers.

Salvation aura could be used for the uber meph fight only as well if base resists from gear/charms are insufficient.

Of the ubers, the meph fight is the only one that may give some issues. Stack up on cold resists more than anything else. The other fights are usually easy.

End
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Short and sweet guide to doing it all on one toon. Will be trying to improve this along the way. All constructive criticizm thoroughly welcome!!! Enjoy

 

[Ragnarod]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

Pretty basic setup but should work well nonetheless, I find using Exile and Dracul's a little redundant but it's not a bad choice anyways. And stacking on cold res against Meph, shouldn't that be lightning? It's his Charged Bolt that's dangerous when you're smiting him, after all.

 

[UberB]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

lw AND exile AND dracul's is definitely redundant. I also suggest that you add more gear options. obviously you don't need to swap that much gear around to do ubers.

in fact to do ubers you only need to put on draculs/gores/griefpb/have lifetap wand and you'll pretty much be set.

 

[vXXXv]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

Pretty basic setup but should work well nonetheless, I find using Exile and Dracul's a little redundant but it's not a bad choice anyways. And stacking on cold res against Meph, shouldn't that be lightning? It's his Charged Bolt that's dangerous when you're smiting him, after all.

Personal experience is, i've never had any issues with his lightning attacks; it is however the blizzard which he sometimes casts which hurts like hell. 3 ticks takes out my 4k+ life max block din.

 

[vXXXv]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

lw AND exile AND dracul's is definitely redundant. I also suggest that you add more gear options. obviously you don't need to swap that much gear around to do ubers.

in fact to do ubers you only need to put on draculs/gores/griefpb/have lifetap wand and you'll pretty much be set.

crap, accidentally did different posts to reply to both posts, my bad.
Reason for LW is to minimise the takin up of extra space in stash; so now instead of usin a teachery to prebuff fade and havin a grief/gores, u have an all in one weapon.
Choice of exile is obviously defense. this is a hdin conversion, and i personally use enigma when i'm smiting, so i'd like as much defense as i can get out of my swap equip, at the same time i dont wanna take up too much of stash space.
Dracul's has another purpose other than its life tap. i actually make use of the str from it and thundergod's to wear my smite equip. The hdin setup i use, is with base strength ( none added at all ). This may vary with other individual users' gear choices and charms i guess.

all in all i'm trying to double/triple make use of the minimal gear swap to make things work effectively and easy. not saying there arent better choices for either hdin or smiter setup, but i've found this selection to work well and yet give u half your stash space for other stuff

i welcome more input thanks to those who commented.

 

[KillaMike]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

my hammer set up:

shako with ber
enigma mp for base str
spirit shield zaka style elite version with 35%fcr ( does more dmg then upped zaka some how )
nice triple res ring ( gambling ftw )
10 fcr triple res ring ( woooot, nice found )
arach
marrow walk for insane bosts to dex with str
t-o gloves
mara
30 hoto ( it was a gift )

torch + anni + crap sc's that fill up my inventory. ( should sell them to akara, but i love all of those self found charms )

smiter swap:

hoto --> LW pb
arach --> t-gods
spirit --> upped zaka
t-o gloves --> dracs
mara --> HL
fcr ring --> raven

and because i use barb instead of cta ( 2 keys ftw ) i got lw with zaka on switch, which means 75% fcr teleporting to mini ubers and i am not afraid of iron maiden ( hammer them till they all dead )

in UT only: shako transfers into kira and raven goes in stash to get back my res ring.

full organs farming with torch farming doesn't take more then 10 mins.

with fade, i got maxed res under mephie's aura.

 

[vXXXv]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

my hammer set up:

shako with ber
enigma mp for base str
spirit shield zaka style elite version with 35%fcr ( does more dmg then upped zaka some how )
nice triple res ring ( gambling ftw )
10 fcr triple res ring ( woooot, nice found )
arach
marrow walk for insane bosts to dex with str
t-o gloves
mara
30 hoto ( it was a gift )

torch + anni + crap sc's that fill up my inventory. ( should sell them to akara, but i love all of those self found charms )

smiter swap:

hoto --> LW pb
arach --> t-gods
spirit --> upped zaka
t-o gloves --> dracs
mara --> HL
fcr ring --> raven

and because i use barb instead of cta ( 2 keys ftw ) i got lw with zaka on switch, which means 75% fcr teleporting to mini ubers and i am not afraid of iron maiden ( hammer them till they all dead )

in UT only: shako transfers into kira and raven goes in stash to get back my res ring.

full organs farming with torch farming doesn't take more then 10 mins.

with fade, i got maxed res under mephie's aura.

Very nice heh. i'm glad that works for you. could you clarify what "barb" means? when you say you use "barb" instead of cta. thanks heh

 

[KillaMike]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

Very nice heh. i'm glad that works for you. could you clarify what "barb" means? when you say you use "barb" instead of cta. thanks heh

barb mean Barbarian, his name is: BloodBathed level 81 stats: str 76, dex 81, vita 236, energy 36, remaining stats 160.

skills tree: 1pt in stamins + faster run walk + iron skin + natural resustance, and 10 pts after +skills.

warcries: 1 pt in howl 20 pts in shout + battle order + battle command.

after + skills: 19 howl 38 shout 41 battle order, 38 battle command.

i find him better then cta and he is cheaper then cta 6 ^^

 

[vXXXv]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

o ok i get it now. lol thanks for clarifying. you dual logging a buff barb nice

 

[jlofman]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

I have lvl 85 hammerdin that I don't use, but if I could turn him into one of these, it might be cool.
So he has ofc maxed vigor, aim, hammer and concentration. but is it too late, now to start put points in holy shield? think I could be able to get around 8-10 hard points in it.

and would one point in fana be a good idea? not for my char, as I don't have points to spend, but in general? wouldn't fana kind of work as a 1-point-wonder? smite away 3/4 of baddies hp with the speed of the fana, then concentration for real finishing damage. just a thought...

[edit] if the german calc is correct, lvl 5 fana (just torch and anni) and 20 ias (HL) you get max speed on smite (15 ias and lvl 9 fana gives same result).

 

[vXXXv]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

Its definitely not too late to add points into holy shield. In fact, that is the skill i'd advise players to max last. Every additional point into it is just icing on the cake; and your pally gets better and better suited for what he is required to do

From my own tests, 1 point in fanaticism for this conversion built is not necessary. 2 things to take note of. You will basically be comparing a base aura with + skills to a maxed aura with + skills; that and swapping your amulet to highlord's wrath and adding a 15ias(if u're on a budget or a 15ias/15all resist) jewel to your smite build helm will make up for your missing IAS you would attain from fanaticism. My own pally smites with no issues, using concentration as primary aura.

 

[jlofman]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

you're probably right about the fana, and I wasn't thinking about it damage wise, but in terms of speed.
to reach 6 fpa smite you have to get 65 IAS from your gear and 25 for 7, which you get with HL and the jwl. this when using the concentration aura. so I would use the fana to deliver the CB, then switch to the the normal aura for the finish dmg.
don't take me wrong, it's your guide, I'm just thinking out loud

and I'm pleased to hear that my hammer can be used for this. now I just have to gear him, he's naked as we speak, but I should be able to get the stuff needed together.

 

[KillaMike]

Re: vXXXv's Hdin-smiter conversion guide

you're probably right about the fana, and I wasn't thinking about it damage wise, but in terms of speed.
to reach 6 fpa smite you have to get 65 IAS from your gear and 25 for 7, which you get with HL and the jwl. this when using the concentration aura. so I would use the fana to deliver the CB, then switch to the the normal aura for the finish dmg.
don't take me wrong, it's your guide, I'm just thinking out loud

and I'm pleased to hear that my hammer can be used for this. now I just have to gear him, he's naked as we speak, but I should be able to get the stuff needed together.

dont forget to fill him up with crappy charms, with life or res. my "cheap-a-din" got 2k hp before boing, and 4.7k after bo, and some times i am getting hit upto 3k damage ( stupid bug or something )

there is never too safe to play ^^