LLD101

[dallemand666]

Been building a lvl 9 smiter this last week, and I need suggestions on a few points from the resident vlld gods here. I?ve been following guidelines from previous postings here and elsewhere, specially those of B[x].

Skills - 9 smite, 4 defiance, where to put the rest?? I have put one in prayer, one in might, and one in thorns (yes I know illegal - but it could be fun) - btw does it work in PvP??. That leaves 4 skill points to go.

Stats: str 40, dex 33, vit 52, ene base. With items I have 55 str (70 with crushflange or 63 with gnasher). dex 38 just enough for 75% block. Life atm 355 but with all large charms of life/mana or other put in the inventory around 450 I would guess. Mana now 80, with 38 damage to mana. Resists 75+ all!

Items: total defense atm with lvl 4 defiance is 784!

Helm - superior crown def. 50 with 3 sockets with flawed rubies.

Armor - Superior ancient armor def 266 with 4 sockets. atm 3 jewels put in, one 11%dtm/-15%, one 10 mana/-15%, and one -15%. One free.

Shield - vulpine (8 dtm) spiked shield of deflection def 21 with 2 sockets. one jewel atm with 12 dtm and +2 min. One free.

Boots - gorefoot 21 def. Don?t know if the mana/hit works here. Certainly don?t need the FR with Crushflange.

Gloves-belt - Deaths (def. 3 + 22). Would Bloodfists be better def. 18, and would I need the 30FHR (I have 2 12FHR grand charms one +18 mana and one with poison damage). What about the ias - 30 on deaths and 10 on bloodfists, does it matter?

Ammy - rare with 5str, 7dtm, l8% ight res, 6 ene, 11 AR.

Rings - rares with 2 str, res, and mana, and rest uninteresting.

Weapon - here`s the question - which to choose???

Gnasher - 20 CB, 50 OW, 8 str.
Crush flange - 33 CB!, 15 str, and 50% FR.
Rixot?s keen - 25 CB, 5 min, def.
Blood crescent - 33% OW, 15 ias, +15 res all, 15% life leech.
Knell striker - 25 CB, 15 mana, +20% FR and PR, 35 ar.

Atm I have Crushflange on primary and Gnasher on the switch with a strong spiked shield of deflection def 34.

As far as I see it Crushflange has the most CB, but Knell striker doesn?t look bad, and ofcourse Gnasher has 50%OW which might help to finish them off.

I would be glad to hear opinions on weapon choice, on the remaining skill points, on the remaining sockets, on the gloves, do I socket the weapon and with what? and naturally the build in general - will it work?

Cheers

[VoicesLLD]

i dont beleive thorns works in PvP. or at the very least, not very well. so i doubt 1 point is going to do anything.

i think a vulpine(atleast 10%DTM) bone shield of deflecting would be a better choice, as it requires less strength and has more blocking. the smite dmg on a shield isnt really a big deal at level 9, since you rely mostly on open wounds and crushing blow to weaken the opponent. therefore the extra 5 points saved from strength, and the extra 10% base blocking you gain from the bone shield compared to the spiked, will be much more worth it in than the extra 2-4 smite dmg gained from a spiked shield. (5 str = 15 life, and atleast 5 dex saved from the extra 10% block = another 15 life. 30 life vs 2-4 smite dmg, is basically the choice you;re making)


as for skill layout, personally i would go 4 defiance, 9 prayer, and 7 smite.
no point in having might, as +40% ED to low smite dmg isnt much, and you wouldnt be able to use defiance at the same time. the 9 prayer would be for when you fight other smiters, since defiance wont make a differences against them, and it would help to counter open wounds.

http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/weaponspeed.php?lang=english
with a crushflange, deaths will let you hit 2.7 ApS (9 frame - 26%ias req'd), bloodfists will let you hit 2.2 ApS (11 frame - 0%ias re'q) , 1% more would be required to hit the 2.5 ApS (10 frame - 11%ias req'd).

the same applies to gnasher, knell, and rixot's.

bloodcresent is the only weapon with a faster base speed (-20 compared to 0). with deaths, and the 15%ias from bloodcresent, you could hit 3.5 ApS (7 frame - 40%ias req'd) and with bloodfists you could hit 3.1 ApS (8 frame - 15%ias req'd)

as for what weapon you should use...i think you should stick with what you have. crushing blow is nice, but as your opponent gets less and less life, CB does less and less dmg (25% of remaining life per crushing, isnt it? so 25% of 50 isnt much). so since youll be relying mostly on open wounds, the faster you hit, the better chance you have of resetting the open wounds, which defeats the purpose of them.
with that said, i would stick with bloodfists and use hsarus' belt (for the extra 20 life). that way you can also ditch those two fhr gcs, and gain another 60 life (4*15life lcs).

yes socket the weapon. add in a 3 stat jewel, or a dtm jewel (with the -15% mod if the requirements are too high)

mana leech doesnt work in PvP. atleast not at amounts below 60 or so %. so gorefeet are useless, you should go with rare boots with 10fhr/10frw/dex/resists (gamble them at gheed) or hotspurs (for the extra 15 life).

since you have enough strength to already wear your armor, and you have a pretty decent amount of DTM, i would put a Flawed ruby into your armor for the last remaining socket.

and yes, this build works, especially thanks to the high defence granted from defiance.

[Jerkazoid]

the smite against a player removes 10% of the remaining life.

crushflange early,, after 7 crushes (roughly 21 hits with 33%) they will be under 50% life,,,then switch to gnasher to start openwounds on them. that is a good technique imo so do that.

consider some type of weapon switch (left in stash) incase u meet someone with -3dr and decent replenish because crush + ow are unable to kill.


vs smiters

Hsarus shield grants 10 str and -2dr.. that + your prayer will pretty much screw over most vlld smiters...

hsarus has terrible blocking but u dont need blocking vs smite (unless there wise to it and start building smiter/sac hybrids


against another smiter you will be using prayer (i would suggest) Realize your DTM will be doing nothing for you vs another smiter. i would recomend u keep some good +20mana lizard gc's (about 3 of em).... the fhr imo wont really help you much.. get your mana high enough (above 130) so it replenishes better when u need it

use civers ammy for 40% mana regen and then use a 3 sock light plate with whatever gems u think u need (emeralds for dex incase its smiter + sac hybrid... or rubies for life)

[VoicesLLD]

thats all good vs other vlld smiters, but for any other type of vlld, id stick with the -45%/dtm ancient plate with a fruby.

[dallemand666]

Thanks alot guys for the really indepth answers. Well I guess it?s all choices choices choices. I forgot to mention Jerkazoid?s extensive vlld starters guide as one of my inspirations for the building of SmiteUAll. Maybe I also need to make the new guy with a less conspicous name.
Rushing this guy gave me a Mal rune at the hell hellforge, and as I?m rushing them myself with two computers in lan/router broadband it?s relatively easy to do another with perfect stats for the equipment. It gives me some pupose in this aging game where I have all standard and cookiecutter builds as well as some rarer builds (I actually had an elemental druid in 1.09 and got alot of comments and lol?s).

Getting the vlld?s past Baal I usually do in pubbies and it generally only takes less than 1/2 hour, but as you say in your guides, alot of lol-rofl-a lvl9 in hell??-wtf- and so on . It?s actually quite amusing how clueless most players are
I usually scavenge alot in used up cow games in NM and Hell. It?s not unusual for someone to demand I leave as I can?t do anything in hell, and after I reply that I?m not actually doing anything, I get hostiled sometimes while in the cow lvl, before they realize they can?t enter the portal again. I had someone yesterday unhostile me, run into the cow lvl place several traps and run out again not realizing that the traps disintegrate as he left by the portal and rehostile me. Really amusing

Btw does a bash barb work in the same way as smite with CB? as far as I can see he needs AR to land hits as well as mana and DtM. I have all the equipment I need for several vlld?s but I?m running out of really good jewels.

Well off to try him out in a world where low lvl duels refer to chars of lvl 70-85

Cheers