Seraph's Tale

[Winter]

I'm curious that in your first report you said you thought smite wasn't always hitting? In your second report you mention "auto hit" so perhaps I'm a bit confused.

I would think, v1.10, Crushing Blow would again be the Smiter's priority, though it is nice to hear Open Wounds works. The key thing would be if Prevent Monster Heal works. 100% monster flee might be nice, as the stun would keep the monster there for you to beat to death if you wished, but if you were busy would send it running away (my favorite combo in v1.10 beta so far is 100% monster flee with prevent monster heal, layered on top of which slow/chill, poison, knockback, open wounds and confuse have nice synergy).

Firstly, what i meant was Smite was missing much more than 5% of the time. Smite is auto-hit, so in order for it to miss much at all something with the game must have been changed. Blocking may get in the way of Smite (i believe it didn't in 1.09, but it might just have been that nobody blocked in 1.09) but other than that there were some isuses with it hitting. The only reason i mentioned it at all was because it's supposed to auto-hit, but it wasn't :o

Anyway, second point: Crushing Blow is really hot. If Deadly Strike worked with Smite i'd go DS over CB, but sadly it doesn't. Six frame swings that auto-hit are always good for applying CB, though, and Smite + CB is a proven build. 1.10 ramping up monster life without ramping up Smite damage just indicates a greater need to use things like Crushing Blow... either that or (dun dun dun!) the Crescent Moon runeword. 20% chance to cast level 13 Static Field is great. Schaefer's is a great choice, but hampered by the fact that about the only thing it has going for it (from the Smite point of view) is the Static Field. CM has even more. Crescent Moon also makes a great shockadin weapon (fast Zeal + CM + Holy Shock = goooooood) but that's a bit more equipment heavy than we can deal with at this point.

Anyway, both Crescent Moon and significant amounts of Crushing Blow are out of the question at this point, and my guide is mainly a "how to play a Smiter" without saying "Well, first you take your perfect Mara's, a SoJ and a Wedding Band and your 1.08 Valor and HoZ..."
Crushing Blow certainly will get mention (i'm slowly (and secretly ;) ) building up to a Strength runeword to add some Crushing Blow, but i'm not certain it's going to be that hot on the Paladin.

I still don't think chance-to-flee is worth the investment for Smite. At level 20 your stun lasts 4.4 seconds. That's enough to take whatever you Smite out of the action for a fair length of time. Furthermore, elemental damage doesn't transfer over to Smite for some bizarre reason.