Where to spend Hammerdin's extra points?

[Archon_Wing]

If you can get a shield with decent smite damage. (try the exceptional/elite pally shields) smite will do damage. Holy shield also boosts smite damage so get a lot of that.

I peronally go with smite, since the backup skill is about dealing with narrow corridors and at least i can knock them out to a more open area. ;)

Holy shield tacks the % on your actual shield blocking, so i presume it's before dex; doesn't make a big diffrence anyways.

Meditation works faster, so i'd go with that.

FOH is truly great if you decide to go running around the act 2 tombs or the Chaos Sanctuary. Thing is, you would rather be using hammers anyway. I feel that is somewhat limited in use though since it really only shines with conviction. ;) I personally don't like it because the timer is evil plus it sucks up mana pretty bad in comparison to damage. That is, compared to the 2 mana cost of smite.

Still, it's a nice backup skill in narrow corridors., and wins 2 points for style. :D

You might also want some zeal, in case, you really have to do melee. ;)

For example, I carry a Blackbog's in my switch. Yes, the damage is low and poisoning an enemy over and over makes no diffrence, but the zeal's Ar boost helps since I can't be bothered to do all this and have a high attack rating. All that +skills help as well, making one point effective. It also enables me to leech a little. The slows target on Blackbog's compliments the build well, and makes Baal less painful. :)