How do you get your smite on?

[Dark-Star]

I really want to roll a new pali, pure or two rogue levels. However, what keeps me from investing the time is that when I play my pali hybrid, I have a hard time getting smites and sacs to go off in my attack chain. I hit my hotkey, but either it doesn't fire or there is a massive delay.

The only time I can spam them is places like the shroud where I can stand still with auto-attack on. But auto attack does not fit my play style, I move and repostition and generally zerg at all times possible.

I have heard people say that they lead with a DS as the first attack, as one might use trip. Others say they don't use them at all except for boss fights. Neither appeals to me.

I feel I have decent enough twitch ability to get all buttons going, but the game physically doesn't allow it.

Pali Gurus... what is your secret? Are any of you able to get DS/ES to fire at will? If yes, how so? Or is the paladin class a case of high DPS on paper, but mediocre (still) in application?

Help me get my smite on!

[Aeneas]

I have just started my own paladin (hit level 9 yesterday) and i'm finding that the most efficient use is as a lead-in like trip, stunning blow, sunder, etc. After that i generally just swing away until trash mob is leveled and spend another ds or es on the next mob.

[Strakeln]

This isn't just pallies, there are many cases where the delay in activation potentially negates the benefit. For example, fighter's haste boost: if you use if while swinging, you have a 1.5 or so second where you stop swinging and wait for the cross to show above your head... during which time you miss 3-6 swings, depending on TWF or not.

They really should fix this someday.

[jakeelala]

i spam right click to attack and with my left hand i reach up and spam Smite while i keep attacking and eventually one (though often 2) of my attacks is a smite. I never have to wait and not swing it just seems like it sort of queues it up...

I thought this was common knowledge.

More importantly, Fighters Haste Boost is not an attack. It's a self cast essentially, much more akin to pally Divine Might, which is not cast with a swing, like Smite. I believe DM in the middle of combat also might cause a quick freeze in swinging but I'm not in front of the game ATM to verify.

[Aeneas]

We do realize that it will eventually squeeze in to your attack chain somewhere if you jam out on your right mouse button while spamming your smite, but how often does it go off immediately after you hit the smite button the first time? Often it doesn't go off until the mob is almost dead because you've critted it three times in a row with regular swings that you weren't anticipating and then you've wasted a smite.

[Magada]

best advice i can give is bind ur smite to a close key i have trip bound to f sunder to q and my stunning blow to r ur best bet might be binding smite to ur middle mouse wheel if u have one i bound my finger and/ or pk to that on my casters...... tab then middle mouse wheel and presto no more enemy

[Lufia]

Hey Dark,

I usually go about using an open attack with an Exalted Smite/Divine Sacrifice on Katana with Divine Righteousness to grab their attention...Once they aggro I follow up on Divine Sacrifice and other smites.

Sadly near endgame, (to me anyways) Smites only serve the purpose of grabbing Hate aggro due to damage from monsters,

with a 2-hander + Divine righteousness, holy sword, power attack, divine might, divine favor and prayer, and 350+ Damage on crits,

you can whallop Quite a punch of hate aggro and quite quickly too.

[Desteria]

I dotn care abotu DPS on none red named/portals SO i dotn really bother most of the rednamed/portal fights I'm Fairly stationary so i just spam DS/ES untill ES runs out and it fits them in somewhere...
Anythign else my palyl fights is often woundign or vorping sicne he leveled up long before DS/ES were in the game...

how woudl i use them TBH i always foudn Smite to be a PITA to use on anything short of big guys that were faily stationary because of the delay factors...

DS IF your fightign with DPS weapons I'd prolyl just hti ti often you knwo liek every 3 sec and hope i dotn waste it to much with nothign to fight DS seams fairlt good abotu doign the next oen with out pausing oiften.

[sephiroth1084]

What does PITA stand for?


As to the ES/DS problem, you may want to try using a gamepad. This likely seems outrageous to anyone who has become used to the mouse and keyboard set-up, but I find that it makes hitting a lot of different abilities while maintaining movement and such very easy.

I tend to alternate between hitting ES/DS about halfway through a swing animation (so it triggers on the next swing), and hammering back and forth between attack and the buttons for either special attack. In either case, I tend to get DS activated every 3 seconds, while smite I tend to get off a little lesss frequently since, even with the above timing/mashing techniques, it doesn't always take.

[Desteria]

What does PITA stand for?

pain in the bumbum

[Soul-Shaker]

Yeah the delay is a pain since it seems to fire off the next swing later but I just got use to it. Auto attack seems to be the killer problem I find most times in controlling it since seems to ignore the clickies sometimes(Main reason I never use auto attack on clicky intensive class). Since my mouse has 5 buttons, 2 is normal, 1 is for double click, my scroll button is set to activate shortcut 8 and ctrl + scroll = shortcut7. last button is shortcut 0 and ctrl+button5 for shortcut 9.
So I have DS set to mouse5 and I'm spamming it maybe 3-4 times after cooldown and swap back to normal swings with right mouse click. As for smite I do the same thing but its set to shortcut 9 so I just hold ctrl while I'm spamming.

Having it on a mouse key just seems faster to spam for me and leaves me room to twitch to my hearts content with left hand.

As for when in attack chain I use it. ES doesn't really matter since you get a a 2xcha bonus to hit. And I usually start based on mob. Running AI mobs I would swing on second just to confirm he inst running. On melee I aggro, I swing first so that I can get the next DS in if he survives that long.

Hope that helps Cleen

[Balkas]

Whenever I can remember that I have them :).

[Elsiah]

With style, my friend. With style.


Also, with a greataxe, albeit a bloody stylish one.

[Emili]

I really want to roll a new pali, pure or two rogue levels. However, what keeps me from investing the time is that when I play my pali hybrid, I have a hard time getting smites and sacs to go off in my attack chain. I hit my hotkey, but either it doesn't fire or there is a massive delay.

The only time I can spam them is places like the shroud where I can stand still with auto-attack on. But auto attack does not fit my play style, I move and repostition and generally zerg at all times possible.

I have heard people say that they lead with a DS as the first attack, as one might use trip. Others say they don't use them at all except for boss fights. Neither appeals to me.

I feel I have decent enough twitch ability to get all buttons going, but the game physically doesn't allow it.

Pali Gurus... what is your secret? Are any of you able to get DS/ES to fire at will? If yes, how so? Or is the paladin class a case of high DPS on paper, but mediocre (still) in application?Help me get my smite on!


Amy's exhaulted smite with a single khopesh yeilds 400+ on a crit usually... I once saw a 600+ out of her though... Plus TWF with khopesh's will often double smite... you can also smite two mob for one smite if they're close and you target neither and smite between them. Smite is a great burst mode damage output... but really that's all it is... If you're fighting something standing still lead with it or interperse them inbetween the mouse clicking swings.

Pally steady dps is not in smite. It really is Divine Might + Divine Favor + Zeal + PA... Amilia lost a lot of dps back when they fixed divine favor... however now as it stands the character keeps up to high str tempest level (maybe more) dps as long as those three buffs are up. Pally's have the means for great dps now... and even better in the future, As long as you keep those up you're outputting within the same amount as most tempest or barbs really... Now if they'd only help out my fighter so I do not have to play her harder for like results.

[darthmaul121783]

just stop swinging for about 1 secend and hit the smit key thats also how i get the Loh to work as latly it does not seem to end the attack chain

[Dark-Star]

So the consensus is the people either don't use them or lead with them? Talking about DS and ES both.

If so, Turbine should really look into this. Monks have the same issue I am sure.

[EinarMal]

So the consensus is the people either don't use them or lead with them? Talking about DS and ES both.

If so, Turbine should really look into this. Monks have the same issue I am sure.

Those things are gravy, Paladin DPS comes from divine favor, divine might and zeal.

If you can hit DM 3 that is +6 damage per swing +3 from divine favor for a total of +9 which compares fairly well to FE damage. Currently a buffed paladin has pretty comparable DPS to a Ranger.

Next Mod Pallies will fall further behind with STWF unless you are fighting evil outsiders.

I use smite and sacrifice, but I would guess that the reality is it is a relatively small percentage increase in DPS overall (though the numbers look nice). Smites run out, and sacrifice has a cool down, it would be interesting to look at the combat log and see on a typical dungeon what percentage of swings are regular vs. smites vs. sacrifices.

[William_the_Bat]

I mapped ES and DS to the F and V keys. I often lead with the ES, because I love seeing the humongous damage numbers, and hate having it go to waste because the monster is almost dead. DS I use sparingly because I like to have enough SP to keep zeal and DF up, and even though it only costs 1 SP, it adds up if you spam it.

Sometimes, though, I like to "solo" in the vale with a cleric hireling to DV me and heal, then I spam DS like there's no business. Love the big crits, the extra light damage is just bonus.

Like I said, though, I map them to the keyboard so I have no trouble getting them to go off more or less when I want.

[Emili]

So the consensus is the people either don't use them or lead with them? Talking about DS and ES both.

If so, Turbine should really look into this. Monks have the same issue I am sure.


They are burst damage... heavy burst damage at that. Really the pally is currently comparable to a ranger as long as you self buff up... ES is just an occasional boost (a big boost at that mind you).

If DS/ES were any more reliable it would overshadow anything the other full BaB classes have to offer as a Strength Pally (28-32) with cha (26-28) wielding GTWF (Khopeshes or whatever) + Divine Might + Divine Favor + Zeal + Pa = Tempest strength ranger ... if we had 8 totally reliable exhaulted smites (typically each doing 400+ and up). Well the other melee classes just could not compare then.

I did Coalesence Chamber a week ago or so with Amilia... we were clearing the mob at that first portal to get the extra chest key, The named popped up and Amilia with two Khopeshes in hand smited him - instant kill - yes one smite key, nobody else was near to hit him ... key dropped, poor mob never saw it comming.

Smite is fine as it is.

[Judo]

ive never had a problem, my smites hit for 600 a pop, and only fail to go off when actually chasing a mob, which ive learned to let go lol

to play a good pally, you have to be as dextrous as a good sorc imho, but once you learn, you can equal an average barb, and outshine 80% of all fighters

that is, until you have no mana, smites, and turn undeads ;)

[baddax]

What does PITA stand for?


As to the ES/DS problem, you may want to try using a gamepad. This likely seems outrageous to anyone who has become used to the mouse and keyboard set-up, but I find that it makes hitting a lot of different abilities while maintaining movement and such very easy.

I tend to alternate between hitting ES/DS about halfway through a swing animation (so it triggers on the next swing), and hammering back and forth between attack and the buttons for either special attack. In either case, I tend to get DS activated every 3 seconds, while smite I tend to get off a little lesss frequently since, even with the above timing/mashing techniques, it doesn't always take.

Not sure but PETA is People for Ethical Treatment of Animals.

[baddax]

As someone pointed out other classes especially the monk have this problem. This is Major problem on my Monk where you have to pull off combo attacks to activate finishers. Currently my monk is Inevitable dominion so in order to pull off a debuff attack in combat i have to spam 3 attacks to set the debuff and 1 more (witch must land)to use it. If i miss because of delay then i must restart the attck combo over and have wasted a significant amount of ki and time. This is a pain as unless mobs are stationary the delay can and often does create misses becasue i never know when it will go off. Also as far as DPS goes on a monk using elemental attacks it makes it difficult on mobs that move around alot. However on mobs that are stationary (ie the pit fiend while surrounded) this is not a problem and i get good dps from my tier 3 elemental attacks.

[Josh]

ive never had a problem, my smites hit for 600 a pop, and only fail to go off when actually chasing a mob, which ive learned to let go lol

to play a good pally, you have to be as dextrous as a good sorc imho, but once you learn, you can equal an average barb, and outshine 80% of all fighters

that is, until you have no mana, smites, and turn undeads ;)

600 a pop huh? You mean 600 when you crit.