monk as a primary smiter?

Yeah whenever I make smiting builds, I can come up with really nice combo's but they take up almost my whole skillbar for me to be able to kill a target in the one chain, so I basically have very little healing left over.

Note, they keyword is having the ability to kill a target in one chain, I can take out warriors with particular smiting builds easily... mind you, some of them are directed specifically at warriors.

A smiting build i use on my monk alot and owns really hard core is the W/Me War Smiter the build is on wiki but off the top of my head its:

ATT:
16 Smite
10 Inspiration
9 Healing

Skills:
Signet Of Judgement
Bane Signet
Rage Signet
Spear Of Light
Smite
Healing Breeze
Mantra of Inscriptions
Mending

Cast mending and before you go into battle use mantra of inscriptions, pick a target and spam all the smite skills, EXTREMELY powerful smite build in my opinion and extremely fun to play.
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One other build that id like to mention is one of my own creation

ATT:
16 Smite
7 Inspiration
11 Healing

Skills:
Signet Of Judgement
Holy Strike
Bane Signet
Stonesoul Strike
Spear Of Light
Smite or Banish
Healing Breeze
Drain Enchantment

Its best to use a sword or melee weapon with a focus with this build, Run up to the target cast signet of judgement, while they are knocked down cast holy strike, if the target is attacking u can cast bane signet and stonesoul strike to hit them again, this combo alone does around 300 DMG fairly quick, once they are low on health they will try to run away, this is when u cast spear of light and banish, or if your signet's are recharged yet use those, if they cast a healling enchantment on themselves drain it, bam dead

using a smite build for monk primary just neglects the inherit benefit from monk: a bonus 3.2 hp per skill cast per rank...

if you want go smite, ele is the better choice for the big energy pool... which intrigues me why air of enchantment smite cannot be ran on a e/mo... maybe that's because you need to keep your mobile aoe alive with protective spells like RoF and inh bonus from DF

though i have to say it can be used in pvp to catch players unguarded

warrior a: "i am attacking the monk"
*2 secs later
warrior a: "my hp is 1/500"

I love Scourge Healing. It has a great recharge, and does decent damage to anyone trying to heal. It indirectly kills the monk. Good in PvE because the monks will just carry on casting with it on them.

I don't really play much PvP, but I think it can sometimes be good because it takes a lot of monks some time to realize what's hurting them, and it can sometimes be hard to tell which ally has it on them if you're spamming and queuing a lot of skills up and then suddenly take 3x80 damage from the last 3 heals. Once they do realize, they have to be careful who they heal. If they use hex removal from any of the monk attributes, they'll heal that person, and take another 80 damage. If they do remove it, put it right back on them, it has 5 second recharge. You can pretty much keep it on all of the enemy team in a 4v4.

But the subject of the thread.. no smiting isn't the most effective (except against undead ), but it does have some nice skills, and it does ignore armour. I think a smiting monk can outdamage a flare spammer easily, because the fire damage will be reduced by armour, but the smiter will be left with 0 energy at the end, or half way through the battle. The problem is the recharge and energy cost, which is why smiting is better used by someone with a different primary.

Edit: princejirus, make sure your team knows you are a smiter if you want to play one

The problem with smiting in PvE is that it scatters the mobs and screws up the positioning.

Air of Enchantment smiters are used in groups of 3 or more in PvP. What's good about them is that the damage is AoE, cheap and involves useful enchantments being placed on the target you're smiting off. Primary monks are used here because of the runes. Since the damage from Zealot's Fire is small but spammed, higher damage per cast is better. Also, being another primary caster class won't give you that much of an advantage: you don't need Fast Casting or Energy Storage.

Smiting has almost no uses with DF, which is why most primary monks don't carry it. usually, the only way to deal decent damage with a smting build would be with zealot's fire/balth's aura and support/healing skills.
This build is good in AB, since u have time to regen (usually) while running to ur next cap target.

Smiting 14 (10+1+3)
Healing 12 (11+1)
Divine Favor 10 (9+1)
Protection Prayers w/e left
(attributes might be mixed up, memory is foggy)


Bane SIgnet
Mend Ailment
Orison of Healing
Eatheral Light
Blessed Light/Word of Healing/Healing Light
Smite Hex
Balthazar's Aura
Zealot's Fire

With this, I could usually sustain my group, and destroy the luxon scum in an outpost in about 10 seconds...behold, the power of smite hex & the spamming of low cost low yield heals, & balthazar's Aura too if i have enough energy!

"Luxon scum" cute...

The problem I have with most direct damage smiting prayers is that they do too little damage or take too long to recharge. If Anet could fix one of those, you would see more competitive smite builds I think. AoE smite is solid and is a lot of fun to play.

The wiki smiting build is underpowered because it focuses it's attacks around stonesoul/holy strike, which require you to be in melee range. Mending is unneccesary, as is having any healing prayers if you want to go full on damage.

Here's the build I've been running for a good 8 months now for high end PvE:

*Attributes*

Smiting Prayers: 16
Inspiration Magic: 12
Protection Prayers: 4

*Skills*

1: Signet of Judgement [E]
2: Bane Signet
3: Mantra of Signets
4: Mantra of Inscriptions
5: Smite Hex
6: Purge Conditions
7: Ether Feast
8: Rebirth

*Equipment*

Smiting Rod with 20% Recharge of Smiting Prayers Skills
Jeweled Chalice with 20/20 HCSR

*Theory*

First, allow the assigned tank to gain aggro, then initiate Mantra Of Signets. Activate Signet of Judgement on a foe in melee combat with the tank, it will instantly recharge, allowing you to reuse it. Do so, but be sure to activate Mantra of Inscritions before Signet of Judgement finishes. Follow this up with Bane Signet, then if the tank has been hexed, Smite hex, or if anyone is suffering from condition(s), Purge Conditions. If you attract aggro, use ether feast to heal for over 120 health, as well as cause minor energy denial to your target. Skill 8 is a no brainer really - once the initial energy voley is spent, there is no huge use for your energy pool, so you can potentially cast rebirth during a fight without any huge problems, as long as there is sufficient distance between you and your foes.

*Advantages*

Poweful opening volley.
Holy Damage from skills ignores armour.
Double Damage vs Undead and Summoned Creatures.
No weakness to enchantment removal.
No need to get any closer than the edge of the aggro bubble.
Hex and condition removal.
Allows flexible use of Rebirth, due to low energy usage.
Ether Feast negates need for investment in healing prayers.
Signets are not spells, therefore:
*Hexes like Backfire have no effect.
*Skills that specifically interrupt spells do not work.
*No energy cost.
*Dazed condition cannot interrupt signets.

*Disadvantages*

Primal Echoes can be painfull for a build like this.
Low Defence overall.
Only one healing skill, cannot target allies.
Knockdowns reset enemy aggro.
1 point of Divine Favour - a token effort really

*Practical Use*

I'm by far most at home in a full size Fissure of Woe team when using my smiter, although it's equally fun in smaller groups, (Yesterday's group, which shrunk to 4 people from 8 yielded me a Black Dye, a Ruby and 3 gold items. )
of course it's most fun when you get to the skeletons, but the knockdown is equally useful on shadow monks, smoke walkers, etc, etc. It isn't as powerful over a short period as, say, the Nuker with meteor shower, who left 5 minutes after we started, but then, I don't need to deal with exhaustion and can cause more knockdowns per minute than him. Then again, when you do get to the skellies and your opening salvo does 4x156, followed by another 4x156, potentially followed by another 180 off smite hex, you can potentially finish them all in a matter of seconds, leaving a few stray targets, which as per my experience is no trouble for a WoH monk, a Domination Mesmer, an SS Necro and the smiter's ordinary attacks. (On that front, I do have a 20% Deathbane staff specifically to use during my downtime, which helps a lot - I've been hitting up to 50 vs the icehands and ether breakers since I got it.)

Oh, by the way, Kiting is what dictates if you live or die running this build - if you're not casting and something comes after you, run like a headless chicken until you can knock it down and move on.

Well, there you have it, naysayers are free to pick holes in it and call me a, well, whatever they want to, but I know what works, certainly for me and my guild anyway. I hope you get something useful out of it though. And in my opinion, it is vastly superior to the wiki build that has been previously mentioned.

Wow, after reading this, I may have to actually try smiting prayers!

It would certianly take care of touchers in AB or those with flesh golem.I don't see why you can't use smiting in Faction battles not your normal PvP.

Might want to look up a little thing called 'smite ball', for PvP.

I built my monk to be a smiter and dang it, I think I'm pretty good at it. I've surprised several people, even occasionally being complimented for my solid build, fighting side by side with another tank in PvE and holding my own ground as well as dishing out massive damage. Yet it's hard to get on a team without them asking me to switch to Healing or Prot, which quite honestly, I suck at. I can't speak for everyone, but I am more effective as a Smiter than a healer, between my available skills and equipment and my play style, smiting is the best choice for me.

my smiting build Mo/Wa

Attributes:
Smiting 12+1+3
Divine Favor 9+1
Healing 3+1
Swordsmanship 9

Skills:
Kirin's Wrath
Symbol of Wrath
Shield of Judgment
Healing Breeze
Blessed Signet
Balthazar's Spirit
Blessed Aura
Watchful Spirit

Sword:
max, req 9 ,+5 energy, sundering and enchanting mods
Offhand:
Smiting +12 HSR 20 and HCasting 20

Sustained Enchantments
Watchful Spirit, I replaced Mending with this one, sure I can only get +2 regen, but the +130 hp when it ends makes up for it by a long shot. With good timing this is far more effective to have than +3 mending
Balthazar's Spirit, can be replaced with Essence bond if that suits your fancy, or if you want to also cast it on another party member.
Blessed Aura, primarily I chose this skill to extend SoJ, with an enchanting mod on my sword and this enchantment running, along with the 20% chance to half recharge, I can keep SoJ up at least 75% of the time.

This leaves you with only +1 energy regen, but as a primary front line attacker and Balthazar's Spirit, I rarely find myself running low, and when I do, I have +9 with Blessed Sig

Healing is done two ways, Healing Breeze with +5 regen and a +32 boost with DF and also by dropping Watchful Spirit for +130 HP and +32 with DF

Attacking and massive damage dealing

The key is to get in to the middle of the group, or rather pin them to a wall, or between other players or henchies and drop both Kirins Wrath and Symbol of Wrath one right after the other. -34 per second for 5 seconds times two is effectively 340 damage per enemy, plus mild damage from sword attacking and -53 damage every time they attack you and fall.

In an enemy group of up 4 you are dealing out potentially 1360 to 2396 damage in just 7 seconds. Do the math with larger numbers of enemies and you'll have their monk pulling their hair out trying to recover the team. I may yet throw Scourge Healing into the mix

This smiting monk build works especially well with a nuker, a tank (for general purposes) and a barrage ranger for massive amounts of AoE damage quickly, which I tried on Thunderhead Keep. We were taking out groups of 4 to 6 in 5 to 10 seconds easily with henchie healers, which despite what some people are saying in-game, henchies are infused at Thunderhead.

When I solo with henchies, my main role is tanking and I've yet to come across a quest I couldn't do with just henchies this way and there are several missions I've done henchie only with this build as well, which I'm sometimes forced to do as rarely does someone want a Smiting monk on their team.

AoE smiter != smiter.

AoE smiter > smiter.

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The Scourage skills making the smiting line a interesting line. With scourage enchantment coming in Nightfall, things could get VERY interesting, ironically, against AoE smiters, and boon prots.

Umm, if you really want to try an Smiter build other than the done and dusted AoE smiter. Off the top of my head, an anti-warrior one


Mo/E

Smite (when warrior attacks you) > Shock > Holy Strike > Soulstone Strike > Banish.

Enough to make a warrior crap his pants.

Or just mildly annoy them

Single target smite skills have either high cost or high recharge, plus they don't benefit from DF as others have already said. AoE smiting is fairly powerful, but it triggers mob scatter in PvE and is therefore not a great choice.

If you feel the need to deal damage on a primary monk, you should probably reconsider your reasons for playing a monk in the first place.

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No one is stopping you from playing a smiting monk. If you want to do it, be my guest. However, the fact that it's a "fun" build doesn't make it a highly effective build.

Again, I ask you to consider why you're playing a primary monk if you want to be a primary damage-dealer. Practically any build can be fun if it fits with your playstyle, but monks excel at team support. Trying to play against their strength is not usually going to produce great results, however "fun" it may be. Would it be any less fun to deal damage with an ele? A warrior? A necro? What is it about smiting that makes it more "fun" than these other options?

You also have to consider that you're not playing Guild Wars in a vacuum. Regardless of what you consider to be fun, most people don't consider failing a mission or losing a PvP match to be terribly enjoyable. I have a lot of "fun" playing a monk because I know I am greatly contributing to my team's success, even though I may not be doing any actual damage. I believe this is the best mentality to have when playing a monk, because that is essentially what monks were designed to do.

Of course you can try to nuke with a monk, or tank with an elementalist, or heal with a warrior, but before you attempt to do one of these things you would be wise to stop and ask yourself, "Why?" Unless you play with henchies all the time, your teammates are depending on your contributions in order for the group to succeed. Why do people try to argue that screwing around with unconvential and often subpar builds is more "fun" than playing an effective if more traditional build?

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If you're looking for a challenge, look no further than PvP. Even if you're using an optimal, tried-and-true build, the challenges are neverending. To me this makes more sense than trying to challenge yourself by playing wierd builds in PvE and pissing off your teammates.

The "same old builds" may get boring in PvE (for some people anyway), but PvP is by no means a cakewalk. If you're getting restless with PvE, I strongly suggest trying your hand at some PvP, whether in the arenas or elsewhere. It's a lot of fun and you can always find the challenge you're looking for.

I forgot to mention that I made up a nice smiting build for PvP mostly for RA and my teams and I took out 3 Warriors.

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oh, well, I don't see the reason to challenge yourself in pve by running a sub-optimal build. You're putting in place limitation on what you can do strictly because you're too busy pwning charr to pvp, where the challenge comes from outthinking/outplaying your opponent rather than running a crap build and trying to beat sanctum cay.

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