Smiting...love?

Here are some theories about Smiting BUilds...Comments open:
Assume 16 Smiting, 13 Divine Favor

First Build:
Required Mods: 20% Longer Enchants, 20% Recharge on Spells


Word of Censure (E)
Divine Spirit
Reversal of Damage
Scourge Healing/ Scourge Enchantment
Spear of Light
Signet of Devotion/ Watchful Healing
Arcane Echo
(Res)

Use: Arcane Echo Divine Spirit. It should last for 14 seconds with a 20% mod. This will allow about 5 casts of Word of Censure (if you target doesn't die...remember to use Spear of Light when it's available between castings) Then you can use the echo'd Divine Spirit to continue spamming censure or other skills. After the second Divine Spirit is dead there will be downtime (unless you get a lucky recharge...then there's only ~15s...this is where a focus swap may be good.) So you're at most dealing with 5e costs.
Of course, if you need to do somethign other than spam holy damage, by all means do it. The rest of the build is designed for when Divine Spirit is down. Scourge Healing/Enchant is there to take down monks. Sig of Devotion is a selfheal, but watchful would also work well. Reversal of Damage is fun to play with if there's a lot of pressure. Just play around with it, you'll find a groove. It may be worth using Major Divine Favor in addition to superior smiting since at 14 Smiting, it lasts for 13 seconds, and a 20% mod gives you 16 seconds out of Divine Spirit, which means 4 more active seconds of energy management. a +1 DF mod would help you get 17 in some cases. You need to cast a lot under your DS. If you use DS and cast 6 times under each, you get (30-10= 20 energy) In the first 30 seconds of the battle you'll have an extra 2 pips of energy to work with, so use it well since you need to wait a bit to get it again.
I'll think about if Blessed Aura could be utilized well in this build.

At 13DF, it'd make DS last 19 seconds...which is nice. at 14 DF SS lasts 21 seconds. at 15DF, DS lasts 23 seconds.


Defender’s Zeal (E)
Reversal of Damage
Smite Hex
Spear of Light
Scourge Healing/ Enchantment
Contemplation of Purity/Sig of Devotion/Selfheal
Arcane Echo
(Res)

Defender's Zeal Owns as energy management. Cast it on a warrior/dervish/ranger that your party isn't targetting at the moment.

This shoudl fuel your party support. I put in spear of light because I think it's a good spell to have around in case you need some damage. The energy fueled to you shoudl allow you to Echo Reversal and spam to your heart's content. Use other skills as needed.


I played monk for a long time when the game first out. I have more fun healing as my rit. I wanted to get into smiting on my monk...because nobody ever uses smiting and I think it can be worth it. Crits?

(Please no: lolz monk shud healz n00bE go lern 2 plA. )

The reason why monks do not smite outside of zealots is because its not worth it. You're builds don't give out anything but some pretty horrible DPS and maybe a little hex pressure. And maybe some 'off monk' protection, but its nothing to be excited about. There are just better options instead of the smiting line.

I'm thinking about hurting higher level monsters with this. I don't think that the smiting line is given enough credit for what it can do (armor ignoring damage). I feel like being able to smite most people down in seconds is underrated. Yes single-target damage. Anti-Monk pressure. Maybe not useful in most cases of normal-mode, but I feel like this should function in hard mode.

edit: Also...Zealots is worth using? What? it's pathetic against high leveled creatures, plus it causes AI scatter....

I just did some calculations...

It would take an elemental spell dealing 120 damage do deal 78 damage to a lvl28 caster (60AL)
Want to know how much dmg that 120 elemental spell does to a warrior/para with 80 armor? 55.

There is one problem and that is Zealots doesn't cause THE AI to scatter anymore since they reversed the AOE effect on spells.I have tried it out myself when you were able to use FireStorm agian.

Quote:

I've been using a Ritualist primary Rt/Mo with restoration and smiting spells (mainly reversal of damage and a few others).

I've found it to work strangely well, im able to deal a bit of support damage while successfully heal my team.

rather than healing or protecting i sometime go as a smiter it deal decent dam too

I've just started playing around with smiting builds, and I've found that smiting monks make excellent interrupters that never run out of energy. My skill bar looks something like this:

Smiting Prayers: 12+1+3 Inspiration Magic: 12

[skill]Mantra of Inscriptions[/skill][skill]Signet of Judgment[/skill][skill]Bane Signet[/skill][skill]Leech Signet[/skill][skill]Spear of Light[/skill][skill]Banish[/skill][skill]Resurrect[/skill]

For the last slot, I either bring [skill]Kirin's Wrath[/skill]/[skill]Symbol of Wrath[/skill], [skill]Hex Eater Signet[/skill] or [skill]Smite Hex[/skill], or [skill]Reversal of Damage[/skill], depending on the mobs I expect to be facing.

[skill]Holy Strike[/skill] does some nice damage to foes you've just knocked down with SoJ or BS, but you have to be within touch range, which is not always such a good idea.

If you have a primary or secondary ritualist in your party with [skill]Earthbind[/skill], this build becomes even more effective, since anyone you knock down with your smiting signets stays down for 3 seconds.

[skill]Signet of Humility[/skill] is useful on bosses, particularly Ele bosses in HM that can wipe your party out in one strike if you aren't careful.

Now, before someone laughs this build off and says that I'd be better off playing a mesmer primary, or an ele primary, or whatever, that's not the point. The point of this build is to be able to do something different as a monk that doesn't involve watching 8 little red bars go up and down. A smiting monk will never be a powerhouse damage dealer, but it's a lot of fun to play one if you're just larking about doing quests or farming LB/SS points.

i got a few glads messing around with this build i made up as a joke.

10 smiting (9+1)
10 prot (9+1)
14 divine (12+1+1)

[skill]Reversal of Fortune[/skill] [skill]Reversal of Damage[/skill] [skill]Draw Conditions[/skill] [skill]Mending Touch[/skill] [skill]Defender's Zeal[/skill] [skill]Smite Hex[/skill] [skill]Contemplation of Purity[/skill] [skill]Divine Boon[/skill]

not completely smite but RoD and zeal make an interesting twist to boon prot. amazing people don't read skill descriptions because they would always continue to attack with defender's zeal.

and heres a smite build i had some success with:
Mo/Me
illusion magic 6
domination magic 11
smiting prayers 16 (12+1+3)

[skill]Word of Censure[/skill] [skill]Phantom Pain[/skill] [skill]Shatter Delusions[/skill] [skill]Bane Signet[/skill] [skill]Stonesoul Strike[/skill] [skill]Unnatural Signet[/skill] [skill]Reversal of Damage[/skill] [skill]Resurrection Signet[/skill]

Use phantom pain, then WoC them down close to 33%, unatural or bane sig + shatter delusions should kill them. very high on energy, i was using a combination of +15e weaponsets and using normal ones inbetween spikes to regen energy.

The issue isn't that smiting sucks (it doesn't - it's an interesting, varied tree, with easy knockdowns, good energy use, decent buffs for melee attackers, Smite Hex, etc.). The problems are:

a) It's not the best use of a monk, and there aren't many monks to choose from.

b) People have a single-minded fixation on dps-uber-alles. No, a smite monk's direct damage isn't generally going to match an ele. But it does have easy knockdowns/interrupts, and indirect dps through stuff like Judge's Insight.

I used to think smiting was mostly a waste outside of solo farming, but then I started playing a monk. I play a DF/Prot/Heal trispec, because I'm much better at healing than the AI is. But I LOVE bringing a hero gussied up as a smite monk; they come in handy in all sorts of situations.

I created a Monk purely for smiting and have had much fun with this build:

[skill]Auspicious Incantation[/skill][skill]Balthazar's Aura[/skill][skill]Spear of Light[/skill][skill]Bane Signet[/skill][skill]Ray of Judgment[/skill][skill]Smite Hex[/skill][skill]Reversal of Damage[/skill][skill]Light of Dwayna[/skill]

The above build is one of the only reasons I've found to ever take a "tank". Mobile AoE ftw!!

I also tried out a weird build which was sort of useful in the Echivold Forest but other than that, lol...

[skill]Martyr[/skill][skill]Plague Sending[/skill][skill]Blood Bond[/skill][skill]Well of Blood[/skill][skill]Reversal of Damage[/skill][skill]Smite Hex[/skill][skill]Scourge Enchantment[/skill][skill]Light of Dwayna[/skill]

I find smite monks can come in handy for a few things, going Mo/Me can aid in boss shutdown and neutralise a Boss's healing power thanks to Scourge Healing. The damage, of course, is Armor Ignoring on the whole. Also, Maintaining Retribution on the whole party is funny as hell. I like a go on my Smiting monk sometimes....

I think the problem people have with Smite monks is too many buy into the "power gamer" mentality, where everything has to be absolutely 100% efficient. With that thinking if something does 0.0001 dps more then there is no point in playing anything else.

Smite monks can be a lot of fun, and their damage not bad at all. I've played several different classes, and in my opinion a lot of players seriously overestimate the damage of their class (warriors are the worst). The fact that smiting ignores armor ignoring tends to be completely overlooked. Go up against a high level, highly armored foe in PvE and all of a sudden that warrior is hitting for pathetic amounts of damage.

A lot of people just dismiss smiting without even giving it a chance. Considering how few actually have tried smiting, a lot of people's opinions on the matter are highly suspect (in other words they don't know what they're talking about).

Anyway, In the end the point of the game is to have fun. At least in PvE, you can basically do whatever you want and do just fine. You can run through the PvE campaigns with nothing but henchmen, among the most basic and gimped builds out there, and with terrible AI. So we're not talking about needing absolute perfection to succeed. For PvE smiting is totally viable and can be very useful at times.

great builds will try