Smiting team build

Well there's been alot of talk about the smiting line being god-awfull in the forum. Perhaps it isn't if you look at it from an Elmo point of view. Elmos have the advantage of Energy Storage and a powerfull skill called Ether Renewal. Essentially what it does is it gives you back energy every time you cast a spell depending on the number of enchantments you have on yourself. Here's a team build that relies on this skill and exploits it if anything else.

What you'll want is 1 melee type character, 1 BiPer and 6 Elmos. The elmos all carry enchantments that have an energy draining cost to them. This is to achieve fire-and-forget thus reducing possibilities of mistakes once the battle begins. The elmos also go heavy in a few lines, this build is still in the works of course but one type elmo could be the following:

Elementalist/Monk

Skill 1: Ether Renewal, elite
Skill 2: Armor of Earth
Skill 3: Dwayna's Kiss
Skill 4: Orison of Healing
Skill 5: Balthazar's Spirit or another skill of your choice (preferrably some smiting spells)
Skill 6: Symbol of Wrath
Skill 7: Mending
Skill 8: Zealot's Fire


Earth Magic 3 + 1
Energy Storage 9 + 2
Healing Prayers 9
Smiting Prayers 12

This is just one of the many types of elmos that can form the core of your team. All what you need to do is cast your enchantments on yourself and/or 3 other teammates. The others do the same but with different skills. When you're taking heat, slap on armor of earth. Just at level 4 earth it still gives you an amazing 34 armor bonus for 30 seconds. Then when Ether Renewal is ready, you spam cast Orison of Healing as well as Dwayna's Kiss on your melee character. You just arrange your team so that the warrior has a few enchants on too (this would work wonders on an IW build). I haven't pulled any numbers yet but I'm assuming that you can always have 2 Elmos spam casting healing spells, while on Ether Renewal at all times. When you're not on Ether Renwal, you just do some basic Symbol of Wrath to keep the oppposing team in a constant AoE over time damage effect.

With 6 elmos that's 6*4 enchants possible. So everyone can have 3 on them at all times, plus with skills like Armor of Earth, Aura of Restoration, Zealot's fire and Healing Breeze, you can climb to 6. That means you'll be getting back something between 12 and 24 energy on every cast while under Ether Renewal (if not more). Personally I'd give more to the Elmos so they can regen energy faster and even carry some more Smiting skills.

The ennemy of this build is Rend and Desecrate Enchantments. But what team build brings more than one of those into battle anyways ? And you'll probably only encounter Rend, which at a cost of 10 energy per enchant isn't going to affect energy management that much. Of course if one elmo gets stripped and then is the target of focus fire, you got some work on your hands. There are also skills like Mark of Subversion and Scourge Healing but they'd be more like speed bumps than anything else.

The BiPer is there to give back the pips of regen to cover for the gaps between the Ether Renewal delays. This is basically a fail-safe since Elementalists with 11 in Energy Storage already have a considerably large mana pool. But you never know what could happen so a BiPer is definetly a good addition. As mentionned above the melee character could basically be anything. The best in my opinion would be the IW build. He can even bring Frenzy along to get that DPS higher than with what Flurry could do. Hehehe so the team can either strip the IW (which would be unfortunate but wouldn't really slow down the damage that much) or strip an Elmo but keep on getting the damage from the IW, which when using Frenzy has an attack rate of 0.86 seconds... you decide which is best to strip.

So is the smiting line that terrible ? In any other scenario perhaps, but in this one it's a great alternative to classic elementalist damage. Not to mention the surprise you'll inflict on the other team when theuy'll see one simple character tearing through their front line (and not getting any damage on him)

EDIT: other skills to be considered would be Balthazar's Aura, Balthazar's Spirit and Strength of Honor if you decide to bring a classic Warrior instead of an IW.

Last two bwe's I have played a smiting monk, both times helping my guild in PvP more than hindering it. Symbol of Wrath you can not just simply "keep them in constant aoe" with its recharge and the fact that its PBaoe and your pretty weak armor wise.

Best skills I have noticed for PvP:
Scourge Healing
Signet of Judgement (elite)
Shield of Judgement (elite)\-prolly not as good as signet, cause of recharge
Judge's Insight
Bathlazars Aura
Smite Hex
Bane Signet
Banish

Ya, best combos for playing a smiting monk would prolly be:
Monk/Warrior for stances to help
Monk/Elem for earth lines armor
or Monk/Mesmer for signet recharge times..

I think Monk/Mesmer is the best for damage output, because you can combine signet increased stances along with energy replacement(which you will most likely need with bathlazars aura). going smiting/divine/inspiration you can heal yourself and deal quite a bit of damage. Those of you in denial, it is worth trying. You might be surprised at how well the character works. Just warn your monks you will need a lot of healing :P

For the record, and I think I made it clear in the post, the character that was posted there was ONE of the six possible Elmos. So with 6 elmos, you can keep them under constant AoE if one character casts it every now and then. It's basically just there to keep the other team running constantly thus avoiding them to get organised. It's also great if your lagging behind for King of the Hill, if everyone casts it in the center and your warrior/melee runs next to their hero while getting spam healed under Zealot's Fire, he'll drop his target pretty fast.

Don't forget that with armor of earth your head to head armor-wise to a warrior for 30 seconds. That's the beauty of Armor of Earth, you put just a few points into it and you get a huge bonus from it (who cares about movement rate, you won't be running away from the warrior if your team spam heals you under Zealot's)

As I mentionned this is intended to be a team build. I don't think one character going into smiting and using Zealot's Fire will make much of a difference, but six spam casting with Ether Renewal on could be pretty dangerous.

I wasnt trying to agrue with you sir. Just adding to your post. I understood what you were saying and that it was team build focused, just relating my points from my experience. Trust me, I know the benefits of armor of earth.

Yea it is true that some of the skills you pointed to can be very usefull, especially anything related to hex removal. I'll have to try out Scourge Healing for myself, see if it's that good too. The others that you posted are unfortunately elites and therefore coudn't be brought along.

Smite skills have generally long recharge for their average damage output. You might run into problems with that when you are trying to kill your opponent's ghostly hero or guild lord. I think you might do better if all your elem/mo are air or fire and healing or protection. Perhaps adding 1 smiting monk will help here and there, but 6 smiting monks seems a little bit extreme.

shield of judgement vs the guild lord is quite comical :P