Level 97 Crit Smite Champion^3.26

Notes

LEVELING GUIDE:


You can level as Smite all the way, though it isn't super good until act 2 when we get Herald of Ash, and +1 strikes from the tree. If you wanna go really fast, play Poisonous concoction into explosive concoction; problem with that though is you'll need to level smite and its supports in an offhand if you wanna play as smite in maps.

We don't get Smite as duelist, so if you want to level as it you'll need to mule it from Templar, who gets it as a reward for beating hillock.

Level 1-12:

Keep an eye out for magic/rare weapons of any kind, doesn't matter if they're a one-handed axe or a two-handed mace, as smite can use anything. We're looking for flat added damage or %phys. Two handed weapons are ideal though, so use one esp if it's just white.

Also be on the lookout for gear with the socket colours that we're looking for, which are:

I recommend using Spectral Throw + Chance to Bleed + Volley until you get ancestral call after mercy mission, as not having extra strikes makes the skill just kinda bad.

Our early setup for smite will be Smite + Ancestral Call + Ruthless

Smite is still kind of rough for single target, so you may want to keep Spectral Throw + Chance to Bleed (+ volley if you're swimming in links) to help. Using smite does give us flat damage, so it boosts spectral throw a decent bit.

Take Shield Charge after Breaking Some Eggs, which will be our main movement skill. You can also get Frostblink and Precision from the vendor, though you only really need to run Frostblink for now. If you're using a two-hander, you can have a shield on a weapon swap, or just use frostblink only and wait for leap slam.

Note about Precision: Only needs to be used IF your accuracy is lower than your life. Usually this isn't needed early on esp with weathered hunter/accuracy mastery, but later on as we get more life we may need to run it. Keep an eye on your character sheet and try to remember how much accuracy you have, as if your life is higher than accuracy
we lose benefits from Precise Technique, which is a ton of damage. Once you get Arrogance linked to it (usually from Lily in act 6), you can keep it on and level it some more as it wont take up our mana pool.

Red + Green: This is our Shield Charge/lLeap Slam + Faster Attacks movement setup. You can also link Momentum to it for a bit more speed, but it doesn't make a big difference.

We get Leap Slam after brutus. If you're using a two-hander, use Leap Slam. If you've got a good one hander, use shield charge. Generally 2H > 1H early on, but it's not a big deal and I prefer running 1h as shields are nice to have for res/life/etc.

Level 12-27:

After finishing Intruders in Black Act 2 quest, pick up Herald of Ash and Blood Rage. You should also grab Poacher's Mark for a nice DPS increase as well as mana/life on hit, which is super helpful on bosses.

Once you get the +1 strike mastery from Gladiators perserverance, you can drop Ancestral Call for Added Fire Damage. After Sharp and Cruel, Elemental Damage with attacks is better than added fire. Close Combat is even better if you have a RRG.

If you find a 4-link early on, there are a few supports that work well. Ideal is Smite +  Ruthless + Added Fire damage + Trinity. We need added fire support to proc trinity before we get anger. Instead of trinity you can run Elemental Damage with Attacks/Close Combat.

For Bandits, you can either help Alira for the +15% elemental resistances or get the +1 skill point by killing all bandits. I recommend Alira for most builds to start, as the res is a godsend for league start.

Level 27-37:

After completing Lost in Love, pickup Anger. You should try to run Trinity now. You can drop herald of ash if the mana is too annoying. Use Elemental Damage with Attacks/Close Combat over Added Fire damage if you were using it before.

I recommend Adrenaline for your first ascendency if you want to maximize speed, as we can use Corrupting Fever + Lifetap to put us at Low Life to proc adrenanline every 20 seconds. Corrupting Fever can be bought from the Act 2 vendor. The annoying part of this is that adrenaline is not refreshed if you use it early, so try to time it for every 20s.

Level 37-67:

After completing The Eternal Nightmare, you'll be rewarded with Multistrike which can replace Ruthless. You can also buy Mark on Hit for Poacher's Mark if you have a spare alchemy. At this point you should also have the Leader of the Pack wheel, and you can add back Herald of Fire if you took it off (not even that much dmg tho, can leave it off).

After clearing Fallen from Grace in Act 6, you can buy Arrogance for Precision to help with mana (you'll probably need precision soon).

For your second ascendency, I recommend grabbing Fortitude to help keep you alive. Worthy Foe is ok too if you just want more damage.

Once you've got more aura reservation nodes, you can slot in Flesh and Stone for improved survivability (stay in sand stance). Can drop Herald of Ash if mana sustain is annoying as well, or just not run Flesh and stone, no big deal. If you want gigadam you can run Anger + Wrath, but not worth the mana at this point imo.

Buy a Prismweave for 1-4c for a big damage boost early on.



Campaign Tips:

Try to avoid relying on your Weapon for links, since it'll get replaced more often than other pieces of gear, but sometimes you'll have no choice which is fine. Boots are similar, as you want as much MS on them as you can find.

Make sure to check the vendor in early acts for good socket links/ms boots/weapons, his inventory refreshes after every level up as well.

If you copy and paste the following string into the search of a vendor's inventory, it will highlight items that may be worth buying: ts:.+(?=(\S*r){2})(\S*b){2}|r-r-r|g-g-r|g-r-g|r-g-g|r-r-[gb]|r-[gb]-r|[gb]-r-r|nne|rint|Glint|Heav


Early Maps Tips:

Try to get a merc with wrath so that we have less int pressure. Use Anger + Flesh and Stone + herald of ice/arctic armour, even determination if you get all the reservation stuff.

Look for a Frostbreath with 14% ASP roll as that matters the most, should be able to snag one for 1-5c day 1 (depends on popularity as its a T4 drop), just keep a live search going. Once you've got Frostbreath, respec your passive tree out of Axe nodes and into Ribcage Crusher + mastery for all damage chills.

You can keep using Prismweave as it's good damage and all res, but str might be an issue if you can't get it on your other gear so can also just use a decent heavy belt.

Stats in general are a PITA. You need some int to use gems, and str to equip frostbreath. That's why we take and keep the stat nodes for a while, just to help with gearing, but you'll still need more from ammy/rings/belt etc.

We get a fair bit of all res from tree (34%) + alira (15%) + frostbreath (45% fire res) + prismweave (10+ all res); we have positive res just by equipping a couple two-stone rings with capped fire res (so avoid getting fire res rolls typically).

Flat elemental damage is king, get as much as you can on rings/ammy/gloves, but prio life & capped res first.

Chest is important as well, make sure to get a chest with as much armour/evasion as you can find and ideally a physical damage reduction mod as well. Avoid any life mods, as that will negate the 15% inc life mastery. Early on you can just use a pure armour based chest (once you've swapped to frostbreath),
as it's easier to color, but if you find a really nice eva/arm piece then you can use hypothermia in a green socket and it's good enough.

Getting a prismatic tincture even without any useful rolls is recommended, adds a lot of damage for bursting bosses down. Try to roll it a little though, there's a few good mods to use (ele pen, attack speed, inc effect) and it's usually easy to hit at least a low roll.

It's worth buying vaal smite early, clear feels really good with it and it's a lot of added dmg as well for bosses.

As you get more HP, corrupting fever will need another link to get you to low life alongside lifetap (needs to at least do half your hp). You can add more duration in here, and socket your vaal smite as well as it loves that link too. Make sure to keep it leveled as well, as its damage to you scales big with levels.
 

Transitioning into Midgame/Early Endgame:



Grab a Taming ring ASAP for big damage and lots of res. It can be a little pricy early on, but one trick you can do is buy a Berek's Respite, Berek's Pass, and Berek's Grip and do the vendor recipe, as it's usually a little cheaper and can net you a high roll if you're lucky. Also worth using two tamings, but just one is fine.


Roll a Prismatic Tincture with Elemental Penetration and ideally inc effect as well.

Try to cap Spell Suppression ASAP, it's not too difficult as we get 64% from the tree, so we only need 36% total from gloves/helm/chest/boots/shield. Can craft spell suppression on chest/shield as well, and can even grab quickstep at the cost of some dps/hp nodes.

Anoint Galvanic Hammer ASAP as it's super cheap (clear sepia crimson) and gives us accuracy and big damage. With it, we'll still need a 200+ accuracy roll on helm/gloves/shield, or increased accuracy on jewels, to ensure we have more accuracy than life.

Chest can just be crafted with some res essences, don't really need armour/eva rolls tho they def help with phys max hit. Envy essences for chaos res is probably ideal. Can also grab a corrupted 6l chest with the right colors early on. 4R2B is ideal but hard to get on eva/arm bases, so 4R1B1G is fine. You don't actually need an eva/arm base however 
until you craft your own, so getting a corrupted 6l arm/es is fine too.

We get endurance charges on block which is usually enough to sustain esp in juiced maps, and we're tanky enough without them anyways. Can also use enduring cry for bosses to get charges, i.e. versus pinnacles.

Grabbing even a shitty Lethal Pride is actually worth it, as it gives a ton of strength to help us get enough for our skill gems. Just note that we do need a lot of int as well, so if you drop a rare jewel for a lethal pride make sure to get the int elsewhere.

Can get a cheap paradoxica with blood rage/atkspd + ele pen for pretty cheap early on, then upgrade it to asp + int later.


ENDGAME:

Once you've got your paradoxica, you can swap into crit. Get crit nodes on the tree, get crit multi on your amulet, get an abyss jewel with 8% inc attack speed on crit, anoint crit multi on your new ammy (fatal blade is good, also Disembowling), start using a diamond flask.

Paradoxica: Ele pen + attack speed & int/dex -- you need the int to use awakened added lite, which is a ton of damage when level 5.

Get a Doryani Merc ASAP, as it adds a ton of damage. The -lite res rings are pretty pricy typically around 2-4divs for good ones, but it's worth it. Once you've got a Doryani merc, drop trinity and use inc crit damage.

Yoke is a ton of damage, and is why we spend a point to grab some poison chance on the tree as it increases damage based on ailments on enemy. Try to get a good rolled one (7%+ inc dmg taken).

Getting enough int is rough, to the point where we can even allocate the +30 int node on the tree if desperate. Ring is the best source of it, as well as getting it on an abyss jewel/jewels in general.

Shield with %physical damage reduction and reduced dmg from crits is great defensively. You also want T2+ life on it, and ideally room for an attack speed craft.

Get T2+ life on literally every piece of rare gear, if not T1 life. We need as much as we can get to not get one shot when something goes thru our block, it goes a long way to feeling tanky.

Crafting a really good Tincture is recommended, doesn't take that many alts to get a good one (inc effect + T1 ele pen, attack speed is also pretty good).

Make sure your assassin mark is 20q, as that gives you power charges on hit.



Good Tattoos:

Dex: Mark Effect, avoid stun, Cold Res, Spell Suppression




Merc Setup:

Get a Wrath merc (ideal is one that can dual wield two wands, but any merc that has wrath and int as an attribute is fine). Best ones are Stormhand, Storming Zealot, Fallen Reverend. Thunderquiver isn't bad either but can't use doryanis, so more of an early game merc.

Equip them with perquil's toe, doryani's prototype, two rings with -90 lite res (cap is -169 lite res for enemies, check ur merc's lite res in stats and see if it's at least -169), string of servitude with wrath effect (goes up to 60%), and dual wield wands with wrath effect (crusader wands). If merc uses staff, can throw on dying breath.

Anoint perquils toe with Whispers of Doom and give merc enfeeble on hit gloves. Try to get one with some res on it (cold/fire/chaos), make sure it works with ur merc attribute type (es base is a safe bet).

Helm is ideally crown of the tyrant, but it's expensive so just use whatever es helm (ideally high es) with as much res for cold/fire/chaos you can get til then. Boots are the same idea as helm. If you find merc is dying, can run a shield with inc aura effect (redeemer) and es/res.




																																																																					CRAFTING GUIDE:


CHEST:

IDEALLY you either buy a 22% spell suppress fractured conquest lamellar ilvl 86 (~50divs) OR just fracture it yourself (gl); otherwise can also just buy a lower spell suppress fracture and get the final 2% elsewhere (i.e. tattoos/other gear).

Spam dense fossils in primitive chaotic resonator until you hit either:

T1 hybrid %defense & T1 flat defense + T3+ defense/stun

OR

T1 hybrid %defense & T1 flat defense + T2+ life

OR

T2+ hybrid life & T1 flat defense & T1 life

If you get 2 of these and an open prefix, use an elritch exalt with searing dominant (use greater searing & lesser eater on it) to add a prefix and hope it's a good one. if not, spam dense again

Obviously you can settle for lower tiers as well, but may as well go for T1s if you've got the currency to spend

If you get a life chest, don't run the %life mastery, run the flat life or none at all

At this point your prefixes should be done. If you don't have an open suffix, make sure it's eater dominant, then eldritch annul to remove a suffix.

Craft prefixes cannot be changed, then reforge phys with harvest. It's guaranteed to hit %phys reduction; ideally we get T1, you can settle for T2 if currency's tight atm, can always go for it again.

This will leave you with one open suffix; I just craft hybrid chaos res, not much else to get.

Before you six-socket and link the chest, you can also use tailoring orbs on it to get % explicit defense or life modifiers enchant (which I forgot to do).

To six socket and link it, buy an omen of the jeweller (10c) and use a jeweler on it for 6 sockets, then buy a black Morrigan beast (1div) and use that to 6l it.

BOOTS:

Get either a 12% spell suppress fracture or a 14% spell suppress fracture on any ilvl 86 base (ideally pure ev or ev/arm). Probably best to just get 14%, that way you can cheap out on the chest instead.

Use either deafening essence of greed (cheap) or shrieking/deafening zeals (more expensive usually). Looking to craft prefixes, so we want T1 life & 30%ms. 3rd prefix doesn't matter.

Craft prefix cannot be changed, harvest reforge chaos. Guaranteed to hit chaos res, hopefully you hit a high roll. Can keep going until you hit a T2+ but up to you.

Final suffix is crafted avoid ailments, this + lesser eater avoidance implicit + ancestral vision + thick skin wheel = 100% ele ailment avoidance. Can just exalt slam to get whatever final prefix.



GLOVES:

14% spell suppress fracture gloves (any ilvl 85 base, ideally ev or ev/arm).

Spam defeaning zeals until T1 life + ideally flat damage, but don't need to worry that much bout hitting that, main thing is T1 life.

If you have two open prefix, craft added phys dmg to block it and eldritch exalt with searing dominant. Craft 36% increased atk spd while focused suffix to finish craft, and exalt slam final prefix to hit whatever if one is open still.

Final step is to get +2 strikes, which can be pretty expensive - be prepared to spend 10+ divines on it depending on luck.

First you need to spam grand searing ichors until you hit +1 strikes (not when near pinnacles). This can take a while and where most of the currency sink is.

Once u hit that, use an exceptional eater and then orb of conflict it -- if your searing goes up to exceptional (hold alt to check), get another exceptional eater and use it for slightly better odds, then orb of conflict again. If searing goes up, you'll have +2 strikes. If it goes down, conflict again. this can also be expensive depending on luck.

Once you have +2 strikes and the rest of the gear crafted, you can unspec all of inveterate and multishot and put points elsewhere. Currently I'm keeping multishot wheel for the str + the attacks cannot be blocked to do more T17 mods. You will need quickstep specced to suppress cap though, but it's only two points and gives ms as well, plus it's in lethal pride range.

You may want a new lethal pride as well; make sure to get one with +1 rage on hit as well to get another point back on tree. Looking for crit multi, crit chance, fire res & life is good too, armour and strength (flat or %) also good and may be needed to hit str requirements (need 173 for conquest lamellar).


HELM

Nothing special, can just buy one with 14% spell supp, T1 life, and maybe some chaos res for 1-2 divs. If you wanna craft it yourself can also do, just get a spell suppress fracture and spam with either greed or envy, or pristine fossils. Can also prefix cannot be changed harvest reforge chaos for chaos res.


RING (havent yet crafted it, take with grain of salt):

Amethyst ring ilvl 84 with T1 chaos res fracture

Spam deafening essence of scorn until T1 int

Craft suffix cannot be changed (or wild bristle matron, cheaper) and harvest reforge life until T1 life

Crusader exalt for lightning damage on shocked enemy (1 in 5 chance to hit)

if you miss, either yolo annul or recraft suffix cannot be changed and reforge life until T1 again

Craft flat cold (helps with brittle) or flat lightning (if not using secrets).



BELT:

I just bought a good stygian vise for 2.5divs w/ an open prefix and hunter exalt slammed and got lucky. I wouldn't spend too much crafting a good stygian tho, as we're gonna use either mageblood or headhunter instead ideally.



SHIELD:

Buy an ilvl 86 fractured 8% phys dam reduction arm/ev shield (needs to be arm/ev to get crit dmg reduc suffix). Base matters, as anything less than 26% base block will not hit 44% block with loathing essence. Cardinal is ideal.

Can also get reduced crit dmg fracture, just harder to hit high %phys dmg reduction using harvest (still guaranteed to hit the mod).

Spam defeaning essence of loathing until T1 life & T2+ hybrid life

Craft Prefix cannot be changed and harvest reforge crit until T1 crit dmg reduction

Craft 12% Attack speed

There's also other really good influence mods for shields, i.e. life on block shaper, %life hunter, %inc ele dmg redeemer, res efficiency from shaper/hunter.
 
Best shield is probably using def + serrated fossils until T1 atk spd + T1 reduced crit dmg, then prefix cannot be changed reforge life until T1 life (can also hit hybrid life rolls here), and with open prefix hunter exalt slam for %inc life.