Best weapon -shield combination for a FoH Smite hybrid Pala?

I'm planning to get an Exile as a shield in a ST but not sure about weapon. Any recommendations will be appreciated.

always Grief

HotO + Spirit in set 1 covers your FoH breakpoint needs.

Exile + Grief or a more budget HoZ + Kingslayer (then w/ Dracul's) on switch covers your smiting base.

Personally, I went heavier on the

Smite side (back when my ladder smiter was still gearing up and hence still a FoH hybrid). HotO + Spirit was the only true caster gear on him and that's perfectly sufficient for solo farming anywhere where FoH doesn't fail anyways. The rest was just all-out

Smite gear.

When Grief is among the possible choices, the right answer is always Grief
I play a FoH/Smite spec too and I use Grief for everything except ubers (act5 merc is kindly carrying a Death PB for that purpose).

Zelym wrote: 3 years ago

When Grief is among the possible choices, the right answer is always Grief
I play a FoH/Smite spec too and I use Grief for everything except ubers (act5 merc is kindly carrying a Death PB for that purpose).

What about

Hand of Blessed Light? Not very useful?

Schnorki wrote: 3 years ago

HotO + Spirit in set 1 covers your FoH breakpoint needs.

Exile + Grief or a more budget HoZ + Kingslayer (then w/ Dracul's) on switch covers your smiting base.

Personally, I went heavier on the

Smite side (back when my ladder smiter was still gearing up and hence still a FoH hybrid). HotO + Spirit was the only true caster gear on him and that's perfectly sufficient for solo farming anywhere where FoH doesn't fail anyways. The rest was just all-out

Smite gear.

Thanks for the answer. When he's done I'm planning to make him my main CS farm char so do you think still Smiter is better for the purpose?

basicnecromancy wrote: 3 years ago

Schnorki wrote: 3 years ago

HotO + Spirit in set 1 covers your FoH breakpoint needs.

Exile + Grief or a more budget HoZ + Kingslayer (then w/ Dracul's) on switch covers your smiting base.

Personally, I went heavier on the

Smite side (back when my ladder smiter was still gearing up and hence still a FoH hybrid). HotO + Spirit was the only true caster gear on him and that's perfectly sufficient for solo farming anywhere where FoH doesn't fail anyways. The rest was just all-out

Smite gear.

Thanks for the answer. When he's done I'm planning to make him my main CS farm char so do you think still Smiter is better for the purpose?

If you only wanna run CS then no, go all FoH and have a

Smite weapon/shield on switch I would say. Still tends to make the dia kill at the end faster than FoHing him down and you really don't need CtA as a pally there. Though at that point you wanna max your crushing blow with that switch so no Grief.

If you do also regularly run ubers/dclone with him though then I for one would keep it more

Smite heavy. That's a matter of preference though and depending on how much time you spend on which and where you hence want the better performance.

basicnecromancy wrote: 3 years ago

What about

Hand of Blessed Light? Not very useful?

Good for FoH obviously but my logic is: Grief has a much bigger impact on my smite damage than HoBL on my FoH/HB damage. And as much as I like CS, I want to be able to farm efficiently some areas with mixed demons/undeads/beasts.
I would probably only use HoBL for undead/demon heavy area at p8.

Thanks for the great Insights. One last question: I already have Enigma for him but what do you guys think as the best armor for hybrid or Smiter?

Definitely Enigma.

A pure smiter also benefits hugely from Fortitude but if you plan on running CS and the like, having

Teleport saves you more time than the extra dmg on fort could ever make up for.

Yeah, Enigma. There is nothing worse than being body-blocked by a bunch of Blood Maggots on your way to CS.

Thanks again. Maybe a Fortitude for Might merc.

Always fort on merc. Unless you end up short on crushing yourself, then you can slap a Duress onto the merc to help with that.

Schnorki wrote: 3 years ago

Always fort on merc. Unless you end up short on crushing yourself, then you can slap a Duress onto the merc to help with that.

I guess Infinity would be nice on Merc for it's

Conviction can help FoH damage but it is expensive. Which weapon would you choose? Obedience or if there will be mana problem, then again simply Insight?

I went with Insight because I hate having to switch to

Redemption all the time.

Your own aura depends on the build. Bring your own

Conviction to pump up your FoH lightning damage (if you even have the synergy for it to make it worth it) or just stick with

Fanaticism to buff up your merc and your smiting.

Schnorki wrote: 3 years ago

I went with Insight because I hate having to switch to

Redemption all the time.

Your own aura depends on the build. Bring your own

Conviction to pump up your FoH lightning damage (if you even have the synergy for it to make it worth it) or just stick with

Fanaticism to buff up your merc and your smiting.

Insight seems convenient for me, too. With this I understand how good

Iron Golem is.

basicnecromancy wrote: 3 years ago

Zelym wrote: 3 years ago

When Grief is among the possible choices, the right answer is always Grief
I play a FoH/Smite spec too and I use Grief for everything except ubers (act5 merc is kindly carrying a Death PB for that purpose).

What about

Hand of Blessed Light? Not very useful?

Have an FoH, will respec to do it with the

Smite.
Using the

Hand of Blessed Light +

Herald Of Zakarum for the FoH part (farm some places, very good, not that need for FCR).
For the

Smite part, will make an Exile + Grief (at the moment, have a

Heaven's Light and an elite paladin shield with Rhyme +66 all resist).