First torch run what gear for my Hammerdin LVL94 or should I just respec to a Smiter?

I play Offline on a Switch, and have a lot of gear. My Holy Grail
Unique armor 87 %
Unique weapons 85 %
Unique other 64 %
Sets 90 %
Runes 79 %

So I should be able to most things I need with the gear I have, and willing to make some rune words as well, I plan to make them all for my grail anyway.

The runes I lack are:

Vex,

Ohm,

Lo,

Ber,

Jah,

Cham,

Zod
The runes I have, I have already 2 at least of everything

I already have a HotH, Enigma and CTA (Lots of Spirit too)

Gear I have been looking at and already have

Dracul's Grasp
Gore Riders
Charms big resists

Stormshield
Hearty Cord

String of Ears
Anidote potions for

Lilith
Cure

Helm

My merc is an ACT2

Prayer, whom is equipped with Insight, Duress, Bulwark, willing to change him

And I have plenty of Tokens to respec, so I could just respec to a Smiter

So what say you:

Hammerdin:
What other gear would you recommend to above? Willing to make some runewords and grind LK runs if that is the way to go

If you say Smiter, I can look up guides or how to build one and its gear, but feel free to give a link to a guide as well you would recommend

I don't think any build in the game is as effective at killing Ubers as a

Smite Paladin, but it's possible for you to do both if you're bent on giving it a try. With some gear adjustments and a few skill points in

Smite and

Fanaticism it's possible, but it won't be quiet as efficient. Here's a link to a thread detailing some experiences I had and some advise from some very experienced members. Make certain that your lightning resistances are high, mine are at about 300%.

forums/i-think-i-m-ready-for-my-first-u ... 11646.html

You can turn a Hammerdin into a Hybrid Smiter. All you need is a single point into both

Smite and

Fanaticism. This build works great for solo

Baal runs since you can

Smite the 2-wave guys (they are immune to hammers)

Make Treachery and pre-buff with it. You don't have a

Lo so make Black for some massive Crushing Blow. Do you have

Herald Of Zakarum? That would be great for your primary

Smite shield. If you have it, up it to Elite. Def doesn't matter, you want the higher shield

Smite damage.
Use

Highlord's Wrath and T-gods (for uber meph) if you have it.

Your merc WILL die in

Uber Tristram so you need to manage alone.

Lure Meph away from the north. From Uber portal run around the building immediately to your left via a north west direction. Slowly make your way south until meph starts to follow and them run back north. Kill him and his adds. Go back south until you can peel

Baal or diablo away. Repeat.

Lastly DONT make a lobby game. Make a password protected game so if you die you can leave and come back for your body without wasting your keys.

GL

mhlg wrote: 19 hours ago

I don't think any build in the game is as effective at killing Ubers as a

Smite Paladin, but it's possible for you to do both if you're bent on giving it a try. With some gear adjustments and a few skill points in

Smite and

Fanaticism it's possible, but it won't be quiet as efficient. Here's a link to a thread detailing some experiences I had and some advise from some very experienced members. Make certain that your lightning resistances are high, mine are at about 300%.

forums/i-think-i-m-ready-for-my-first-u ... 11646.html

Perfect, thank you!

Knappogue wrote: 18 hours ago

You can turn a Hammerdin into a Hybrid Smiter. All you need is a single point into both

Smite and

Fanaticism. This build works great for solo

Baal runs since you can

Smite the 2-wave guys (they are immune to hammers)

Make Treachery and pre-buff with it. You don't have a

Lo so make Black for some massive Crushing Blow. Do you have

Herald Of Zakarum? That would be great for your primary

Smite shield. If you have it, up it to Elite. Def doesn't matter, you want the higher shield

Smite damage.
Use

Highlord's Wrath and T-gods (for uber meph) if you have it.

Your merc WILL die in

Uber Tristram so you need to manage alone.

Lure Meph away from the north. From Uber portal run around the building immediately to your left via a north west direction. Slowly make your way south until meph starts to follow and them run back north. Kill him and his adds. Go back south until you can peel

Baal or diablo away. Repeat.

Lastly DONT make a lobby game. Make a password protected game so if you die you can leave and come back for your body without wasting your keys.

GL

I could grind for a

Lo, I need it anyway for a Grief, I assume that is where you would put that in a PB, but if not please do tell. I will look into Black, I was poking at what had Crushing Blow, and maybe missed that one.

I do have a

Herald Of Zakarum and that looked pretty good for a smiter, I just liked the damage reduction from the other, but Hearld might be the way to go.

I do have Highlords, and Thundergod's

Good advice on how to defeat them, I hadn't even really explored that as much as I should

No worries about password protection, single player here offline on my switch.

biswbdiablo2io wrote: 17 hours ago

I could grind for a

Lo, I need it anyway for a Grief, I assume that is where you would put that in a PB, but if not please do tell. I will look into Black, I was poking at what had Crushing Blow, and maybe missed that one.

I do have a

Herald Of Zakarum and that looked pretty good for a smiter, I just liked the damage reduction from the other, but Hearld might be the way to go.

Black, with its 40% CB, is the cheap and easy option for crushing blow. Treachery (as a prebuff - wear it in

Frigid Highlands until

Fade triggers and then swap back to your normal armor) is cheap and easy for res AND damage reduction - allowing for the Hoz (with a pdiamond or

Um).
T-gods for meph. If you can kill him without triggering

Baal or diablo to move from their spawn points you can go back and swap it out for dungos.

Yea

Lo for Grief in a PB. It isn't necessary though. You can do Ubers without it.

biswbdiablo2io wrote: 17 hours ago

Knappogue wrote: 18 hours ago

You can turn a Hammerdin into a Hybrid Smiter. All you need is a single point into both

Smite and

Fanaticism. This build works great for solo

Baal runs since you can

Smite the 2-wave guys (they are immune to hammers)

Make Treachery and pre-buff with it. You don't have a

Lo so make Black for some massive Crushing Blow. Do you have

Herald Of Zakarum? That would be great for your primary

Smite shield. If you have it, up it to Elite. Def doesn't matter, you want the higher shield

Smite damage.
Use

Highlord's Wrath and T-gods (for uber meph) if you have it.

Your merc WILL die in

Uber Tristram so you need to manage alone.

Lure Meph away from the north. From Uber portal run around the building immediately to your left via a north west direction. Slowly make your way south until meph starts to follow and them run back north. Kill him and his adds. Go back south until you can peel

Baal or diablo away. Repeat.

Lastly DONT make a lobby game. Make a password protected game so if you die you can leave and come back for your body without wasting your keys.

GL

I could grind for a

Lo, I need it anyway for a Grief, I assume that is where you would put that in a PB, but if not please do tell. I will look into Black, I was poking at what had Crushing Blow, and maybe missed that one.

I do have a

Herald Of Zakarum and that looked pretty good for a smiter, I just liked the damage reduction from the other, but Hearld might be the way to go.

I do have Highlords, and Thundergod's

Good advice on how to defeat them, I hadn't even really explored that as much as I should

No worries about password protection, single player here offline on my switch.

Until you have everything you need to roll a Grief a Black is quite sufficient to get you started. The

Herald Of Zakarum is an excellent shield for smiting. It can be socketed with a

Perfect Diamond to increase its resists to 69%, and upgraded to increase its damage which makes it near the top of high shield damage for a

Smite Paladin. If you have on hand or find a

Guillaume's Face it's another great way to increase crushing blow which is your primary Uber killer, and crushing blow stacks.

mhlg wrote: 16 hours ago

biswbdiablo2io wrote: 17 hours ago

Knappogue wrote: 18 hours ago

You can turn a Hammerdin into a Hybrid Smiter. All you need is a single point into both

Smite and

Fanaticism. This build works great for solo

Baal runs since you can

Smite the 2-wave guys (they are immune to hammers)

Make Treachery and pre-buff with it. You don't have a

Lo so make Black for some massive Crushing Blow. Do you have

Herald Of Zakarum? That would be great for your primary

Smite shield. If you have it, up it to Elite. Def doesn't matter, you want the higher shield

Smite damage.
Use

Highlord's Wrath and T-gods (for uber meph) if you have it.

Your merc WILL die in

Uber Tristram so you need to manage alone.

Lure Meph away from the north. From Uber portal run around the building immediately to your left via a north west direction. Slowly make your way south until meph starts to follow and them run back north. Kill him and his adds. Go back south until you can peel

Baal or diablo away. Repeat.

Lastly DONT make a lobby game. Make a password protected game so if you die you can leave and come back for your body without wasting your keys.

GL

I could grind for a

Lo, I need it anyway for a Grief, I assume that is where you would put that in a PB, but if not please do tell. I will look into Black, I was poking at what had Crushing Blow, and maybe missed that one.

I do have a

Herald Of Zakarum and that looked pretty good for a smiter, I just liked the damage reduction from the other, but Hearld might be the way to go.

I do have Highlords, and Thundergod's

Good advice on how to defeat them, I hadn't even really explored that as much as I should

No worries about password protection, single player here offline on my switch.

Until you have everything you need to roll a Grief a Black is quite sufficient to get you started. The

Herald Of Zakarum is an excellent shield for smiting. It can be socketed with a

Perfect Diamond to increase its resists to 69%, and upgraded to increase its damage which makes it near the top of high shield damage for a

Smite Paladin. If you have on hand or find a

Guillaume's Face it's another great way to increase crushing blow which is your primary Uber killer, and crushing blow stacks.

Ah, nice good call out on

Guillaume's Face, I have that as well

At this point I am leaning toward a full respec to a smiter and then do a lot of

Key and torch running. Maybe he stays that way, maybe I respec him back to a hammerdin

Thanks everyone for the help and great call on that thread, its excellent advice.

biswbdiablo2io wrote: 15 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 16 hours ago

biswbdiablo2io wrote: 17 hours ago

I could grind for a

Lo, I need it anyway for a Grief, I assume that is where you would put that in a PB, but if not please do tell. I will look into Black, I was poking at what had Crushing Blow, and maybe missed that one.

I do have a

Herald Of Zakarum and that looked pretty good for a smiter, I just liked the damage reduction from the other, but Hearld might be the way to go.

I do have Highlords, and Thundergod's

Good advice on how to defeat them, I hadn't even really explored that as much as I should

No worries about password protection, single player here offline on my switch.

Until you have everything you need to roll a Grief a Black is quite sufficient to get you started. The

Herald Of Zakarum is an excellent shield for smiting. It can be socketed with a

Perfect Diamond to increase its resists to 69%, and upgraded to increase its damage which makes it near the top of high shield damage for a

Smite Paladin. If you have on hand or find a

Guillaume's Face it's another great way to increase crushing blow which is your primary Uber killer, and crushing blow stacks.

Ah, nice good call out on

Guillaume's Face, I have that as well

At this point I am leaning toward a full respec to a smiter and then do a lot of

Key and torch running. Maybe he stays that way, maybe I respec him back to a hammerdin

Thanks everyone for the help and great call on that thread, its excellent advice.

Good luck, and for farming keys you might want to use a Sorceress to run

The Countess and Summoner, because it will much faster and less tedious.

I found this great guide on isolating

Mephisto, regardless of build used.

Definitely worth checking out.

Enigma to not waste your time running around looking for them, and draculs/Exile to make sure it procs as soon as you start hitting. it turns very easy.

MintBlancmanche wrote: 14 hours ago

Enigma to not waste your time running around looking for them, and draculs/Exile to make sure it procs as soon as you start hitting. it turns very easy.

OP is offline. Doesn't appear he has a

Ber or

Jah yet.

biswbdiablo2io wrote: 20 hours ago

I play Offline on a Switch, and have a lot of gear. My Holy Grail
Unique armor 87 %
Unique weapons 85 %
Unique other 64 %
Sets 90 %
Runes 79 %

So I should be able to most things I need with the gear I have, and willing to make some rune words as well, I plan to make them all for my grail anyway.

The runes I lack are:

Vex,

Ohm,

Lo,

Ber,

Jah,

Cham,

Zod
The runes I have, I have already 2 at least of everything

I already have a HotH, Enigma and CTA (Lots of Spirit too)

Gear I have been looking at and already have

Dracul's Grasp
Gore Riders
Charms big resists

Stormshield
Hearty Cord

String of Ears
Anidote potions for

Lilith
Cure

Helm

My merc is an ACT2

Prayer, whom is equipped with Insight, Duress, Bulwark, willing to change him

And I have plenty of Tokens to respec, so I could just respec to a Smiter

So what say you:

Hammerdin:
What other gear would you recommend to above? Willing to make some runewords and grind LK runs if that is the way to go

If you say Smiter, I can look up guides or how to build one and its gear, but feel free to give a link to a guide as well you would recommend

Respec to full Smiter is unnecessary. 1 point into

Smite and 1 point into

Fanaticism with enough +skills should be enough, especially if you've got lots of points into

Holy Shield to synergize your

Smite dmg.

Dracul's
Gface

Gore Rider
Verdungo's

^all sounds great. Cure

Helm, no. Antidote potions, helpful, but not 100% mandatory if you already have max poison res.

If you have

Shaftstop (socketed with

Um helps too) that works great against

Lilith. Otherwise CoH, Fortitude, or if you don't have those, Smoke can get the job done. For Uber Meph only make sure you have 300 uncapped Cold and Lightning resist, Fire and Poison dont need to be overcapped as he doesnt have fire dmg and his

Conviction aura doesnt affect poison res. Treachery to proc

Fade helps hit 300 uncapped res.

For weapons,

Astreon's Iron Ward beats Grief PB in

Smite damage by a very small margin (only when wielded by paladin and when rolled with +4 combat skills) and has 33% CB.

Heaven's Light also works great (preferably w/ 2x

Shael runes). If not available Black

Flail can get the job done.

HoZ is preferable for shield but not 100% mandatory, Spirit can work if in an elite base with decent

Smite dmg. Or any pally shield with high res auto mod socketed with Pdiamonds if youre really on a budget.

CBF somewhere on your gear, Ravenfrost usually the easiest way.

+1 for the hybrid smiter. It only costs 2 skills

You won't stand a chance with a hammerdin.

Full respec is not needed if you only want to run Ubers a couple of times.

Also, watch those videos. Otherwise you risk of luring the Ubers to the red portal and block yourself out, leading to a loss of all your keys.

And as mentioned before, make a protected online game. You can also ask an uber veteran to be available as backup just in case.

GL and HF! First time running and bearing the ubers is a great experience.

Don't forget the

Salvation Aura!
It is in many guides not mentioned, because if you have very good gear you don't need it.
But one single point in it already is +60% all resistance.
And since you have + gear it will probably be at something like 80% or even higher.

That helps a lot against Mephis aura - some suggest using the

Conviction Aura yourself, to "overwrite" the one of Mephi. But you need lvl 21 for that, so a lot of skill points.

And maybe the +Resi with

Salvation are already enough to get your lightning resistance to 300 or 320 (depending on your max lightning Resistance)

As armor: Sure, Enigma is great - and if you know the layout the

Teleport is invaluable.

But a more safe option is

Guardian Angel
It increases your max resistance to 90. And if you have

Thundergod's Vigor as

Belt, your max lightning resistance is 95% (Probably not needed, but better safe than sorry)

So if you get to 320 All Resistance with

Salvation, Mephi can't do anything against you.

Your damage becomes "irrelevant", if you need a minute longer or not to defeat him? Who cares.
Then you can switch to Fanatism against

Baal and Diablo.

Keep in mind, that my suggestions are not the meta, in the sense that other ways are faster.
It is a safe option, that will result on you (probably) never dying and not even needing much potions.

And if you do not plan to run

Uber Tristram 10 times a day, it doesn't matter if the whole process (including farming the brain and the other stuff) takes a few more minutes or not.

mhlg wrote: 15 hours ago

biswbdiablo2io wrote: 15 hours ago

mhlg wrote: 16 hours ago

Until you have everything you need to roll a Grief a Black is quite sufficient to get you started. The

Herald Of Zakarum is an excellent shield for smiting. It can be socketed with a

Perfect Diamond to increase its resists to 69%, and upgraded to increase its damage which makes it near the top of high shield damage for a

Smite Paladin. If you have on hand or find a

Guillaume's Face it's another great way to increase crushing blow which is your primary Uber killer, and crushing blow stacks.

Ah, nice good call out on

Guillaume's Face, I have that as well

At this point I am leaning toward a full respec to a smiter and then do a lot of

Key and torch running. Maybe he stays that way, maybe I respec him back to a hammerdin

Thanks everyone for the help and great call on that thread, its excellent advice.

Good luck, and for farming keys you might want to use a Sorceress to run

The Countess and Summoner, because it will much faster and less tedious.

I have a high level Sorceress and thought about using her for those runs, though I haven't struggled much with my hammerdin against them. With Enigma I just fly right to them throw some hammers and grab the loot and run again.

MintBlancmanche wrote: 14 hours ago

Enigma to not waste your time running around looking for them, and draculs/Exile to make sure it procs as soon as you start hitting. it turns very easy.

Oh, I love my Enigma and while you could do all of this without it, running LK until I could make Enigma was worth the grind once I was done

Knappogue wrote: 14 hours ago

MintBlancmanche wrote: 14 hours ago

Enigma to not waste your time running around looking for them, and draculs/Exile to make sure it procs as soon as you start hitting. it turns very easy.

OP is offline. Doesn't appear he has a

Ber or

Jah yet.

Yep, offline, and I do have Enigma, that is where all my

Ber's went, and so so so so worth it. If my game bugged and I lost Enigma I would be so mad and go right back to LK and grind until I get it again, its that good

BigD wrote: 11 hours ago

biswbdiablo2io wrote: 20 hours ago

I play Offline on a Switch, and have a lot of gear. My Holy Grail
Unique armor 87 %
Unique weapons 85 %
Unique other 64 %
Sets 90 %
Runes 79 %

So I should be able to most things I need with the gear I have, and willing to make some rune words as well, I plan to make them all for my grail anyway.

The runes I lack are:

Vex,

Ohm,

Lo,

Ber,

Jah,

Cham,

Zod
The runes I have, I have already 2 at least of everything

I already have a HotH, Enigma and CTA (Lots of Spirit too)

Gear I have been looking at and already have

Dracul's Grasp
Gore Riders
Charms big resists

Stormshield
Hearty Cord

String of Ears
Anidote potions for

Lilith
Cure

Helm

My merc is an ACT2

Prayer, whom is equipped with Insight, Duress, Bulwark, willing to change him

And I have plenty of Tokens to respec, so I could just respec to a Smiter

So what say you:

Hammerdin:
What other gear would you recommend to above? Willing to make some runewords and grind LK runs if that is the way to go

If you say Smiter, I can look up guides or how to build one and its gear, but feel free to give a link to a guide as well you would recommend

Respec to full Smiter is unnecessary. 1 point into

Smite and 1 point into

Fanaticism with enough +skills should be enough, especially if you've got lots of points into

Holy Shield to synergize your

Smite dmg.

Dracul's
Gface

Gore Rider
Verdungo's

^all sounds great. Cure

Helm, no. Antidote potions, helpful, but not 100% mandatory if you already have max poison res.

If you have

Shaftstop (socketed with

Um helps too) that works great against

Lilith. Otherwise CoH, Fortitude, or if you don't have those, Smoke can get the job done. For Uber Meph only make sure you have 300 uncapped Cold and Lightning resist, Fire and Poison dont need to be overcapped as he doesnt have fire dmg and his

Conviction aura doesnt affect poison res. Treachery to proc

Fade helps hit 300 uncapped res.

For weapons,

Astreon's Iron Ward beats Grief PB in

Smite damage by a very small margin (only when wielded by paladin and when rolled with +4 combat skills) and has 33% CB.

Heaven's Light also works great (preferably w/ 2x

Shael runes). If not available Black

Flail can get the job done.

HoZ is preferable for shield but not 100% mandatory, Spirit can work if in an elite base with decent

Smite dmg. Or any pally shield with high res auto mod socketed with Pdiamonds if youre really on a budget.

CBF somewhere on your gear, Ravenfrost usually the easiest way.

Yeah I could do a hybrid, though I will have to respec no matter what. I don't have a point for

Fanaticism, and would need to check its specs, but everything has been going into

Holy Shield so I could cut that back a bit to get it. Because having a hybrid would be nice to switch back and forth from doing torch runs and my normal throw lots of hammers, kill lots of things play

I do have a

Shaftstop, not socketed, but I can rush another sorceress to pick up sockets pretty quickly, they become my mules anyway and I like they can wear gear to provide more storage anyway. I can make CoH and/or Fortitude. Good to know on Smoke, I have that one somewhere.

Good call out on the res, I was only going to do Light, I missed he does a lot of Cold, I have some big charms in all of that, I have been collecting all the once that are 10 and 11 Small and 27+ in Grand for the moment I needed them

Trechery looks pretty neat, a bit of a pain, but I could likely make that adjustment

I don't yet have Astreon's but yeah thats a nice

Scepter with a +4

I do have

Heaven's Light and it has nothing socketed into it yet, so I could go that path, and Black looks like a good choice too.

My current sprit is an Elite with 2 off perfect of the Res, and I have debated should I run it for its +Skills and all that res. Since CB and OW don't really care about how high the damage is, I am leaning toward it

I have a

Raven's frost and I was thinking that one is a good pick. As a Hammerdin I haven't cared about being frozen with Enigma, I just

Teleport off to my next spot. But a Smiter I can see how that would be a real problem in both attack and QOL. I use

Smite a little now versus those pesky Act 2 Summons from

Baal. And boy when I am frozen AND decrep its paint drying slow.

Thank you for all the great tips!

vued wrote: 5 hours ago

+1 for the hybrid smiter. It only costs 2 skills

You won't stand a chance with a hammerdin.

Full respec is not needed if you only want to run Ubers a couple of times.

Also, watch those videos. Otherwise you risk of luring the Ubers to the red portal and block yourself out, leading to a loss of all your keys.

And as mentioned before, make a protected online game. You can also ask an uber veteran to be available as backup just in case.

GL and HF! First time running and bearing the ubers is a great experience.

That is what I was wondering from the start, but when I was looking through posts as I was researching this and NO one was saying "oh I took my hammerdin through and my merc had OW and CB and did the job" I was a little worried

Yeah I plan to watch some of those videos, above someone linked a really good post with a well drawn map of how they did the run and it worked well, with locations of where to draw them and kill them. Plus some strange times when

Baal popped out first or who knows what

I play offline so there will be no help coming, but that's all right, with all the help I have gotten here and the gear stagged up, I think I should be alright. If I lose my keys, well then I grind a bit more, but then I wouldn't be playing this game if I didn't like the grind