Smiter ring choice

Hi!

I'm wondering if 2 bul kathos 5% or bul kathos +

Raven Frost

Could you please let me know which would you choose?

pretty sure lifeleech doesnt apply to

Smite anyways.
If you dont have "cannot be frozen" from some other gear then its 100%

Raven Frost

Yep ll does not apply to

Smite and ravenfrost is the best source of cannot be frozen and that is a must for a smiter. For my other ring I like to have a dwarfstar - life + fire absorb. Both of these are good for the smiters. Got some spare ones if you want.

i use a +30 fire res +10 all res +life ring as it helps me overcap my fire res for mephistos aura

Raven Frost is a must I would say unless u have

Cham run in head/armor/chest. For 2nd ring I'm using rare one with LL and resists (LL as extra cos of

Zeal). For pure smiter I would look for something with resists,

Dwarf Star (fire absorb, HP /

Wisp Projector (lightning absorb)

If you don't have

Cham in your hat or

Trang-Oul's Girth, ravenfrost is basically a must.

I use FCR rings with large res. Why FCR? because teleporting is nice, even on a smiter. Res on FCR rings can even outweigh

Dwarf Star.

Dwarf Star or

Wisp Projector + Ravenfrost

BigD wrote: 3 months ago

Wisp Projector

This ...with 20% labsorb

If you have over 3000 life, enough res, don't need FCR, and also using a

Cham somewhere... then 2xBK for maximum damage/

Battle Orders.

I like to wear

Raven Frost,

Dwarf Star, and

Thundergod's Vigor to have the trifecta of absorbs.

Wisp Projector usually better,
fire dm enemy is not that strong

As an UTrist-Smiter you should put all remaining hard points into

Resist Lightning to increase your max lightning resistance.

Life Tap and 85+ resistance is more than enough to not get killed by Mephi.

Tenzarin wrote: 3 months ago

I like to wear

Raven Frost,

Dwarf Star, and

Thundergod's Vigor to have the trifecta of absorbs.

All of those +

Guardian Angel

leox wrote: 3 months ago

Wisp Projector usually better,
fire dm enemy is not that strong

Trav runs and meph runs

My understanding is that absorb is worth about twice as much as res. So 20 sorb is worth about 40 res. Dwarf sorb is worth about 30 fire res, and wisp sorb is worth about 40 lit res.

You can find that much and more on a single ring and get fcr as well.

I know that someone is going to say that sorb takes care of damage above the

Cap, and that makes it worth more than res. But if you're capped standing next to meph and you have

Life Tap you're fine. (edit: wait, is there a no

Life Tap scenario here?)

So I track ring values in terms of how much total res (fire+lit) they offer. Dwarf offers 30. Wisp offers 40. A god-tier FCR ring offers 82.

Edit:

To get even more into the weeds, I think if I had my charms absolutely maxed out, I have 37 slots of small charms on the smiter. The max you can get in terms of fire+lit is an 11%. I realize you can get more with a 5 all res, but cold doesn't count for me. So the max res you can get out of 37 slots is 407 res. You need something like 600 res to be maxed next to meph, so you still need 200 from other sources. My Exile shield offers 88 (44 fire and 44 lit) right now, which leaves us at about 110 remaining from the rest of the gear. If I'm going to wear Fortitude anyway that's 30, I currently have 27 and 30 respectively from crushing blow gloves and

Belt, that leaves me with 13 to cover with remaining gear. I have more than that on my tele amulet anyway. So I can determine from this that I don't need any on the rings if I have absolutely optimal charms (37x20/11s) and just use the other gear I have. So I guess it's possible that in that scenario, my absolutely best rings are FCR with strength, vitality, dex.

Realistically speaking, offline, that's not going to happen. I rely heavily on my rings for res and then supplement with plain 20 lifers in stash.

departure wrote: 3 months ago

My understanding is that absorb is worth about twice as much as res. So 20 sorb is worth about 40 res. Dwarf sorb is worth about 30 fire res, and wisp sorb is worth about 40 lit res.

This is true iff you have 0 res. If you have more, the absorb's effect is diminished, because you take less damage due to res, so there's less damage to be absorbed. And vice versa, it's stronger if you have negative res.
The absorb vs res effect is nicely summarized in a table at The Amazon Basin.

Also, absorb is capped at 40%.

Not exactly ... because it has diminishing returns...

with 0% resist and 20% absorb you take 60% damage (so 20% absorb is equivalent to 40% resist)
with 59% resist and 20% absorb you take 24.6% damage (so 20% absorb is equivalent to 16.4% resist)

departure wrote: 3 months ago

My understanding is that absorb is worth about twice as much as res. So 20 sorb is worth about 40 res. Dwarf sorb is worth about 30 fire res, and wisp sorb is worth about 40 lit res.

@fredkid

Trang Oul wrote: 3 months ago

This is true iff you have 0 res. If you have more, the absorb's effect is diminished, because you take less damage due to res, so there's less damage to be absorbed. And vice versa, it's stronger if you have negative res.
The absorb vs res effect is nicely summarized in a table at The Amazon Basin.

Also, absorb is capped at 40%.

I think some would argue it the other way around actually. The res usefulness goes to zero as you approach the

Cap, while sorb usefulness increases as you approach the

Cap. Absorb is still taking a huge percentage of the damage away if you're capped at +85res for example. Whereas an additional point in res does absolutely nothing. So at that point, absorb isn't worth twice what res is, it's worth an infinite amount more than res is.

My goal with the smiter has never been to remove the damage entirely, because I assume lifetap will take care of it, but rather to get the damage down to about what the

Cap leaves behind. But that's all based on the assumption of lifetap, which I suppose is not necessarily a requirement at all. With lifetap, I have hard time imagining I'll see any difference between elemental damage leftover beyond +85 res and nearly zero or even negative elemental damage from some kind of absorb above the

Cap. That's because

Life Tap comes along and replens you fast enough.

Without lifetap I think absorb over the

Cap is probably nearly a must.


Edit:

Now that I search for it, it looks like there are some no

Life Tap Lawbringer builds that do use absorb beyond the

Cap.

I think we are talking the same thing in different ways

Yes, X% absorb reduce your overall damage taken by 2*X% (no matter your resistance)

How much +resistance would be equivalent to that absorption depends on your current resistence.

75% resist + 20% absorb is equivalent to 85% resist (so you absorption is equivalent to +10 resist - and is in practice "ignoring the resist cap" - which is a 40% reduction on your overall damage taken)

departure wrote: 3 months ago

@fredkid

Trang Oul wrote: 3 months ago

This is true iff you have 0 res. If you have more, the absorb's effect is diminished, because you take less damage due to res, so there's less damage to be absorbed. And vice versa, it's stronger if you have negative res.
The absorb vs res effect is nicely summarized in a table at The Amazon Basin.

Also, absorb is capped at 40%.

I think some would argue it the other way around actually. The res usefulness goes to zero as you approach the

Cap, while sorb usefulness increases as you approach the

Cap. Absorb is still taking a huge percentage of the damage away if you're capped at +85res for example. Whereas an additional point in res does absolutely nothing. So at that point, absorb isn't worth twice what res is, it's worth an infinite amount more than res is.

My goal with the smiter has never been to remove the damage entirely, because I assume lifetap will take care of it, but rather to get the damage down to about what the

Cap leaves behind. But that's all based on the assumption of lifetap, which I suppose is not necessarily a requirement at all. With lifetap, I have hard time imagining I'll see any difference between elemental damage leftover beyond +85 res and nearly zero or even negative elemental damage from some kind of absorb above the

Cap. That's because

Life Tap comes along and replens you fast enough.

Without lifetap I think absorb over the

Cap is probably nearly a must.


Edit:

Now that I search for it, it looks like there are some no

Life Tap Lawbringer builds that do use absorb beyond the

Cap.

fredkid wrote: 3 months ago

I think we are talking the same thing in different ways

Yes, X% absorb reduce your overall damage taken by 2*X% (no matter your resistance)

How much +resistance would be equivalent to that absorption depends on your current resistence.

75% resist + 20% absorb is equivalent to 85% resist (so you absorption is equivalent to +10 resist - and in practice "ignoring the resist

Cap" - which is a 40% reduction on your overall damage taken)

Agreed.

Let me step back for a second.

The goal of the smiter is to kill ubers, not to mitigate damage. So crushing blow and high damage output are both the main ticket items. We do not build smiters for the purpose of not taking damage. We just build them to survive well enough, and then max damage dealt.

The secret sauce for smiters when it comes to survivability is to be capped on res even when next to meph (preferably a bit beyond 75) and have

Life Tap.

Dwarf Star,

Wisp Projector, and

Thundergod's Vigor are all useful in getting to that point. But they're not AS useful as a big res ring. Any benefit they might offer beyond the

Cap is obliterated by

Life Tap, and likely comes at some other quality of life compromise (such as fcr) or damage from elsewhere. This is why my build doesn't use dwarf, wisp, or t-gods.