O.K. - I just thought I would post some thoughts on this character of mine to generate some ideas. He uses Smite, Thorns, Conversion, and Holy Shield.
If you plan on using smite as your main damage dealer some kind of + damage aura is going to be necessary, if you plan on using thorns/conversion for the majority of your kills, then smite is a great skill to kill any stragglers, but the damage is pitifully low w/ out a damage aura
First of all, the most important piece of equip. for a vindicator type that is overlooked (in my opinion) is a % damage goes to mana item. With this, I no longer needed any points into mana after level 22.
nightsmoke does this task very well, redemption is a smite paladin's best firend even at just 1-3 points, your mana woes are over.
and only needed one point into dex, as usual. This allowed me to put all my remaining points into strength and vitality, which helps since I get hit somewhat more without concentration. Downside: Smite somewhat works against thorns when you knockback. Upside: Avoidance of getting hit as much as some other skills combined with thorns. Also, since conversion now has a less chance to convert, that increased weapon speed used for smite should help me once I get high enough level conversion to use it (not yet).
you cannot use smite to convert, shame, but true
I plan smite/thorns for boss-types on nightmare and conversion/thorns for the mobs. What do you think? Please feel free to flame away or comment on my somewhat unorthodox build.
P.S. - anyone tried smite with Holy Freeze? I was wondering how it worked.
Holy freeze is a great aura to "flash". Meaning you dont use it as your primary aura,but switch between it and another aura quickly once you have chilled all the monsters in your radius, change back to thorns to finish them off. It is somewhat tedious, requires some srategy, and that would be: A Good Thing(tm).
