Smiting monks are good

[adugabutt]

As soon as you see the Mo in a caster's class, people automatically assume you're a healer and swear at you if you don't heal. A friend of mine plays an e/mo and is a smiter. Oh my, I've seen her play and the swearing only stops when she kills the whole team by herself.

Bonuses of a smiting monk:

dmg per sec - despite the prevailing opinions on smiting, they do a lot of damage. They all cast relatively fast, unlike those high damaging elementalist spells, and do holy damage that cuts through armor.

surprise - smiting monks can hurt you and knock you down and do on average 70 or so more damage while you're still down, taking well over 100 dmg in a second. If the warrior attack still isn't discouraged, balthazar's aura will hit them additionally for 25ish more dmg every second, leaving the character to cast a variety of other spell while hurting them fast. By this time usually, the person will run away in surprise while getting hit by even more spells.

Smiting doesn't take a lot of mana however, but because they are fast, you might want an elementalist prime to have some extra energy on hand. Then you can combine it with some elementalist spells use in conjunction with your smites.

Don't be an idiot and swear at smiters. :)

[Lajiskin Bloodfrost]

Smiting does in fact suck if you are trying to pretend you are a holy based elementalist. They have some nice skills that can supplement a build, but trying to tweak them out for a straight direct dmg build is silly. The short cast times are made up for by the very long recharge time, shortest recharge is 8 seconds, and you have many that are 10 or even longer.
You will never be able to compare to an Air elementalist for damage, period.

[adugabutt]

not true. speaking from experience, with multiple smite skills there is almost always one available. while most elementalists get creamed in an encounter with a warrior, you will see a smiter destroy one with ease, even if they aren't very good.

every build really does have its upsides I must say.

try it out

[Xellos]

My Lightning Orb hit a monk for 186. How much skills are you going to use to keep up with my one spell?

[adam.skinner]

2! I'll take Zealot's Fire & Reversal of Fortune.

[Xellos]

Your Zealots Fire does 186 damage in one Reversal of Fortune? What?

We are comparing offense. Not 1v1.

[Spura]

As soon as you see the Mo in a caster's class, people automatically assume you're a healer and swear at you if you don't heal. A friend of mine plays an e/mo and is a smiter. Oh my, I've seen her play and the swearing only stops when she kills the whole team by herself.

Bonuses of a smiting monk:

dmg per sec - despite the prevailing opinions on smiting, they do a lot of damage. They all cast relatively fast, unlike those high damaging elementalist spells, and do holy damage that cuts through armor.

surprise - smiting monks can hurt you and knock you down and do on average 70 or so more damage while you're still down, taking well over 100 dmg in a second. If the warrior attack still isn't discouraged, balthazar's aura will hit them additionally for 25ish more dmg every second, leaving the character to cast a variety of other spell while hurting them fast. By this time usually, the person will run away in surprise while getting hit by even more spells.

Smiting doesn't take a lot of mana however, but because they are fast, you might want an elementalist prime to have some extra energy on hand. Then you can combine it with some elementalist spells use in conjunction with your smites.

Don't be an idiot and swear at smiters. :)I played a smiter and I disagree. Damage can be awesome if you have balthazars aura and symbol of wrath on multiple opponents who stand still. Such can be situation in koth matches. But in all other situations it doesn't work well. Yeah sometime a warrior will run away after taking 350 damage from those 2 spells, but they don't die often.

[adugabutt]

after some more testing, i found them to be very good as monk denfenders in HoH. stay back near them and you can do constant dmg quickly. remember that it's being able to do that that makes them useful at all. that and killing warriors with ease.

you can't stop with balth, u have a whole row of aresenals to keep throwing at them.

in this game, you can't have one build killing everyone. know your role ;)

[Akshara]

i found them to be very good as monk denfenders
As a supporting role for healing monks and other more advanced damage dealers, a well developed Smiting Monk can be a great asset to a team. One of the ways to overcome the recharge time issue is by choosing combos wisely and paying close attention as to the timing of each strike. Smiting Prayers are stronger when used in combination with other attackers at just the right moment.

My Lightning Orb hit a monk for 186. How much skills are you going to use to keep up with my one spell?
Now if a Smiting Prayers monk was on your team, and hit that same Monk with Scourge Healing (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/skill/206-scourge-healing)... that Monk is gonna drop fast.

[Vermilion Okeanos]

I have a partner that use smiting in PvP, it was very useful. We were able to kill off the opponent team's melee fighter in an extremely short time (we even hunt rift warden to 10% morale and still have spare time with just 2 people).

What we do is, he charge in first... everyone go like "that monk is asking for it", then they find out they only have less than half hp left within 5 sec and stop to back up (or try), a little before they back up... that is when I jump in with the E spikes.

However, the down side is... you will probably only ever killing npc and warriors, smiting arent that great against casters.

[Ishamael Sedai]

what about going 11,10,10 plus mods. one of those can be smiting. you can add enchants to warriors so when they take dmg the other team is hurting. if nothing else it is discouraging seeing the better you strike someone the more dmg you take

[catharsis]

I like Smiting for secondary-class monks... a lot of the smite spells go very well with warrior or ranger skills. Having access to real resurrection instead of rez signet is a nice bonus too.

[lok0143]

I am loving my N/Mo for just those reasons. Blood magic, curses and smiting means a mob around me dies quickly.

[relientK_fan]

My Warrior/Monk is great with smiting. Banish is a quick cast and recharge. When it is recharging, I use Warrior skills. I use my smites a whole lot. I have 4 Monk skills and 4 Warrior skills, so it is a good balance, better then you think.

[Cs Coldize]

not true. speaking from experience, with multiple smite skills there is almost always one available. while most elementalists get creamed in an encounter with a warrior, you will see a smiter destroy one with ease, even if they aren't very good.

every build really does have its upsides I must say.

try it out

not me :D:D:D::D

omg my elementalist is so leet. I can do an endless amount of 80dmg/1and1/2 seconds forever whith my build. Warriors stand no chance against me. Neither do rangers but mesmers/necros are a lot better.

[Expunge]

I'd have to say that a Me/E with Fast cast and Air would own any class in the game 1v1.

[Epinephrine]

I'd have to say that a Me/E with Fast cast and Air would own any class in the game 1v1.

<sarcasm> ah, the voice of experience...</sarcasm>

I highly doubt it. A Me/X designed to shut down a caster would mop the floor with a speed cast Me/E. This is a game of builds and counter builds, and you cannot come up with a class or build that "owns any class".

[theclam]

I'd have to say that a Me/E with Fast cast and Air would own any class in the game 1v1.
Backfire + Reversal of Fortune will counter that build pretty well.

[Nightsky]

Smithing Monks are weak against experienced players. Mainly because no one stays into melee range to get hit by Symbol of Wrath, Zealot and all that crap. Smithing Monk get snared, backfired, drained and then they get sniped by Ele and Rangers with little to no resistance.

[Xellos]

As a supporting role for healing monks and other more advanced damage dealers, a well developed Smiting Monk can be a great asset to a team. One of the ways to overcome the recharge time issue is by choosing combos wisely and paying close attention as to the timing of each strike. Smiting Prayers are stronger when used in combination with other attackers at just the right moment.


Now if a Smiting Prayers monk was on your team, and hit that same Monk with Scourge Healing (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/skill/206-scourge-healing)... that Monk is gonna drop fast.

And why would the monk heal me? Your damage is pitiful. Secondly, isn't scourge healing a hex?

The only real use is balthazaars aura in a ward vs foes. Zealots fire is decent, but it'd require the monks to spam, which causes problems by itself, since monks need to conserve their mana to heal.

[Vermilion Okeanos]

Smiting own close range battle... however... a smiting VS an Ele both made to focus fire... ele will take down the smiting almost anyday. However, in other situations the smiting monk does indeed shine.

[Padre]

ran into a team in HoH once that must have been half smiting monks... they used a war/mo as a walking bomb and kept balthazar's aura on him 24/7 and spammed some healing or protection skills of some sort with zealot's fire on... pretty much anything that got close to him got clobbered.

[Shaubarak]

Many teams are using wards in tombs now to help counter air ele builds (instead of just getting decent prot monks). Balthazar's aura/zealot's fire is pretty decent in that or a king of the hill situation.

Smite hex is always awesome, of course.

Focus fire smiting sucks the big one.

[βlitzkrieg]

I have a Me/Mo I started for fun, and yes, I agree with you 100%.

My mesmer skills I used to weaken the enemy, and then Open up with smiting skills, which deal huges ammounts of damage. it place eneimies in a difficult position for comback witht he right mesmer skills on.

[SuperJ24]

the air ele has nothing when facing a well skilled earth ele.

you guys gotta remember every build has its weaknesses.

lay out your combos and make them wisely.

Obsidian Flame - Spell
Deal 22-94 damage to target foe. This spell ignores armor. This spell causes exhaustion.



Obsidian Flesh {Elite} - Enchantment Spell
For 8-18 seconds, you gain +20 armor and cannot be the target of spells, but move 50% slower.

at lvl 16 earth magic, flesh lasts 21 seconds and flame deals 118 dmg(if i remember correctly, not logged on atm)

and forgot bout armor of earth adding in another 60+ AL and a few wards.
combo this with a few smiting skills and that air ele is useless untill changing targets.

[Myodato]

Zealots fire is decent, but it'd require the monks to spam, which causes problems by itself, since monks need to conserve their mana to heal.
Spamming for Zealots fire is not a problem at all, because you just spam heal. Cast Zealot's fire, send your warriors in nice and close to draw aggro, then spam heal anyone taking damage whilst standing next to the enemy with a nice cheap spell like orison to keep them alive and do (all but) free damage on top.

I'll admit that smiting can be more useful in PvE than PvP, because you're more likely to get massed groups to hit with AoE effects, but under the right circumstances there's nothing better. So what if a lightning spell can do 100+ damage to one target, that's won't do you much good if there are 8 people hitting away at you.

Seriously, why would someone possibly want to compare a DoT AoE spell with a single target spike spell ? You might aswell say that Healing Breeze is better than final thrust. Are they trying to display there knowledge of the intricacies of the game by stating that a skill that offers the highest number they can get without using a calculator is uber ? Sorry, but that kind of thinking puts a person in the same category as those who think a self healing W/Mo is the best class in the game in my opinion.

[Santanus_Perro]

I have a w/mo build, and was historically a tank with my sword adrenal skills, maybe 1 energy sword skill, and two healing skills, plus rez

If I have our guild leader with me, that all changes. He is a top notch healing monk, so I get rid of healing all together, go smiting, and bring one smiting skill, an enchantment that does +7 dmg per hit. With the sword I have, while enchanted, I do an additional 12% dmg, in addition to the 20% dmg for customization. Per hit, I am doing something like 27-36 dmg!!! Sword attacks are fast, plus with bleeding, deep wounds, pure strike, savage slash you have a w/mo that is a dmg dealing fiend, and still really tough to bring down.

[Bazooka]

IMO W/Mo make better Smiters. They can scourge heal runners then change targets or activate Balthazar's Aura or Symbol of Wrath while "blocking" a chokepoint

All that and they still have armor and some pointy sticks to hit you with

Playing a decoy to draw people into your smite? Thats a lot of cooperative enemy positioning you're hopeing for.

I agree that you'll be catching a lot of ADD folks with this, but no serious team is going to fall for it in GvG or HoH.

[Moskel]

The drawback to smiters is most of their damage is based on enchantments, one N or Me can pretty much shut down their damage where the E damage is from spells that can be interrupted but they don't have huge recycle like Balth Aura.

[grimmolly]

My Lightning Orb hit a monk for 186. How much skills are you going to use to keep up with my one spell?
Protective Spirit - Enchantment Spell
For 5-19 seconds, target ally cannot lose more than 10% health due to damage from a single attack or spell.
10 3/4 5

Add banish, smite, signet of judgement, symbol of wrath, or balthazar's aura for teh win. And please, it's "how many skills."

[Zeru]

Smiters were good when balthazaars aura stacked. Now...they are extremely special use if anything at that.

Most of you are missing Xellos point. It doesn't matter if you can add protection spells to null his 186 dmg lightning orb. You will be severely suboptimal if you play a smiting monk like a holy elementalist beyond a few rare situations where a mass of people are grouped together and you shouldn't make builds around those generally.

Saying air ele is worthless is just laughable. Earth eles are not where full focus should be. Earth you put in like 6-10 points in with a minor for the defensive boosts it gives (wards are very nice). you are not going to be a one man damage machine with obsidian flame for very long.

[grimmolly]

I'll say it. Air ele is worthless. It has become too common, like the paladins used to be.

As for smiters, they function fine by enchanting the warriors and using zealot's fire, but you do need to tailor the team build to smiting and the expert counter is to disperse and run away if you're targetted.

[Mak]

I consider myself a healing monk Mo/E, that has symbol of Wraith, and balthazars (no zealots fire, I like to avoid enemies). I cast these on either myself or other monk to backoff warriors, the best defense being a good offense. When a monk is not being attacked I cast it on my warriors. I've found it works better in certain situations than going protection. It softens up the oppent, making easier kills on enemy warriors (korea) that gang up on players.

[SuperJ24]

Smiters were good when balthazaars aura stacked. Now...they are extremely special use if anything at that.

Most of you are missing Xellos point. It doesn't matter if you can add protection spells to null his 186 dmg lightning orb. You will be severely suboptimal if you play a smiting monk like a holy elementalist beyond a few rare situations where a mass of people are grouped together and you shouldn't make builds around those generally.

Saying air ele is worthless is just laughable. Earth eles are not where full focus should be. Earth you put in like 6-10 points in with a minor for the defensive boosts it gives (wards are very nice). you are not going to be a one man damage machine with obsidian flame for very long.

i never said air ele is worthless, just in that situation.
and earth is a nice branch to learn. i have a pve ele with a earth setup with lvl 16 earth magic, and its fun to play.

[rii]

i was under the impression that smiting was a pve line predominantly (zealots/divine boon/shield of judgement = cool video to post on any forum for a lol), and occasionally you might use smite in a flourish build. maybe one or two things, but ill go with the common people and say its more pve/support damage oriented.

Of course, if you strung a long chain of smites you could reach 500-ish damage (cba to actually look). And once you get over 500 it doesnt matter whether its sustained or more or better..... 530ish is someones health bar, so disregarding healing its what your aiming for.


EDIT;

well i just went and was arsed on team builder; i remember someone saying holy damage was armour ignoring, so assuming that to be true:

monk/mesmer
smiting: 12+4
inspiration:12

balthazars aura
banish
bane signet
holy strike
signet of judgement
smite
symbol of wrath
mantra of resolve

erm

a total damage (if stringed correctly) of:
=805 damage.


Exactly how much do you need :S (ok its a rubbish build but thats not the point :p)

o yeah and if your facing a team of necros youve got twice that (1610 damage). and you know, thats three people dead. like its ever going to happen.

EDIT EDIT: mo/me and me/mo are so goddam good.

[john little]

The advanatges of using smiting spells with an E/Mo is that you will hardly ever run out of energy. The negatives are that the spells are largely defensive in nature and don't do huge damage. Shield of Judgement is one of my favourite skills, it is really useful in protecting your team's monk or hero. I only ever use the 'smiting build' in PvE now (where you are likely to be melee'd by quite a few mobs), it simply doesn't do enough damage in PvP.

[The Man]

ran into a team in HoH once that must have been half smiting monks... they used a war/mo as a walking bomb and kept balthazar's aura on him 24/7 and spammed some healing or protection skills of some sort with zealot's fire on... pretty much anything that got close to him got clobbered.

i was playing tombs the other day, and ran into the same (or similar) team. we wernt in HOH yet. we wer on a relic map (non-door). a few of us body-blocked the stairs, wile the others did their jobs. then, ther came the other team (at least 6 of them), a couple smiting monks and that w/mo charged out in front. in about 2-3 secs 2 of us were dead and the other at low hp (i was there, just not body-blocking, i was on hero duty). our other 2 body blockers scrambled (one of these ppl was on hero duty, jus thot it was a good idea...). both of them wer at very low hp. we wer scattered, a mess, and takin completely by suprise. we got it bak together but it was too late, they got the early relic capture and stopped out 1st attempt at the relic. they had also killed our hero. once we wer reognized we managed to cap their relic and they only capped ours once more (they won 2-1). if we werent takin by suprise (this was a random pickup team team), we would have won imo. so, i think the smite team build is a suprise build. but smiters in general, i dunno.

[Zeru]

I'll say it. Air ele is worthless. It has become too common, like the paladins used to be.

As for smiters, they function fine by enchanting the warriors and using zealot's fire, but you do need to tailor the team build to smiting and the expert counter is to disperse and run away if you're targetted.

Worthless and common are different.

Paladins were always bad before they were common. A warrior is not going to be given priority targeting; a warrior is supposed to use everything they can do perform maximum damage. Paladins were completely counter to that.

The air ele is the staple ele. Ele's are chosen for damage spikes. If you want a damage spiker, you go with air or water ele, and in rare situations fire. Earth is a support line and best used as a secondary (ex. for a protection monk). Wards are incredibly useful to have but not to devote your whole character for.

That being said, I prefer water's snaring ability over air. Slightly less damage yeah but straight up damage isn't all there is to this game.

[john little]

i think any of the elements can be the basis of good builds, i don't subscribe to the view that any of them are 'best'. The AoE of fire is superb defensively or as a tactic to move enemies around the map, the spike damage of air has been well publicised, water has a lot of attitional effects (haven't used it much), earth is very good as a 'spare' element but an E/Mo build designed to do as many knockdowns as possible could be interesting...

something like:

earth attunement
earthquake
aftershock
stoning/ward against foes
ward against melee
bane signet
shield of judgement [elite]
res spell or whatever

[Myodato]

Wow, if I'd have realised so many people didn't realise the potential applications of smiting I'd have used it more often in PvP. The element of surprise is so important against other players; they can't counter if they don't know what's going on.

[Chaynsaw]

I just have to say...

...never underestimate ANY well-executed build...
...and that goes for ALL builds.

[Radical]

That is one of the best things about this game, the sheer number of builds that are possible. :D

[stumpy]

imo ...

air elem are a great build if they catch a team off guard ... seeing 4-5 ele/X and a couple monks can be a big tip off and usually (now, commonly prevented) .... thats when they hit a trouble area. However, if they do catch a team sleeping ... consider yourself lucky they never made it painful and slow. Unfortunately many people have taken to this build, but dont know how to play it and far too many I have seen not following a target ...

Smiting - smiting can fit into any other build ... thats the poower of it, chosing complimentary skills to your team is where your butter is. Stacking a warrior as a potential 'loose grenade' can really cause a team frusterations ...

Protection - earth secondary to a prim monk ... divine adds minor heals to capitalize your protection

fire elem ... far more often I have seen these elementalist fail time and again in pvp because, like smiting, people getting damaged by AoE ... dont stand there and wait until they die. They leave the area. So DoT AoE's are very tough to incorporate unless you can effectively pin em in between a rock and a hard place.

rangers - greatly under used. the little 'plink, plink' of the ranger arrows are not a rangers strong point. A couple strong rangers can really assist your team. draining energy from an opponent renders them utterly useless ... problem again is ... in skill ... and 'do you really know anyone that takes a ranger over a monk? (superman of gw)'

getting where im going with this ....

Doesnt matter about the build, skills, or your weapon. Based on your team ... your ability to work within a team, cooperate as a team, and compliment eachother with a working strategy. Find a strategy that works, stick to it ... and work together ...

[this_barb]

signet of judgment + holy strike is a cute combo.

thats a good 75 + 100 damage and knockdown in 3 seconds.

maybe compared to air elementalists, its nothing.

but monk's werent meant to nuke.

it just goes to show that they indeed can do very well

[Akshara]

The other night a high level Smiting Prayers monk kept casting Strength of Honor with a +8 bonus on my warrior, and I gotta say that is one of the coolest enchantments I've come across in any party. Much more helpful than mending or some other healing buff. Now when I'm looking for a party, I kinda hope there will a good smiting monk in the group who happens to have that equipped.

;)

[Howling Wind]

Strength of honour and vigorous spirit are some favourite enchantments that I like to carry for my warrior or ranger, really helpful, sometimes i'd swap the strenght of honour for live vicarously and i get to last in battle quite long...until someone uses rend or shatter enchantment..

[ComMan]

I've been killed by Smiting monks, but that's because I suck.

The big draw to Smiting Monks is pure shock value. Like many people, I see a Mo/W and think, "Heh, I can take him out real quick." So I pin down, poison arrow, and proceeded to be smote (smitten?). It's unpleasant.

My biggest problem with Smiting Monks, as opposed to Eles, is that they knock down almost as much as the dastardly Hammer warriors, and they can cast Pacifisim, which I HATE.

[Deathlord]

If you're pvping then nobody on your team should assume your a healer monk. If you're even trying to get into a party then you'll have to shout out pretty loud what you are and what you're meant for. I highly doubt a lone monk can take out an entire team.

First of all, if you can't heal yourself, exactly how long are you going to stay alive against 4 or 8 opponents with 60 armor? That's a load of crap.

Second, Their main power comes from AOE Aura. It's capable of tricking begginer warriors of running into you and taking some damage (It's quite possible, half of them already have no idea about empathy). But like fire AOE, more knowledged people know how to run past it. If they run out, even with a bunch of AOE auras the most you could do is maybe 80. If you compare it to a nuker then game over.

Smiting monks are great, but monks were designed in mind for one thing. Support. Keeping themselves alive is already enough support. If you were doing a 4v4 and you are capable of keeping yourself alive from two warriors, then you basically changed the playing fields to 4v2's, and if you've played them before, the team with 2 people just tend to leave. If you try to go pure smite then you'll get pommeled in a few seconds and the most you're capable of doing is taking 50% of the hp off some sword warriors.

Moral of the story? It's possible for a smiting monk, but don't exxaggerate how well they are. Monks weren't meant for killing, they were meant for supporting.

[Santosh]

imo ...

Doesnt matter about the build, skills, or your weapon. Based on your team ... your ability to work within a team, cooperate as a team, and compliment eachother with a working strategy. Find a strategy that works, stick to it ... and work together ...

This about sums it all up. It's not the builds you got in your team, it's the teamwork that counts.

It's about player skills, not the skills they have, but when and how to use them.

[Miridan]

Smithing Monks are weak against experienced players. Mainly because no one stays into melee range to get hit by Symbol of Wrath, Zealot and all that crap. Smithing Monk get snared, backfired, drained and then they get sniped by Ele and Rangers with little to no resistance.

THANKYOU - my thoughts exactly.

A PBAOE ele can do more damage more quickly and longer than a smiter - the only difference is that people might not think of a monk as a threat and just charge it.

Smiters are good against warriors, but any team with more than one warrior is noob anyways (in my opinion)

[shalafifred]

but any team with more than one warrior is noob anyways (in my opinion)

i would like to say i disagree with this, i often run 2 axe warriors in tombs, builds similar to the one from this post from ensign
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3711&highlight=ensign

Cleave, Penetrating Blow, Disrupting Chop, Frenzy, Sprint, Judge's Insight, Strength of Honor, Restore Life.

Axes: 12 + 3 Rune + 1 Hat
Smiting: 10
Strength: 8, +1 Rune
Healing: 2

Zealous Haft

That's a pretty vanilla Axe build that should dish out around 70 sustained DPS once skills are taken into account. You should have a critical chance above 25%, 115% normal damage, +7 damage per hit from Strength of Honor, plus the armor penetration from JI. Combo that with 9 attacks every 8 seconds with Frenzy, and that should get you up to the mid to high 50s in terms of DPS. Plus we haven't looked at Cleave and Penetrating Attack yet, which should easily make up the difference. The math starts to get ugly and the exact number depends on the order things stack in, but this should be reasonably close.

I wouldn't be surprised if a dedicated damage build could get DPS up into the 80s. There are plenty of attack buffs to stack, and no shortage of attack skills to top them off. The formula isn't all that hard - buffs + attacks - so get on it.

Peace,
-CxE
the build works great, everyone ignore us and sees us as no threat, and it then works perfect

also said early in this thread someone said assuming holy damage ignores armor schapism has a perfect post to explain this, im trying to find it

[Akshara]

I wouldn't be surprised if a dedicated damage build could get DPS up into the 80s.
Just to confirm, I run a heavy damage axe build that focuses on inflicting deep wounds with conditions on top, followed by spiked damage attacks. My average hit is +80, and I've seen single hits against certain creatures go well over 150.

I've got +13 Axe Mastery, +7 Strength, +10 Curses and three customized max damage axes with bonuses to damage under certain conditions. Inflicting a deep wound with weakness and then hitting with Executioner's Strike is extremely effective for bringing down creatures, especially self healing ones. Throw in Mark of Pain on a powerful creature in a group, and the aoe dps is pretty high.

[grimmolly]

Holy damage does not ignore armor. Smiting, necro spell, and mesmer spell/Illusionary weapon damage ignores armor. Lightning spells, not damage, penetrates armor. Holy and dark damage both ignore all bonuses vs elements or physical damage on armor, which is still very nice against rangers and warriors, for example.

[Akshara]

Holy damage does not ignore armor.
Actually, holy damage inflicted by a smiting skill cast directly (ie. Banish or Smite) does ignore armor. Holy damage inflicted by a weapon does not. Weapon damage converted to holy damage from a spell does not.

[grimmolly]

Actually, holy damage inflicted by a smiting skill cast directly (ie. Banish or Smite) does ignore armor. Holy damage inflicted by a weapon does not. Weapon damage converted to holy damage from a spell does not.
So, to clear things up, you're saying exactly what I just said except you ignored the armor bonus part.

[Vindexus]

Smiting is the best line to compliment warriors. If you're running a warrior heavy team, grab a smiting monk with Strength of Honor, Judge's Insight, and Balthazar's Aura. Or even an E/Mo with zealot's fire and some spammable monk skills.

[Akshara]

So, to clear things up, you're saying exactly what I just said except you ignored the armor bonus part.
Umm, no... I was correcting this statement specifically:

"Holy damage does not ignore armor."

It does.

Regarding your other comments, they all seemed fine.

[KrisTof]

I had fun experimenting with smitting with my monk, loaded for heali/divi/smitt, in one of the arena.

There was another monk full healing but just balthazar aura so I loaded up balthazar's spirit, aura, wrath, plus some other enchantments to heal myself and convert dmg to health.

I started by sending a chat (by mistake hehehe;) claiming I will heal x and y...
I then proceeded with a few healing skills launches. The other team's warriors of course engaged me as soon as they could and started running after me. After a little run, I ended up with 4 of the other teams players around me, then I launched balt aura, wrath while one of the elem spams some wards and other spells that froze them ni place. We timed it right and about 10s later, the other monk came down and launched his own aura. It was beautiful to watch all their health drop to zero in less 20 s. In the meantime, our warriors were succesfully targetting their monks...

Now, I bet next time they see a monk in team play, they will think twice about coming at it that hard...

Smitting rules... I dont even use my elem skills anymore (maybe a ward in some rare cases)

[grimmolly]

For the last time, holy damage does not ignore armor. Smiting direct damage spells do. Judge's Insight or holy damage weapons only ignore armor bonuses. How often do I have to repeat it?

[Akshara]

Whatever, Mr. Wise Ass... nowhere in the original post that I was clarifying did it say, "Smiting direct damage spells ignore armor class." This is exactly what it said...
Holy damage does not ignore armor. Smiting, necro spell, and mesmer spell/Illusionary weapon damage ignores armor.
Hmmm... ok, upon re-reading this quote for like the fifth time now, I recognize how you might think you actually said that after all. But what that quote actually says if one removes the compound subject from the second sentence is, "Holy damage does not ignore armor. Smiting damage ignores armor."

As has been posted numerous times on this site, no damage type inherently ignores armor... however as this is a thread discussing Smiting Monks, and since all the Smiting Prayers that directly inflict holy damage do ignore armor, to come in here and say, "holy damage does not ignore armor," is being somewhat pedantic, however accurate it may be.

To then follow up your much needed correction with a statement like, "smiting damage ignores armor," when there is no such thing as "smiting damage" at all, and when not all of the smiting prayers skills ignore armor, meanwhile giving me and others a hard time about our misuse of the term "holy damage"... well, if that's not an example of the pot calling the kettle black, then I don't know what is.

Bottom line, and what we're both trying to say is, Smiting Prayers skills which inflict direct holy damage ignore armor. Maybe it would have been simpler to just say that to begin with and leave it there.

Oh, and feel free to quote me if you want to repeat it one more time.

[Bladen Skull]

Judges Insight has armor penetration. :P

Moving on, our guild has three main smiters, one of them being me, and I just love Smiting, in both PvP and PvE. What most seem to do is to look past how people cant pass through other people in a battle field. Thus surronding the target and using many Auras and Symbols are highly effective. Every build has a pro, and a con, and that is what most must learn.

[Malchiel]

As soon as you see the Mo in a caster's class, people automatically assume you're a healer and swear at you if you don't heal. A friend of mine plays an e/mo and is a smiter. Oh my, I've seen her play and the swearing only stops when she kills the whole team by herself.

Bonuses of a smiting monk:

dmg per sec - despite the prevailing opinions on smiting, they do a lot of damage. They all cast relatively fast, unlike those high damaging elementalist spells, and do holy damage that cuts through armor.

surprise - smiting monks can hurt you and knock you down and do on average 70 or so more damage while you're still down, taking well over 100 dmg in a second. If the warrior attack still isn't discouraged, balthazar's aura will hit them additionally for 25ish more dmg every second, leaving the character to cast a variety of other spell while hurting them fast. By this time usually, the person will run away in surprise while getting hit by even more spells.

Smiting doesn't take a lot of mana however, but because they are fast, you might want an elementalist prime to have some extra energy on hand. Then you can combine it with some elementalist spells use in conjunction with your smites.

Don't be an idiot and swear at smiters. :)

Smiters suck. No good team would mistake a smiter. Even from very far away I can usually see what kind of monk that you are. A smitting monk can be spotted miles away =_=

However there're enough noobs in this game who would attack monks without a second thought. These ppl deserve to lose.

However against a good player, smitting sucks. It's so easy to kite a smiter. And as long as you're kiting them, they do crap dmg.

Smiters sucks. If I were in a random arena and I see a smiter, good chances I'd leave the group. They're just that bad. In PvE though, it's a whole different story. A smiter can proof useful if only because the mobs are extremely dumb.

[timmo567]

Really think that?

My tombs group had 5 monks, 2 eles and 1 necro. The majourity of those were smiters. They would surround an enemy (I'm an Air ele, the other ele was fire) They would hit Aura, symbol of wrath. The fire ele would metor the target, knocking them down. When he got up I would gale him, knocking him down again. By this time he was surrounded and found it hard to move. We won 5 or 6 in a row (didn't make it to HoH) most very convincingly, until we were finally beaten. Smiting monks, just like any class have there uses, no classes "suck"

[Weezer_Blue]

You people are talking as if the smiter isn't going to take something to protect himself. Like maybe... protection prayers? And you're not going to be doing a whole lot if you're sitting on your ass due to Shield of Judgement half the time.