i should know the answer but cant seem to find it anywhere:

does life or mana leech (or both) work with smite?

Don't believe it does.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

had a feeling it was this...thanks. may have to look into other sources of tankage then or have smite as an alternative/additional attack type for certain bosses. was thinking i could get away with only smiting and tanking with fanat, but im not sure how feasible that is without godly gear (i just got into hell act2 with my first character... most items i have are your everyday uniques).

I think a lot of smiters use life tap to tank, although that really cuts in to the viability crushing blow when you over-ride amp.

If you can team with a healer, that's helpful too.

Don't know that you need that godly gear - now that skulls provide %dmg reduction in shields Paladins have gotten a real boost in tanking skills.

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

yea i was originally going to use life tap on the smiter for pure tankage, but overriding amp would mean these insanely long boss fights that arent really fun or appealing at all. The amp is almost necessary with my crushing blow setup so that i dont fall asleep. However, i think i may have a switch weapon devoted to only life tap purposes if/when my life starts to come down to pick it back up to 80%+ full bulb. Then i can get my source of amp back on for when my life is high

whats wrong with using juvs to heal? stack dr% and absorbs on certain bosses and you are good to go. I never once used tap when I was smiting, since you want your smite damage low (1 point smite) to allow you to smite through IM. if youve maxed smite you`ll suffer against iron maiden alot

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nothing wrong with using juvs to heal, but id rather not have to keep juvs around for all bosses except for ones where i absolutely need them. i will be stacking dr% and sorbs in my gear setup already, so he will be pretty tankish as is. i dont like relying on any type of potions, though... i dont see it as any sort of strategy.

i havent started a paladin yet, so i was thinking of leaving smite as a 1 pointer (which is necessary anyway as a prereq to hshield), however ill probably still will be melee so either way IM will cause problems for me. but at least a 1 point smite will only be doing MAYBE 1k damage max or so (unless i decide on fully maxing Hshield and defiance, which i dont think is my choice).

if you are a melee build with high life you will be reliant on juvs in hell anyway. If you are making a low life glass cannon then any potions are fine. Its little wonder some sc players have such a hard time on bosses when the tanks are walking around with reds and blues in the belt. best i heard was a lvl 90 IK barb failing to kill nm duriel, then getting a lvl 90 druid to give oak, and finally calling a level 90 necro on the 3rd attempt. Carrying juvs for bosses on any tank build is a part of your strategy. reds are useless on a tank outside of normal. I only ever usualy pick up purples unless im on a sorc. All of my builds have a full belt of juvs and a row or 2 in the inventory/cube. They are easy to come by and you can gather enough on the way through each act.

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i guess you failed to read the part where i said i dont want to rely on potions at all and yea, the regular potions arent gonna cut any char with like 8k+ life, and im pretty sure my char will be well above that in his party.

i understand your point and its completely valid, but id rather build a character than can tank with little to no potions at all for anything really, which is why the life tap will be considered into my gearing options either on main or switch. but now leads me to another question before i shrug off the potions completely and take life tap in:

does life tap effectiveness get nerfed by physical resistances as well?

im pretty sure life tap is hardcoded to bypass any leech penalties on bosses (if there are any in this mod...i know other mods make use of leech penalties on act bosses), making it a pretty handy tanking curse. however, im not sure exactly how leech works. is it still %based off your damage (speaking about physical of course)? if its still affected by phys resists on monsters, then id have to do testing on how good it is tapping for a bit/how long itll take my bulb to fill with a weak or strong smite versus just amping the monster instead and trying to down it before too many problems (which would also mean potions would be used).

in any case, thanks for input from both of you.

tap doesn't bypass all penalties, I believe if a monster has a Drain effectiveness of 0 it doesn't work.

For example - the Guardian before the Worldstone Castle portal does not return life to you when Tapped (or returns an extremely minimal amount of life)

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People who live in cinder block houses can throw whatever they want.

You will have to rely on potions even if you don't want to. You can minimize the use of them but as a tank you will always need them on act bosses with high leech resistance. Only way I can see you bypassing that is having a healer around all the time tripple healing and spamming hb on you. And it's less of a hassle always having juvs than always having a resident healer...

If you feel noobish, its because you are. Trying to not use potions against bosses? Are you serious? This is Hell Unleashed, not bnet, you can't get away with that here unless you have a healer. Even then, not all bosses will be so friendly. This is precisely the reason why everyone always calls in high levels for help on bosses.

As for tap, no good smiter relies on life tap for tanking. The whole objective of a smiter is to have the most life/absorb/DR/CB possible to take out the boss as quickly as possible with amp, effectively minimizing the amount of potions you need to use overall. If you can't handle this role, play something else.

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wow
i totally agree with martel on this .

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'may the force be with you' - Yoda??

seriously, what the fuck did i do to you? did you forget to take your midol this morning?

i was inquiring to see if it were possible, not because i "cant do it"...i havent even started to build anything for my idea at all. i can most certainly handle any role i want to, im not a noob or a dumbass like most of the people here. another thing to mention, not every smiter needs to have or use amp... cookie cutter builds are boring as hell, and a lot of them arent great either.

oh, and when i do build a character that can tank without potions, ill make sure to tell you all about it.