Brewing Rani without smiting blow?

[Raksha]

Cataclysm does not work on Rani. She resists the hell out of dark damage =/. Also, yes, you do heal it if you do a Smite > Smite Skillchain while she is casting magic.

If you don't have Victory Smite, I'd just shoot for Flash Nova or Earth Crusher with the appropriate atmas and such. Don't try to brew it with RR/GH/Apoc if you're using a Magic WS (duh). Or just use Ascetic's Fury with RR/GH/Apoc. Pretty much any WS will do as long as you Atma for it correctly and avoid healing her.

Flash nova is good because it has a higher ftp than earth crusher, and also because when you use atma of the beyond (for the 30% light affinity) you get a bonus 30 MAB to go with it.

Smiting blow wont make a difference since flash nova is 3.0 at all tp levels, so choose a 3rd MAB atma (or if you wanna use RR for phys WS you could do that)

[Martinius]

Flash nova is good because it has a higher ftp than earth crusher, and also because when you use atma of the beyond (for the 30% light affinity) you get a bonus 30 MAB to go with it.

flash nova also self-chains fragmentation, and skillchain damage can do huge numbers. we did a couple ranis today and a friend 2-shotted rani from 90% b/c cloudsplitter > cloudsplitter > darkness did over 100k dmg total.

you'll want to use (as raksha said) beyond, as well as ultimate. atma of the holy mountain gives light macc if you're worried about resists (with a brew you shouldn't be), but you're better off using another MAB atma. hell's guardian is best (from beating pandemonium warden, MAB +50), followed by baying moon (MAB +30, red !! from lugarhoo).