In Diablo 2: Resurrected there are a total of 7 classes to choose from. You can customize your character in countless ways and develop their skills in various ways. In this guide, we present 2 strong builds for the Paladin.
What are these builds? The Paladin is one of the stronger classes in Diablo 2 and regularly proves its ability to withstand a lot while dealing massive damage at the same time. With the right build, it becomes very difficult to die with the Paladin.
So we at MeinMMO present to you 2 builds that will allow you to play your Paladin ideally: the Auradin and the Hammerdin. What initially sounds strange quickly proves to be helpful.
- For beginners and to start off, the Hammerdin is better suited, as he is also the stronger choice in co-op play.
- For later gameplay and solo adventures, the Auradin is perfect.
In the following sections, we will show you the advantages and disadvantages of each build and then discuss which skills you need and how you should distribute your attributes. We will also give you tips for your equipment and the playstyle you can adopt.
The Hammerdin – Nearly immortal and excellent damage
How should I skill?
- Prayer – 1 point
- Resistance – 1 point
- Cleanse – 1 point
- Thrive – 20 points
- Salvation – 1 point
- Power – 1 point
- Blessed Aim – 20 points
- Concentration – 20 points
- Smite – 1 point
- Holy Bolt – 1 point
- Charge – 1 point
- Holy Hammer – 20 points
- Holy Shield – 20 points
- remaining points in Salvation or as desired
As the name of the build already suggests, most of the damage comes from your holy hammers. So you shouldn’t miss this skill at all. At the beginning, you can put one point each in Smite, Holy Bolt, and Charge before you reach the hammers.
Accordingly, you should also learn Holy Shield early, which improves your block chance. Once that is done, you can focus on the offensive aura tree. Here, your focus should be on the skill Concentration, as it increases your damage and makes your attacks harder to block.
In the defensive tree, you skill Prayer, Resistance, and Cleanse with one point each until you can put 20 points into Thrive, as it creates a synergy with your hammers.
How do you distribute your attribute points?
- Strength – Just enough to wear the equipment
- Dexterity – Enough to reach 75% block chance, which becomes easier with Holy Shield
- Vitality – As much as possible
- Focus – Few to no points
What equipment do you need? The Hammerdin is not necessarily dependent on specific equipment. However, there are certain values you should focus on:
- +Skills
- Faster cast rate
- Resistances to everything
- Percentage damage reduction
- and possibly chance for magic items if you want to farm rare items with the build – here you can find the best farm spots
For a shield, the Herald of Zakarum or a Spirit Shield are suitable. Both are valid options, but you should focus on one. The important runeword Enigma, by the way, is not that easy to acquire – or damn expensive:
Which mercenary should you choose? We recommend you take a Nightmare mercenary from Act 2, as his Might Aura works very well with your Concentration Aura and allows your mercenary to deal a lot of damage as well.
How do you play the build? First, you buff yourself before heading into battle. Concentration and Holy Shield are very important as fighting as a Hammerdin is based on them. Then you set off and let your hammers fly. It works best if you can teleport, but that is not strictly necessary.
As a Hammerdin, you achieve immense damage in a very short time and are also much more mobile than you are with the Auradin. You also gain significantly more mobility and survivability. Overall, the Hammerdin is a jack-of-all-trades that is easy to play and hard to kill.
The Diablo expert Dbrunski has also featured the Hammerdin in his video and shows in the gameplay how it plays. We have embedded it here for you:
The Auradin – Strong in the endgame and nearly unbeatable solo
How should I skill?
- Prayer – 1 point
- Fire Resistance – 20 points
- Cold Resistance – 1 point
- Lightning Resistance – 1 point
- Resistance – 1 point
- Cleanse – 1 point
- Thrive – 1 point
- Salvation – 20 points
- Rescue – 1 point
- Power – 1 point
- Holy Fire – 1 point
- Thorns – 1 point
- Blessed Aim – 1 point
- Concentration – 1 point
- Holy Frost – 1 point
- Holy Shock – 1 point
- Refuge – 1 point
- Fanaticism – 1 point
- Conviction – 1 point
- Smite – 1 point
- Sacrifice – 1 point
- Holy Bolt – 1 point
- Zeal – 20 points
- Holy Hammer – 1 point
- Holy Shield – 1 point
- remaining points as desired
During the leveling process, you should first choose Smite in the combat tree and then Zeal, as that is your most important attacking ability. Following that, you can skill Power, Concentration, and Fanaticism as you continue leveling.
It is important to allocate one point to Holy Shield so you can always cast it on yourself. Additionally, you should allocate one point to each skill in the defensive tree except for Meditation.
Further points can then be allocated to Zeal until you find equipment that works well with your auras. Then you should invest points in Conviction as it reduces the resistance of opponents by up to 150%. When fully equipped, Conviction should be at level 25. Before that, however, Fanaticism is more important.
Throughout the leveling process, you will then focus on your preferred aura and skill the corresponding synergies of your aura. If you want more survivability, you can skip points in Zeal to allocate more to Holy Shield.
How do you distribute your attribute points?
- Strength – Just enough to wear the equipment
- Dexterity – Enough to reach 75% block chance, which becomes easier with Holy Shield
- Vitality – As much as possible
- Focus – Few to none
What equipment do you need? With equipment, you need to consider which of the auras you want to go for. It is generally possible to play fire or lightning. A hybrid build is also possible, but not necessarily optimal.
With the following equipment, you are well-equipped, so best aim for this:
- Helmet: Crown of Ages (for fire), Dream (for lightning)
- Amulet: Mara’s Kaleidoscope
- Weapon: Hand of Justice (for fire), Death or Last Wish (for lightning)
- Weapon switch: Call to Arms
- Shield: Dragon Shield (for fire), Dream (for lightning) or a base Paladin shield with % resistance to all
- Shield switch: Spirit
- Armor: Dragon Armor (for fire), Enigma or Chains (for lightning)
- Belt: String of Ears
- Rings: With mana and life per hit
- Gloves: Dracul’s Grasp (for fire and hybrid), Steelrend (for lightning)
- Boots: Gore Rider or Goblin Toe
- Charms: Annihilus, Hellfire Torch, Gheeds Fortune
Which mercenary should you choose? We recommend the Cold Arrow mercenary from Act 1 equipped with a Faith Crossbow to generate a Fanaticism Aura level 15.
How do you play the build? Your main damage comes from your auras and through your mere presence. You can thus kill enemies in just a few seconds and deal massive damage in close combat. Even bosses should only be able to withstand you for a few seconds.
In co-op, your friends also benefit from the auras and the additional damage they generate. The build is perfectly capable of completing the entire game solo. However, in terms of survivability, it is quite compromised in hardcore mode, as you tend to move quite close to the enemies and have few escape options. This often makes you an easy target.
In this video, you can see an Auradin from the alpha of Diablo 2: Resurrected. He chooses a hybrid variant of the Auradin.
Do you have any more good builds for the Paladin or suggestions for improvement for those mentioned here? Are you already fully into Diablo 2: Resurrected or are you still waiting to see what the game could bring? Feel free to leave a comment here on MeinMMO.
Are you looking for strong builds but the Paladin is not for you? We show you two builds for the Sorceress.
