Paladin subclasses - what are these?

[Arnulf]

Hi,

I'm in the progress of building a paladin with the main skill Fist of the Heavens.
Now he's level 63 and maxed FotH, Holy Shock, and I'm starting to fill up Holy Bolt.
So far -- Nightmare, Act 5 start -- it plays quite fun. Of course, the Lightning Immunes
give me a hard time, but that's okay. Probably this one is not viable in Hell difficulty.

Anyway, I've looked through strategy guides and I was wondering what all those
subclasses are referring to.

• Martyr
  <>
  
• Vindicator
  <>
  
• Templar
  <>
  
• Avenger
  <>
  
• Zealot<>
  [st]I have some ideas about Martyr (Sacrifice), Zealot (Zeal/Fanaticism), and Avenger
  (Vengeance/Conviction).
  
  But I don't know what the others are. Can someone fill me in, please?
  
  Are there more?
  
  Thanks,
  
  -Arnulf

[Phyloxerra]

Howdy,

A Vindi is a pally who uses smite as his main attack skill. Many use FoH as a backup skill for it. It is a fun build to play, especially with nice gear. Anytime you can stun monsters for 7-9 seconds it should be considered fun-fun-fun. You will want alot of +skills gear to get your smite/hs/fanat to a high enough lvl to kill effectively. As an example with a HoZ and lvl 42 smite/hs and 30 fant my vindi does 2100-2250 per hit. Hope this info helps fill the void of pally knowledge that you are trying to acrue.


Scotty

[gekko]

• 
  <>
  
• Martyr
  
  <>
  
• Vindicator
  
  <>
  
• Templar
  
  <>
  
• Avenger
  
  <>
  
• Zealot
  
  <>
  [st]
  I have some ideas about&nbsp; Martyr (Sacrifice), Zealot (Zeal/Fanaticism), and Avenger
  (Vengeance/Conviction).

- martyr: sacrifice as primary attack skill -- needs lots of life leech but virtually no mana needs at all.
- vindicator: smite as primary attack skill (already discussed above)
- templar: FoH as primary, IIRC (not 100% on this one)
- avenger: vengeance, usually paired with conviction. Needs a fair ammount of mana leech, and has trouble with mobs of enemies, however, the huge elemental dmg (from 4 elements at once!) allows an avenger to fight any enemy in the game
- zealot: zeal as primary skill, usually paired with fanat. The idea is too attack at a blinding speed (easy to do with fanat and a fast weapon). In earlier patches, this build virtually required crushing blow, etc. Now that very fast, very high damaging weapons (baranar's star, lightsaber are two favourites) can be found, this is generally the "uberbuild."

[BlackLightning]

Swas... (It's a phrase)
Anyway man, the people in this thread forgot a few other builds, so I'm going to fill in the gap.
- One is the Missionary, who uses a combination of Thorns and Conversion to create an army to serve Zakarum. Keep in mind though, that this is an old build, and might not work that well.
- Second, the Freezadin, who like his name says, maxes holy freeze. With this build, you'll be waiting countless hours before a monster hits you (melee of course).

Uh.... yeah, that's basically it.

[BlackLightning]

Swas... (It's a phrase)
Anyway man, the people in this thread forgot a few other builds, so I'm going to fill in the gap.
- One is the Missionary, who uses a combination of Thorns and Conversion to create an army to serve Zakarum. Keep in mind though, that this is an old build, and might not work that well.
- Second, the Freezadin, who like his name says, maxes holy freeze. With this build, you'll be waiting countless hours before a monster hits you (melee of course).

Uh.... yeah, that's basically it.

[Sheep]

Don't forget the Cleric. This build maxes Holy Bolt and Prayer, healing party members at an insane rate. A bit hard solo(e?)ing, but a mercenary works wonders.

[LordJaeden]

Shockadin, or Shock Trooper, uses holy shock and zeal for a good mix of lightning and physical damage.

Bowadin, uses a bow, paired with Fanatacism or Holy Shock, I suppose you could use Holy Freeze now since it gives you some cold damage.

Hammerdin, uses blessed hammer combined with Concentration, max out the synergies for some wicked AoE damage.

Chargadin, use Charge and Vigor, knock your opponent back continously, might not work now that charge has a bug with knockback. Primarily a PvP template.

[Deadpan]

Holy Bolt and Prayer is a Medic. Clerics go for Undead with Sanctuary.

Then there's the Defiant: Holy Shield and Defiance for massive defence.

***

Paladin sub-classes get blurred by the end-game when there are more skillpoints to go around. Two of mine ended up as follows:

#1 started out as a Holy Bolt Healer, maxxed Conviction as an alternative for AR (monster defence reduction) then Sanctuary (farming Pindleskin) then Thorns (making the most out of a lousy defence) and finally thought about Redemption (Kuko's don't leech). Pure vit, Iratha's and Darkglow for resists, Goblin Toe for Crushing Blow. Prayer merc.

#2 maxxed Defiance and Holy Shield (making the most of his HoZ) then Fanaticism and Smite (making even more use of Holy Shield and the HoZ). Uses Fetid Sprinkler and Conversion for complete chaos. Might merc.

[Guest]

Shockadin, or Shock Trooper, uses holy shock and zeal for a good mix of lightning and physical damage.

with the addition of holy freeze's damage there's now also frost zealots too. combined with HF's slowing and cold damage charms, these are very powerful.


also with the addition of vigor synergy to BH there's frenzied hammerdins(my build name ;))

you use stealth armour and 40% r/w boots(sanders are common, later 40% resist magic ones are easy to find in shops), get BH to 100 damage and HS to 10, then get 1-5 in redemption and pump vigor to 20, then max BH, and lastly concentration/holy shield.

thanks to the uber fast charge you move faster than frenzy barbs, put on vigor and charge on your weapon switch to use whenever you're not throwing out hammers.

this build is also great for getting away from real nasty monsters/packs: you turn off running so you don't always get hit, and walk in hyper speed away. also since you're producing so many corpses quickly you can switch to redemption when you're mobbed and nearly dead, and you get a free total refresh(or 2 or 3).

since you're so fast there's no point in relying on mercs: you'll outrun them all the time! but with BH's damage you shouldn't have a problem.

also a few points in smite can never hurt: when you get to hell archers will be a real pain, the trick here is to charge into them, then smite them to a wall and mix between smite and BH all the time. this can also work well for frenzytaurs(if you manage to get only 1-2 on you) and hephasto.


i know i know, this requires a lot of hot-keys and switching, but i :wub: :wub: frenzied hammerdins ^_^ :wub: :wub:

[Occhidiangela]

I pumped Vigor before Blessed aim, and the Hammer Thrower really has no troubles at all.

All I need to find now is a four socketed Paladin Shield with a + skill affix on it, or a + res on it, and I will be golden if I can just get past that maggot lair. The damned lair takes forever to get to, and by the time I get there, it is so full my video card chokes and everything slows down to a slide show. :P

I am pumping Vitality and Dexterity, to keep block above 50%. One in Meditation, one in Redemption, and a few points in Conc (Makes merc better and improves BH damage) and I have few Mana worries.

[unless]

I could be wrong, I've never actually played an Avenger, but wouldn't Fanatacism make much more sense than Conviction? Not only does Fanat increase your attack speed, but it improves your damage a hell of a lot too - and all that added damage is quadrupled with this skill. It seems to add up to a lot more than Conviction's resistance reduction. Am I missing something here?

[Guest]

if you stand close enough to a monster you'll hit it with the hammers from almost any angle.

if you've pumped holy shield though your smite will do pretty good damage. if you add a strength runeword fast weapon(smite gets the crushing blow) you can even kill bosses that way.

[Occhidiangela]

The maggot spawn rate in Hell tends to be insane. Getting into the chamber, while laborious, is not that hard, as you say, the hammers kill pretty well if you line up "just so" on darned near anything. My problem is that when I get into the damned chamber of Cold Worm, I start casting the hammers and it all just sort of stops. The game slows to a crawl. And the little maggots keep breeding.

I could even swear that Coldworm keeps making big maggots, but that may not be the case.

If you cant get to the chest, you can't open it. Maybe I will try Teleport and see what happens.

[adeyke]

I could be wrong, I've never actually played an Avenger, but wouldn't Fanatacism make much more sense than Conviction? Not only does Fanat increase your attack speed, but it improves your damage a hell of a lot too - and all that added damage is quadrupled with this skill. It seems to add up to a lot more than Conviction's resistance reduction. Am I missing something here?

You are missing something. The vengeance bonus is a percentage of the weapon damage (including weapon ED) and all +min and +max damage. This is additive, not multiplicative, with other off-weapon ED. So, if you have fanaticism, it'll give you extra IAS, AR and physical damage, but it won't increase your elemental damage at all.

So, fanaticism will let you attack faster and deal more physical damage (thus letting you leech more). Conviction, however, can greatly enhance your elemental damage and can even break some immunities. Which is actually better would depend on a variety of factors, including the monster's resistance.

With my SP 1.09 avenger, I flashed conviction and fanaticism, but flashing is now out, so you have to choose one or the other.

[Guest]

I could even swear that Coldworm keeps making big maggots, but that may not be the case.

he does do that ;) when i went there with a sorc recently(teleported quickly) there was only a single maggot in that room, so the longer it takes you to get there, the more maggots it'll be.

[Crystalion]

adamantine wrote:

since you're so fast there's no point in relying on mercs: you'll outrun them all the time! but with BH's damage you shouldn't have a problem.

Barbs that leap attack or frenzy, Palys like adamantine's frenzied hammerdin or a chargadin, and some other characters with amazing movement speed can all "run into" this problem.

A Holy Freeze merc will at least slow the monsters automagically, giving him some survivability as he tries to keep up. But another thought here might be the a3 cold merc and the occasional use of a charge of teleport to put him where you want him.

I think the lack of crowd control on the other mercs (apart from knockback on an Explosive arrow bow for a v1.09 and prior rogue) would be a generic problem... perhaps a delirium helm would be a good v1.10 solution in general.

[Guest]

when my merc wasn't far behind me i instead had to look after her every second so she didn't die, and she did die a lot so i basically had no money. in the end she was an annoyance in 3 ways, heh.

and that was only in normal difficulty ;) in hell i tried a rogue again(i could never stand the overpowered a2's or the grunting a5's) and she was worse than before, and since then i started modding and now have a fast moving resist aura elemental arrow rogue.

still without changing the rogues behaviour, a fast bow with 3 shael and a nef(or 40% ias with 2 sockets, shoppable) makes her quite powerful.


i tried an a3 for a moment, but he's actually got a chance(even if it's tiny) to melee the monster, too suicidal! the constant spell sounds got on my nerves too.

[schizoidmime]

isn't there another name for a charging paladin outside of "Charagadin"?

[Occhidiangela]

calling one a Charger. (Like the Horse)

Making a pun, you could call such a Paladin Junior Seau, since a Charger resembles a blitzing linebacker, and Junior is, or rather was, a San Diego Charger for 12 years.

You could also call such a Paladin a Blitzer. Or, a Strong Safety. Or, a Battering Ram. Or, a Guy Who Need Excedrin Or, Crash Test Dummy.

Charge-a-din, strikes me as a lame name. :D

[Jeunemaitre]

You could also call such a Paladin a Blitzer.&nbsp; Or, a Strong Safety.&nbsp; Or, a Battering Ram.&nbsp; Or, a Guy Who Need Excedrin&nbsp; Or, Crash Test Dummy.

And thus shall my next character be named WhiteHouseWolf
B)