Paladin Diablo 2 Class Guide
Paladins are holy warriors and use the power of the light to inflict monumental amounts of damage onto enemies, particularly if they are undead or demons. The class is one of the original 5 from Classic Diablo 2 and can be built in many different ways, depending on your playstyle preference.
The Paladin’s builds are very diverse, you can either play as a spell caster or get in the thick of the action with a melee build – both types are very strong for PvM and PvP! The Paladin’s “Hammerdin” build is widely considered as one of, if not the strongest build for PvM and can achieve huge amounts of damage with budget items. The Paladin uses auras to provide both offensive and defensive boosts, with a number of options available depending on your build type. The class is very beginner friendly and the popular PvM builds do not have a particularly high skill threshold and allow the player to learn the game easily.
The following sections will take you through the skill trees available to the Paladin and the most popular builds.
Defensive Auras
The beauty of the Paladin’s auras is that you can change aura as you play depending on your situation. Defensive auras can provide a range of boosts to the Paladin’s defensive armoury and help him stay alive for longer, there are also more utility focused auras such as Vigor which makes you walk / run faster. Whether you’re an aggressive or passive player you will always want to invest points into this skill tree, if not for actually using the auras but the synergies some have with the Paladin’s Combat Skills. The most powerful Defensive Aura is Redemption, which redeems slain corpses and regenerates the Paladin’s life and mana for each successful redemption.
Offensive Auras
Offensive auras are the counterpart to the Paladin’s defensive auras, this time providing boosts to our damage – either in the form of a raw increase in numbers, or through increased attack speed and attack rating to make you hit more often. Concentration and Fanatacism auras are the most popular from the tree as they synergise well with the Hammerdin and Zeal builds for the Paladin. Concentration provides a damage increase and also makes the attacks uninterruptable, whereas the Fanaticism aura provides boosts to both damage and attack speed making it very popular for melee builds.
Combat Skills
Combat Skills are where you choose how you want to play your Paladin. The most popular build in the game is known as the Hammerdin, who uses the Blessed Hammer skill to summon magic hammers which circle the Paladin and deal damage to anything that gets in the way. The skill receives damage bonuses from the Concentration aura, making them a deadly combination when used together. Another spellcaster Paladin build uses the Fist of Heavens skill, which brings down a lightning bolt from the heavens and upon hitting breaks into multiple holy bolts which deal huge amounts of damage to undead and demon type monsters. If a melee build is more your thing you can go down the route of a Zeal Paladin who hits single or multiple targets a number of times in very quick succession to deal damage. Zeal is commonly used alongside the Fanaticism aura for the combined boost to damage and attack speed.
