TABLE OF CONTENTS
Auradin Introduction & Overview
The arrival of the new Flickering Flame runeword in patch 2.4 gave birth to an incredibly strong Holy Fire Auradin, which is so overpowered that streamers considered it to be a game-breaker. By using Hand of Justice weapon, Dragon armor and Dragon shield it can have a level 44 Holy Fire aura. The build is widely considered to be the strongest character in the game. Just to give you a glimpse of what it’s capable of, here is some of its feats:
🔸 Hell Cows speedrun in 90 seconds, one-hitting cows in 500% magic find gear
🔸 Hell Chaos run and Hell Baal run both within 2-3 minutes in magic find gear
🔸 Very comfortable and fairly quick Player8 Chaos and Baal run
🔸 Player 8 Uber Diablo kill
🔸 Uber Tristram Kill
🔸 Any Player8 Boss kill in seconds
🔸 Very high survivability
🔸 Teleport-like movement speed
🔸 Only requires minimal attention, no skill switching is needed
The Dragondin deals an immense amount of fire area damage on a wide radious, while also dealing high amounts of melee fire damage and melee physical damage. By using the Charge skill, you can move almost as fast as teleporting, which comes handy in areas where you one-hit non-immune monsters. In conclusion: If you want to carry 7 of your friends on Hell difficulty, this is the right build for you. The build is also beginner friendly, and is ideal for both area farming such as Terror Zones, and boss farming. With the introduction of 2.5 Sunder Charms, the build became even stronger. Holy Fire deals double damage on a shorter radious, so you will deliver higher damage by charging in the middle of monster groups.
Auradin Pros and Cons
Pros
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Cons
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Auradin Gameplay
Playing solo: Gameplay is fairly easy and beginner friendly, you just charge around and watch monsters die from a screen’s distance. In case there are high life monsters around, you should switch to Zeal and attack them with it. You should either use Conviction or Redemption as your aura, depending on what you farm. Conviction will greatly boost your damage on a limited radious, while Redemption will continously heal you while also sustaining your mana. Unfortunately all of the Holy Fire aura items require high tier runes, and for extraordinary performance you need all of the Hand of Justice–Dragon Armor-Dragon Shield – Flickering Flame combination. Having an Act1 mercenary with a Faith bow will boost your performance by making your Zeal attacks quicker and having them deliver more damage, as a result of its Fanaticism Aura. Your melee fire damage will be over 7k, while you will still deal enough physical damage to kill immunes in a matter of seconds even without a Sunder Charm, so the build is viable for Nonladder and Single player aswell. A weakness of Dragondins are their attack rating, for which you can use charms, Raven Frost rings/Metalgrid amulet, and I strongly suggest pre-buffing yourself with Enchant from a Demon Limb weapon which could be enough of a boost by itself. Holy Fire excels at areas where monster density is high and there are no fire immunes, so it can deliver a great deal of damage to many monsters at the same time, the Secret Cow Level being the best example. However, even at the toughest places, like Chaos Sanctuary or the Throne of Destruction you will be able to kill monsters quickly and consistently.
Playing in a party: The party will welcome you for your provided Conviction aura which boosts all elemental damage dealt to monsters. Gameplay is the same as when soloing, the only difference being the occasional disbelief of your party members about the insanity they are seeing. Watching the carnage that the Dragondin provides is at least as fun as playing the game. If you have a Faith equipped mercenary or a Call to Arms, you can further improve your popularity by providing Battle Orders and Fanaticism Aura for party members.
Playing Hardcore: At Hardcore make sure to use walking or Charge instead of running to preserve your defense, and you should consider putting your spare skill points on Holy Shield and Defiance to increase your defense, which is quite low on the base build. Also make sure to have enough dexterity for 75% block chance. One thing that’s needless to say is that pre-buffing yourself with Call to Arms Battle Orders will almost double your life and mana, and your survivability chances will get multiplied. Always pre-buff yourself with Holy Shield, without it you risk the chance of dying when physical attackers surround you! The required gear puts limitations on your defensive stats, so I suggest using Redemption aura for continous healing, and wearing Dracul’s Gloves while also attacking with Zeal will also take care of any healing issue.
Auradin Breakpoints
Note: Each second in the game consists of 25 frames or “ticks”. Your breakpoints decide how many frames it will take until you can attack/cast a skill/recover from a hit/ block a new hit.
Faster Cast Rate
- You don’t have any use for it.
Faster Hit Recovery
- Having high Faster Hit Recovery is very useful, especially on Hardcore. Aim for the 48% (5 frames) breakpoint.
Faster Block Rate
- You won’t need any additional FBR, as 2 frame will be your base block rate once you cast Holy Shield.
Auradin Skills
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Combat Skills
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Offensive Auras
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Defensive Auras
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Skill notes: Optionally you can max out Zeal and put your remaining points on its Sacrifice synergy to deliver the maximum amount of melee damage. If you play Hardcore, you can max out Holy Shield and put the remaining points on its Defiance synergy. The Holy Shield setup almost triples your defense, and allows you to charge in the middle of monster groups to deliver the short-range doubled Holy Fire damage. .
Auradin Stat Points
Strength
Allocate enough Strength points to be able to wear your gear. If you have higher strength than necessary once you are in your final gear, re-stat your character to lower strength.
Dexterity
Firstly, have enough Dexterity to be able to wear your gear. Having 75% chance to block with Holy Shield on also greatly helps survivability, so I suggest putting additional points on dex until you reach the 75% block chance cap.
Vitality
Put all your remaining stat points on Vitality once you are able to wear your gear. At higher levels, spare points for additional dexterity to maintain 75% block chance, and put the rest on Vitality.
Energy
Don’t put any points on it.
You can re-stat your character by the quest reward of Akara’s Act1 Den of Evil Quest, or by using Token of Absolution.
Mercenary
In my experience, having an Act1 Cold Rogue mercenary wearing a Faith Bow helps the most with damage, as it greatly increases attack speed. However you can also try Act2 and Act5 mercenaries, especially if your goal is survivability, or if you don’t want to buy a Faith runeword just for your merc. Act1 Cold mercenaries will also help you with crowd control,
Auradin Item setups
Basic Auradin Gear
Helm: Flickering Flame runeword
Amulet: Highlord’s Wrath
Weapon: Hand of Justice runeword
Switch Weapon: Call to Arms
Shield: Dragon runeword paladin shield, try to get one with 40+ all resistances as base item
Switch Shield: Spirit runeword
Body Armor: Dragon Dusk Shroud or Archon plate
Belt: String of Ears
Rings: Raven Frost, Rare of crafted dual leech ring
Gloves: Dracul’s Grasp
Boots: Gore Rider
Charms: Annihilus, Hellfire torch, Gheed’s Fortune, Fire Sunder Charm, Small Charms with @all resistances, life, faster hit recovery, attack rating, defense, maximum damage.
Mercenary Gear
Helm: Andariel’s Visage or Crown of Thieves (preferably ethereal, socketed with Ral/Um rune)
Body Armor: Ethereal Fortitude or Treachery armor
Weapon: Faith runeword bow, preferably in an amazon bow with +bow and crossbow skills.
Magic Find Auradin Gear
Helm: Flickering Flame runeword
Amulet: 40-50% Magic Find amulet
Weapon: Hand of Justice runeword
Switch Weapon: Call to Arms
Shield: Dragon runeword paladin shield, try to get one with 40+ all resistances as base item
Switch Shield: Spirit runeword
Body Armor: Dragon Dusk Shroud or Archon plate
Belt: Upgraded Goldwrap
Rings: 2*Nagelring
Gloves: Chance Guards
Boots: War Traveler
Charms: Annihilus, Hellfire torch, Gheed’s Fortune, Fire Sunder Charm, Small Charms with 7% Magic find (and also @all resistances if possible)
Mercenary Gear
Helm: Andariel’s Visage or Crown of Thieves (preferably ethereal, socketed with Ral/Um rune)
Body Armor: Ethereal Fortitude or Treachery armor
Weapon: Faith runeword bow, preferably in an amazon bow with +bow and crossbow skills.
Hardcore Auradin Gear
Helm: Flickering Flame runeword
Amulet: Metalgrid
Weapon: Hand of Justice runeword
Switch Weapon: Call to Arms
Shield: Dragon runeword paladin shield, try to get one with 40+ all resistances as base item
Switch Shield: Spirit runeword
Body Armor: Dragon Dusk Shroud or Archon plate
Belt: Thundergod’s Vigor
Rings: Raven Frost, Rare of crafted dual leech ring with resists
Gloves: Dracul’s Grasp
Boots: Upgraded Hotspur
Charms: Annihilus, Hellfire torch, Gheed’s Fortune, Fire Sunder Charm, Magic Small Charms (with +all resistances with +life or +faster hit recovery)
Note: Aim to overprotect yourself for situations when you get cursed with spells such as Lower Resist and Amplify Damage or get under an effect of an aura such as Fanaticism or Conviction.
Act2 Defiance Mercenary Gear
Helm: Andariel’s Visage or Crown of Thieves (preferably ethereal, socketed with Ral/Um rune)
Body Armor: Ethereal Fortitude or Treachery armor
Weapon: Ethereal Doom runeword in an elite Polearm base (preferably Thresher)
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