Dream Paladin Guide

Zeal* This is your Damage Skill. It swings your weapon up to 5 times in quick succession. Your Character is stuck in its attack animation until the maximum number of swings have been completed. Leveling this Skill increases your Physical Damage and Attack Rating. Zeal applies on-hit Lightning Damage from your Dream-granted Holy Shock.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)

Conviction* This is your Primary Aura - keep active while using Zeal. While active, it lowers the Defense and the Fire, Lightning, and Cold Resistances of nearby enemies based on its Level. This Skill is capable of breaking monster Immunities.

Holy Shield* is a temporary buff that boosts your Defense and Chance to Block; it also grants improved Faster Block Rate Breakpoints while active. This Skill requires a Shield.

Charge* makes your Paladin instantly jet forward towards the position of your cursor. Making contact with an enemy in the process makes him abruptly stop and swing his weapon. Continually using this ability allows you to quickly cover long distances. Charge also applies on-hit Lightning Damage from your Dream-granted Holy Shock. While this Skill can be used for dealing Damage on this build, it is mostly used for mobility if not using Enigma.

Vigor* While active, this Aura provides your Paladin and members of your Party with increased Faster Run/Walk based on its Level.

Salvation* While active, this Aura provides your Paladin and members of your Party with increased Resistances to all Elements (Fire/Lightning/Cold) based on its Level.

Resist Lightning* While active, this Aura provides your Paladin and members of your Party with increased Lightning Resistance based on its Level. Every 2 Skill Points put into this Skill raises the cap on your Maximum Lightning Resistance by 1.

Cleansing* While active, this Aura provides your Paladin and members of your Party with Poison Length Reduction and Curse Length Reduction based on its Level. This Aura is especially useful after killing the 2nd Baal Wave in the Throne of Destruction or if Cursed with Amplify Damage.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) A Life Tap Charge Wand on Weapon-Swap is used for applying Life Tap to Uber Bosses when options such as Dracul's Grasp or Last Wish are not available.
2) Only ever use a Last Wish versus Uber Bosses. It is not recommended to use it for most standard gameplay on a Dream Paladin.
3) Treachery and Demon Limb are used for pre-buffing, usually prior to taking down the Ubers. Treachery pre-buffs Fade for All Resistances, Curse Length Reduction, and Damage Reduction, while Demon Limb pre-buffs Enchant for increased Attack Rating.
4) Wizardspike is used for the Faster Cast Rate it provides on Weapon-Swap prior to acquiring a Call to Arms, or if Barbarian-granted Battle Orders is available.
5) Only use Naj's Puzzler, a Staff of Teleportation, or a Teleport Charge Amulet for Teleport Charges if you are not using Enigma.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to Immunities or bad layouts.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Ubers

This build is capable of farming Uber Tristram and the Mini Ubers before (See the "Ubers" Build Variant):

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Reaper’s Toll, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to significantly boost your Physical Damage. Equip him with The Reaper's Toll for a 33% Chance to cast Decrepify on striking, Slowing down and increasing Physical Damage dealt to enemies. Decrepify can even break most Physical Immunities.

Alternatively, you can use an Act 1 Cold Mercenary equipped with Faith to maintain maximum Attack Speed without much Increased Attack Speed on your gear. This comes at the expense of raw Damage (see Build Variants).

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Mercenary Types and Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Get in the habit of keeping Vigor Aura active while running through town for faster travel.
• Before starting your Magic Find/Experience run, first cast Battle Command 2 times and then Battle Orders once using Call to Arms on Weapon-Swap. And while still on your + to Skills-granting Weapon-Swap, also cast Holy Shield. Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire.
• While on your Faster Cast Rate-granting Weapon-Swap, use Teleport from Enigma to travel to your Farming Spot or from Elite Pack to Elite Pack. Swap to your main weapon loadout to kill monsters using Zeal. Use Charge while having Vigor Aura active for mobility if you are not using Enigma.
• Upon encountering an Elite Monster, switch to Conviction Aura and, if you have Teleport, use it to "Telestomp" the Elite, jumping directly into the Elite Pack. If not, Charge into the center of the Elite Pack.
• Use Zeal until the Elite and its surrounding minions are dead. Make sure to keep Conviction active at all times while using Zeal.
• If you have Teleport, use it while on your main weapon loadout to reposition your Mercenary to apply Decrepify from his The Reaper's Toll to the mobs that you are striking with Zeal. You can also use Teleport in this way to quickly relocate to nearby Elites and their minions.

For Bosses:

• When fighting Act Bosses, Uber Bosses, or Diablo Clone, "Telestomp" the Boss as you would an Elite Monster (if you have Teleport). This ensures that your Mercenary procs Decrepify on the Boss as soon as possible and as much as possible. Decrepify's Slow and -x% to Enemy Physical Resistance are invaluable against Bosses.

Mind These Situations:

• Briefly switch to the Cleansing Aura when either you or anyone in your Party is Poisoned or is Cursed with enemy Amplify Damage. After about 2-5 seconds, this Aura will remove these negative status effects.
• Switch to the Resist Lightning Aura when facing Unique Black Souls, or other Lightning Damage type Unique monsters, with Conviction Aura to prevent your death with a massive boost to Lightning Resistance.
• Switch to the Salvation Aura when facing any (generic) Elemental Damage type Unique monster with Conviction Aura to prevent your death with boosts to Fire, Lightning, and Cold Resistances.

Immunities

• Crack of the Heavens sets all Immune to Lightning monsters to 95% Lightning Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Lightning Resistance to take effect (including Conviction at 1/5th effectiveness).
• Bone Break sets all Immune to Physical monsters to 95% Physical Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Physical Resistance (including Decrepify from The Reaper's Toll) to take full effect.
• Skip Unique monsters that are Immune to both Lightning and Physical, or that are extremely hard to kill (combination of both high Lightning and Physical Resistance) even with Conviction active and after applying Decrepify from your Mercenary's The Reaper's Toll.

Optimal Loot/Experience Farming Strategies

• Max Level Areas - Having good mobility, high Magic Find, and insane hybrid Damage, the Dream Paladin efficiently farms nearly all Max Level Areas with any number of Players in the game, or on any Player Setting on Single Player. Worldstone Keep, Chaos Sanctuary, and The Pit are especially good Farming Spots for this build. Make sure to target Elite Packs.
• Ubers - The Dream Paladin is among the best builds for defeating the Uber Bosses and acquiring a Hellfire Torch. Dealing incredibly high single target DPS and negating Uber Mephisto's Conviction Aura, this build has unique advantages with a proper setup (see the "Ubers" Build Variant).

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for at least the 48% FCR Breakpoint for Enigma Teleport cast speed, which is achieved on Weapon-Swap on the Standard Build. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Increased Attack Speed (IAS)

Increased Attack Speed speeds up your attack animations. Weapon Bases have different IAS Breakpoints. Reach the 72% IAS Breakpoint on the Standard Build. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Phase Blades

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 48% FHR Breakpoint.

Faster Block Rate (FBR)

Faster Block Rate does not need to be obtained for this build. Holy Shield already reduces the block animation to 2 frames through a hidden mechanic.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

The Dream Paladin can become Hardcore viable with key changes to Gear and Skill Point allocation. Review the changes below before building this character in Hardcore, as some of these changes differ significantly from the Standard Build.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: Because this build requires both a Dream Helmet and a Dream Shield, there are only a couple of strong options for increasing a Hardcore Dream Paladin's % Damage Reduction. Using String of Ears in the Belt slot is the most effective means of increasing your Damage Reduction on this build, while also providing essential Life Leech. This means the acceptable loss of a Faster Cast Rate Breakpoint from dropping Arachnid Mesh. Additionally, Shaftstop is a possible Body Armor option if you are willing to forgo Enigma.
• Maximum Life: Because this build struggles to reach high % Damage Reduction, it is highly recommended (even more so than on most Hardcore builds) to use as many Life-granting Charms as possible.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond their default maximum values of 75 each (175 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse. Beware of encountering both at the same time! Consider the primary damage type(s) of the monsters in the area you want to farm. Chains of Honor is a possible Body Armor option for stacking Resistances on this build if you are willing to forgo Enigma; Charms and Jewelry are also ideal sources. Ignoring possible gear changes, the Dream Paladin can rely on his Salvation and Resist Lightning Auras to counter enemy Conviction and/or Lower Resist; however, using these Auras results in decreased Damage output.
• Lightning Absorb: Equip Thundergod's Vigor when farming or Teleporting through an area where Burning Souls are able to spawn such as Worldstone Keep/Throne of Destruction.

Skill Point Changes

• After maxing Sacrifice, allocate all remaining Skill Points into Holy Shield instead of Zeal to boost your Chance to Block and Defense.
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.