Fist of the Heavens Paladin Guide

fistoftheheavens* is our primary Damage Skill. It deals Lightning Damage to your target, and releases Holy Bolts that damages Undead and Demons.

Smite* is your Boss damage Skill, dealing Physical Damage by hitting targets with your Shield. It always hits a target in range regardless of Attack Rating. It also Stuns and causes Knockback against regular mobs.

Holy Bolt* is your secondary Damage Skill that deals Magic Damage to Undead and Demons, even if they are Immune to Magic. This is mainly used to kill Undead Magic Immunes such as Wave 2 in the Throne of Destruction. It also heals any allied targets, which is especially useful for keeping your Mercenary alive.

* Increased Attack Speed Skills (IAS)
* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)

Conviction* is your Primary Aura. Keep it active while using Fist of the Heavens. It lowers the Defense as well as Fire, Lightning, and Cold Resistances of nearby enemies. It is capable of breaking their Immunities.

Holy Shield* is a temporary buff that requires an equipped shield to use. it boosts your Paladin's Defense and Chance to Block as well as improved Faster Block Rate Breakpoints.

Charge* causes your Paladin to instantly jet forward towards in the direction of your cursor. Your Paladin stops and applies knockback to any enemy, even if the attempted melee attack misses. It is mostly used for mobility if not using Enigma.

Vigor* provides your Paladin and members of your Party with increased Faster Run/Walk and Stamina.

Salvation* provides your Paladin and members of your Party with increased Resistance to Fire, Lightning, and Cold based on its Level.

Cleansing* reduces Poison Length and Curse Duration by a percentage every two seconds while active. It also heals a small amount of Life every two seconds, based on the total Skill Level of your prayer Skill. (This is one of the few Skills which gains Synergies based on total Skill Level)

Fanaticism* grants Attack Rating, Damage, and Attack Speed to yourself and all allies. Used to buff our Mercenary when encountering unbreakable Immunes in addition to our Tri-Brid Variant.

Resist fire* is a passive Skill that raises Maximum Fire Resistance by 1% for every two Skill Points allocated to it.

* 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/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refers here.
1) This item can be shopped early on, but is INCREDIBLY rare. This is an option for end-game focused farming situations.
2) Used exclusively on the Tri-Brid Variant.

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.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

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

Insight, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to deal with enemies that are Immune to your main damage source.
Equip him with Insight for the high Mana Regeneration provided by Meditation Aura.

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.

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

• Cast holyshield at the start of your farming session, and recast as needed.
• vigor and charge are your primary mobility options, swapping to teleport for walls and obstacles. Keep vigor up in town to quickly run to Portals, Waypoints and vendors.
• Use the high range of fistoftheheavens to your advantage. Name-lock your target and finish the job before selecting the next one. For Undead/Demon types, the holybolts will quickly clear large densities.
• When your Mercenary engages an Immune monster, swap to holybolt and target him to keep his Life topped off. Make sure to keep Undead/Demons in line with your Mercenary, so the piercing bolt hits them.
• Your conviction Aura is higher level than any hostile version you encounter. This negates the effect on your Character, which reduces the need for over capping your Resistances. When playing with other Paladins, you can employ salvation, cleansing or vigor to benefit from more Auras.

Immunities

• Undead/Demon monsters can always be damaged by holybolt even when they are Immune to Magic. The damage output on single targets outperforms fistoftheheavens, because of its Cast Delay.
• For Animal Lightning Immunes, your Mercenary becomes your primary damage source. Swap to fanaticism Aura to drastically increase their DPS.

Late-Game

• Cast battlecommand and battleorders before you cast holyshield at the beginning of your farming session. Refresh the buffs as needed on longer sessions.
• enigma gives access to teleport and becomes our primary mobility option. Use vigor in town and while moving before engaging any monsters.

Tri-Brid Variant

• This Variant employs fistoftheheavens against all Undead/Demon mob packs as you normally would, but without using conviction. Keep fanaticism up for your Mercenary's DPS output.
• Use blessedhammer + concentration to precast Hammers in situations when you know where monsters will be spawning. Baal Waves, Diablo, and Chaos Sanctuary Seal Bosses can all be hit by precast hammers while you switch back to your primary damage Skills.
• For high Players Settings (5-8) Boss Life pools are large enough for smite + fanaticism to help maintain clear speed. Precast blessedhammer, use smite until the target is sitting around 5-10% remaining Life then finish them with holybolt.
• Your Mercenary's decrepify increases your Crushing Blow damage, and their sanctuary Aura will keep targets clumped together for fistoftheheavens.

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 (FCR) speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for at least the 75% FCR Breakpoint. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

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

Faster Block Rate (FBR)

Faster Block Rate (FBR) 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.
This build is Hardcore viable. If you are unaccustomed to this playstyle, we recommend trying this build on Softcore to gain experience on how to successfully pilot it.