Zeal Paladin Guide

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, Exile, or Last Wish are not available.
2) Treachery and Demon Limb are mostly 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.
3) 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.
4) 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.

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

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.

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 each Magic Find/Experience run, cast Holy Shield on your Weapon-Swap with + to Skills. Refresh this buff as soon as it expires.
• Use Charge while having Vigor Aura active for mobility. Use this Skill combination to travel to your Farming Spot or between Elite Packs.
• Upon encountering an Elite Monster, switch to Fanaticism Aura and, if you have Teleport from an item, 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 Fanaticism 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 or Lawbringers 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.
• Use Smite for more consistent damage against Bosses, especially if you are lacking the Attack Rating to hit them consistently with Zeal.

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.

Immunities

• Use a Mercenary with The Reaper's Toll or Lawbringers for Decrepify to deal with Physical Immunes and to increase the Physical Damage of Zeal.
• Bone Break sets all Immune to Physical monsters to 95% Physical Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Physical Resistance (including Decrepify) to take full effect.
• Skip Physical Immune monsters that are still Physical Immune, or extremely hard to kill (highly Physical Resistant), even after applying Decrepify from your Mercenary's The Reaper's Toll or Lawbringers.

Late-Game

• Before starting your Magic Find/Experience run, first cast Battle Command 2 times and then Battle Orders once using Call to Arms. Refresh these buffs as soon as they expire (approx. every 2-3 minutes).
• While on your Faster Cast Rate-granting Weapon-Swap, use Teleport from Enigma to travel to your Farming Spot or between Elite Packs. Swap to your main weapon loadout to kill monsters using Zeal.

Optimal Loot/Experience Farming Strategies

• Ubers - The Zeal Paladin is one of the best builds for defeating the Uber Bosses and acquiring a Hellfire Torch. Easily stacking Crushing Blow and other helpful offensive and defensive stats, this build makes short work of these ultra powerful monsters with the proper setup and approach (see the "Ubers" Build Variant).
• Travincal with 3 Players in the Game - Council Members are quickly decimated by Zeal. They have great loot odds for Runes, Charms, Jewels, Jewelry, Gems, and basic gear with 3 Players in the game or /Players3 on Single Player.
• Chaos Sanctuary - Jumping into Elite Packs in this Max Area Level Farming Spot feels natural for the Zealer, especially while using the "Attack Speed" Build Variant. This build makes short work of this otherwise dangerous area.
• Worldstone Keep/Baal - The Zeal Paladin does an excellent job of destroying nearly every Elite spawn in Worldstone, Waves in the Throne of Destruction, and Baal himself. Having insane Physical Damage, % Life stolen per hit, maximum Chance to Block, and the Resist Lightning Aura for Black Souls, this build usually stays fairly safe in this dangerous Max Level Area.
• Nihlathak - Because the Zealer exclusively deals Physical Damage, he has zero Immunity issues when farming this Boss for the Key of Destruction. Also, having Redemption Aura from Phoenix allows this build to redeem corpses before "Nilly" can use Corpse Explosion on them. These unique advantages make this Boss a relatively easy target for this build.

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 the 48% FCR Breakpoint on Weapon-Swap for Enigma Teleport cast speed on the Standard Build. Build Variants require different values. 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. Since Fanaticism provides this build with an abundance of free IAS, 9% IAS (which is achieved by Grief alone) is sufficient to reach maximum Attack Speed on the Standard Build. Consult the d2planner for other bases.

Grief Phase Blade

Oath Cryptic Sword

Butcher's Pupil (Upgraded)

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for the 48% FHR Breakpoint if possible.

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 Zeal 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: There are several gear options/setups for achieving a high amount of % Damage Reduction on a Hardcore Zealer. A setup using Crown of Ages socketed with a Cham Rune and Ber Rune, Enigma, Herald of Zakarum socketed with a Ber Rune, and either Verdungo's Hearty Cord or String of Ears achieves 54% Damage Reduction (4% over-capped) while providing the essential Cannot Be Frozen stat. Vampire Gaze is a more budget Helmet option that provides solid Damage Reduction on top of Dual Leech. A Rare Circlet socketed with a Cham Rune and Ber Rune provides Damage Reduction, Faster Cast Rate, Attack Rating, and additional + to Skills. Guillaume's Face socketed with a Ber Rune provides Damage Reduction while maintaining a high amount of Deadly Strike. With 35% Damage Reduction of its own, Stormshield on the Off-hand opens up Helmet and Belt options such as Guillaume's Face and Arachnid Mesh.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond the 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. Herald of Zakarum is the best Shield option for stacking Resistances on this build. Chains of Honor and Fortitude are possible Body Armor options if you are willing to forgo Enigma. Um Runes socketed into gear, Jewelry, and Charms are also ideal sources of Resistances.
• Faster Hit Recovery: Achieve the 48% Faster Hit Recovery Breakpoint on your main weapon loadout with your Helmet, Belt, and Charm(s). Faster Hit Recovery is not as important when going for maximum Chance to Block (75%). You mainly rely on the special Faster Block Rate Breakpoint provided by Holy Shield instead. 
• 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

• There are no required Skill Point changes for a Hardcore Zeal Paladin. However, if you do not plan to farm Baal/Worldstone Keep, you can relocate Skill Points from Resist Lightning to Defiance to boost your Defense rating in order to make it even less likely that monsters will successfully hit your Zealer.
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.