Help For a First Time Pally

[shallowprofile]

Hi all, I've played a lot of diablo, but i've never once made a paladin. Weird isn't it? I just love sorc's too much. Now however, I need someone to do hell baal runs, ubers, and diablo clones, solo of course.

Please let me know the best skill and stat builds for this paladin. I'm not super rich or anything, but i have enough hr's to build a solid paladin, so gear dependency is OK.

Anyway, just want the best paladin for soloing hell baal, ubers, diablo clone, and possibly do some key runs which i think my sorc is a bit slow at.

Thanks for all the advice!

[Copilot]

Well a smiter can do ubers and dclone solo with cheap gear, a HDin can do baal easily and can do ubers and dclone but they will need to switch gear for them.

[shallowprofile]

Well a smiter can do ubers and dclone solo with cheap gear, a HDin can do baal easily and can do ubers and dclone but they will need to switch gear for them.

Thanks for the first reply. Could you elaborate more on what kind of gear switch is needed for swapping for HDin's? i.e. the differences between the two sets of gear needed for baal/ubers/dclone? I have no experience doing any of those solo. Thanks!

[Spectrus]

A Paladin with maxed resists (maybe stacked for uber meph), 1 point in Smite, a Grief PB, some source of CB, and a Dracul's can solo all those very quickly. 1 point in Fanatacism is a plus. Common sources of CB are Gore Rriders and Guillaume's Face. You can mostly follow any Hammerdin build (Hammer/Concentration/Blessed Aim/Vigor) and throw in a point in Fanatacism (you'll get Smite because you'll get Holy Shield).

Paladins teleport slower than sorcs, so I don't know if a hammerdin will actually be faster than a sorc for key runs.

[shallowprofile]

A Paladin with maxed resists (maybe stacked for uber meph), 1 point in Smite, a Grief PB, some source of CB, and a Dracul's can solo all those very quickly. 1 point in Fanatacism is a plus. Common sources of CB are Gore Rriders and Guillaume's Face. You can mostly follow any Hammerdin build (Hammer/Concentration/Blessed Aim/Vigor) and throw in a point in Fanatacism (you'll get Smite because you'll get Holy Shield).

Paladins teleport slower than sorcs, so I don't know if a hammerdin will actually be faster than a sorc for key runs.

Spectrus, thanks for the reply. Your post is intriguing, maybe you can let me know some other stuff. What is a Grief PB? Also, can you give me a rough breakdown of skills that your palladin has? And also some comments on its pro's and con's?

Thanks again.

[Copilot]

Grief PB is grief phaseblade, go check out Arreat summit for items.

http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords-110.shtml

There is the 1 point smiter guide right on this first page that will give tell you all the skills you need.

[Spectrus]

What is a Grief PB? Also, can you give me a rough breakdown of skills that your palladin has? And also some comments on its pro's and con's?

As Copilot mentioned: Grief PB is the runeword, Grief, made in a Phase Blade. It is advantageous to make it in a Phase Blade as it needs no further IAS to reach the max breakpoint for Smite speed with Fanatacism.

I mostly listed the skills setup already: 20 Blessed Hammer/20 Concentration/20 Blessed Aim/20 Vigor/1 Fanatacism/rest in Holy Shield. You'll have fully powered hammers, which clears most of hell. You can also switch into a 1pt smiter setup with minimal change, just using Smite + Fanatacism, and your Dracul's and source of CB to take down bosses (Blessed Hammer, although strong, is somewhat lacking against bosses). It's very versatile and there's not much that can really stop it.

The guide I think Copilot is referring to is this one (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=425449), which takes a Zeal approach to the 1pt smiter. That also works (in fact, I have one, and I use it). But if you want a versatile pvm character, I think the Hammer+1pt smite is a better choice, although it means you may need to keep a second set of equipment for the smiting switch. The build in that guide will do pretty well in pvm, but tends to be a lot slower than the hammerdin can be, at the convenience of not having to switch equipment sets.

[Copilot]

Yeah thats the guide I was referring, I should probably just go the hdin switch route but I have a level 88 1point smiter for just soloing ubers and my hdin for everything else.

[shallowprofile]

Wow, great info and very thorough. Thanks so much guys, I will heed all of your advice!