"The pulverizer build (both pvm and pvp)"

[MegaFlame]

The Pulverizer (Zeal/Charge/Smite) Paladin Build
The Pulverizer is a melee paladin with Zeal/Smite/Charge as its main attack skills and therefore, dealing nasty amount of physical damage and is versatile in duels. However, this build is best recommended for godly rich people since the item requirement for any hybrid build is quite luxurious and the commoners with mediocre items might not see a desired effect in this build.

Now for the skill distribution:
Zeal: max
Smite: max
Charge: max
Holy Shield: max
Fanaticism: max
Holy Freeze: 1 point, my favorite so called “flash skill” with which I have good use in duels. The way you use this is that you turn this skill quickly on and then off to throw a godly slow down effect on your opponents for a very short time. But during this short period time you will be able to more effectively attack your opponents with skills like Charge since their movement is greatly slowed down and thus making it harder for them for respond to your attacks.

Although we only have 1 point in Sacrifice (the damage synergy for Zeal), with godly items your Zeal damage will be enough for soloing Hell easily. See the damage calculations for this build later.

Attribute Points: You should already know anyways
Strength: enough for gear
Dexterity: enough for max block with Holy Shield
Vitality: all of the rest
Energy: none, 1 point in here and you can consider remaking your paladin

Now for the equipments:
Helm:
Harlequin Crest: Huge life/mana bonus, +2 all skills, 10% damage reduction, what can I say? Socket it with Um rune for resists, Ber rune for more damage reduction or godly jewels for multiple effects.
Crown of Ages: Another godly, +1 all skills, fast hit recovery, damage reduction, huge resists, and high defense.
Delirium: Not really a bad option with +2 all skills and al these spell-casting chances. Although the lack of resists and damage reduction really puts it in disfavor.

Amulet:
Mara’s Kaleidoscope: Best overall amulet I would say, with +2 all skills, huge resists, and good attribute increase.
Metal Grid: Even more godly melee mods with huge attack rating bonus, huge resists, and huge defense bonus, the lack of skills is its only weakness.
Crafted Paladin Amulets with +2 all skills, resists, attributes and so on: Very expensive, but could get godlier than Mara’s amulet.

Armor:
Fortitude: Godliest armor for this build, with +300% damage it’s the king of all melee armors, plus it has good resists and huge life bonus.
Enigma: Secondary to Fortitude, with +2 all skills, Teleport, and godly strength bonus it’s no doubt another good baby to use. It lacks resists though.
Chains of Honor: Godly resists, +2 all skills, damage reduction and so on. Not favored for this build because of its lack of defense.
Duress: Godly melee mods still, although it doesn’t give direct damage enhancement or strength increase, its Crushing Blow and Deadly Strike might come even handier in certain circumstances.

Weapon:
Grief: Godliest of the godly weapons for this build, its +XXX damage mod greatly enhances the Smite damage and even with Zeal/Charge it still owns all Breath of the Dying’s. Only switch to other weapons with Crushing Blow when fighting bosses.
Asterion’s Iron Ward: Not a bad option for this build, with +2-4 Combat Skills, 33% chance of Crushing Blow, huge bonus to attack rating and so on. However the base damage of this weapon would be too low for Zeal/Charge even at high level, it’s more of a pure Smiter weapon choice.
Heaven’s Light: Just like the Asterion’s, with skill bonus and all Crushing Blow, but also has the same defect so it’s not strongly recommended.
Stormlash Unique Scourge: A fairly good choice, although it doesn’t have skill bonus, it has fairly high base damage (even more when ethereal) which makes it more suitable for Zeal/Charge and it has the same amount of Crushing Blow chance as the 2 unique scepters. Also its base attack speed is fast and works well against physical immunes.

Weapon on switch:
Call to Arms: A must-have with Battle Orders, greatly boosts life and mana.
Last Wish: Comes in very handy just in case you take on the big boyz a lot, its high Crushing Blow chance (60%+) is godly for taking down huge lives.
Azurewrath/Famine/Baranar’s Star: These are useful against all the physical immunes although you can solely depend on the elemental damage from your small charms to dispatch them. Still, with a secondary weapon like these you can save a lot of time.
Passion: If you are over worried about the Iron Maiden then switch to this against them Knights. Plus this is another effective physical immune killer and it will dispatch the physical immunes faster than any other means you have. However, your defense will be down to 0 during the Berserk duration and thus putting yourself into danger.

Shield:
Herald of Zakarum (preferably upgraded for more Smite damage): Godliest shield for this build in my opinion, although Exile gives a lot more defense, once your defense surpasses 20000 its effect isn’t all that conspicuous anyways. This shield has all the godly mods you need: skill bonus, resists, faster block rate, attack rating bonus, high block. Just too good to miss.
Exile: With the highest defense you can ever get from a shield, its defense is liked by some while the Life Tap makes it even nicer against some high-damaging monster types. Exile is very expensive though and its all around mods don’t seem as good as those from Herald of Zakarum.
Phoenix: The high damage shield, however the lack of skill bonus, blocking chance, and defense really should make you think twice.
Sanctuary: Probably the highest resist shield you can get. If you make this in a paladin shield with chromatic mod you can get up to 115% resist all! And the defense of this shield won’t be bad either. It’s just the lack of skills that make this less desired.
Spirit: This is probably also an ultra choice. It can have more resists than Herald of Zakarum when made in chromatic paladin shields and it has +2 all skills and so on. Very good in my opinion and thus also being a good shield for pre-buff with Call to Arms.

Gloves:
Dracul’s Grasp: A godly choice with Life Tap, Open Wounds, strength increase, and so on. This is highly recommended with Herald of Zakarum as your shield.
Steelrend: Another godly choice, it gives the highest damage increase from any gloves and its Crushing Blow and strength bonus chance are also very worthwhile. However, the strength requirement for Steelrend itself is quite high and thus making it unsuitable for many.
Immortal King’s Forge with Immortal King’s Pillar and Detail (gloves+boots+belt): Really nice mods with all 3 pieces together.
Crafted Blood Gloves: These are very expensive, but can spawn with godly mods.

Boots:
Gorerider: Godly boots with godly melee mods, it’s your top choice.
Sandstorm Trek (preferably ethereal with higher defense): Really nice mods for any type of character, consider using this if you don’t like Gorerider or can’t get one.
Waterwalk: Like a different version of Sandstorm Trek, very useful.
Goblin Toe: 25% chance of Crushing Blow, godly, but the other mods are trash and it doesn’t even provide faster walk/run.

Rings:
Ravenfrost: Godly indeed, with the Cannot Be Frozen and so much more, you definitely need 1 of these.
Stone of Jordan: Not mandatory but still handy, with +1 to all skills and huge mana bonus which helps Charge.
Bul Katho’s Wedding Band: Also has +1 to skills, and has life leech and life bonus, a godly secondary to Ravenfrost.
Nice rare rings with resists, attributes, attack rating, life, mana, faster hit recovery, and so on.

Charms:
Annihilus: Godly charm, must-have.
Hellfire Paladin Torch: Godly charm, another must-have.
Combat grand charms with life bonus or whatever you need: Combat Skill increase will help both Smite and Charge more greatly than Fanaticism level increase, so that’s why we chose Combat over Offensive.
Elemental small charms (preferably lightning): Now the question is: why not poison? Because you will have having Venom on often with Grief and since Venom makes its duration (0.3 seconds) the official duration of all your poison damage, which can be from small charms, thus greatly reducing its effect. Plus poison damage is done over a certain time period and other elemental damages are done instantly when you hit anything. For example, if you do “400 poison damage over 4 seconds, that’s 100 poison damage per second, and if you also do 35 lightning damage per hit, it’s 35*6=210 lightning damage in 1 second with a 4 frame Zeal attack, which gives you the same damage effect. So actually poison damage isn’t all that godly after all. Plus these Shocking Small Charms of Storm can get 99 max lightning damage which is awesome against physical immunes. The only thing good about poison damage is that you can use them effectively for “hit-and-run” tactics which lets you deal damage with poison even after you got away from your enemies. Well, we can live up to not having poison damage anyways, so no more arguments.
Also I would have 10 of these 5% resist all/20 life small charms in inventory for duels where I need stacked resists and more life.

Now let’s see what kind of damage this build has:
Say let’s say we have:
Herald of Zakarum: +2 all skills, +2 all Combat Skills
Mara’s Kaleidoscope: +2 all skills
Harlequin Crest: +2 all skills
Stone of Jordan or Bul Katho’s Wedding Band: +1 all skills
Annihilus: +1 all skills
Hellfire Paladin Torch: +3 all skills
9 Combat grand charms: +9 all Combat skills

So now the maxed skills should be:
Fanaticism: level 31, +560% damage
Zeal: level 42, +228% damage
Smite: level 42, +630% damage
Charge: level 42, +1145% damage
Holy Shield: level 42, +124.5 average damage to Smite
And we also have say, 200 strength and 300% damage from Fortitude

For average Zeal damage with perfect Grief Phase Blade:
(560%+228%+300%+200%+100%)*432.5=6003.1

For average Charge damage with perfect Grief Phase Blade:
(560%+1145%+300%+200%+100%)*432.5=9969.125

For average Smite damage with perfect Grief Phase Blade and upgraded Herald of Zakarum (46 base Smite damage):
(630%+560%+300%+200%+100%)*(46+400+124.5) =10211.95
Godly!

Now you can see how high the damage can get and although most likely your damage will be a little bit lower than these (since perfect items are not that easy to get), you will still do hell of a job at both player vs. player and player vs. monster.

Anti-monster strategies:
Zeal every normal monster in hell, use Smite against the unique ones or tough ones.
Switch to your secondary weapon for physical immunes, I myself liked Azurewrath socketed with 1-100 lightning damage rare jewel, it dispatched physical immunes in Hell quite easily and Azurewrath is very cheap. If you just use elemental small charms you can also kill physical immunes but it will take a long time and thus requires godly patience. There are a few areas swamped with physical immunes, like the Forgotten Tower, the Arcane Sanctuary, and the Halls of Anguish. Basically I leave my Grief in stash and use Azurewrath with Zeal when soloing the Forgotten Tower and Arcane Sanctuary. In the Halls of Anguish I just ignore these physical immune Frenzytaurs by running past them, since there are so many monsters in these Halls anyways it’d be a waste of time killing all of them off. Your toughest enemy is still the Oblivion Knight here; with such a huge physical damage you will be dead in a blink of an eye if cursed with Iron Maiden. The best thing to do is to either kill one at a time, which makes it more obvious to you what kind of curse the knights just cast, or use Berserk from Passion. Anyways if you do take them on with physical damage make sure to use Smite because Zeal hits 5 times non-stop and even if you do get cursed during the zealing action you can’t stop hitting the knights.

[MegaFlame]

Now some dueling strategies:
Amazon:
Lightning Javazons: Easy duel in my opinion, just don’t be stupid enough to use Zeal on them. Charge them often and switch to Smite if you can, I personally would just charge them to death because some good Javazons can somehow get 1 or 2 Charged Strikes on you even if when they are being smited and since their charged strike does quite nasty damage they might just take you out in a few hits.
Poison Javazons: Should be another easy duel. Just use Charge more often because if you Smite them by getting up close they may have a good chance to get their massively damaging poison cloud on you. So using Charge quickly gets you out of such trouble and your charging speed is even fast enough to outrun their javelins!
Bowazons: Easy duel, you can use Zeal, Charge, or Smite to kill them. Usually they will try to run away and then use Multi Arrow or Guided Arrow against you. If you are bothered by their arrows then simply charge around to make the arrows chase after you while you charge the Amazons to death. My Pulverizer doesn’t at all have any trouble with these Amazons, most of the time I just chase them down with Charge and then switch to Zeal for the quick kill. Since their defense is often very low Zeal kills them faster than Smite, plus the knockback from Smite is just a waste of time.
Bow/Java Hybrid: Easy duel, just Charge+Smite+Zeal or whatever.

Assassins:
Trappers: Easy duel, just charge constantly to kill them since Chargers are the killers of all Trappers. Pop on a Thundergod’s Vigor or Wisp Projector for more protection against the lightning damage. Make sure to charge in unpredictable patterns to avoid their Mind Blast.
Martial Art Assassins: Easy duel, smite them to death.
Whirlwind Assassins: Easy duel. With such high Smite damage, you should dispatch them in no time.

Barbarians:
Concentrate Barbarians: Easy duel, just smite, smite, and smite. The good thing is that Smite hits them all the time and can’t be blocked. Their godly defense and max block won’t save them.
Whirlwind Barbarians: Easy to Hard, depends on their gears. A godly Whirlwinder can tank a lot of damage and at the same time they can land some painful hits on you. Just use Smite and shift over time. Let them whirlwind into your Smite area. An Exile would be really handy in this duel because it gives a lot more defense and Life Tap (which is bad manner but godly).
Singer Barbarian: Easy duel if you play right. Charge may be the key here because it allows you to quickly take massive life out of them and retreat. Although I would always smite them to be stunned perpetually but still if you get stunned by their War Cry first then you might be doomed. So Charge is the safer means.
Berserkers: Easy to Mediocre. Their Berserk does such huge damage (10k+ easily with good gears), and since Berserk is magic damage it can’t be resisted. I highly recommend playing defensively against these guys with Charge. Still, make sure that you manage to kill them off before your mana runs out. I sometimes also try to smite them which takes less skill than shift-charging but if they happened to land a Berserk on me I over half my life was most likely gone.

Druids:
Wind Druids: Easy duel if you play right. With 5% resist all small charms in your inventory their cold damage is a joke but if you don’t have them then you wise up. Dual Ravenfrosts come in very handy in this duel although many people don’t like melee duelers wearing 2 of these. Wind Druids generally will play offensively and defensively. When they play offensively they will directly teleport on you and then you have to use Smite or Zeal to finish them off. If they have a bunch of minions around then don’t use Zeal, because all the hits will be tanked by the minions, just use Smite for a quick knock-out, you can’t afford to stay in their Hurricane for too long. If they have only 1 or 2 minions though, you might want to use Zeal to do the job because the knock-back effect from Smite gets them away a few steps from you and having to walk up to hit them again might cost you heavily under the massive pounding of the Hurricane. If they play defensively and decide to teleport away then just use Charge to keep on hitting them until they are dead.
Bear Druids: Easy duel, smite them to hell.
Wolf Druids: Easy duel, smite them to death.
Fire Druids: Easy duel, charge around and land hits on them quickly, just avoid getting caught above a Fissure since the stun effect from it is quite unpleasant.

Necromancers:
Boners: Not so easy duel in my opinion, their attack is magic which is not resistible and with adept skills they can cage you in and shoot out many Bone Spirits or Spears to finish you off. The great concern is your controlling skills since this duel requires you to quickly react to many different situations. Be ready to zeal for a quick escape from their Bone Prison if you get caged in while shift-charging. The good thing is that your Charge does such massive damage these Necromancers will be dead in no time.
Summoners: Godly easy to hard as hell duel in my opinion, you can snap all the minions in one hit although you don’t have to or simply it’s not a good idea to do so. The toughest kind will stack the minions tightly in front of him creating an “absorb shield” while he shoots Bone Spears from behind. All you can do now is just charging around to the back side of the Necromancer and then close in for a quick kill.
Poisoners: Easy duel in my opinion, a godly Poisoner can reduce your life to 1 in a matter of seconds and then you are at the mercy of his other attacks. In this duel I would first move out for a quick Charge to make sure he doesn’t get a Lower Resist on me and just in case I do I would quickly charge him to death. Don’t waste anytime! His poisons are very powerful and if you don’t finish him quick he’ll surely finish you off easy.

Paladins:
Zealots: Easy duel, smite and KO.
Smiters (Vindicators): Easy duel, smite them or charge them if you are afraid to get close.
Smite/Fist of Heavens Hybrid (Vindicator/Templar): Hard duel if you don’t stack lightning resist, piece of cake if you do. Just smite them away if you can nullify their Fist of Heavens. If you can’t, well, charge them to close up the distance and then smite them like a maniac, your Smite damage should do more damage than their Fist of Heavens anyways. If they smite you, smite back to see who the real daddy is.
Blessed Hammer/Charge Hybrid (Liberator): Hard as hell duel in my opinion, this is a very versatile opponent with Blessed Hammers doing around 6k-8k damage which is good enough to knock you out cold. And they have a strong Charge attack which can take you out by surprise. I wouldn’t play defensively when first coming out of town, I will charge out first to get some hits on this guy. Watch out, his Charge does more damage, a lot more, than yours because he has Vigor maxed and his Charge will be faster than yours with Vigor boosting its speed. You can avoid the troubles by standing in one place and wait for them to come charge you. Since your defense will be high and you will have max block these Liberators won’t hit you that easy and once they get close just use Smite to knock them out for good. If they play defensively with Hammers spawning a protective field around them then just either wait for a gap to charge through or wait where you are until the guy gets impatient and comes at you. This is probably the godliest duel this build ever faces so it takes more than being masterful to win; it takes insane control skills with slippery fingers ready for hotkey switches.
Pure Hammerdin: Mediocre duel, charge in between hammer gaps and switch to Smite for a take-down. If they come at you by teleporting then be ready for a quick Smite-and-run setup, always watch where you are to avoid his hammers.
Pure Charger: Easy duel, charge them yourself or wait for them to charge you, then they miss and you smite them to death.

Sorceress:
Lightning Sorceress: Easy duel, with stacked resists and your anti-lightning gear you can just walk up to them and Zeal/Smite for a hell of a time, if you don’t stack resists then just charge them to death in 1 or 2 hits.
Fire Sorceress: Easy duel, Smite/Zeal/Charge=pwnage.
Cold Sorceress: Easy duel, with dual Ravenfrosts and stacked cold resists she is what you eat for breakfast.

Alright folks now you got a general idea of this build and although you might not cherish every aspect of it you can still make very good use of this build. One last thing, don’t hate me for using the word “godly” so much since I just like that word :}

[kingdryland]

Sorry but if you wish to play pvm you don't need charge(or more than one points in smite actually),and if you prefer to be pvp you do not need zeal...

[HeavAngel]

LMK if you'd like the subject title changed so it can be stickied.

[marcello]

nice build!

[MegaFlame]

Actually the reason why I max charge is because it's good in pvp, where 1 point in charge doesn't provide enough damage.

And as everyone knows, zeal is the best for normal pvm because it does have crowd control and kills faster than smite.

And smite is, of course, for pvp and bosses since it's unblockable and it always hits.

Thx heavangel, plz change my title to something like "The pulverizer build (both pvm and pvp)".

Appreciate the helps.

[HeavAngel]

All taken care of MegaFlame
Nice Guide you have here!
It's always an Honor when members make Guides for our forum!
Thank you, for your time and work on your Guide :smiley:

[jumps zilla]

wow, i like this build. i think i'll make another paladin using this build as a guide. nice, MegaFlame.

[jake007]

Pure Hammerdin: Mediocre duel

A pure hammerdin will be the most difficult duel you can pit a melee paladin against. You do know that a good hammerdin don't just teleport around, right? There are 2 skills named 'charge' and 'vigor' which allows you to 'desync'. Dodging invisible hammers with 12K+ damage is not fun, I promise.

Zealots: Easy duel, smite and KO.

A good zealot with have the attack rating and damage to make your duel a living hell, since you don't have the defense of a pure smiter (max defiance). Also, you will be lacking the defense to be top any half-decent WWBarb.

Wind Druids: Easy duel if you play right. With 5% resist all small charms in your inventory their cold damage is a joke but if you don’t have them then you wise up. Dual Ravenfrosts come in very handy in this duel although many people don’t like melee duelers wearing 2 of these. Wind Druids generally will play offensively and defensively. When they play offensively they will directly teleport on you and then you have to use Smite or Zeal to finish them off. If they have a bunch of minions around then don’t use Zeal, because all the hits will be tanked by the minions, just use Smite for a quick knock-out, you can’t afford to stay in their Hurricane for too long. If they have only 1 or 2 minions though, you might want to use Zeal to do the job because the knock-back effect from Smite gets them away a few steps from you and having to walk up to hit them again might cost you heavily under the massive pounding of the Hurricane. If they play defensively and decide to teleport away then just use Charge to keep on hitting them until they are dead.

You really got me laughing there, have you actually played or even duelled a wind druid before? Absorbing and stacking against hurricane??

Sorceress:
Lightning Sorceress: Easy duel, with stacked resists and your anti-lightning gear you can just walk up to them and Zeal/Smite for a hell of a time, if you don’t stack resists then just charge them to death in 1 or 2 hits.
Fire Sorceress: Easy duel, Smite/Zeal/Charge=pwnage.
Cold Sorceress: Easy duel, with dual Ravenfrosts and stacked cold resists she is what you eat for breakfast.

This got me laughing again. Anyone who played with charge before knows that there are 'slow' issues when you try to name-lock charge a continuing teleport sorceress. By the time you recover you would long be dead. It's not all 'Look, she's a sorceress lewl I pwnz0r'


-------------------------

And lastly, overuse of the word 'godly'

Where's the belt coverage?

[MegaFlame]

1. Lmao? A hammerdin is a godly duel then? Lmao the hammerdin has to aim you perfectly with his hammer for a quick kill or he'd be spammering hammers and all you do then is just let him come to you since he'd either run out of mana or stand there like a tree which makes him a perfect target for your charge. And if you charge around yourself how you get hit by hammers? Sure he has vigor, but I can also get it and with skill points it'd be desyn too.

2. Lmao a zealot with godly ar and damage? How about the fact that my defense and max block will nullify all that crap? And of course, any smiter can be killed by a zealot if the smiter has *** gears and the zealot has godly. But does that mean you can say: a summon nec owns all cuz he has the best gears and so on, that's why summon nec is your build to own all others gg.

3. Lmao? If absorbing and stacking don't work, then what does? 0% cold resist? I bet that's how you duel them wind druids and it's a 2 second ownage.

4. If you don't charge the teleing sorcs then what? Walk up to them and get owned lol? And charge does work on teleing sorcs, and don't forget, it's the charger that causes desyning which is godier than any teleport, so plz , I dueled lots of sorcs and they get charged to death if they get hit. And it's always a 1 hit kill.