r/D4_Paladin

I see a ton of posts on here about being "stuck" in T3, 6, 8, etc. Every class can smoothly progress on your first character to at minimum Torment 10 this way. You don't have Paragon levels/gear/mats to do all of the things streamers advertise as the "best" method for "x." The game is easier than ever to gear and progress, but it's also more complicated than ever how all of these systems work together.

Note: This isn't the most optimized way to progress an alt, this is for new and returning players overwhelmed by all of the mechanics.

Torment 1 - 4 (Paragon 1-100)

• Look up a guide on your favorite build site, Maxroll/Mobalytics/etc.
• Look for a Starter Variant targeted for fresh 70s.
• Copy Skills/Paragon/Talismans/Mercenaries.
• Look at the stats required on your gear and put Aspects on the best ones you can find.
• This gear will be replaced many times, so don't worry about Masterworking/Tempering/Socketing during this phase.
• Start looking for your 2-Set or 3-Set Charm bonus. Save all Unique Charms for crafting later.
• Grind Warplan rewards and level up activities. Try to chain multiple in the same plan.
• My favorite activities to focus early are Pits and Helltides. The rewards pay off later.
• If you still need aspects, farm NMDs and Helltides. It's a numbers game and these have activities drop items from chests/elites/etc. UC/Infernal Hordes only drop rewards at the end of the activity.
• The trader in the Merc hideout sells aspect caches for coins after Level 10 with a Merc. This can help speed up the aspect grind.
• If you focused Pits, get Glyphs for your build to 25.
• Once you can do the Pit 25 at 3 minutes or less it's safe to push Torment levels.
• Suggest using an early game loot filter for your build. This will help identify valuable items and speed up farming.

Torment 6 (Paragon 50-150)

• Keep looking for better gear and grind Warplan activities. Start transitioning to Mid/Endgame variant based on gear.
• For the Paragon board it's better to sprawl across the boards as quickly as possible while following the guide. The general priority of nodes are Legendary >Glyph slots > Legendary > Rare > Glyph Radius stats to 40+> Stats. You don't need every Rare node on the way to filling out your boards.
• Farm Lair Bosses for Uniques. Requires Lair Keys and Greater Lair Keys from Warplans and other activities. These stats are random now, so you'll likely need multiple drops before a decent one show up. You do not need a perfectly rolled unique to progress. Most uniques are inherently powerful and allow build synergy with just 1-2 good stats on it to get started.
• Should have the Charm 5-Set by now. Start Cube rerolling them for stats suggested. Focus on the offensive stat. The 2nd stat is defensive/utility and not required. (This isn't always in the 2nd slot) Use the Craft Unique Charm recipe with those Unique Charms you saved earlier.
• Grind required Glyphs to 51+.
• Start Tempering items. These can GA. Roll a few times for a decent roll. DO NOT GAMBA FOR GA TEMPERS. You will quickly run out of souls and gold on ilvl 900 items.
• Start Socketing. You probably have some useful Runes and Gems in weapons and jewelry are very useful.
• If you find item level 900 items for the slots that use uniques, and you have some Enhanced Primordial Dust, you can start using the "Upgrade to Unique" recipe. DO NOT USE THIS RECIPE ON ILVL 850 ITEMS. DO NOT REROLL GAMBA FOR LEGENDARY GEAR. You don't have the dust yet to effectively do this unless you know what you are doing. The only exception I would recommend is removing affix on Blue gear to gamble Uniques for the rare or annoying ones like Astaroth/Bartuc.
• Once you can do the Pit 60 at 3 minutes or less it's safe to push Torment levels.

Torment 8-10 (Paragon 150-225)

• Continue refining gear rolls with better stats.
• Grind Glyphs to 80-100+
• If not already, start using a loot filter or build one. The filter has a category for Codex Upgrades which is useful. These are extremely flexible to only show useful items you want speeding up farming. Many filters have a STRICT version to only look for valuable Ancestral or GA items at this point.
• Have 5-Set Charms, have Legendary Seal with +1 Slot, Unique Charm you need.
• Now is the time you can start Masterworking/Tempering. Gear won't be replaced nearly as quickly.
• You probably have a Mythic Tribute of Armaments by this point. Do these on the highest Torment you can speed run. The time is tight and easy to fail for some players.
• Speedrunning T10 is often more valuable than slogging through T12. It's a loot game and if it takes forever to kill in T12, you're probably better off in 10.

Probably some things I missed. Feel free to add. Remember guys, this isn't "the most efficient way to x, or best way to x." Can you cube before I recommended in T6? Can you grind Infernal Hordes instead of Helltides? Of course! Use good judgement based off your needs. The point is, none of these things are really REQUIRED until a certain point, because some mechanics and systems are inherently stronger than others and often overlooked.

Happy hunting guys!

Edit: Adjusted Paragon Board priority, suggested Loot Filter early in T1-4, updated T8 Loot Filter to STRICT, added Temper suggestion.
Edit 2: Added Merc Trader bullet in T1-4.
Edit 3: Typos and updated certain bullets for clarity.

First and foremost I would like to say that I have been having a blast playing paladin this season and I am by no means saying Paladin is not fun to play. But with the current state of Paladin in endgame (underwhelming) it is likely better to switch to a new class rather than waste time struggling through t12 bossing and high level pit.

I have played most of this season as a hammerdin and have nearly completed the build to perfection. Currently Paragon 215. I have all 3 required mythics. Near perfect aspects and uniques. Optimized charms. And 75+ level on all my glyphs.

I shred t12 mobs and base content but the true endgame (pit pushing, bossing, and uber bossing) is an extreme struggle. The damage scaling on most paladin builds is just not there. Clash seems to show promise, but is much slower for everything else.

Instead of making minor changes and adjustments, I decided to roll an alt barbarian.

I used t12 whisper caches to go from level 1-70 in about 60 seconds. Then used some gear and uniques I had in the storage to gear my barb. Within one hour I was at t8 and now after getting some class uniques and aspects for a few hours. I am doing content easily in t10.

Obviously my paragon and resources are making a huge difference in the leveling process, but other class gear is just simply more optimized for damage. I fully plan on making my barb a boss killer and never bossing on my paladin again.

Making my barb I have had significantly more fun in 4-5 hours than I have had the past week on my Paladin. I still love my paladin and will use it for quick farming, but the goal of playing diablo is to have fun and for me that means dropping Paladin for endgame content.

Didn't get a chance to prog before they closed down the laderboards for tomorrow's patch, but I did finish at #320 (PC) / 353 overall for Paladin using my fully self-made shield charge thorns build.

Current in game screenshot.

Not sure if there's a way to see my build in game since the leaderboard seems to just show top 10 currently, but I'm very happy with this result overall given that I didn't really grind my glyphs super hard (they're at 114 across the board) and I'm nearly sure I could have squeezed another 2-3 tiers out of optimizing my paragon board layout. I didn't use a planner, and the leaderboards don't currently let me bring up my build, so if people are interested I'll write something up when I have more time:

So beyond the flex - why am I posting? Mostly - some thoughts on the general state of paladin:

• We are in a rough spot for overall scaling due to to two things that impact each other:
  • Shields get the armor gem effect. Caster offhands get the weapon gem effect.
  • We're tied for the lowest number of slots for legendary/unique affixes
• That means that unless you're playing a 2h build you're always going to be at least one damage multiplier source behind every single other class in the game, especially given the huge power of gem strength transfigurations on weapons at the high end of play
• That means that to compete Paladin builds have to look for novel damage stacking (see: clash paladin) or they run into "strong early, but taper quickly" issues like wing strike/hammerdin/judgement
• Most of the class' survivability toolkit (and class fantasy) revolve around sword and board
• Glynn's Anvil is broken, but this is an issue for all classes that want to stack resolve.

My pet theory is that because paladin was designed for this new system and released early, Castle was originally going to be the scaling compensation for getting the single damage granting gem slot and that nerfing it as hard as they did to balance it for the old skill system now just means we don't have the scaling power to keep up. I'm sure it'll balance out in future seasons but it's going to be a limitation for the rest of this one.

The other is - consider shield charge as an alternative to clash. I don't think the ceiling is quite as high, but it's way more fun in any content where traversal is a thing and the unscaled "every hit is a block" has some really fun interactions with aspects that don't see a lot of play. I'm hoping that between the changes to Glynn's Anvil in tomorrows patch, and finally getting my gems upgraded from Royal I'll be able to hang around in the top 100-250 range in the second half of the season.

I kinda got stuck on T10, T11'ish.. can do some T12 stuff but am dying a lot. Took a Paladin break and playing Warlock a bit (fun meme D3 Chicken run build, aka lunatic), but somehow do miss my Hammerdin. Any breakthroughs in terms of builds or dmg boosters we didnt know about? I'm sure its possible with god like Gear.. but hey.. not everyone has god like gear

Try it out if you are playing clash or any other build that stacks resolve. Made T12 meph and pushing pit 125 way, way easier for me. Actually being able to tank things was a game changer and let me drop some life on jewelry to pick up more damage.

https://preview.redd.it/35uryzpfry0h1.png?width=887&format=png&auto=webp&s=ca8dea64abee2b8ef3e15230f088c32d0315e3fc

So, I went against the grain and said I wanted Brandish, but man o man it's been a weird trip to T12. As it is, I am currently jam stuck in T11, I have the damage, but most things 1 shot me, and what doesnt makes me slowly trickle to death (not very fun).

https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/p9g1kc03

I include the build planner I have, and hopefully I can get some ideas on survivability?

Note: I have seen that some people run Angelic Masterwork over Indomitable, would that make sense even if I am running Shield Bearer?

And I suppose its fair to ask, is Shield Bearer, and by extension redirected force even worth it? from what I can tell, block chance is pretty rough (noticeable since Im actively buffing it up via Aegis).

Anywho, I'll take any advice on what to do. Gotten pretty far, but I think with some survivability I can almost catch up to hammer.

How do those compare in terms of Bossing and Farming/Pushing?

Leader board is Zenith higher but he only seems to fight butcher at 120 for 15mins.

I wonder which is the better build in general. Zenith is cool but sometimes clunky with down times even with set bonus.

I'm currently hitting a softwall at T7.

So i wonder if I should swap to zeal.

Paladin is pushing T12 while the barb is speed farming T12, are we missing something here? Like maybe can we use overpower skill? Or some combination that'll put the paladins around T130

Hey guys. Recently got the expansion and looking to try out Paladin. I'm just looking at the different builds to get a baseline on the character and I notice they don't seem to have S tier builds on the usual sites (mobalytics), only A rank . Did they get nerfed or something? I see things like WW Barb high S tier. Just wondering if I am missing anything as I dont like the idea of devoting time to a character that doesn't seem to have any max potential.

Thanks in advance

Hello everyone,

I've always tended to shut my brain off and follow some top tier build just to wind down killing mobs. This season with the skill tree rework I decided to do something a bit outside of my comfort zone.

I've already defeated Lilith on VIII (not sure if it's relevant info. but thought might add)

However, I keep dying to elites in Tier 90 Pit.
When I attack stuff, my toughness gets from the in-town 768K to 2.2M.
I have a fortify as one of the core mechanics of the build, IngniQue to maintain Druid's Earthen Bulwark, DR and DR from Close etc. And I still keep dying to elites in T90.
Here's my build link.

Please let me know how can I improve this, it would also be awesome if you explain how this improvement works (because I'm a noob and I want to better understand the game's mechanics)

I've been crafting 50 rings into uniques and have yet to see argent veil. Was this removed as a ring or what

Is there a solid paladin build for endgame this season? So far the discussion is not inspiring confidence that this class will not be stuck without a really good build for pushing or endgame.

Currently playing wing strike build and i have all stats on my charms. I do not know if disciple skill bonus increase the damage of wing strikes or just extends the duration of arbiter. I couldnt find any info on web, thanks for the help guys.

I’m using defiance aura, with the 15% maximum life passive, on the toolbar, off the toolbar, active, inactive just passive, I’m not seeing any change to my HP. Am I doing something wrong?