Paladin in armor is a little slower than other classes to level up, his beginnings will be a little less easy, at least very early in the game, since you have to start in melee with Zeal and then change build along the way. Later on, the Paladin becomes a very robust war machine that will harvest everything with the most abused build of the game: the Hammerdin, which will send swarms of magic Blessed Hammers flying in all directions, and will finish the rare monsters immune to magic with something else. He's a sure bet both solo and in a group with his auras that will strengthen him and his companions, and that can also be used to clean up bodies on the ground, as well as regenerate mana, or even improve resistance if survival becomes a problem. It almost makes you wonder what they can't do. He is also very good at farming magical equipment. It also has what is considered the best build in the game for Uber bosses, the most difficult element of the game in PvE, along with Smite Build. This is probably the best choice for a new player, especially if you plan to play alone or are afraid of getting stuck somewhere. Many wouldn't hesitate to put it at the top of this ranking, and it would be easily defended.

In Diablo 2 Resurrected, there are several playable Paladin builds that are viable for various purposes, including solo play, group play, and end-game content. Here are some of the most popular Paladin builds:

• Hammerdin: This build focuses on the Paladin's Hammer spell and is one of the most popular and versatile builds. It deals high area-of-effect damage and can be used for both solo play and group play. It requires a high level of mana regeneration to sustain the spell, so it is recommended to invest in skills such as Blessed Hammer and Concentration.

• Smite Paladin: The Smite Paladin, also known as the Smiter, is a popular build in Diablo 2 that has been around for many years. This build is particularly effective at killing Bosses, especially Ubers, making it an ideal choice for farming Hellfire Torches. Smite is a powerful single target Skill that can deal a significant amount of damage to even the toughest demons. One of the benefits of this skill is that it always hits regardless of Attack Rating, making it easy to use.

• Zealot Paladin: This build focuses on the Paladin's melee combat abilities and is ideal for players who prefer a more traditional playstyle. It relies on the Zeal skill to attack quickly and deal high damage with a weapon. The build is effective for solo play, but may struggle in group play due to the high single-target focus.

• Avenger Paladin: This build focuses on the Paladin's Vengeance skill and is effective against all types of enemies. It deals high elemental damage and can be used for both solo play and group play. It requires a high level of elemental damage gear and skills such as Conviction to be effective.

• Holy Freeze Paladin: This build focuses on the Paladin's Holy Freeze aura, which slows down enemies and makes it easier to hit them. It is effective for solo play and group play, as it provides support for other players by making it easier to control large groups of enemies. It requires skills such as Vigor and Charge to close the distance quickly and deal damage.

• Fist of the Heavens Paladin: This build focuses on the Paladin's Fist of the Heavens spell, which deals high lightning damage to a single target. It is effective for solo play and group play and requires a high level of mana regeneration to sustain the spell.

• Dream Paladin: The Dream Paladin, also known as the Tesladin, is an incredibly powerful build that plays like a dream. With a Level 30 Holy Shock Aura from both a Dream Helmet and Dream Shield, this Paladin can quickly and easily clear all content in the game. One of the standout features of the Dream Paladin is its ability to vaporize everything it touches, and even things it doesn't touch. This build is particularly effective when jumping directly into the fray and melting monsters with reckless abandon.

• Holy Fire Paladin: The Holy Fire Paladin is an excellent build for players looking to deal massive amounts of Fire Damage. With the Holy Fire Aura, your attacks are imbued with significant amounts of Fire Damage, making this build ideal for taking down enemies weak to Fire. The Holy Fire Paladin is an excellent choice for players who enjoy playing as a Paladin and want to focus on dealing massive amounts of damage with their attacks.

In Diablo 2 Resurrected, there are many viable Paladin builds that can be effective depending on your playstyle and preferred role in a party. In addition, since each zone and even different monsters have different characteristics in Diablo 2, each build has different advantages and disadvantages at different stages or arena of the game. Therefore, below we will list the best Paladin builds according to this principle, as well as break down the stats, skills, gears for each build.. And you can check out more D2R Paladin guide here.

Best D2R Paladin Builds for Ladder Start - Fist of the Heavens Paladin Builds (FoH Paladin)

With the skill changes in Diablo 2 Reusrrected, The FOH Paladin has become one of the best starter build in Diablo 2 Resurrected, since the main attack deals high damage even without good armor.

Pros & Cons

• + Excellent Mobility

• + Rapid-fire Play Style

• + Viable in areas that are level 85

• - Demands a High APM

• - Repeated Use of Skill

• - Difficulty in Skill Mechanics

Attributes

• Strength: When allocating stat points into Strength, it's essential to allocate enough to equip all of your gear.

• Dexterity: To achieve a 75% maximum chance to block, a FOH paladin typically requires between 130 and 170 total Dexterity.

• Vitality: After meeting the requirements for Strength, Dexterity, and Energy, any remaining stat points should be allocated into Vitality.

• Energy: It's generally not recommended to allocate any points to Energy for a Paladin character.

Skills

A phenomenally adaptable Elite Sniper and Density Destroyer with potent support skills, the Fist of the Heavens Paladin (FoHdin) is a formidable support class.

• Blessed Hammer (20)

• Blessed Aim (20)

• Concentration (20)

• Vigor (20)

• Holy Shield (20)

• Charge (1)

• Smite (1)

• Cleansing (1)

• Redemption (1)

• Salvation (1)

• Fanaticism (1)

Best Equipment Items Recommend

• The Fist of the Heavens Paladin is a powerful build in Diablo 2 Resurrected that relies on the Fist of the Heavens spell to deal high lightning damage to a single target. Here are some gear suggestions for this build:

• Weapon: The best weapon for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin is the Hoto (Heart of the Oak) runeword. It provides bonuses to all skills, mana regeneration, and faster cast rate, making it an ideal choice for this build.

• Shield: The ideal shield for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin is the Spirit runeword. It provides bonuses to all skills, faster cast rate, and mana regeneration. The high resistance and faster hit recovery are also valuable stats.

• Armor: The ideal armor for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin is the Enigma runeword. It provides bonuses to all skills, faster run/walk, and teleport. The additional strength, vitality, and resistance bonuses are also valuable.

• Helmet: The ideal helmet for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin is the Harlequin Crest (Shako) unique helmet. It provides bonuses to all skills, life, mana, and faster hit recovery. The additional resistances and magic find are also valuable stats.

• Amulet: The ideal amulet for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin is the Mara's Kaleidoscope unique amulet. It provides bonuses to all skills, resistances, and stats such as mana, life, and strength.

• Rings: The ideal rings for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin are the Stone of Jordan (SoJ) unique rings. They provide bonuses to all skills, mana, and a bonus to maximum mana, making it easier to sustain the spell.

• Belt: The ideal belt for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin is the Arachnid Mesh unique belt. It provides bonuses to all skills, faster cast rate, and additional mana.

• Gloves: The ideal gloves for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin are Magefist unique gloves. They provide faster cast rate, mana regeneration, and additional fire damage.

• Boots: The ideal boots for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin are War Travele runique boots. They provide faster run/walk, magic find, and additional damage.

Overall, the gear for a Fist of the Heavens Paladin should focus on increasing the Paladin's skill levels, mana regeneration, faster cast rate, resistance, and survivability. Keep in mind that some of these Diablo 2 items for sale may be difficult to obtain, especially at the start of the game.

The Paladin class offers many builds, but one of the most remembered and emblematic is Hammerdin. Maybe it is because of its satisfying area damage, its resistances or its handful of auras that give us numerous buffs of great help, what is clear is that this is one of the best builds for this character. In this Paladin build, we are equipped with a flail and a shield. We use the shield for defense, increasing our block chance to 75%. The weapon is again not actively used to strike. Instead, we deal damage with the Blessed Hammer ability. With this magical attack, several hammers fly in a circle around us, dealing damage to all targets hit. Otherwise, we take advantage of the Paladin and use defensive and offensive auras depending on the situation.

Pros & Cons

• + Almost no creature in the bestiary has any resistance to your hammers

• + Devastates groups of enemies and bosses

• + Easy to equip

• + Very resistant

• + Very mobile

• + Gets tons of mana quite quickly

• - Very repetitive gameplay

• - Enemies sometimes difficult to hit

• - Tough to play in tight spaces

Attributes

• Strength: as much as needed to carry your weapon, shield, and armor pieces.

• Dexterity: very little, just enough to reach the 75% chance of blocking once at high level.

• Vitality: put all your points that are not gone into Strength, this will be your main stat by far. Life is the best defense.

• Energy: You'll probably want to put some points here at first, but in the long run you won't have any to put here.

Skill Points

Blessed Hammer, which delivers Magic Damage, is the major damage-dealing ability of the Hdin. With the dearth of Magic Immune enemies in Diablo 2, this is the optimal damage type. The hammers' extra benefit of delivering 150% damage to undead and demons makes them excellent farmers for the Chaos Sanctuary. Blessed Hammer is usually used in conjunction with Auras like Concentration, making it perfect for multiplayer games.

• Fist of the Heavens (20)

• Holy Bolt (20)

• Holy Shock (20)

• Conviction (Enough to reach -150 Resistance)

• Resist Fire/ Resist Lightning (In pairs of 2 Skill Points)

• Vigor (1)

• Salvation (1)

• Fanaticism (1)

• Holy Shield (1)

Best Equipment Items Recommend

Hammerdin is a very easy character to equip, he performs well even without anything extraordinary, and he is a real monster that nothing can stop if you equip him well. You should equip him as a spellcaster after his respec at level 18. What you will be looking for above all is :

• the "+X to the Blessed Hammer", think of going to see Akara then its equivalent of the following acts to find a Sceptre +3 Blessed Hammer quickly

• +X to skills" whether they are universal bonuses or Paladin bonuses

• Bonuses of elementary resistances

• Fast recovery, Fast spell casting, Fast blocking, Fast walking/running

• Life bonuses

• Search for magical items

Defense on Diablo 2 Resurrected items is not very important until you are at a very high level. You can also do some Runewords to progress faster, especially Stealth (Tal Eth on the Breastplate) and Ancient's Pledge (Ral Ort Tal on the Shield). A little later, Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn on Sword or Shield) is to be done twice, once on your weapon, and the other on your shield. And finally, Lore (Ort Sol on Helmet) remains among the relatively simple words to do during Nightmare mode. You can also do an Insight (Ral Tir Tal Sol, Staff, Hast Weapon) on your mercenary's weapon to get a double aura from him, and almost infinite mana.

The Smiter Paladin is a welcome guest in group play due to its auras and strength as a tank and boss killer. We fight in close combat and defeat bosses faster than any other class. It is one of the best builds against all Uber bosses. Even with fairly inexpensive equipment, we can handle Uber Diablo and Uber Tristram well with the Smiter Paladin build. Therefore, it is often chosen as a starter build for the Paladin and for the hardcore mode.

Pros & Cons

• + High Survivability

• + Budget Starting Gear

• + Effective Against Uber Bosses

• + Excellent Late Game Equipment

• - Early Game Mechanics are Clumsy

• - Has Only One Kind Of Damage

• - Teleport is Required for Excellent Mobility

• - Many Repeated Moves with Little Skill

Attributes

• Strength: Only as much as you need for the equipment.

• Dexterity: We give as many points as we need to get a 75% block chance.

• Vitality: All remaining points are invested in vitality.

• Energy: We do not need energy for this build.

Skill Points

For the Smiter Paladin build, we try to invest 20 points as quickly as possible into our main attack, Smite. We fight with the offensive aura, Might, but switch to a defensive aura if we have problems. Our next goal is to invest 20 points into Fanaticism. After that, we take all useful skills that require only one point and allocate the next points to Holy Shield and Zeal. We allocate the last points to resist lightning, no matter how good our resistance already is. This skill has a hidden bonus. For every 2 points invested, our maximum resistance is increased by 1%.

• Resist Lightning (20)

• Fanaticism (20)

• Smite (20)

• Holy Shield (20)

• Zeal (20)

• Cleansing (1)

• Vigor (1)

• Salvation (1)

• Charge (1)

Smiter Paladin Build BiS Items

Before we are fully equipped with the BiS gear (best D2R items) for the Smiter Paladin build, we look for gear and weapons with the following affixes:

• +X to skill level of the Paladin.

• +X to skill level

• X% chance of devastating blow

• X% chance to open wounds

• X% increased attack speed

• X% increased damage

• X% faster recovery after hit

• All resistance types +X

• +Life

• +mana

The gear for a Smite Paladin should focus on increasing the Paladin's damage, attack speed, resistance, and survivability. Keep in mind that some of these D2 items may be difficult to obtain, especially at the start of the game.

Whenever possible, take a mercenary from Act 2 in Nightmare mode, with the aura of Holy Immobilization. His aura will slow down the monsters, which will help you survive, as well as catch the more troublesome ones like the rogue archers who tend to run away. Until you can recruit this mercenary, use the mercenary from act 2 with the aura of Defiance. All you have to do is transfer his equipment. Don't: All mercenaries are acceptable with the Hammerdin, it is then a question of efficiency or preference.

When facing enemies that are immune to your main damage source, using a Desert Mercenary with the Might Aura can be an effective strategy. The Might Aura provides a significant boost to physical damage, which can be useful when your main damage source is ineffective. To further enhance the Desert Mercenary's effectiveness, it's recommended to equip him with the Insight runeword. Insight not only provides significant bonuses to damage and attack rating but also provides high Mana Regeneration due to the Meditation Aura.

To keep your Mercenary alive reliably, it's important to equip them with gear that provides maximum Resistance, Life Leech, high damage, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction. Additionally, having the Cannot Be Frozen stat is beneficial for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech.