Here's the quick forewarning: this is an expensive build and is one that requires being glitch rushed and chaosed to use (because of the extremely low strength and dexterity of the build). This build is also incredibly inadequate for PvM soloing, so don't bother expecting to be able to clear rooms full of hell difficulty monsters just by walking through it. That being said, it kicks the shit out of every caster I've dueled and I'd highly recommend it to anyone wanting to kill their best friend's godly sorc/bonemancer/hammerdin/bowazon/etc. This build also does fairly well versus melee characters, however you will probably be bitched at because they can usually absorb a larger amount of damage and therefore you will be required to run from them as strategy in duels (unless their character is built wrong in which case a few quick charges will do the trick).

Now here's how it's done:

1) Stats: (without gear on)
Strength: 32
Dexterity: 30
Vitality: XXX (Everything else here)
Energy: 15 (base)

***This is based on the idea of having a +20 stat annihilus and a +20 stat paladin torch. If you do not have these two charms or do not have +20 stat ones, simply add supplemental points into strength and dexterity until reaching 72 strength and 70 dexterity***

2) Gear: (the reason why your stats can be so pushed into vitality like that)

Helmet: Kira's Guardian (Um'ed, preferably starting w/ a 70res one to allow for a 85% res all boost here)
Amulet: Mara's Kaleidoscope
Armor: Dragon Dusk Shroud (if you choose archon for the look your stats will be severely altered because of the difference in strength requirement)
Shield: Dragon Paladin Shield (use one with high +resists, mine has +45 and is a guilded shield... The best choice would be a sacred targe)
Switch Shield: Spirit Shield (MUST be in a paladin shield with low strength requirements!)
Weapon: Hand of Justice Berzerker Axe (Berzerker axe is easier to use than a phase blade because of dexterity requirements of a phase blade, it is a viable secondary option though)
Switch Weapon: Call to Arms (for battle orders)
Ring1: Ravenfrost (+20 dex is a must to supplement the low dexterity of the build!) *Ring1 Alternatives: Dwarf Star, Wisp Projector (absorb, if you feel like being lazy and just standing still while your elemental opponents die around you.)
Ring2: Bul-Kathos Wedding Band (% irrelivant) *Ring2 Alternatives: Ravenfrost (with +20 dexterity for added blocking and/or attack rating, Dwarf Star[sorb], Wisp Projector [sorb])
Gloves: Bloodfist (Upgraded preferred for more defense)
Belt: Verdungo's Hearty Cord (*This is your only source of damage reduction! 15%DR is a MUST to handle any kind of physical attack) *Belt Alternative: Thundergod's Vigor [sorb]
Boots: Sandstorm Treck (+str is irrelivant, +vit will be important though) *Boots Alternative: Infernostride [sorb]

Explanation of +str gear and it's relevance to using such low strength:
32 Base Strength (or 72 without annihilus or hellfire)
+20 annihilus (optional)
+20 hellfire torch (optional)
+5 mara's kaleidoscope
net total 77 str, just enough to equip a dusk shroud
+3-5 dragon mod1, +0.375 str per level dragon mod2 (26.255str at clvl 70, which is the level you can equip annihilus)
net total above the required 86 or 89 str for a dragon shield
+3-5 dragon mod1, +0.375 str per level dragon mod2
net total 139str, just enough to equip the 138 str required berzerker axe hand of justice
+15 sandstorm trek (safety, incase your item choices require a slight bit more str)

3) Skills:
Combat Skills | Defensive Auras | Offensive Auras
Resist Fire: Maxed (passive bonus to holy fire aura damage)
Salvation: Maxed (passive bonus to holy fire aura damage)
Conviction: Maxed (active cutting of enemy resistances)
Holy Shield: Maxed (to BLOCK, silly!)
Charge: 10 (main attack and method of any type of movement in duels)
Smite: 1 (can be alternated with charge in order to create a better melee killer)
*You MUST use at least an annihilus charm and the battle command from a call to arms in order to force conviction to reach it's maximum potential of -150% enemy resistances at level 25, if you have a paladin torch as well disregard this as it will not apply to your character)

4) Hotkeys:
F1: Smite (L-Click)
F2: Charge (L-Click)
F3: Salvation
F4: Conviction (activated about 95% of duels)
F5: Holy Shield
F6: Battle Command (Skill granted by an item: Call to Arms)
F7: Battle Orders (Skill granded by an item: Call to Arms)
F8: Unused

5) Charms:
*No +paladin skill charms are worth a damn on this build, so don't waste your time or money trading for them, I've tried all of them*
+20life sc's (less important)
+resist all charms (LOTS of these, my character gains 140% resist all from charms in his inventory)
2x 5%faster hit recovery small charms (or an equivalent of 6%FHR from charms)

6) Final Statistics: (with the above listed gear on my level 88 Auradin, not the alternatives listed for absorbing)
Strength: 171
Dexterity: 111
Vitality: 562
Energy: 69

Health Points: 3295 (with a 6bo cta, but without any +life charms!)
Mana: 502 (with a 6bo cta, but without any +mana charms or points in energy!)
Note: health and mana points listed are using the full gear listed by this guide and a 20 stat annihilus and 20 stat paladin torch, no other +life/mana charms.
Charge Damage: around 5600
FHR: 90% (4-frames)
FBR: 2-frames
Resist All: 335% (235% in hell difficulty)

Resists Break Down:
Your visually available resist in the character screen: (hell difficulty)
Fire: 85% (added 10% passive bonus from maxing resist fire)
Cold: 75%
Lightning: 85% (each of the two dragon pieces adds +5% to maximum lighting resistance)
Poison: 75%
Your ACTUAL resists: (with the math... important in pvp to counteract resistance cutting effects of - enemy resistance items and skills)
-100% resist all base of hell difficulty
+30% resist all from the anya quests
+85% kira's
+30% mara's
+45% dragon shield
(currently at a net total of +95% resist all)
+20% annihilus
+20% hellfire torch
(currently at a net total of +135% resist all)
+x to 100% from random resist all charms
(currently at a net total of +235% resist all)
*reasons for gathering so much resistance: (possible scenarios)
FoH paladin vs you:
your total lightning resistance: 235
-150 from conviction (theirs will most likely dominate yours! Therefore:
+111 from salvation
-25 from foh stick
-25 from griffon's
(currently at a net total of +145% resist lightning (capped at +85%) leaving you with quite a formidable defense against them. *HOWEVER they can kill you quickly when they have conviction on you! Stay out of the range of conviction to kill foh paladins with ease!)
SPECIAL NOTE IN PVP: When fighting against another character who is also casting conviction ONLY the player's conviction which is of a HIGHER LEVEL will take effect! The other player's conviction skill will be "dominated" over and will be rendered useless! In such cases when your conviction is dominated over by another player's conviction (can only occur against another paladin; possibly another auradin, foh paladin, or a vengeance paladin)
Any sorceress vs you:
-5 facet in orb
-5 or 10, facets in helm (-25 if lightning sorc using griffons)
-0 or 20, spirit monarch or 4x facet monarch
-45 infinity use instead of an orb/shield combo for light sorcs (conviction from a merc using infinity is too low to dominate over yours and will not affect you.)
-150 skills (if cold)
(currently at a net total possibly as low as +40% cold resist, +85% (capped) lightning resist and +85% (capped) fire resist)
Strategy vs Sorceresses: their resists cutting agents CANNOT penetrate your resists enough to kill you before you kill them if you simply charge lock them and bash their heads in with physical violence and fiery justice (play on hand of justice )

To move quickly in duels and avoid being damaged by attacks hold down shift and use the charge skill to run long distances in much shorter times. This can be used to set up attack routes or flee oncoming attacks. My preference is to circle an opponent that has minions or fodder hierlings with charge until the holy fire destroys it/them and at that point direct all attention to charge-locking the central caster character

Fhr Break Points (borrowed from McNabb's Zealot guide)

Frames.....Fhr needed
9.........|0
8.........|7
7.........|15
6.........|27
5.........|48
4.........|86
3.........|200

your goal is to reach for the 4 frame fhr
(with gear alone you have 80fhr, with the addition of two small fhr charms you have 90, therefore meeting the 4-frame cut off)

Fbr Break Points (borrowed from Mc Nabb's Zealot Guide)

Without Holy Shield
Frames.....Fbr needed
5.........|0
4.........|13
3.........|32
2.........|86
1.........|600

with Holy Shield
Frames.....Fbr needed
2.........|0
1.........|86

your only real goal here is to realize how helpful using holy shield is, i just wanted to include it for those who dont think using hs is worth it
(with gear and holy shield activated you automatically have 2-frame FBR, no need to worry there)

I hope everyone enjoys this guide as it took me quite some time to write up and a little experimentation on my auradin to figure everything out. Good luck with your characters and I did my best to explain and answer any possible questions, if I missed something please let me know and I'll address it!

If a mod could sticky this, more people could take a look at it. Thanks for everyone's time in reading it and feel free to give me some feedback.

This post was edited by ItalianStallion on Nov 30 2005 03:49am

Nice guide and clearly written, I like the layout.

Fire auradins are fun. Imo much better than Dreamers or dream/dragon "hybrids".

For helm I think CoA is nice. Last ladder my teammate got godly fire auradin, and he used CoA with 2x 5/-5 fire facets. And instead um there is always better option to use 15allres/adds jewel.

About hotkeys, remap keys to qwertyasdfzcxv etc, it's much easier/faster to use skills then.

I think the str for CoA ain't too hard to obtain. At lvl 93 that's easy to lvl you get 40str from dragon.
Anni+Torch+Base+Dragon+Dragon+Treks+Maras+Dracs
20+20+20+40+40+15+5+15 = 175str, enough for CoA with base str.

This is my preference:
Helmet: CoA 2x firefacet. (+kiras with 30litres/adds rare jewel)
Amulet: Mara's Kaleidoscope
Armor: Dragon
Shield: Dragon +45 res
Weapon: Hand of Justice Zerker
Ring1: Raven
Ring2: BK/sorb ring
Gloves: Dracs/good craft gloves
Belt: Verdungo's/TG
Boots: Treks

This post was edited by Zephiris on Nov 30 2005 04:23am

I have been waiting for a guild of auradin
I always wondered
gonna copy ur build in word documents
goddamn nice

this should get stickied
don't got any bad comments on it

but I do wonder how u kill ele druids..

i like this guide... eay to understand... have you tried it?

Ofcourse he tried it, there is no point making a guide if you haven't played with the char first like atleast a month. I dueled every day and learned everything about wwsins for one year before making my guide.

Elemental druids are covered in this statement. Usually by the time you've charge-circled them once their bear, spirit and elemental shield are all dead; leaving them completely exposed to a simple fury of charges to finish them off.


The choice of kira's guardian instead of CoA is for better resists vs foh AND cold sorcs especially. As well as the fact that kira's supplies a cannot be frozen mod, which is appreciable when you want to switch rings out and whatnot. As far as dracul's grasp goes, charge is a fast killing skill and usually the life tap mod would not even take effect during a duel at it's rate... I've tried it too
Here's something else to think about:
with the gear I supplied in the guide you have 90%fhr (hits 4-frame at 86%)
if remove kira's: -20%
if remove bloodfist: -30%
if add CoA: +30%
if add dracul's: +0
this leaves you almost a full 20%fhr short of the breakpoint that would need to be made up by wasting another 4 inventory slots on fhr small charms... just something to think about.

Well, yeah 86fhr bp is useful, maybe bloodfists better, but still you could lose the kiras for coa imho . 15 more dr is nice add. This build has anyway probs vs melee, cold sorcs shouldn't be too difficult with it, I never seen stacking cold res really useful. Socket coa with 2x 30%litres/++adds rare jewels if you want more overstack vs foh. And if using CoA and bloodfists it frees you from using 2x fhr small charms means 40 life more. Also +1 skill in it makes up for not having cannot be frozen mod, so you can use raven. the 20dex in raven covers up the ~45 life that bkring gives that bo doesn't affect.

I gave dueling with him another try and the only character type I had a problem killing were smiters, some became annoying so I just ran circles around them till they died and would leave me alone and let me continue dueling others. I killed about 10 barbs, 4 or 5 zealots and a ww sin with relative ease. Cold sorc wasn't much of a problem, but I'd prefer to retain the extra resists. Bow amazon wasn't hard either. Bone necro was a joke. Eledruid was interesting because I was dueling on probably the most crater-filled blood moor ever and it interrupted my charge runs, in any relatively open area we came to he was done for. CS zon was fairly laughable as well. Trappers were a push over. Overall it was a good time

This post was edited by ItalianStallion on Nov 30 2005 06:33pm

C'mon guys! I need feedback!

nice guide im thinkign about making 1 soon =P. about how much damage did u do?? even though u cant see it. like did u test on a friend??

EDIT: Plus doesnt skill charms that boosts your conviction up higher good?? or should i just keep them in stash??

This post was edited by Project-EVA on Dec 2 2005 12:31am