Zeb's Multi-hybrid Paladin Guide - Topic

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Oct 10 2011 11:45pm

Zeb's Multi-Hybrid Paladin Guide

Introduction:

Hello this is my first guide and I will be laying out my version of the hammer/bow/smite/charge paladin. I'm sure I didn't create this build but I would like to be the one to post it's official guide. I have made this on West Ladder, so feel free to replace the recommended gear with your duped/hacked items if it benefits the build. This build is also with GM dueling in mind. Thanks to all who gave their input for the first version.

This paladin utilizes a balance of 4 attacks to kill his opponents, giving the player many approaches to dueling. This character fills in the weaknesses of smiters and hammerdins with a strong bow attack that forces your opponent to get close to you. This bow attack is not just an annoyance, it will actually cause major damage in little time if your opponent does not come closer to you (which is exactly what you want them to do).
The principle is simple:
Bow - Long range
Hammer - Close to Mid range
Smite - Short range
Charge - Any range
Finding the effective balance between these 4 attacks will make your pally a dangerous adversary for virtually every dueling class. After dueling for a couple months with this build, I realized that 4 mediocre attacks are far better than 2 strong attacks.

Here are the approximate stats this pally will have when using his vs all setup.

Life: 4k
Mana: 700-750
Smite LCS with Grief Dmg: 472-941
Hammer Dmg: 7629-7718
Bow Dmg: 100-2400 (+84% Deadly Strike)
Charge Dmg with Grief: 1500-2100 (+71% Deadly Strike)
9 (max) Frame Bow IAS
Max Smite IAS
38% DR
75% Block
75 FCR
100 FHR (Allows the 86 Breakpoint with different setups)
242 Fire Res
278 Cold Res
303 Light Res
222 Poison Res

Gear:

This is my Main Gear setup: I recommend using the same items with better stats

COA: I socketed with a Ber and a 59ar/8dex/3 life rep/-req jewel

Fortitude Dusk Shroud: The ED makes my bow much stronger, 30 all res, life, and max light res is perfect for this build. Teleport is not needed on this build with a few exceptions listed below.

Grief PB: I used a 34/399 but really any grief will do.

Spirit ST with 45 base Res: Perfect for this build for obvious reasons: Fcr/Fhr/life/mana/res/block

Dungoes: Gives the xtra DR needed to go up against physical damage opponents.

Rare Gloves: 20ias/15str/12dex/40mana/20Cr/29Fr - This gives me the ias needed for mas bow attack speed. Extra stats ofc help too!

Goreriders: I've debated using these but since so many of my attacks benefit from them, I decided to keep them on.

Highlords Wrath: 1 skills 20 ias needed for breakpoint, light res, Deadly Strike!!

Ring #1: 10fcr/80ar/12dex/38life/82 mana/21Light res
Ring #2: 10fcr/101ar/17str/40life/6mana

Widowmaker with UM rune: This is on switch most of the time. Will reach the 9 frame ias which is quite fast for a pally!

Inventory:
2x 38 life Pcombs
6x 3/19/20 scs
1x 3/17/20
12x 20/5 scs
1x 5fhr/5@ sc
2x 20/11 cold scs
1x 20/11 Light res sc
1x 20/11 Fire res sc
Horadric Cube with CTA - Yes you WILL be BOing from your cube in your inventory.
Note* keeping your CTA, arachs and an SOJ in your cube will allow you a mini prebuff each time you BO. It's well worth the xtra life!

In Stash:
Enigma: I use for certain occasions such as vs druids and with hdin setup.
Kiras UM'd: 85 @res!
Arachnids Mesh: When you need xtra fcr and don't need DR. Also used for cube prebuff.
HOTO: For hdin setup
Spirit ST: For cta switch on hdin setup
Tgods: vs BM
SOJ: used for Cube BO buff
Rfrost: For cold sorcs or vs BM
Dwarf, Wisp: Sorb!
Demon Limb: More AR doesnt' hurt.

Skills:
Max Hammer
Max Vigor
Max Blessed Aim
Max Concentration
1 pt Holy Shield
1 pt Salvation
Rest into Fanaticism (maxes @ lvl 98)

Strategies:

The basic Dueling strategy with this character is to lure your opponent with your bow into your hammers and/or Smite. OR, Charge them head on and bow while they avoid you, then hammer once they realize you have a freaking bow. Duels don't always go as planned, so much of the time, you have to use an unpredictable combination of these tactics. I never bow anyone if they're on my screen unless I KNOW they cannot get to me within half a second. You don't want to be caught with your bow out and your opponent pummeling you up close. You will have to practice weapon switching effectively, which can take time.

This build will use 9 hotkeys. Keep in mind once you set the keys up for bow switch (Bow on left, Fanat on right) you wont' need to change them after you switch weapons. This is my setup:
A- hammer
S- charge
D- Teleport (when I have nigma on)
F- Concentration
W- Weapon Switch
E- Vigor
R- Smite
G- Fanat
Z- Bow
Space- Shift (stand still) Much easier to use on Spacebar than Shift IMO

You will be switching skills a LOT. Just running, laying hammers, shooting bow, then smiting requires 8 hotkeys. Will take time to get used to, but the reward is worth it.

Class Specific Dueling Strategies: I will list gear only if it's different than my above setup.

Amazons

Bow (Easy to Moderate, rarely Hard) - You can keep your normal setup 95% of the time. If they're good, put on Enigma and BerCham Coa and prepare for a diffcult fight. Obv we want to charge them down when they have their bow out. If you find yourself charging without making any progress, a great trick I've learned is once they swtich to java, move slightly to one direction, switch to bow. Fire a couple arrows, then switch and immediately charge them. By the time they realize you have hurt them with their bow, they'll switch to their bow and meet your charge. Basically you have the advantage when it's your bow vs their java. You have the advantage when it's your charge vs their bow. Predicting when you have the advantage is the key to winning, but Most of the time you can dictate what form of attack the bowzon will attempt.

Java (Easy) - Throw on Tgods or just charge away, bow, charge away, bow. Go toe to toe with Smite. Charge/smite. Lots of ways to kill them!

Assassins:

Trapper (Easy) - You can use Tgods, but the 5% light res increase from Fort is usually enough. These are easy duels. You have range advantage and if they get close, just charge them. I've gone entire duels without seeing the sin on my screen because my bow takes them out.

Hybrid Trapper (Moderate to Slightly Hard) - If they have a powerful lightning attack throw on Tgods. If they are more WW oriented, the regular setup is fine. Luckily your arrow range > trap range, so they will be forced to come to you. After you have thrown a few arrows at them and you know they're on the offensive, Hammer and charge randomly, but away from them. This keeps you away from their traps and if they tele WW you, they will most likely get hit by a hammer. Only smite when you know their trajectory and when there are no traps around. Using the bow/hammer/charge away/hammer tactic keeps their traps away from you and wittles away at their health. Super offensive sins are slightly easier because they won't be laying traps ahead of themselves as often and you can use your smite more often. Defensive sins are annoying but, charge desynch works wonders. I've beaten many sins by simply using the tactive above, and instead of charging away, I'll head towards them and charge/smite/hammer. It throws them off usually. Charge is not to be underestimated vs sins. They need time to cast traps/shadow/MB and it's the perfect time to use a surprise charge, as long as it's not in the middle of their traps.

Ghost (Easy to Moderate) - Same strategy as hybrid Trapper, except that traps don't hurt

Kicker (Very Easy) Yes they're still around. You can Smite or Hammer them easily.

Barbarians

BVC's (Easy to Moderate) - This is a great anti-barb paladin! If you are familiar with hdin vs bvc, this will be a cakewalk. Vs most barbs you can stand and hammer and smite as they walk through you. Lay hammers, bow ( if they're offscreen) stay mobile. If they WW through you, smite. If they WW clip you, hammer. I charge around a lot laying hammers and smiting when they get close. It's true that Bvc's have better weapon range, but if they try to clip you, hammers will destroy them. Their only hope is to get in a good Tele-Whirl but as long as you have hammers spinning all over, they will never get the best of you. With maxblock, 38 DR, and effective attacks at all ranges, barbs generally don't stand a chance.

BVA (Easy) With less life than normal Bvc's these guys will just go down faster. Since none of your attacks can be blocked, they will have no choice but to go two weapons.

BvB (Easy) widow >

Druids

Wind (Moderate-Hard) - Equip Enigma and BerCham COA. This can be a tricky duel, and it all depends on the skill level of the druid. To kill you, the druid must either tele-stomp on top of you, or get in close enough for nadoes. We want as many of his minions gone as possible before he does either of these things. To accomplish this we can lay hammers around us, staying mobile while we observe the druid's patterns. A great tactic is to hammer a few times, then move slightly to the right where the hammers will land and repeat. The lines up the hammers to hit the druid if he attempts to stomp you. Eventually the druid will make his move, and you have to always be ready for it. If they telestomp on top of you, start shift+smiting directly above your head until you have the druid Namelocked. This takes lots of practice but you should be able to do this in a split second. If your smite throws the druid back, immediately charge him, then switch back to smite if he hits an obstacle. Usually the initial smite above your head will take out a minion and in that time, you should have found the druid's name to Namelock. Druids that divebomb (tele in, nado once, tele out) or tele close to you but not on top of you will post bigger threats. In these cases you have to stay mobile and look for opportunities to target the druid apart from his minions and charge. While the bow seems useless, it actually serves a purpose by forcing the druid to recast his minions or forcing him to be more offensive. It's definitely an art to defeat a druid with this build, but once you get used to it, they are actually one of the more enjoyable duels. I put the learning curve on par with using a nec vs a druid.

Necromancers

Bone Necros (Moderate to Hard): If the nec agrees to not using bone prison, then you can use the normal setup with fort. Necs are probably our worst enemies because of their ability to do big fast damage while being very nimble. The main thing is getting to them first. I charge around a bit, keeping close to the walls if possible to avoid spirit trains. If they are offensive, I usually bow them until they get on my screen, then switch to hammers or charge if I can get a fast NL on them. You can duel them like a hdin or a smiter/charge. Charge definitely works if you can pull off a nice NL and switch to smite. Most good necs will be very fast and won't keep a NL charge on the for long. The best way to beat them imo is be unpreditcable and use every skill as much as possible. The bow can be used at a distance to keep them from spamming spirits from either side of the moor and pressure them to show up on your screen so you can lock onto them. If they are BM, grab your enigma or throw on your hdin setup and desynch hammer/tele-stomp them. There's really no set way that is more effective than another, again it depends on the skill level of the nec.

Paladins

Hammerdins: (Easy to Moderate) Most of the time these are easy. Since you have homing arrows, their only advantage is desynching, especially if they can pull off a good desynch Tele+hammer. The key to this duel is just to stay mobile and don't make yourself an easy target. Bow them when you KNOW they aren't desynching close to you. Lay hammers around, and be ready to shift smite upwards for their tele-stomp. As long as you can avoid their desynch attacks, the duel is a piece of cake. Most of the time I just putz around and wait for them to tele stomp me then just smite them to death. Good Desynching hdins will be harder, but as long as you stay mobile and keep the pressure on with the bow, they'll either lose patience and tele-stomp you (=dead), or just run to town. Fast AA hdins with mercs will mostly likely kill you because they are able to telestomp instantly from anywhere on the map, preventing you from using your bow.

Smiters: (Easy to Moderate) As long as these guys don't jump you, its easy. Try to get south of them and hammer away. You can smite them as long as you have hammers around you for them to run into. If they charge in, get hit by hammers, and charge out, feel free to switch to bow to entice them to come back and eat more hammers. Most smiter duels I end up killing them with smite after they've eaten 2 hammers. Tele-Smiters might be difficult if they catch you off guard, However, hammers>smite as long as they don't blindspot tele/smite, so just stay mobile so they don't get that chance.

Chargers: (Easy) Hammer!

V/T's (Moderate): Their FOH will not hurt much at all, so either charge them if they're close FOHing you, or Bow when they're FOHing from far away. Either way they'll realize fast that you will do more dmg with bow than they will with FOH. Once this happens, they'll try to close the gap fast, but you'll be ready for them with hammers. From now on it will be you vs their smite. I usually bow them until they charge close to me, then charge at them, which usually lands a hit, followed up by hammers (if it's a south-north attack, I generally try to stay under them) So they'll charge in when they see arrows, then switch to smite when they've been hit by your charge, then get hammered to death. You can play with my ways to defeat FOH's!

Auradins/FOH (Easy): Throw on Tgods, bow, charge, smite. Usually in that order

Sorceress :

Since you have stacked res and many ways to negate their damage, it CAN be an easy duel, however I prefer dueling GM so these setups will keep that in mind.

Blizz Sorc (Moderate) I throw on kiras and a rfrost. Bow them when they're far away, charge when they get in your screen but try to charge when they're not standing in their blizz. Bow will make them get closer than normal since it has longer range than Blizz, making it easy to get a good charge lock on them. Random hammers are good to put on pressure as well. If they're ES they'll do less damage, but you'll need to pull off a few good hits to kill them. With our poison charm and open wounds it really makes the bow more than just an annoyance to all sorcs.

FB sorc (Moderate) I use arachnids and an soj to replace the dex ring, but normal setup also works. Hammers will work slightly better than vs blizz sorcs since fb sorcs are all over the place. Bow will not be as effective since fb's can hit you from more than a screen away. This duel is mostly a combo of all your attacks, with lots of avoidance maneuvers. Make them chase you and it should be easier. You are basically just doing what you can to get them on your screen so you can charge them. Feel free to dissapear in synch until you reach them.

Light/Nova Sorc (Easy) Use Tgods if you want. The easy sorc duel. They just don't dish out the damage to hurt you much, at least before you kill them first. You can use bow a lot depending on their play style.

So, that's the build. In my 11 years playing D2 this has been among the top 3 most fun classes to duel with and exceeded all my expectations in effectiveness.
I realize some have their doubts, so if you're able to get to West Ladder (soon to be NL) I'd look forward to some GM dueling.

Please pose your suggestions and comments politely. I put in a lot of time to make this build effective and also time to write this guide. I'm open to all suggestions as long as they are constructive, not condescending.

Thanks all!