Introduction

The Vindicator/Inquisitor is a hybrid paladin that uses high damage Smite (Vindicator) for close range and high dmg Holy Fire aura (Inquisitor) to tick opponent's life away and force them to play differently.

This build is very good in both BM and GM (depending what you consider to be GM) and should be able to beat any class depending on gear and play skill. It has some similarities with the V/T and has smite vs smite in stash. This build is pretty high cost so expect at least a few thousand FG worth of items. The cost has no real ceiling but you don't have to have the godliest gear to be a threat either.

It's much better vs all than any pure auradin build and you will easily beat the cookie cutter auradins, plus you enjoy all the benefits that an auradin may posess with none of the flaws. I chose this name to differentiate from the cookie cutter builds that you often see. It has a unique playstyle that requires a few hotkeys but is easier to play than a pure V/T. All else equal, the V/I can beat the V/T but it depends on play skill and gear since it's almost a mirror match, with the V/I being easier to pilot in my opinion. This is by far the best Holy Fire paladin build for PVP that I've encountered and I go way back to the glitch aura days, nothing comes close.

- On my current V/I (Morpheus) I'm lvl 98 and with main gear (no prebuff) I have:

4310 life
46 DR
90 FR/85 LR/75 CR/75 PR
+200 stack FR/PR, +260 stack LR and +300 stack CR, with Salv and Kiras the stack is over +300-400

- The off screen smite dmg calc is very high and the aura dmg is only 12% lower than a pure aura build when I equip HOJ.

- in stash i have lvl 44 aura, smite vs smite, and tele smite

Note: I personally do not use cube in my inventory but you can definitely play around with different cube options if you like to do that. You can prebuff cube and use grief/phoenix on switch which is pretty devastating, and there are ways to make that work I just won't go over them in this guide. Give me a break, I still have a 2007 playstyle lol just came back last winter.

Stats
Max block and max life are the goal here so:

Strength: None. If you can't afford good enough +stat gear to equip everything I would say don't go for hybrid builds. You should be able to equip COA. Enigma in stash

Dexterity: Put the bare minimum to achieve max block.

Vitality: After you got max block put the rest in here.

Energy: None. Charging can use up a lot of mana so if you need more mana get it from charms/ring.

Skills

The goal with skills is to get the highest possible smite with the highest possible aura dmg from dragon, with a few 1 point wonder skills as well. LVL 27 for HS is a very acceptable level of smite damage, max block and IAS. Maxing HS doesn't increase your smite much more than necessary for this build, after lvl 27 the returns diminish. Most of the dmg comes from Grief. Cookie cutter auradin has +620% to HF vs +540% for this V/I build, which is only about 12% more aura dmg from synergy. +540% is plenty for pvp. Having a competitive smite dmg for your main attack is gonna be way better. In my opinion this is where the cookie cutter auradin fails and can't come close to the effectiveness and versatility of the V/I.

Smiter Skills:
Smite: Max
Holy Sheild: Goal = LVL 27 after BO, cast this on CTA/Spirit. I have 11 hard points
Fanaticism: Max

Auradin Skills:
Resist Fire: Max (synergy for Holy Fire) +420% HF dmg
Salvation: The rest of your points after maxing and meeting HS and fanat goals (synergy for Holy Fire). At 99 you can have up to 12 base points which = +120% HF dmg
Conviction: Need enough points to get lvl 25 convict after BO. More than that is gonna be a waste.

Other secondary skills:

Resist Lightning: 1 point
Resist Cold: 1 point
Charge: 1 point
Holy Freeze: 1 point (good option to flash this vs smiters)
Prerequisites: 1 point

Gear:

Here's the fun part of the build, the gear! (might be the strongest build in the game that doesn't main enigma)

Most of the time you will be switching to Enigma/Phoenix when you want tele vs BP nec or ppl sorb you. Most other times it's HOJ with +FOH to be more aura focused. If you want to tele faster there is fcr gear but I don't use it a lot.

Main Gear

Helms: CoA berber
Armors: Dragon Dusk or MP
Weapons: Grief PB
Sheilds: Dragon Sacred Targe +45 res
Belts: Dungos
Gloves: 20 Ias Gloves with Stats and res
Boots: Waterwalks, Marrowwalks, Treks or tri res (used to use soul spurs back in the day) I'm currently using Marrowwalks because I have a 25 str ammy and my COA stays on during BO so it's like having another +1 to holy shield for BO. Allows me an extra point into Salv for more aura dmg and tankiness for CTA FOH scenarios
Rings: One Raven for cannot be frozen, and one +20 str high stat/res ring
Amulet: 30 Maras or +Pally skill ammy with tele charges
Inventory: Torch, anni, Pcomb lifers and 20 life/res sc (I like 6 pcombs and the rest 20 life/res)
Weapon Switch CTA War Scepter with +Foh (if you want FOH on main with no hard points)

Stash:

Helms: Flickering Flame (vs auradin and pvm), Kiras (vs sorc/foh)
Armors: Enigma (smite vs smite)
Weapons: Hand of Justice Caduceus with +FOH (can use HOJ pb), Grief Zerk (vs Barb/Sin/ HDin)
Sheilds: Pheonix with +65% ED (smite vs smite), Pheonix with 45 res (vs sorb), 35 fcr Spirit with +res (for tele smite), Exile
Belts: Arach (for tele smite, hits 75 fcr with spirit and trangs)
Gloves: Trangs (75 fcr build)
Boots: Treks (vs poison), Marrowwalks (for bone prison and life tap charges, you can main these for the stats instead of Waterwalk as well)
Rings: Second Raven (vs blizz if needed), BK if you prebuff or don't need raven, Wisp (for oak), FCR rings (for 125 fcr)
Amulet: Ammy with tele charges vs BP nec, 2 pally/20fcr/res when you have enigma (for 125 fcr)

Hotkeys and Playstyle

Charge: "D"
Conviction: "F"

Smite: "C"
Fanaticism: "V"

You don't have to use these keys, I just found that this was the easiest way for me to switch both skills and aura simultaneously. Whenever you're charging around you want Conviction on so your aura does more damage. Once you get in close try to switch to Smite and Fanaticism. You have a high smite damage and hit the last ias breakpoint with fanaticism.

Other than that you want to use the same tactics as a V/T. Will this char break the meta? It's been almost 2 decades since I first made it so idk, but it is on par with a V/T believe it or not.

As cringe as it is, my old guide from 2007 can be found here: https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=19777033&f=87

Match Ups

This will be somewhat brief but give me your feedback as I am always open to criticism. I would like to improve the build and guide as much possible. This is for BM match ups, I'm mostly just pubbing with this

Pally

Hdin: not easy but if you play well you can beat a good Hdin
Smite or V/T: basically a mirror match with some nuance, beatable but playskill important
Auradin: easiest match up, you should never lose to these guys
FOH: mostly easy but if they are good kiras with salv is enough stack, wisp helps also
Mage: probably the hardest match up but it depends how geared they are, you will have to outplay them and not get hit by hammers

Barb
WW: just shift smite and time their WW and you should win most of the time

Druid

Nado: one of the hardest match ups but aura kills their oak, bear is annoying but you just have to learn how to not click on it when smiting

Melee: ez mode, melee chars vs smite don't do well

Sorc

Blizz: can be a hard match up but with kiras, salv, 1 or 2 ravens and HOJ it's very much in your favor. sometimes Grief/Enigma/45 res phoenix is better depending on if they sorb you.

Others: pretty easy just charge em down with salv on and smite if you need, stack res if you encounter difficulty.

Amazon

Tele Bowa: a good one can be annoying but most zons just die to your pulse and 1-3 smites

Jav: smite makes this match up ez

Assasins

Trapper: annoying if they just play defense but stack res and they are ez

WW/hybrid sin: really depends on the sin but it's same idea as WW barb, shift smite and let your aura do work, im sure there are some really good sins out there that can beat me

Necromancers

Bone Nec: one of the harder match ups since vs BP you main Dragon instead of Enigma, but you can play as tele smiter from stash. Tele ammy can help a lot if you wanna wear dragon.

Poison Nec: these guys mostly just die to your aura with HOJ and charge, if they BP you just switch to Enigma or keep a tele ammy

This post was edited by Aurasmiter on May 22 2025 02:45pm

Pretty neat but it’s an auradin so nothing more than an annoying bm character in pubs

Why max smite before fana, when fana is 17% ed and smite is 15% ed.

It can take off aura gear and go GM with smite so it's actually more than just BM. I'm sure there are ways to modify it for different rulesets but I'm not really familiar with those rulesets, maybe someone with more knowledge in that area can help.



I believe the way it's calculated points in fanat don't add much more after lvl 27 and maxing smite is gonna be the best for damage. Maybe try it and test it out but this is based on everything I've read about the off screen dmg calculation.

Maybe there's a better way to do it but let me know where I'm off. There's also stun length as well so I'm okay with maxing smite but I suppose you can max fanat instead.

This post was edited by Aurasmiter on May 18 2025 09:35am

That would just be a worse smiter at that point. With tokens and shared stash there’s not much reason to do this build imo but I appreciate trying to innovate in some way

This post was edited by Void511 on May 18 2025 09:03am

Can't wear Dragon in any GM ruleset? If more people played this class we could adapt the rules. As far as general GM rules go I think the only rule I broke was with having 90 max resist. It's not super BM and could be adapted. I'm not a GM expert, but I don't see a reason you couldn't adapt it to a particular ruleset.

This post was edited by Aurasmiter on May 18 2025 09:31am

Fana 17% ED
Smite 15% ED

Fana adds more. Only thing smite adds a little stun duration.

=IF(FanaLVL<1;0;33+(17*FanaLVL))

It does not drop ever. It does not have degrading effect.
ED% = 33+(FanaLvl * 17)

or
FanaLvl * 17 + 33
33 + FanaLvl * 17
Dont need the ().

This post was edited by gel87 on May 18 2025 09:35am

Either way I have 19 hard points in Fanat. Add one more I guess... When I Hit 99 I'll put it in Fanat and both will be maxed

Thanks for the feedback, I made the changes

This post was edited by Aurasmiter on May 18 2025 09:54am

It just sounds like a less interactive vt so I don’t really see the point

There's some small differences that I think are worth it. For example, if there's a format where I get to wear double dragon and grief, the pulse kills Oak for me and I don't have to stop charging to FOH. If you like V/T then play that instead but I just enjoy playing this build more especially for pubs and don't wanna spend a token every time I pub.