Blessed Hammer Paladin Guide

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this Build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can review the recommended Items and more easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item in the Item Options to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

Gear/Base Notes: Any Items with specialized or niche uses have a superscript that refer to a Note listed here.
1) Sacred Targe is the recommended base for a low Strength requirement to wear and a low Dexterity requirement to hit 75% Chance to Block.
2) Nature's Peace is great for farming Nihlathak as it prevents him from using Corpse Explosion against all the monsters that you kill. (Excludes Mercenary kills).

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to immunities or bad layouts.

Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Insight, Holy Freeze

Use a Desert Mercenary with Holy Freeze Aura for its powerful Crowd Control. A Mercenary with Might Aura isn’t used, since we don’t rely on his damage or benefit from the Physical Damage increase. Equip him with Insight for the high Mana Regeneration provided by Meditation Aura.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• Prior to combat, cast Holy Shield.
• Use Vigor anytime you or your party are moving around town or without Teleport.
• After the distance gap is closed, switch to Concentration Aura and cast Blessed Hammer through mobs to deal Magic Damage.
• Avoid throwing hammers close to walls, as they disappear upon hitting them. Also try to avoid killing mobs over an edge if possible, as they don't drop items.
• Against dangerous or numerous enemies, you can create a “hammer field” around an area for the mobs to walk through. Keep a bit of distance while casting to kite monsters into their doom!
• In the early game, you can use Salvation against monsters that use Conviction to keep you and your allies' Resistances up.
• Briefly switch to Cleansing to remove negative effects on you or your party.
• Weave Redemption in and out after killing a group of monsters if Life or Mana is needed.

Immunities

• Use Smite and your Mercenary to deal with Magic Immunes.
• Black Cleft Sunders enemy Magic Immunity, but is not recommended.

Late-Game

• At the beginning of each run, buff yourself by swapping to Call to Arms and cast Battle Command 2 times, followed by Battle Orders. Cast Holy Shield on the Weapon Swap that gives you the higher Skill Level. Make sure these buffs stay active all the time, because they are essential to your survivability. 
• Use Teleport from Enigma to close the gap between you and your enemies or just "Telestomp" them. Get a Staff of Teleportation staff and use Charge and Vigor to position yourself.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for the 75% or 125% FCR Breakpoint. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 48% FHR Breakpoint.

Faster Block Rate (FBR)

Faster Block Rate does not need to be obtained for this build. Holy Shield already reduces the block animation to 2 frames through a hidden mechanic.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary concern is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Life pool. This can mean sacrificing overall power Level for a more secure playstyle.

This build is Hardcore viable. If you are unaccustomed to this playstyle, we recommend trying this build on Softcore to gain experience on how to successfully pilot it.

• The speed of this Skill is based on Cast Rate.
• Summons a magic hammer that rotates in a widening spiral, originating at ~9 o'clock above the Character, in a clockwise fashion.
• The hammer disappears after ~860^o of rotation (2.4 rotations).
• The hammer pierces any targets, and continue to fly until they disappear.
• Hammers cannot pierce solid objects, and will stop their spiral upon impact.
• The Aura concentration applies half of it's +xx% Damage (rounded down) to the hammer's Magic Damage.
• Hammers deal 150% of their damage to Undead and Demons, even though the Skill only mentions Undead.
• Mana Cost Scaling: 4.75 + 0.25 * sLVL

Scaling

Synergies

• Synergies add +% Magic Damage = 14 * (blessedaim.blvl + vigor.blvl)

• The speed of this Skill is based on Increased Attack Speed.
• Attacks a target with the equipped Shield, which always hits and cannot be blocked. The target will be Knocked Back is eligible.
• The attack uses the Shield's Damage as the base, instead of any equipped Weapon.
  • Weapon Durability, Range Adder, and Weapon Speed are used for the attack.
• Base Damage is the total of Shield Damage, holyshield Damage, and sources of Damage + (i.e. grief).
• Bonus +xx% Damage is the total from smite, Auras / Buffs with +xx% Damage, and non-Weapon +xx% Damage from gear.
• All Attack Modifiers apply to smite except:
  • Any on Weapon Damage, or Modifier.
  • +xx Min / Max Damage
  • +xx% Damage to Undead
  • +xx% Damage to Demons
  • Critical Strike
  • Deadly Strike
  • Magic / Fire / Lighting / Cold / Poison Damage
  • +xx% Life Stolen per hit
  • +xx% Mana Stolen per hit
• lifetap allows smite to Replenish Life.
• Mana Cost: 2

Scaling