Welcome to the Bleed Hammerdin Paladin Guide. This Paladin uses spiraling Hammer Throw to apply stacks of Bleed, a deadly Ailment that deals Physical Damage Over Time, making quick work of even the toughest enemies.
Cast Sigils Of Hope to gain powerful buffs, use Volatile Reversal to apply debuffs to your enemies and move quickly around the map with unspecialized Shield Rush. Get Adorned Rahyeh Idols with Chance To Cast Smite When You Hit With Throwing Attacks to proc Smite through Hammer Throw to further enhance the build's Damage.
This setup shines with Uniques. Blood of the Exile, Salt the Wound, Valdyr's Chalice and Flayer's Pride provide a lot of Damage for the build.
Overall, Bleed Hammerdin is an amazing build capable of defeating all content in the game. It’s easy to play, has great Damage and it can get tanky with good gear. If you are looking for a strong Paladin that fills the screen with swirling hammers, this setup is perfect for you!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 70 Character.
Reach Level 70 with our Paladin Leveling Guide.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
- High Damage
- Great Survivability
- Good Clear Speed
- Amazing Scaling With Gear and Uniques
- Mana Management
- Heavy Buff Management
- Hammers Take Time to Ramp Up
- Potential Locked Behind Uniques
Skills
Hammer Throw
Hammer Throw is your main Damage skill. Iron Spiral makes your Hammers spiral, while Catapult provides additional projectiles. Grab Ballista and Weighted Hammers for the Damage multipliers and Mana cost reduction. Rapid Throw grants a good amount of extra Attack Speed.
Alternative Skills & Tips
Passives
Passives provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives on the first half of all Masteries regardless of the one you chose.
- Armour Clad grants Damage Reduction and is crucial for any Sentinel's survivability.
- Juggernaut, Abyssal Endurance, Holy Icon and Defiance provide tons of Resistances. Use them as needed.
- Place Points into Stalwart, Steel Aegis, Honour and Shield Wall for the Block Chance.
- Penance and Redemption provide tons of Damage.
- The stats granted by Reverence of Duality are extremely powerful.
- Specialize into Void Corruption when using Salt the Wound.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
The Bleed Hammerdin uses Hammer Throw to create spirals of Hammers that rapidly apply deadly stacks of Bleed to all enemies that get close enough. Make sure you are familiar with enemy mechanics to know when to use your Support Skills to stay alive. Pay attention to their telegraphed attacks!
Skill Usage/Rotation
- Cast 4 Sigils Of Hope for their buffs.
- Spam Hammer Throw at enemies. Stand close to them to maximize damage.
- Use unspecced Shield Rush or Lunge to move across the map.
- Cast Volatile Reversal and Holy Aura on top of enemies for their buffs and extra Damage.
- Maintain 4 Sigils Of Hope up at all times.
Mapping
- Rush to the objective with unspecced Shield Rush or Lunge.
- Proc the Haste buff from Holy Aura's Expedite Node for the additional Movement Speed.
- Be careful not to backtrack when using Volatile Reversal.
- Group mobs before using Volatile Reversal and Holy Aura to maximize their Buffs.
- Use Hammer Throw while staying on the move to maximize clear and reduce incoming damage.
Bossing
- Take advantage of all your defensive buffs and keep them active.
- Actively use Holy Aura to double the effect of its buffs.
- Use Volatile Reversal to ramp up your damage then spam Hammer Throw, staying as close as you can to the Boss. This maximizes Damage by giving you the highest potential of multiple hits from the same Hammer.
- Keep a Movement Skill off Cooldown for emergency situations or telegraphed Boss attacks.
- Use unspecced Rebuke to tank telegraphed Boss attacks. Place it on your bar instead of Shield Rush.
Advanced Skill Tips
Learn more about how to maximize your gameplay in the Build Scaling section of this guide.
Gear
Gearing in Last Epoch revolves around finding Items and then using the powerful Crafting System to enhance them. As long as an Item has Forging Potential left, players can upgrade or modify their Affixes up to Tier 5. However, the powerful Exalted Tier Affixes are drop only and can't be modified by players.
Using the correct Item Bases allows you to make use of their amazing Implicits, this is fundamental for gearing efficiently. Combine Implicits, Passives, Idols and Blessings to cap your Resistances and stack as many other defensive layers as possible. Plan ahead for your next upgrades and consider the final Empowered Blessings of your build while gearing. Finish up by farming Uniques with Legendary Potential and Sealing Affixes into Exalted Items to unleash all of your build's power!
Here are the Stat Goals for this build:
- Capped Resistances
- 100% Reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Critical Strikes
- Capped Endurance
- 4000+ Health
- 60%+ Armor Mitigation
- 2000+ Block Effectiveness
- 50% - 100% Block Chance
- 100% Increased Throwing Attack Speed
- 300%+ Physical Penetration with Bleed
- 70%+ Movement Speed
Gear Progression
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with four valuable T5 Affixes. The defensive rolls on T5 Suffixes are very important at this stage as they can easily cap all your Resistances when combined with Item Implicits, Idols, Blessings or Passives. Get a good Dragonbone Axe as soon as possible.
Milestone 2
Make sure your Critical Strike Avoidance or Reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Critical Strikes is capped. Remember that Woven Flesh is always an option early on. It can be farmed by killing the Abomination in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline.
Milestone 3
Get an Ironglass Shield with T5 Block Chance as soon as possible. Carapace Shield is also an option early on. Fit as much Health into your gear as possible. Hybrid Health and Health are extremely valuable, but can be hard to find early on. Use regular flat Health until you find them.
Milestone 4
Get a source of Life Leech. Bleeding Heart is the best option early on, since it provides a lot of sustain and is easy to find. Valdyr's Chalice also grants the build enough sustain, but this item is much rarer.
Milestone 5
While you look for this basic set of gear, start farming your Empowered Blessings and look for any Idols that can help you cap all your Resistances momentarily or increase your Damage output. Your goal is to get Adorned Rahyeh Idol with Chance To Cast Smite When You Hit With Throwing Attacks Prefix and 4 Large Rahyeh Idols with Increased Bleed Duration Prefix. For Suffixes you want Block Effectiveness, Physical Damage Over Time or Health.
Milestone 1
Upgrade your T20 gear with Exalted items, high value Sealed Affixes or ideally both. Obtain the Affixes included in the Planner, but prioritize the indicated Item Bases for their Implicits. Make sure to Seal highly efficient low tier Affixes.
Milestone 2
When all your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Get Chance To Bleed If Wielding An Axe, Physical Penetration with Bleed , Increased Physical Damage And Bleed Duration and Throwing Attack Speed to increase your DPS drastically.
Milestone 3
Get Blood of the Exile and Valdyr's Chalice for the Damage they provide.
Milestone 4
Farm Flayer's Pride from Abomination in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline.
Milestone 5
Salt the Wound is great for increasing your Damage by stacking Critical Strike Multiplier.
Milestone 6
Keep looking for Adorned Rahyeh Idols with Chance To Cast Smite When You Hit With Throwing Attacks and Large Rahyeh Idols with Increased Bleed Duration. As you finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances, Endurance and Critical Strike Avoidance. Your goal is to have Items with 4 valuable T5 Affixes, also known as T20.
Milestone 1
Continue upgrading your gear with T7 Exalted items and begin farming all your Uniques with Legendary Potential. Look for Nemesis encounters in Echoes to add Legendary Potential or Legendary Affixes to any Unique with the Egg of the Forgotten.
Milestone 2
Aurora's Time Glass is amazing for the survivability and stats it provides. If you use this item, getting Chance to apply Frailty on Hit on your Relic is recommended.
Milestone 3
Get all your Idols as optimal as possible. Keep stacking as much Health, Strength, Chance to Bleed on Hit, Physical Penetration with Bleed , Increased Physical Damage And Bleed Duration and Throwing Attack Speed as you can.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items with high tier Sealed Affixes. Get every stat in the right place and in the correct Item Base. Min/Maxing your gear in Last Epoch can be pushed to the extreme as Items with multiple Exalted Affixes and Legendary Potential are technically possible.
Milestone 2
Continue farming all Uniques with the maximum Legendary Potential you can find. Remember that some Unique Items are extremely hard to get with multiple Legendary Potential. Good luck with the chase!
Milestone 3
Feel free to experiment with any crazy Unique, Legendary or Experimental items that you might craft, trade or find! The possibilities are endless!
Learn the basics for crafting gear with our Beginner Crafting Guide.
Check our Unique Item & Set Farming Guide and learn how to get them!
Want to know more about Legendary Items? Check our Legendary Guide!
Blessings
Completing a Timeline in the Monolith of Fate lets you choose one of several randomized Blessings from its unique pool. Their benefits are permanent and persist even outside of the Monolith of Fate.
Empowered Blessings are a fundamental part of all builds, so getting the correct ones for each is key.
The sooner you reach Empowered Monolith, the faster you can start farming your desired Blessings!
Normal Blessings are not important as they are eventually replaced by Empowered Blessings. However they can still be a great source of Resistances, Critical Strike Avoidance or Life Leech for your build early on.
Pick up these Normal Blessings on your way to Empowered:
- Wrath of Rahyeh
- Bastion of Divinity
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Bones of Eternity
- Embers of Immortality
- Body of Obsidian
Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.
Reaching Empowered Monolith unlocks all the level 100 Timelines and the ability to farm Empowered Blessings. Unlike Normal Blessings, these need to be farmed until you get the desired ones for your build. It is extremely important to get this set up as fast as possible to free up affix slots on your gear. Remember, the more value you get from your Blessings, the easier it is to craft efficient gear!
These are the core Combat Empowered Blessings for this build:
- If you are lacking Critical Strike Avoidance, start with Grand Survival of Might. Building Reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Critical Strikes is more optimal, so go for Grand Hemmorage of Marrow instead.
- Your second choice provides Block Effectiveness and Block Chance from Grand Bones of Eternity.
- Grand Curse of Sulphur is important if you are unable to get Chance to apply Frailty on Hit on your gear. Otherwise, Grand Body of Obsidian provides a huge amount of Armor that helps increase the survivability of the build.
- Farm Grand Bastion of Divinity for the Resistances.
- Grand Emptiness of Ash is amazing with Salt the Wound. Without this item, grab Grand Memory of Light.
These Empowered Blessings are flexible and depend on your current needs and goals.
These are valuable Empowered Drop Rate Blessings for this build:
- Grand Sight of the Outcasts is very valuable to help you find Large Rahyeh Idols with Increased Bleed Duration Prefix and Block Effectiveness or Health Suffixes. Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead or Grand Strength of Mind for Experience.
- You can go for Grand Grip of the Lance to find more Salt the Wound or Grand Right of Conquest for Blood of the Exile.
- Take Grand Scars of Blood to find more Dragonbone Axe.
Learn how to farm Blessings fast with our Advanced Monolith Strategies.
Idols
Idols grant your character bonuses when equipped in the dedicated Idol Container. Unlock all the slots of your Idol Container by completing the Campaign and some of its Side Quests. Remember that some Idols are Class specific and you won't be able to equip them with other non-compatible Classes.
These are the Idols recommended for this build:
- Get Adorned Rahyeh Idols with Chance To Cast Smite When You Hit With Throwing Attacks Prefix and Block Effectiveness, Physical Damage Over Time or Health Suffixes.
- Get 4 Large Rahyeh Idols with Increased Bleed Duration Prefix and Block Effectiveness, Physical Damage Over Time or Health Suffixes.
- If you're lacking Resistances, you can use Stout Lagonian Idols, Small Lagonian Idols or Small Eterran Idols to reach the Resistance cap.
Other useful Idol Affixes
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Idol Slots.
Learn how to be efficient with Idols with our Advanced Idols Setups Guide.
Build Scaling
The Bleed Hammerdin Paladin uses Hammer Throw to create spirals of Hammers throughout the battlefield and apply stacks of Bleed. Scale your Bleed Chance and Bleed Duration as much as possible. This build also has good survivability thanks to the multiple defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- Bleed Chance: This Ailment stacks and deals Physical Damage Over Time, which is your main source of Damage. The more Bleed Chance you have, the more stacks of Bleed you apply.
- Bleed Duration: Changing the duration of an Ailment that deals Damage affects the total amount of Damage it will deal, but does not affect Damage per second (DPS). This results in its increasing the total Damage the Ailment deals over its duration.
- Throwing Attack Speed: This build gets a ton of it thanks to the buffs provided by its Skills and Passives. The more you have, the faster you apply ailments with Hammer Throw.
- Strength: Hammer Throw gains 4% Damage per point of Strength. Additionally it grants 4% Armour per point, which adds a nice defensive layer for the build.
- Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. By default this is not useful for ailments, but thanks to Salt the Wound, you can convert it into Physical Penetration with Bleed.
- Sigils Of Hope: They grant increased Damage.
- % Increased Damage: We get most of this from our Passive tree, Buffs and Strength. Any extra on gear is a bonus.
- Volatile Reversal: The Harbinger of Dust and Time Rifts Nodes apply powerful debuffs on your enemies that makes them take additional Damage.
- Physical Penetration: Conviction grants 16% Physical Penetration. Redemption and Increased Bleed Effect provide a lot of Physical Penetration with Bleed.
- Blood of the Exile: Provides more Physical Ailment Damage to moving enemies.
- Armour Clad: Grants Damage Reduction and is crucial for any Sentinel's survivability.
- Block Chance: Block is a defensive mechanic that grants a chance to reduce the Damage taken from Hits. On a successful Block, a percentage of the Damage is mitigated. This build can have anywhere between 50% and 100% block.
- Block Effectiveness: The percentage of Damage reduced on Block depends on how much Block Effectiveness you have. The percentage cannot exceed 85%. The Grand Bones of Eternity blessing is an exceptional source of Block Effectiveness. Additionally, Sentinels have access to the Block Effectiveness Suffix on their Idols.
- Endurance: It allows you to take up to 60% less Damage while below a certain Health threshold. The Iron Sigils node from Sigils Of Hope makes this especially valuable for Sentinels.
- Strength: Grants 4% Armour per point.
- Armor Mitigation: This setup can have high amounts of Armor Mitigation. Combine the Armor from your Item Implicits and all the %Armor this build has to reach 60 to 70%+ Mitigation.
- Health: This build can stack a decent Health pool that can surpass the 4000 mark without sacrificing other defenses.
- Leech: Bleeding Heart or Valdyr's Chalice provides the build with enough sustain.
- Chill and Slow: Are Ailments that greatly reduce the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds. Stacks 3 times.
- Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use: Cleanse all Ailments on Potion use.
Our Damage Explained Article covers all you need to know to scale Damage.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Loot Filter
Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Making sure you highlight all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is crucial to ensure your character's progression. Click on the Generate Loot Filter button down below then use the Paste Clipboard Contents button in-game to import it!
Here is the Endgame Loot Filter for this build:
Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.
Video Guide
COMING SOON
Summary
The Bleed Hammerdin Paladin fills the battlefield with spiraling Hammers, rapidly applying stacks of Bleed. Overall this Paladin is an excellent setup capable of completing all the content in the game. It has great damage, survivability and speed.
- Blast through with shotgunning Hammers to apply stacks of Bleed to enemies, a deadly Ailment that deals Physical Damage Over Time.
- Maintain 4 Sigils Of Hope at all times for the amazing buffs they provide.
- Use Volatile Reversal on top of enemies for extra Damage.
- While they are not mandatory, Blood of the Exile, Salt the Wound, Valdyr's Chalice, Flayer's Pride and Aurora's Time Glass are great Uniques that you want to get to fully unleash the potential of the build.
Credits
Written by Volca.
Reviewed by LizardIRL, Dredscythe