Hammerdin is an especially popular build from Diablo 2, and Last Epoch pays homage to it by offering a similar experience. This build stays relatively true to the D2 playstyle with Hammers spiraling throughout the battlefield, annihilating any enemies that are foolish enough to stand in the way.
When it comes to performance this build doesn't disappoint. Hammers fill the screen and can be left in your wake, making clear an easy and enjoyable task. Hammers can also shotgun, and you're able to throw three at once which gives great single target damage.
This setup doesn't require any Unique to function but benefits greatly from several. Bleeding Heart is tremendous for sustain, Bastion of Honour is a massive defensive boost and Prismatic Gaze is necessary to reach Crit cap.
Overall, the Hammerdin is an excellent throwback to the early days of ARPGs while still being fully capable of defeating all of the content in the game. It's easy to play, has great Damage and is relatively tanky. If you are looking for an iconic build that fills the battlefield with swirling hammers and may bring you a bit of nostalgia then this is the build for you!
Volatile Reversal
Sigils Of Hope
Smite
Holy Aura
Hammer Throw
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!
Good Clear ✔
Pretty Tanky ✔
Iconic Playstyle ✔
Great Single Target Damage ✔
❌ Mana Management
❌ Needs Gear To Crit Cap
❌ Heavy Buff Management
❌ Vulnerable To DoT Damage
Skills
Hammer Throw
Hammer Throw is your primary Damage as well as the skill this build is themed around. Iron Spiral allows our hammers to spiral similarly to the traditional Hammerdin. Catapult allows us to throw three hammers at once. We take enough points in Ballista to reach zero mana, then invest elsewhere.
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 at least 1 Point into Gladiator, Steel Aegis, Honour and Shield Wall for the Block Chance.
- The stats granted by Reverence of Duality are extremely powerful.
- Invest your final Points in Prayer Aegis or Weapons Master, depending on your needs.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
This Paladin uses Hammer Throw to create spirals of death that decimate any enemies who get close enough. Remember that you don't need Smite on your Skill bar. 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.
- Use Volatile Reversal to recover mana.
- 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.
- For large groups, 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 to maximize damage and the potential for multiple hits from the same hammer.
- Keep unspecced Shield Rush off Cooldown for emergency situations or telegraphed Boss attacks.
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 other defensive layers, while fitting as much Health related Affixes or Endurance Threshold into your gear as possible. Plan ahead for your next upgrades and consider the final 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
- Capped Critical Strike Avoidance
- Capped Endurance
- 3000 - 4000+ Health
- 50% - 60% Armour Mitigation (Pre Buffs)
- 2000+ Block Effectiveness
- 50% - 100% Block Chance
- 250%+ Critical Strike Multiplier
- 110+ Throwing Damage
- 100%+ Throwing Attack Speed (Pre Buffs)
Gear Progression
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with two 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 Eagle Wing as soon as possible.
Milestone 2
Make sure your Critical Strike Avoidance 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 T1 Throwing Damage and Reduced Mana Cost on both of your Rings and some Mana Regeneration to help with your rotation. 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. Use Bleeding Heart and later add Grand Wrath of Rahyeh.
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. Finding at least 1 Adorned Rahyeh Idol with Chance To Cast Smite When You Hit With Throwing Attacks is necessary to take advantage of Smite. On the suffix look for Block Effectiveness or Health.
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
- Breath of Cinders
Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.
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:
- Find an Adorned Rahyeh Idols with Chance To Cast Smite When You Hit With Throwing Attacks and Block Effectiveness or Health.
- Get 4 Large Rahyeh Idol with Throwing Attack Critical Strike Multiplier and Chance To Shred Armor on Hit with Throwing Attacks or Block Effectiveness.
- Get 2 Stout Lagonian Idols with Health and a resistance if you need to cap or Health.
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
This Paladin uses Hammer Throw to to create spirals of Hammers throughout the battlefield. Scale your Throwing Attack Speed and Flat Throwing Damage as much as possible. This build also has good survivability thanks to the multiple defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- 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 deal damage and apply ailments with Hammer Throw.
- Flat Throwing Damage: Hammer Throw doesn't scale with the base damage of our weapon, so we need to stack this as high as possible on our Gloves, Belt, Amulet, and Relic.
- 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 Chance: Critical Strikes deal double damage by default and scale with Critical Strike Multiplier. Try to get this capped to guarantee a Crit from every hit. Prefixes on our Weapon, Body Armour and Helmet plus the Added Crit from Eagle Wing and Prismatic Gaze make this much easier.
- Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. We can stack a lot of this on our gear thanks to Idols. Build as much as you can.
- Sigils Of Hope: They grant increased Damage and Added Fire 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 Time Rifts and Harbinger of Dust Nodes apply a powerful debuff on your enemies that makes them take additional Damage.
- Level of Hammer Throw: This is a big boost to our damage since it allows us to invest in additional multipliers from the skill tree.
- Grand Fury of the North: Since the build attacks so fast and has so many hits, it is extremely easy to apply 10 stacks of Physical Resistance Shred to your targets. 10 stacks increase the Damage enemies take by 50% (20% for Bosses). This Blessing plays a big part on your Damage output, so make sure you roll it nicely (45%+) and as early as possible.
- Armour Shred: Shredding Armor is good for all hit builds, but it is especially impactful for Physical. Getting Armour Shred stats on our Gloves, Idols, Weapon, and Body Armour is a huge damage boost to the build.
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.
Recommended End Game Activities
Last Epoch has multiple end game activities with completely different roles and rewards. All the builds in Maxroll.gg have been tested and are designed to complete all available content. However, not all builds excel at doing the same activities. Make sure you are familiar with the end game strengths and weaknesses of your character.
The Monolith of Fate is the main end game system. Most of your character gear upgrades are found here. Once you get all of your desired Empowered Blessings, you can start pushing Corruption to increase your chances at finding incredible Exalted Items. The Monolith of Fate rewards speedy builds that are able to target farm Echo Reward Nodes or stack Timeline Stability as fast as possible.
This Paladin is an incredible Monolith of Fate farmer. It has great AoE and single target DPS. Since it's also a fairly tanky build, it's an amazing setup for farming content in high Corruption.
Monolith Goals
Your goals in the Monolith of Fate will differ greatly depending on what build you play and what stage your character progression is at. Here are the objectives you should aim at when playing this build:
- Reach Empowered Monolith as fast as possible.
- Farm your Combat Empowered Blessings. Prioritize gaining Timeline Stability and fight the Timeline Bosses as often as possible. Once you are done with one Timeline, move to the next one. Reach 200 Corruption to farm your desired Blessings faster, as it unlocks a 5th option to choose from after you defeat a Timeline Boss. Defeat the Shade of Orobyss to gain and transfer Corruption between Timelines.
- Finish up the rest of your Drop Rate Empowered Blessings.
- Farm for key Uniques.
- As you farm for Uniques, stack Corruption as high as your gear can handle. The higher Corruption you do, the more Items you find. Get your character ready for the other end game activities.
Monolith Modifiers
Every time you choose an Echo a Modifier comes attached with it, adding difficulty and changing how enemies behave. These Modifiers stay active for a maximum of 6 Echoes and stack with each other. Some Modifiers can handicap your build immensely while others can almost be ignored. Monolith Modifiers scale with Corruption and increase the Item Rarity of Echoes. Ideally you want to do the hardest content possible, without delaying your clear times. Keep up Item Rarity as high as you can without it slowing you down.
Easy Modifiers
- Enemy Critical Strike Chance (Once you have 100% Critical Strike Avoidance).
- Increased enemy Movement Speed.
- Rare enemies have high speed and crit chance until approached
- Rare enemies regenerate health
Avoid these Modifiers
- Enemy Critical Strike Avoidance.
- High health enemies take less damage.
- High health enemies deal increased damage.
- Enemy chance to Dodge.
- While bossing: enemies Enrage at half health and enemies gain Frenzy and Haste when hit.
Learn more about the Monolith of Fate with our Empowered Monolith Guide.
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. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.
Here is the Endgame Loot Filter for this build:
Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.
Video Guide
Summary
This Paladin throws shotgunning Hammers in a spiral, similar to the Diablo 2 build that it gets the name from. Overall this Paladin is an excellent setup capable of completing all the content in the game. It has great AoE, survivability, speed and good single target DPS.
- Blast through enemies with shotgunning Hammers dealing high Crit Physical damage.
- Scale Crit to turbo charge the damage with Eagle Wing and Prismatic Gaze.
- Maintain 4 Sigils Of Hope up at all times for the amazing buffs they provide.
- Use Volatile Reversal on top of enemies for extra Damage.
- Use Bastion of Honour to get a huge defensive buff while standing close to enemies, which will make it easier to maximize your damage.
Credits
Written by McFluffin.
Reviewed by Facefoot, Terek