Welcome to the Smite Shield Throw Paladin Guide. This build takes a staple playstyle in the ARPG genre and adds a proccing component to create a flashy and powerful build that uses Smite to call down Lightning from the sky. While similar to the Smite Hammerdin build on the surface, this build offers a different playstyle, better defenses, and more consistent clear while having lower Single Target damage.
The build offers great clear and defensive performance. Shields fly toward enemies and ricochet off them, zapping enemies with Lightning that also chains. This makes clearing packs of enemies an easy and satisfying experience. Every ricochet from Shield Throw adds a substantial armor buff that allows this build to easily clear 10k Armour with minimal investment.
This setup doesn't require any Unique to function but gains tremendous damage scaling from Devotion and defense from Bastion of Honour. It does require Idols with Chance To Cast Smite When You Hit With Throwing Attacks so make sure you have these before trying to play it!
Overall, the Paladin reimagines an ARPG staple while also being fully capable of defeating all of the content in the game. It's easy to play, has great clear and is very tanky. If you love the Shield Throw playstyle and want to maximize your damage and defenses then this is the build you're looking for!
Javelin
Sigils Of Hope
Smite
Holy Aura
Shield 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!
Great Clear ✔
Very Tanky ✔
Iconic Playstyle ✔
Excellent Sustain ✔
❌ Mana Management
❌ Heavy Buff Management
❌ Low Single Target Damage
❌ Vulnerable To DoT Damage
Shield Throw
Shield Throw is your means of creating Smite procs. Shield Barrage allows us to spam the skill while Polished Steel keeps the mana cost at 0. Armoring Aegis dramatically boosts our Armour while Eruption gives us more ailment applications.
Skills
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 Light of Rahyeh, depending on your needs.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
This Paladin uses Shield Throw to proc Smite, which calls down Lightning upon the battlefield. 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 Sigils Of Hope until you're low mana to maximize the damage gained from Devotion.
- Spam Shield Throw at enemies. Stand close to them to maximize damage.
- Use unspecced Shield Rush or Lunge to move across the map.
- Cast Javelin and Holy Aura on top of enemies for their buffs and extra Damage.
- Maintain 4 Sigils Of Hope up at all times while also using it to keep your mana low.
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 Javelin and Holy Aura to maximize their Buffs. Stand in Javelin to maintain consistent healing and lead enemies into it.
- For large groups, use Shield Throw while staying on the move to maximize clear and reduce incoming damage.
Bossing
- Burn your mana with Sigils Of Hope just before engaging the boss.
- Take advantage of all your defensive buffs and keep them active.
- Actively use Holy Aura to double the effect of its buffs.
- Use Javelin 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. Take advantage of the high healing from Javelin when needed.
- 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)
- 3000+ Block Effectiveness
- 50% - 100% Block Chance
- 100% Smite Crit Chance
- 60%+ Throwing Attack Speed
- 500+ Mana
Gear Progression
Milestone 1
Upgrade your T20 setup 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. Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use is a must have for Belts.
Milestone 2
Push to get crit capped if you haven't already. An exalted Spell Critical Strike Chance on your wand will give you ~30%, and a good Copper Ring and pair of Solarum Bracers will get you most of the way there.
Milestone 3
Maximize your defenses. A Dawn Plate and Dawn Helm will provide a ton of Armor if you can get the right affixes.
Milestone 5
You can upgrade your defenses drastically with a Bastion of Honour and some Block Effectiveness on your Idols. This Unique will be difficult to find. Hunt for it in The Black Sun Timeline.
Milestone 4
Get all your Idols as optimal as possible. Keep stacking Health. Push your Mana as high as you can without sacrificing other valuable affixes.
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:
- Hunger of the Void
- Bastion of Divinity
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Bones of Eternity
- Embers of Immortality
- Body of Obsidian
- Mysteries of the Deep
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 Adorned Rahyeh Idols with Chance To Cast Smite When You Hit With Throwing Attacks and Chance To Shred Armor on Hit with Throwing Attacks, Block Effectiveness or Health.
- Get 2 Small Eterran Idols with Increased Stun Chance and a resistance or if you need a resistance not provided by that Idol type use Small Lagonian Idol with Mana or Armour.
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 Shield Throw to call down Lightning through Smite procs. Scale your Throwing Attack Speed and Mana 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 more often you proc Smite and apply ailments.
- Mana: Thanks to Devotion, we get flat spell damage for every 5 missing mana we have. This means pushing our Max Mana over 500+ and then burning it down with Sigils Of Hope provides us with a ton of damage. Don't go too crazy on pushing your Mana over other damage stats or you may end up with a net damage loss. 500-700 Max Mana is the sweet spot.
- Attunement: Smite gains 4% Damage per point of Attunement. Additionally it grants Max mana per point, which further improves our Devotion scaling. However, the Mana gained is low, so don't choose this over large sources of Added or Increased Mana.
- Critical Strike Chance: Critical Strikes deal double damage by default and scale with Critical Strike Multiplier. Thanks to Conviction and Holy Precision, we have a lot of baseline Crit Chance. An exalted Spell Critical Strike Chance on your wand will give you another ~30%, and a good Copper Ring and pair of Solarum Bracers will get you most of the way there.
- Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. We don't have a lot of room for this on our gear, but we get a sizable amount from Holy Precision and Deep Impact. Getting extra on your Relic and Amulet really boosts your damage. This stat is also interchangeable with Increased Lightning Damage Shard/Spell Damage on your Crystal Wand without much difference in performance.
- Sigils Of Hope: They grant increased Damage through Empowering Sigils.
- % Increased Damage: We get most of this from our Passive tree, Buffs and Attunement. Lightning Damage on your belt + rings and either Spell Damage or Lightning Damage on your Crystal Wand are significant damage boosts.
- Level of Smite: This is a big boost to our damage since it allows us to invest in additional multipliers from the skill tree.
- Grand Mysteries of the Deep and Shock: Since the build attacks so fast and has so many hits, it is extremely easy to apply 10 stacks of Lightning Resistance Shred and Shock to your targets. Together, these ailments provide 40% additional damage against Bosses.
- Armour Shred: Shredding Armor is a damage multiplier for all hit builds and should always be invested in. Getting Armour Shred stats on our Gloves, Idols and Helmet 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 on Maxroll 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 a very good Monolith of Fate farmer. It has great AoE and is very tanky, allowing it to easily scale high levels of 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.
- Stacking too many Health/Defense mods on bosses
- 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 Shields that ricochet between enemies and summon Lightning from the sky through Smite procs. Overall this Paladin is an excellent setup capable of completing all the content in the game. It has excellent AoE and survivability along with great speed.
- Blast through enemies with ricocheting Shields, calling down Lightning from Smite.
- Scale Crit to turbo charge the damage thanks to large amounts of Crit Multi from Holy Precision and Deep Impact.
- Scale damage by stacking Mana thanks to Devotion.
- Use Javelin to boost your damage and provide a powerful heal.
- 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, Lizard_IRL