McFluffin has been playing and making content for Last Epoch since Alpha. He has also been a Community Tester since the implementation of the program, which has allowed him the opportunity to provide feedback to Eleventh Hour Games on pre release builds since 2020. With degrees in both science and philosophy, McFluffin enjoys applying the analytical processees he's learned to build making, efficiency, and a better understanding of the inner workings of the games he plays. Despite all of that, his favorite thing to do is be weird on Twitch while hanging out with his friendly and welcoming community. Learn how to scale your Damage and Defense in the Smite Hammerdin Paladin Build to reach the different Endgame Activities like the Monolith, Dungeons and Arena.
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.
- 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. Whenever you take a Hit, your Block Chance is rolled to determine if you Block the Hit. On a successful Block, a percentage of the Damage is mitigated. This build can have anywhere between 50% and 100% block. Using a Bastion of Honour makes this stat less impactful, but still good against ranged attacks.
- 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. We don't scale damage through this stat so it's not a priority investment, but we do pick some up through the Passive Tree.
- Armour Mitigation: This setup can get high Armour. Combine the Armour from your Item Implicits and all the %Armour this build has to reach 50-60% Mitigation.
- Health: This build can stack a decent Health pool that can surpass the 3000 mark without sacrificing other defenses. Health is very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers.
- Leech: Grand Wrath of Rahyeh provides this build with plenty of sustain, which makes the healing from Javelin a bonus.
- Chill: Is anAilments that greatly reduces the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies. It's a must have on most builds, especially once you reach hard content with insane speed modifiers.
- 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. Great for dealing with DoT damage or Chill/Slow/Shred/Marked for Death
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.
Dungeons are another important end game activity. All of them have an unique reward system attached that can only be accessed by defatting the Boss guarding it. They are divided by 4 Tiers of difficulty; it might take you some time to have a character strong enough to defeat Tier 4. Remember, Dungeons require specific Keys to enter them.
This Paladin is a decent Dungeon farmer due to its survivability, but lower than average single target damage well make bosses more of a chore. It has an easy time with all the Dungeons and can defeat all T4 Bosses.
Dungeon Tips
When it comes to Dungeons, each build has different needs and should focus on the ones that fulfill them. Remember, each Dungeon comes with an unique Dungeon Skill. Make sure you are familiar with the different Dungeon Skills, Boss fights and Rewards before you attempt them.
Recommended Dungeons for this build:
- Temporal Sanctum: Since it's a Unique heavy build, it requires interacting with the Eternity Cache often in order to upgrade any desirable Uniques you find with Legendary Potential. The Boss fight against Chronomancer Julra is fairly easy for any Sentinel, as they can get out of her telegraphed attacks with the multiple mobility Skill available to them. Additionally, you can place unspecced Rebuke on your Skill bar and use it before taking Damage.
- Lightless Arbour: While the gold sink in the Vault of Uncertain Fate is not necessary for this build to progress, it has a decent time dealing with The Mountain Beneath and, thanks to the Rebuke swap mentioned above, his most dangerous attacks can be trivialized. The Stone Titan's Heart is easier, just make sure to avoid its moving lasers. Run this Dungeon when you have some excess Gold, be careful as it gets expensive really fast!
- Soulfire Bastion: Make sure you pay attention to the Damage type on the floor while fighting Fire Lich Cremorus and use the Rebuke swap to tank the big telegraphed attacks if you struggle. Overall this Dungeon and the Soul Gambler are low priority as nothing attached to them is relevant for the build.
Remember that T4 Dungeons are hard pinnacle content that can only be defeated with well geared characters. If your build struggles against a particular Dungeon you can always dedicate a different setup that shines against it to earn its reward. This is not possible if you play in any of the Solo Game Modes.
Check all of our Dungeon Guides if you want to learn more about their Bosses and rewards systems.
Use everything explained in the Gameplay and Build Scaling sections of this Build Guide to defeat them.
The Endless Arena is the main competitive game mode. It's all about the Ladder! While you might get some upgrades, the other end game activities are far superior for gearing up. The Endless Arena is not for everyone and only the best builds and players can reach the top. You need an Arena Key or an Arena Key of Memory to enter.
This Paladin build is very good for competing in the Endless Arena with excellent range and great tankiness. While not one of the very best Arena builds it's still competitive overall and one of the top Paladin builds.
Endless Arena Tips
Adjusting your playstyle to the build you are playing is mandatory to reach high waves. Use the easy early waves as a practice tool; learning about wave management, developing good habits and limit-testing your build are very important things to become a better Endless Arena player.
Tips for playing this build in Arena:
- Make sure you always keep track of all 4 enemy packs. New waves do not spawn as long as there are two enemies of the current wave alive. Finish them up at the right time!
- Fight 1 spawn at a time, manipulate the enemy pathing with your positioning and engage on your terms.
- Play arena from farther range than other content to avoid getting hit. Find a safe spot away from spawns!
- Target ranged threats first. Deal with the rest of enemies once the ranged ones are taken care of.
- Enemy homing projectiles are really dangerous. Use your Movement Skills to engage them or hide behind terrain.
- Maintain 4 Sigils Of Hope up at all times for the powerful buffs they provide.
- Stand in your Javelin banner aura as much as possible for the increased sustain from Healing.
- Hold a Movement Skill to disengage for emergency situations.
- If you want to push your Arena waves to the limit, consider switching to Grand Body of Obsidian and capping endurance on your gear. In this setup you need to put Critical Strike Chance on your rings instead of Lightning Damage, so it will come at a damage loss, but Arena doesn't require as much damage as some of the other content to be successful.
Eager to get competitive? Check our Arena Guide!
