Support Paladin Raid Build Guide

Last Updated: September 28th 2023

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Introduction

Paladin is one of the 2 support classes in Lost Ark. Whereas Bards prevent damage by focusing on high shield uptime, Paladins try to prevent damage by using Damage Reduction skills on allies.

Paladin has Sacred Executioner and Holy Aura as his Identity Skills. As a support Paladin, you mainly use Holy Aura to support your team with an Attack Damage buff and a Heal over Time (HoT) once you have the Blessed Aura class Engraving.

The Damage Reduction buff of Holy Area and Godsent Law have a high uptime similar to the damage increase buff of Wrath of God and Heavenly Blessings. This combination makes the Paladin a great support for classes focused on constant damage.

Holy Sword is one of the best skills to easily Counter Attack bosses within a short time frame. It is a ranged skill capable of Counter Attacking bosses from a distance.

A huge disadvantage for the Paladin is his mana regeneration buff has lower uptime than Bard's buff. Mana hungry classes like Wardancer and Gunlancer have a higher damage uptime with Bard as their support class.

DifficultyEasy
MobilityHigh
SurvivabilityVery High
Non-DirectionalNone

Check out the Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons guides for an introduction to their content.

This build guide assumes you have a Character at Level 50 before transitioning to it. Check out the Paladin Leveling and 1-50 Leveling guides to reach Level 50.

Raid Skill Build

  • The Support build for Raids is built around providing teammates with Shields and Damage Reduction. Godsent Law provides a 70% Damage Reduction Buff on the targeted area and Heavenly Blessings also provides 20% Damage Reduction Buff to allies in the party along with damage buff and mana regeneration buff.
  • Holy Protection is a really good team shield during boss's Area of Effect(AoE) mechanics as it is applied to all party members easily without needing to target them while providing some healing. It also has Purify to help cleanse debuffs or allies inflicted with hard Crowd Control effects.(e.g. Stun/Shock/Freeze/Fear/Petrify etc)
  • Wrath of God and Heavenly Blessings damage buffs don't stack. Rotate between them with high Swiftness for an efficient uptime.
  • Light Shock has a low enough cooldown to permanently apply the 10% increased damage taken debuff on a target. Pair it with Bleed for extra damage to help clear trash mobs or Quick Recharge to benefit from the low cooldown of the skill for higher frequency proc rate.
Use the Scroll Bar to see the minimum Skill Point allocation

Refer to Alternatives below when you have more skill points to further advance the build.

  • Outburst of Light Skill Tree for Holy Sword unleashes the laser projectile without needing to land the beginning melee stab. This allows it to Counter Attack bosses from a far distance.
  • Executor's Sword is taken for its versatility of having decent range Counter Attack when using with Excellent Mobility, Stagger and Destruction Checks while being paralysis immune. If you need an easier time to Counter Attack with it, you can use Broad Slash for its wider swing and slightly longer active window but you will lose some Stagger Check provided by Executioner's Strike extra hit.
  • Charge is a paralysis immunity mobility skill that comes with a massive shield for a much more comfortable experience in raids. WIth high Swiftness and lv5 Shining Protection, the skill will have a fairly low cooldown to almost be permanently shielded and because of the low cooldown it is also a good skill to pair Quick Recharge to proc it more frequently.

Alternatives

V1*
V2
V3
V4
Standard Versatile Tools Build

(*) Recommended to swap over once you have enough skill points or confidence to swap out Charge.

  • The Tier 2 Skill Tree on Holy Protection can be swapped depending on the boss. Purify is used to remove stacking debuffs or long duration Damage over Time debuffs (DoTs) applied by bosses. Robust Protection is used for more shield value when cleansing is not needed.
  • For certain encounters that do not have much Stagger and Destruction checks, You can replace Executor's Sword with Light of Judgment or Holy Area to generate higher Piety Meter.
  • Alternatively, if you require even more Stagger and Destruction, take Punishment but be aware that the skill does not have any superarmors, which can be interrupted easily from any random attack patterns.
  • Sword of Justice and Holy Area can be use as a multi-hit skill options to proc Conviction and Judgment but that means you have to slot Judgment into Godsent Law, If you plan to use any of them.
  • Charge can be swapped out for any other utility skills mentioned above if you have gain enough confidence to not need extra mobility with protective shield or do not plan to abuse the Paralysis Immunity superarmors to stay in position for easier Counter Attacks or just temporary hold bosses in place if it aggros on to you since it does require boss attack patterns knowledge.
  • If you want to keep Charge with all the other versatile tools as well and you want to fit in Light of Judgment for more Piety Meter gain, you can sacrifice Light Shock for it's spot but have to tweak Godsent Law with Brilliant Law to keep the debuff. Your protection radius will decreases though, so your allies need to be conscious of tighter grouping.

Gameplay

  1. Always use Light Shock when ready to debuff and deal damage and Holy Protection to shield/heal allies.
  2. Rotate between Wrath of God and Heavenly Blessings buffs, as they don't stack.
  3. Position yourself at the sides of bosses to ensure all party members are in Holy Aura for the damage buff and healing for both Front Attackers(Gunlancers, Destroyers etc.) and Back Attackers(Deathblades, Deadeyes, Wardancers, etc.).
  4. For emergency rescue, use Godsent Law to mitigate certain big attacks. It won't save allies from one-shot mechanics.
  5. Move to the front of the boss when it glows blue to Counter Attack with Holy Sword or Executor's Sword.
  6. Spam Light of Judgment, if you have this skill equipped since it is the best Piety Meter generator skill for Paladin, due to its low cooldown when you have high Swiftness and high base Piety Meter gain that can be further increased by upgrading Faith. Furthermore, If you're using Sustain Enhancement on the skill, it is a great skill to break allies out from imprisonment mechanics(e.g. Night Fox Yoho's Tornados, Vykas's Chain Portals) with its fast multi-hits intervals.
  7. If you are using Charge, you can use the skill to shield yourself and rotate between other Paralysis Immunity skills like Light Shock, Holy Sword and delay each hits of Executor's Sword to further extends the Paralysis Immunity window when the boss decides to aggro on you, this helps with giving more damage window uptime for your Damage Dealers without spinning the boss around by keeping it facing at a direction. If you still have boss aggro, after few seconds, you can shield yourself with Godsent Law while also shielding allies if they are close enough or with Holy Protection then rotate back to Charge since it has a low cooldown when you have high Swiftness. You do need boss encounter knowledge since Paralysis Immunity does not stop you from getting knocked off your feet and it does not stop hard Crowd Control effects.
  8. If you are using Holy Area or Sword of Justice to proc Conviction and Judgment with Godsent Law, make sure to keep a mental note of the rune effect internal cooldown(30 seconds) and keep the longest cooldown skills if it's close to the end of the runes cooldown to benefit from the extra cooldown reduction.

    Skills with the highest Priority to lowest(this does not mean you have to press every buttons below but use any of the following skill that has the longest cooldown that is up to benefit from the extra 15% multiplicative cooldown reduction from the rune effect):
    1. Alithanes's Judgment
    2. Heavenly Blessings
    3. Holy Protection
    4. Wrath of God
  9. Basic attack when you have nothing else to do.

Stats Priority

Supports usually only use Swiftness and Specialization Combat Stats. The ratio of these stats can be allocated to suit different player preferences.

  • Standard Build: Full Swiftness focus build except for having Specialization on the necklace. This results in higher Cooldown Reduction, Mobility and Attack Speed. This is generally recommended due to higher cooldown reduction will allow you to rotate your damage buff between Wrath of God and Heavenly Blessings with as little downtime as possible.

Bracelet

Bracelets provide beneficial effects to yourself or to your party members depending on the rolls.

Note: Bracelets should not be your top priority to optimize since it'll be much more efficient to optimize your other gear first. Bracelets are costly! So slowly build towards a Main Stat and a Sub Stat. Anything else is extra!

Check out the Bracelet Guide for more details.

Possible Special Effects to Roll:

Optimal

Combat Stats (Swiftness* + Specialization)
Expose Weakness
Dagger
Enlightenment
Cheers

Alternatives

Basic Effect (Strength)
Vitality
Max HP
Weapon Power
Harvest
Flip
Emergency Transfusion
Charge
MP Recovery
Max MP

Engravings

Class Engravings provide powerful benefits that dictate the playstyle of a class. Battle Engravings are generally used to increase damage. Below are the recommended Engravings for this build.

Check out the Engraving Guide for more details.

Starter Engravings

  • Blessed Aura adds healing and Damage Reduction to Paladin's Holy Aura. It is the core aspect of any support Paladin.
  • Awakening reduces Awakening Skill cooldown to provide more opportunities to shield allies from specific damage soak mechanics. Awakening Skills also fill your Piety Meter, allowing for greater Holy Aura uptime.

Add-On Endgame Engravings

  • Expert increases heals and shield efficiency for Holy Protection and Holy Aura. The effectiveness increases further if an ally is below 50% health pool.
  • Drops of Ether generate Ethers that can be picked up by allies to grant Attack Damage, Critical Strike Chance, Movement Speed, Defense or Mana Gain.
  • Vital Point Hit increases Stagger damage done, which will help loosen the pressure on certain bosses with high Stagger check.
  • Judgment increases Piety Meter gain when using Punish Skills. for support Paladins, you only require Level 1 for the 100% Piety Meter gain for greater Holy Aura uptime.
  • Spirit Absorption increases Attack Speed and Movement Speed by 15% at level 3. It is mostly use as extra level 1 or 2 luxury optimization in future after your 5 engravings setups.
  • Heavy Armor increases defense for higher survivability. Moreover, armor shredding debuffs don't affect the bonus defense from this Engraving.
  • Explosive Expert increases the number of consumables you can carry which does provide some convenience and extra safety when extra Stagger Check or Imprisonment dispel is needed with Whirlwind Grenade or Flame Grenade, but the most value to pair with this engraving is Dark Grenade to increase the damage output of the raid for an even longer duration of the boss encounter.

Optimal Setups

Engravings are listed in order of priority from left to right.

Option 1

Blessed Aura
Awakening
Expert
Vital Point Hit
Drops of Ether
Judgment

Option 2

Blessed Aura
Awakening
Expert
Vital Point Hit
Explosive Expert
Judgment

Gear Sets

These are the specific gear sets for each tier.

Check out the Gear Set Guide for more details.

Early Game

250-1100 gearscore
Providence Set

1250-1340 gearscore
Dimensional Set

Early Tier 3

1340 -1414 gearscore
Erupting Waves Set

Piercing Gaze Set

Craft any combination of the legendary gear sets listed above and try to push to 1415 as soon as possible.

Tier 3 Legion Raid Set

1415-1490-1580+ gearscore
Yearning Set

The name of your set will change with every higher tier gearset you acquire, but the set effect will remain the same. Look for the keyword of your set when recrafting it so you don't easily get lost.(e.g Entropy, Hallucination etc)

Sidereal Weapon

Recommended Sidereal Unity Effects for your Seraphic Veritas Expanse is Balthorr.

Check out the Sidereal Weapon Guide for more details.

Runes

Runes enhance Skills with extra bonuses. All Rune drops are account bound and have limited availability, so placement of Runes on the correct Skills is important. Below are the recommended pairings.

Check the Rune Guide for more details.

SkillsRunes
Holy ProtectionFocus
Wrath of GodWealth
Wealth
Heavenly BlessingsWealth
Holy SwordGalewind
Overwhelm
Charge*Quick Recharge
Purify
Godsent LawJudgment
Protection
Light Shock*Quick Recharge
Bleed
Executor's SwordGalewind
Overwhelm
Holy Area*Conviction
Wealth
Light of Judgment*Wealth
Sword of Justice*Conviction
Punishment*Overwhelm
  • Bleed works best on Light Shock due to its low cooldown for specific boss encounters that requires to clear adds.
  • Wrath of God and Heavenly Blessings is paired with Wealth to increase Piety Meter gain significantly.
  • Quick Recharge is also use on Light Shock and Charge for higher proc rate due to their low cooldown.
  • Galewind help speed up your skills.
  • Conviction and Judgment combo is paired with Holy Area or Sword of Justice and Godsent Law because of their high hit counts to easier proc the buff for cooldown reduction and mana regen buff.
  • Overwhelm is paired with Holy Sword and Executor's Sword to significantly increase their Stagger Check. Especially, when you have Vital Point Hit equipped.

(*) Optional skill choices.

Gear Skill Tree

While Gems add benefits to skills, you can also increase the effects of Skill Tree themselves. Skill Tree levels go up to 5 and each level can increase the damage, cooldown reduction or buff that they provide.

For more information on how to add equipment Skill Tree and how to get them, please visit our Skill Tree System Guide.

Charge*Excellent Mobility
Shining Protection
Holy SwordPositioning
Godsent LawShield
Holy ProtectionQuick Pace
Lingering Power(Optional)
Robust Protection(Optional)
Heavenly BlessingsFaith
Absolute Blessing
Wrath of GodFaith
Light of Judgment*Faith
Holy Area*Quick Preparation
Grace
Endless Grace
Sword of Justice*Insight

(*) Optional skill choices.

Supports most important Skill Tree nodes are nodes that provide more Cooldown Reduction, more Piety Meter gain and Increased Shield Values. Hence all the extra slots can be slot in with DPS skill trees for solo content convenience(Towers, World Questing etc.) like Acuteness from Execution of Justice, Broad Slash from Executor's Sword and Condensed Energy from Holy Sword etc.

Gems

Gems grant bonus damage and cooldown reduction to specific skills. You can only equip 11 of these Gems at a time so it is recommended that you prioritize the Gems for your most important skills.

Please visit our Gem System Guide for more information like how to create higher tier Gems.

Attack Gems

Executor's Sword*
Holy Sword*

Cooldown Gems

Executor's Sword
Holy Sword
Godsent Law
Wrath of God
Holy Protection
Heavenly Blessings
Light of Judgment

Charge*
Light Shock*
Holy Area*
Sword of Justice*
Punishment*

(*) Optional gems choices.

Card Sets

Cards are an endgame system for maximizing your character. Below are the recommended sets for this class.

Check the Card Guide for more details on how to obtain them.

Beginner Card Set

Paladin heals work off of their own total HP, and thus you want cards that increase your HP pool. These two Recommended Card Sets do just that; every 2 set pieces increases your total HP by 4%. Because these set bonuses are activated every 2 pieces, you can mix and match the two sets below without worry.

Optional Card Set

The effectiveness of the 'Recommended' HP card sets shouldn't be understated, and is preferred for their support utility over this set even until late endgame. However, for those who want higher personal survivability or are not using the Heavy Armor Engraving, the following set can be viable if you have enough set pieces to activate them both.

Budget Card Set

This set does not replace the Lostwind Cliff set, but it is the best option until you get your Lostwind Cliff up to +30 awakening.

Synergy with Light of Salvation Deck

Synergy with Kazeros's Legion Commanders

Summary

  • Make sure you rotate Wrath of God and Heavenly Blessings. Their damage buffs do not stack.
  • Holy Sword with Outburst of Light can Counter Attack at range with the projectile.
  • Executor's Sword is your fast Counter Attack with decent range from it's mini dash.
  • Understand boss's mechanics to pre-cast Godsent Law before allies take big damage.
  • Keep applying Light Shock to debuff a target for increased damage taken.
  • Blessed Aura and Awakening are your 2 core engravings as a support and add in Expert later on to further increase your shields and heals value.

Credits

Written by Rei
Reviewed by Starlast

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