Best Paladin build in Diablo 2: Resurrected

Diablo 2: Resurrected has several characters for players to dig into. One of them is the mighty Paladin, who cast holy auras to protect his allies or take out his enemies. Paladin also has several skills that he’s learned throughout his years of combat. If you want to use the Paladin as your main class, you have a few options for his build; however, there are two that really stick out for us.

The Hammerdin

• 1 point as needed into prerequisites
• 20 points into Blessed Hammer
• 20 points into Vigor
• 20 points into Blessed Aim
• 20 points into Concentration
• 20 points into Holy Shield

For your stats, you’ll want to put enough points into Strength to use your gear and then enough points into Dexterity to hit the 75% chance to block rate on your shield. This number fluctuates depending on which shield you have, so pay attention as you level up. Then, put the rest of your points into Vitality.

Ideally, for this build, you’re looking to use the Enigma and Heart of the Oak rune words in your armor and weapon slots, respectively. You’re also looking for items that increase your skill levels. That includes items like Herald of Zakarum, Magefist, Stone of Jordan, and Mara’s Kaleidoscope.

This build makes use of Blessed Hammer’s ridiculous damage output, along with its synergy abilities. Then, you stack even more damage with Concentration. Use Enigma to teleport into enemy groups, waste them multiple hammers, and then dart out quickly. It is one of the most dangerous classes for fighting monsters.

That said, this is also one of the most popular builds in all of Diablo 2: Resurrected. That means it’s very expensive to find some of the top-tier items you need to really make this build sing. Thus, we have another build for you that’s still effective and expensive, but you’ll have a little less trouble competing for items.

Zealot Paladin

• 1 point as needed into prerequisites
• 20 points into Sacrifice
• 20 points into Defiance
• 20 points into Zeal
• 20 points into Holy Shield
• 20 points into Fanaticism

Zealot Paladins can use basically the same stat allocation as Hammerdins. Get your Strength and Dexterity up to requirements and then dump everything into Vitality to help stay alive. Zealot Paladins want to target skills like Crushing Blow, Cannot Be Frozen, and resistances to help stay alive at higher difficulties and then try to add Attack Speed, Life Leech, and Faster Hit Recovery.

You’ll do this by acquiring unique items like Guillaume’s Face, Leviathon, String of Ears, and Dracul’s Grasp. It would also serve players well to target either Grief or Breath of the Dying runewords on their weapons. Grief will usually cost a little more but deals higher average damage. BotD, meanwhile, has faster attack speed, leeches life and mana, and boosts your stats. We usually prefer BotD, but that choice is up to you.

As the name might imply, this build makes heavy use of the Zeal skill as your main attack. Fanaticism boosts that attack while everything else helps keep you alive. This is a very strong class against monsters, but you won’t see as much success against other players.

While several other options are available for Paladin players, these two are generally two of the best. If you’re looking to get into PVP, we recommend checking out a Fist of the Heavens build. It’s not as strong against Diablo’s minions but can take out your friends in a flash.