| 1.11 Paladin FAQ and Guide        |

Contact Info:
AIM: Cecil Ragnarok
EMail: jalani27@mail.com 
*YouForgotPoland on USWest
Cecil Ragnarok on GameFAQs
Administrator Izlude on AoW, my friendly mud users ^_^

For: GAMEFAQS, or whoever else wants to host it, I don't
really care :p I'll try to make this short and to the point.
No skill tables, just synergy bonuses. ^_^

Created: November 8, 2003.
Latest Update: August 4, 2005.
Version: .5

|Table of Contents                  |
1. Why Paladins?
2. Offensive Auras.
3. Defensive Auras.
4. Combat Skills.
5. Build Suggestions.
6. Tables for Paladins.
7. World Event and Else.

| Section 1                         |
| - Why Paladins?                   |

For Diablo 2 1.11, paladins are a great choice, both for 
party play and for solo play. With their large choice of 
auras and skills to choose from, they really can excel in
any situation you want to put them in. Melee Paladins, 
Ranged Paladins, Casting Paladins, Defensive Paladins, 
what have you. ^_^ The most common reason for selecting a
paladin, is because they are a defensive melee unit, and 
thus much safer to play. Especially with synergies, paladins
have become a great force in Diablo 2.

A note on synergy bonuses. You only get bonuses from points 
you PUT into the skills. You don't get bonuses from + skills
items adding to a synergy of a skill.

| Section 2                         |
| - Offensive Auras.                |

Just a rundown of auras, with synergy bonuses.

Level 1 Auras
Might: No synergy bonuses, just a generic melee damage aura,
	weakest one. Adds x% to damage.

Level 6 Auras
Holy Fire: Adds fire damage to your attack, and does an area
	of effect to fire damage. 
	Synergy bonuses: 
	+18% from Resist Fire.
	+6% from Salvation. 

Thorns: Reflects melee damage back to your attackers. 1000%+ at
	level 20. No synergies.

Level 12 Auras
Blessed Aim: Gives a big bonus to Attack Rating. No synergies.

Level 18 Auras
Concentration: Adds %x to damage, and a chance of attacks 
	being uninterruptable. Works with Blessed Hammers. No synergies. 

Holy Freeze: Adds cold damage to your attack, and does an area 
	of effect of cold damage, AND slows enemies by a large percent.
	Synergy bonuses: 
	+15% from Resist Cold. 
	+5% from salvation.

Level 24 Auras
Holy Shock: Adds lightning damage to your attack, and does an 
	area of effect of lightning damage. 
	Synergy bonuses: 
	+12% from Resist Lightning. 
	+4% from salvation.

Sanctuary: Adds magic damage to weapon, area of effect of 
	magic damage to undead, knocksback undead. 
	Synergy bonus: 
	+7% from Cleansing.

Level 30 Auras
Fanaticism: Adds x% to melee damage. Party bonus is only half.
	Increases attack speed by x%. Party gets full bonus of that. 
	Adds % AR bonus. Party gets full benefit. No synergies.

Conviction: Subtracts from enemy resistances and defence. 
	Affects enemies, not party. Conviction CAN and WILL remove 
	magic immunities. When a monster is above 100% resistance, 
	conviction only works at 20% effectiveness. No syngergies. 

Example of how it works:
	Conviction reduces resistances by 140%.
	Monster has 120% resistance to cold (immune).
	120%-21% = 99%
	21%x5=105% of your aura used.
	140 (your aura) - 105 (needed to remove immune) = 35.
	99 (Not immune anymore) - 35 (conviction leftover) = 64% resistance now.

| Section 3                         |
| - Defensive Auras.                |

Level 1 Auras
Prayer: Heals damage per "tic" of the aura active. 
	Costs mana to use. No synergies.

Resist Fire: Ups your and parties resistance. No synergies.
	HIDDEN PASSIVE BONUS: Every 2 points of resist fire ups your
	maximum fire resist by 1. Aura does NOT need to be active for 
	this bonus to occur. Every 1 point of resist fire increases 
	max resistance of the party while the aura IS ACTIVE.

Level 6
Defiance: Adds +x% defensive bonus to you and party. No synergy bonuses.

Resist Cold: Ups your and parties resistance. No synergies. 
	HIDDEN PASSIVE BONUS: Every 2 points of resist cold ups your 
	maximum cold resist by 1. Aura does NOT need to be active for 
	this bonus to occur. Every 1 point of resist cold increases 
	max resistance of the party while the aura IS ACTIVE.

Level 12
Cleansing: Speeds up the wearoff time of curses and poison. 
	Synergy bonus: 
	From prayer, to add healing over time to the aura as well.

Resist Lightning: Ups your and parties resistance. No synergies. 
	HIDDEN PASSIVE BONUS: Every 2 points of resist lightning ups 
	your maximum lightning resist by 1. Aura does NOT need to be 
	active for this bonus to occur. Every 1 point of resist 
	lightning increases max resistance of the party while the aura 

Level 18
Vigor: Adds a +x% to run/walk speed, maximum stamina, and 
	stamina recovery rate. No synergy bonuses.

Level 24
Meditation: Adds 300% to mana regen rate when active. 
	No increase on level. 
	Synergy bonus: 
	Prayer adds healing to this aura over time, as well.

Level 30
Redemption: When the aura "tics", has a chance to redeem monster 
	corpses to regen your health and mana by a set amount. Chance and 
	restoration increases on level. No synergy bonuses.

Salvation: Ups your and parties resistance to all elements. 
	HIDDEN SYNERGY: Every 2 points in resist lighting or cold or 
	fire will up parties maximum resistance while the aura is active by 1 point.

| Section 4                         |
| - Combat Skills.                  |

Adding notes on what combat skills do, and how to use them.

Level 1
Sacrifice: Adds damage and attack rating, but 8% of the damage 
	caused is returned as damage to you, as a cost of using it. 
	Synergy bonuses: 
	Redemption +15% damage per level. 
	Fanaticism +5% damage per level. 
** Note ** - The 8% damage to self reachs astronomical levels, 
	when you consider that you'll be doing over 1000% damage to an enemy.

Smite: Damage an enemy with your shield, and stun enemy from a 
	length of time. No synergy bonuses.
** Note ** - Elemental Auras, Damage Auras, and + elemental 
	damage charms do not work with smite damage.

Level 6
Holy Bolt: Damage undead units, heal allies. Does nothing to 
	other monsters. 
	Synergy bonuses: 
	Blessed Hammer- +50% magic damage.
	Fist of the Heavens- +50% magic damage per level. 
	Prayer- +15% life healed per level.
** Note **: Great for undead, which appear as 2/3rds of the 
	monsters in hell worldstone ^_^

Level 12
Zeal: A multihit attack. Starts at 2 hits, and reachs the max
	of 5 hits at skill level 4. From level 5+, adds damage bonus.
	Adds an Attack Rating bonus at all levels. 
	Synergy bonuses: 
	Sacrifice - +12% damage per level.
** Note **: Great to max this skill now, damage adds up quite 
	nicely for physical damage builds, and you need the AR bonus 
	on elemental damage builds. Zeal is somewhat deadly in acts 4 
	and 5, because you'll get iron maidened on the first zeal, and 
	then die.

Charge: Charge at the enemy and strike them for much damage.
	Synergy bonus: 
	Vigor- +20% damage per level. 
	Might- +20% damage per level.
** Note **: Some bugs associated with this skill, but otherwise 
	the best high physical damage attack.

Level 18
Vengeance: Converts some of your damage to cold, fire, and 
	lightning, and adds that all to your physical damage. Also 
	adds AR bonus. 
	Synergy bonuses from: 
	Resist Fire- +10%	fire damage per level. 
	Resist Cold- +10% cold damage per level. 
	Resist Lighting- +10% lightning damage per level.
	Salvation- +2% all elemental damage per level.
** Note **: Great build, but leeching is more difficult, because 
	only a fraction is physical damage. I suggest conviction to 
	double+ your damage.

Blessed Hammer: Creates Hammers that do magical damage to your 
	enemy. These hammers ignore the resistance of all undead and 
	demon creatures, even immune ones. 
	Synergy Bonuses: 
	Blessed Aim- +14% magic damage per level. 
	Vigor- +14% magic damage per level.
** Note **: Because it ignores undead and demon resistances, only 
	a few monsters in the entire game can be immune to Blessed Hammer. 
	I'll list these monsters below, in Misc, courtesy of a helpful email.
	Concentration ups the magical damage of this attack.

Level 24
Conversion: Convert monsters to attack for you. Chance to convert 
	goes up with levels. Duration is fixed at 16 seconds. No syngergies.
** Note **: Horrid skill. The chance starts incredibly low, and 
	duration is tiny, and will never go up. Auras no longer stay 
	effective though, thank god, so the skill is more useable now.

Holy Shield: Adds blocking bonus, smite damage, and defensive 
	bonus to you. The defensive bonus is based on your TOTAL defence,
	not just the shield defence. 
	Synergy Bonus: 
	Defiance- +15% defence per level.
** Note **: A must have for melee paladins, although the skill 
	has a duration, unlike every other paladin skill. The defence 
	bonus is very large, and the blocking bonus means you'll always 
	be at 75%.

Level 30
Fist of the Heavens: A spell that does lightning damage to the main 
	target, and then releases many holy bolts upon impact. 
	Synergy Bonuses from:
	Holy Bolt- +15% holy bolt damage per level.
	Holy Shock- +7% lightning damage per level.
** Note **: Mana Heavy.

| Section 5                         |
| - Build Suggestions.              |

A general note about Stat Points. Strength is never, ever needed at
more than what you need for equipment. Anything more in strength 
would be a waste, because in the increased difficulty of 1.10, it's
much more needed in vitality. Dexterity is more needed for melee 
builds, for attack, defence, and blocking. Vitality is the single 
most important stat! Energy is all but useless. >_>

Blocking Formula: Shield Block Rate * (Dex - 15)/2*Level

HP Per Level:         2
Stamina Per Level:    1
Mana Per Level:       1.5

HP Per Vitality:      3
Stamina Per Vitality: 1
Mana Per Energy:      1.5

For Most Builds-
Strength: Enough for Equipment.
Dexterity: 2x your level should give you maximum blocking on your 
     shield. Otherwise, for casters, enough for equipment.
Vitality: Everything you can spare.
Energy: It's not needed for anything but holy bolt/fist of heavens 
	paladins, and even then you probably will not need more much 
	than base, with your gear.

Really, in 1.10, there is no one true good build, most builds are 
great if you do the synergies up, but I'll suggest what I've seen
 to be particularly effective in hell ladder games.

Blessed Hammerdin: The single greatest build, and prehaps 
character in the game. ^_^
20 Blessed Hammer
20 Vigor
20 Blessed Aim
20 Concentration
x in whatever other skills you want. 

-- Resists are the most needed pieces of EQ. Other than that,
+ to blessed hammer and concentration skills, to increase 
your damage. You'll do roughly 4k per hammer at all 20s, and the
damage only goes up as you add +skills.

Avenger: Great defensive AND hell party build.
20 Vengeance
20 Conviction
20 Resist Lightning
20 Resist Fire
x Holy Shield, Defiance, Resist Cold
1 Cleansing

-- Conviction will make your damage output huge, as well as 
removing elemental immunities from monsters. And with sorcs in your
hell party, you'll drop everything in no time, as your double THEIR 
damage as well. And with points in resist lightning and fire as a 
synergy to vengeance, you'll up your maximum resistances to 85 for 
those elements, which are the best elements to have maxed out 
resistance to. Holy Shield and etc are nessicary for melee paladins.
In the end game, this is probably the best melee paladin.

Smiter: Ultimate 1v1, for PvP and Chaos Tristram.
20 Smite
20 Holy Shield
20 Fanaticism
20 Defiance
x Prereqs

-- Smiter is HIGHLY gear dependant. Most (read: all) smiters work off
of activating the Life Tap skill, and then with fanaticism on spam 
smiting the target to death. Life Tap WILL cause you to leech life back
with smite; life leech and mana leech do NOT work. Because of the awesome
1v1 power, this is one of the few builds capable of consistantly running
Chaos Tristram, a new 1.11 world quest in Diablo II.

Shock Zealot: Melee character that is not dependant on Equipment.
20 Zeal
20 Holy Shock
20 Resist Lightning
1 or 20 Sacrifice
20 in Party helping Aura.
x holy shield, defiance, etc.

-- From level 35 to level 70, this build is the single most 
overpowered build in the game. You'll kill monsters merely by 
walking by with the aura active from Act 5 normal to act 4 
nightmare, and the damage ramp is huge after level 20. Expect 
1-4000 damage added to your attack at level 20 HS/RL. 
Sacrifice isn't really neccisary, because you'll be doing pure 
lightning damage, not physical damage, but if you want to leech 
more, feel free to add it. It also will allow you to take down 
physical immunes with purely the zeal physical damage. Great 
for MFing with a gull dagger and gear, since you can just walk 
by monsters and pick up uniques. Throw on a bow with ITD, and 
holy shock will send out 500-4000 damage arrows for ranged attacks. :>

Physical Damage Zealot: Melee character that has huge 
physical damage output.

20 Zeal
20 Sacrifice
20 Fanaticism
x in holy shield, defiance, etc.
1-x Vengeance.

-- Has a great, super fast zeal attack, for great physical 
damage, but is more equipment dependant than a shock zealot. 
In case of mass physical immunes, I'd suggest a 2nd party 
helping aura besides fanat.

Chargeadin: Huge Melee damage, but not so great 
crowd control.

20 Charge
20 Might
20 Vigor
20 Fanaticism
x in other skills.

-- You'll have huge damage, but very low on the defence, 
especially considering you'll probably be using a 2 handed 
weapon to max that charge bonus. Great for 1 on 1 fights, 
but gets owned in crowd control.

Cleric: Party helping paladin, you can take this many, many ways.
20 Holy Bolt
20 Blessed Hammer
20 Fist of Heavens
20 Prayer
20 Party Helping Aura of Your Choice

-- Great for act 5 hell, as most monsters are undead, and you can 
help your tanks with the healing. You must, MUST level in groups 
though, until then, because you can't damage every enemy.

There are many other builds that are viable, with 1.10 synergies.
Just experiment and find one you like, and that works well. :>

| Section 6                         |
| - Tables                          |
This section will include all of the faster cast rate, hit rate, etc
tables that apply to Paladins. You'll be able to see what % you
need to get to get that next frame reduction. There are roughly
25 frames per second, so 3 casts a second is 8 fps or lower.
And so on.

FPS = Frames per second
FHR = Faster Hit Recovery
FCR = Faster Cast Rate

Faster Hit Recovery
Recovery Time || 4 || 3 || 2  ||
Percent FHR   || 0%||32%||152%||

Notes about FHR. Paladins naturally have the best hit recovery.
They start at 4 frames to recover, naturally, lower than any
other class. The also are the only class able to get down to 2
frames to recover, although the cost in FHR% is kinda high.

Faster Cast Rate
Casting Time || 13 || 12 || 11 || 10 || 9 || 8  || 7  ||
Percent FCR  || 0% || 10%|| 20%|| 40%||65%||105%||200%||

Notes about FCR. Paladins are matched by barbs, and bettered only
sorceress' in the faster cast rate department. You can toss out
those holy bolts and blessed hammers at mega speed if you get up

Block Speed
Blocking Time  || 5 || 4 || 3 || 2 || 1 ||
Speed w/out HS || 0%||13%||32%||86%||600%|
Speed with HS  ||---||---||---|| 0%||86%||

Notes. HS is holy shield. With holy shield on, you automatically
have 2 frame per second blocking.

Weapon Speed Table
Popular weapons, with some second break points.
I'm not listing all weapons here.
Attacks per second is the column, weapon type is row,
IAS% is where the two meet.
This table also does not include fanaticism. To get that, just
add your fanaticism IAS% to your total IAS%, and check weapon type.
Zeal seems to just double your attacks per second.

(attacks/second): 1 || 1.5 || 2 || 2.5 || 3 ||
Phase Blade:     ---|| --- ||0% || 10% ||54%||
Seraph Rod:      ---|| 0%  ||34%|| 78% ||215%|
Caduceus:        ---|| 0%  ||7% || 35% ||109%|
Collosus Blade:  0% || 14% ||70%||232% ||---||
Ballista:        0% || 37% ||138%| --- ||---||

| Section 7                         |
| - World Event and Else            |

World Event #1: Diablo Clone
This was added in 1.10. It's sort of a quest, and it doesn't work on
open or single player. Here's the jist of it:

Battle.net is hosted on several servers. When someone sells a 
SoJ to a merchant, all of the games on that server get the 
message "XXX Stones of Jordan sold to merchants". After 
approximately 120 SoJs have been sold on that server, ALL hell
difficulty games on that server spawn a Diablo Clone. He spawns 
at the first Super Unique that you walk to (that hasn't already 
been spawned (meaning you haven't come within 2 screens of it)).
An easy location to get to is Eldritch the Rectifier, which is 
just north of the Frigid Highlands WP, in Act 5.

Diablo Clone is basically just a (far) more powerful version of
Diablo. Bring a weapon with Prevent Monster Heal, and make sure
you have maxed fire and lightning resistance. On his death he 
drops one Annhilius unique charm. Only one, no matter the number
of people in the game. Further, he only appears in hell 
difficulty, so if someone tells you he dropped some ridiculous 
unique in nightmare, call them an idiot to their face, and then 
squelch them.

World Event #2: Chaos Tristram
Quest added in the 1.11 patch, this is a big'un.

First off, it's only available on closed realms. Not single 
player, not anything else. You must assmeble 3 keys. The keys
are dropped only by 3 specific super uniques, and only in 
hell difficulty. They drop at a rate of 1/34th.

The Countess (Act 1, Forgotten Tower level 5) - Key of Terror
The Summoner (Act 2, Arcane Sanctuary) - Key of Hate
Nithlahak (Act 5, Halls of Pain) - Key of Terror

After you've collected these 3 keys (dosen't have to be in one
game), return to Act 5, in hell difficulty. Transmute all 3 
keys in the cube, and ONE of THREE red portals will open. 
They lead to one of three locations. Each location has one 
boss. Each of these bosses drops ONE specific item, always. 
These items are the "keys" to the NEXT part of the quest.


Matron's Den - Lillith (Uber Andariel) - Drops Diablo's Horn
Forgotten Sands - Uber Duriel - Drops Baal's Eye
Furnace of Pain - Uber Izual - Drops Mephisto's Brain 
(maybe thats why he gets moat trick'd ;o)

Put all 3 body parts in your cube in Act 5, and transmute once more.
You'll open one more red portal, and this one leads to Chaos Tristram.

Chaos Tristram is extremely difficult. It has a MORE powerful 
Uber Diablo, along with Uber Baal and Uber Mephisto. Exciting.
To make matters worse, several extremely beefed minions are 
there, including skeleton archers and pit lords, which 
CONSTANTLY RESPAWN. They also, are not like normal ones. 
They have increased life, damage, and resistances, and many are 
immune to all but one element.

If you can kill all 3 bosses, the last one will drop something 

Hellfire Torch
Unique Large Charm

25% Chance of casting Level Firestorm on striking. 
(Uber Diablo's Firestorm)
+3 to all X skills. (X = random class, upon identification)
+8 Light Radius
+10-20 All Resistance
+10-20 All Stats
10 Level 30 Charges of Hydra

With the randomness of the plus skills, and the EXTREME 
DIFFICULTY of Chaos Tristram, it really beehooves you to 
do this with a couple of friends (4 people each specializing
in a different type of damage could clear this beast out), 
and divvy up the charms as you find them. (Not to mention, you 
could all do seperate games to find the keys, and work together 
on Lillith et al, and come together when you have all the 
ingredients for CTrist).

Mobs Immune to Blessed Hammer
Magic Resistant Animals: These monsters are animals, not demon
or undead, so Blessed Hammer does not ignore the resistance
of these monsters. Thanks to Michael Anzulovic for giving me the
info on these monsters.

  Unique Monsters with Mana Burn: These creatures get 75% magic
  resistance for Mana Burn property. While undeads and demons are
  still ignored for resistance, animal uniques will commonly get 
  this property.

  All Bat Demon class monsters (Desert Wing, Fiend, Gloom Bat,
  Blood Diver, Dark Familiar) have 25% magic resistance in hell.
  Combined with Mana Burn, you can have Bat Demons immune to BH, 
  as they are animal class.

  Wailing Beasts, Act 3 Wendigos found primarily in Kurast, have
  large magic resistance in normal and nightmare, and are immune 
  to magic in hell. They are very limited in scope though, but I
  wouldn't recommend trying to do Hell Lan Esam Tome quest solo.

  Serpent Magi, Act 3 Claw Vipers, also are highly resistance in 
  the first two difficulties, and immune in the last. They are
  found in the same areas as Wailing Beasts, but these monsters pop
  up often in Act 5, with their new bone spear attack.

  Demon Steed, Act 5 Seige Beast monster, have 75% magic resistance
  in hell. Other Seige Beasts, including our beloved Thresh Socket,
  have no magic resistance.

  All Minotaur monsters have been reclassified from Demon to Animal 
  in 1.10. They all have 33% resistance to magic, and can make hell
  Act 5 horrible for hammerdins.

  Act 5 Foul Crows, Blood Hawks, and Black Raptors all gain 40-50%
  magic resistance when they appear in Act 5.

  Act 5 Claw Vipers gain 25% resitance when appearing in this act.

  Act 5 Tomb Creepers and Cave Leapers also gain 25% resistance as
  guest monsters.

  Fire Towers and Lightning Spires always have 90% magic resistance.

(Paraphrased, but much thanks!)

My Only Real Accomplishment

This is when 1.10 FIRST came out, and I raced up the ladder. It was kind of 
amusing having 300 people whispering "umm how the **** did u gte so hi? lololol
itam plz" when I was one of 10 people who completed hell difficulty.

My Paladin:
Holy Shock Zealot. ;o
2nd group to beat hell baal US West Ladder, so I guess I kinda 
know what I'm talking about. I haven't played Diablo 2 for 2 
years prior to 1.10, so I'm really a noob. :> Highest ladder 
rank was 7, in hell difficulty. #2 on the Paladin charts.

I found myself using conviction in hell baal runs, so that the sorcs
could own everyone in a few seconds, so I tossed a point in vengeance.
Conviction at level 23 lowers most lightning immunities, and RL at level
20 gives +272% lightning damage to vengeance, so it's a great skill. 
Black Souls in hell act 5 dont hurt me from huge lightning resistance,
either, so I'm great for parties, and can solo with just 
zeal/holy shock, in hell games.

If you have something you think I should add to this guide, you can 
get a hold of me, too. I'm always willing to update it.