How to make my Holy Fire paladin tougher?

https://maxroll.gg/d2/resources/life-mana-mechanics

Life Stolen per hit

On a successful weapon strike that deals Physical Damage, return Life to the attacker equal to a % of the damage dealt. This is often referred to as Life Leech (LL).

Skills with Life Mechanics \ Necromancer

Life Tap causes 50% of Physical Damage dealt to the target to be returned as Life to the attacker.

Mana Stolen per hit

On a successful weapon strike that deals Physical Damage, returns Mana to the attacker equal to a % of the damage dealt. Mana Stolen per hit is often referred to as Mana Leech (ML)

d2rppa69 wrote: 2 weeks ago

Fred mentioned here that it does effect only physical damage? 50% to return as life on physical damage?

skills/life-tap-t4107.html

Unless this is proven wrong and it has been tested?

Of course, physical damage. What are we talking about?

I presumed you know about leech mechanics.

DasNarf wrote: 2 weeks ago

d2rppa69 wrote: 2 weeks ago

Fred mentioned here that it does effect only physical damage? 50% to return as life on physical damage?

skills/life-tap-t4107.html

Unless this is proven wrong and it has been tested?

Of course, physical damage. What are we talking about?

I presumed you know about leech mechanics.

Yeah my original

Life Tap post was to reiterate what others have said about leeching , including lifetap for dragondib build, it doesnt play well.

So u not getting much life back with lifetap as my physical damage is miniscule compares to my fire dmg… hence i mentioned what i mentioned, But if u think lifetap works for u, more powrr to u as for me doesnt help much in a realistic scenario. I would be better off to take rejuv and/or

Redemption aura than to use a slot for draculs gloves, that slot could be better used with something else gear towards dragondin

What realistic scenarios are we talking about, in which a life recover of 600+ (in a bad case) or 1200+ (in common cases) per ATTACK isn't enough to survive? The moment LT procs you are 99% safe.

Or what is the best alternative?

Redemption, which pulses every 2 seconds, so you need a lot of luck in a delicate situation to hit the right moment activating it? Not to mention the need of nearby bodies to get any effect out of it, which, in most cases, are available after a fight.

A priest merc, who heals around 60 HP every two seconds? Hmmm... I dunno my friend.

I'm always hovering over my rejuv hotkey when I am running into

Lord De Seis's gang midst an P8 Chaos run or when entering the Throne. Everyone should. But those pots don't grow on trees, they are meant for emergency use.

Iono about you, if my phys dmg is only 500 or less and i get 50% of that dmg as life back, isnt something i’d write home about. The fact that you have to wait til it procs 5% chance?

Since i play mostly 1 or 2 ppl ingame max, maybe the situation doesnt apply to me, but definitely for me, the 50% life back isnt good enough. Not sure how u get 600 or more life back on lifetap, that just means u deal alot of physical damage. My dragondin’s dmg all comes from aura and + fire dmg charms for melee.

Bloodfist, crafted crushing blow gloves or tri-res with ias n dex would be much better than draculs, imo.

I just checked my paladin's stats, I am at 610-750 physical damage with a PB HoJ (okay, perfectly rolled, but I did the math with 500, this is easy to achieve) and 15 hardpoints into

Sacrifice, 1 hardpoint

Zeal. I used to play P8 Chaos/WST for weeks now, playing very aggressively, always leading the pack. Died maybe once or twice in all that time since I respecced. Resists: 95/85 Fire/Light, 9K Def (this is not much!), maxblock, 2.8K Life with a mediocre CTA and 23% life leech. I never played a safer Dragondin build!

I play my auradin like im taking a stroll and enjoying the scenary and then when the remaining few mobs run up to me to talk, i give them a

Zeal or 2 . On bosses, 1-2

Zeal also brings them down.

I just dont have a need for life leeching due to my playing style. As for rejuvs, iono, they drop like flies to the point where i jug rejuvs for fun.

Gentlemen, hello again,

As suggested earlier, I decided to trust my gut and respec my skill points. I also made some changes to my merc:

1) I maxed out

Holy Shield.
2) I’ll put extra points into

Zeal and

Sacrifice. I’m still thinking whether to put more points into

Sacrifice for the synergy damage or max out

Zeal for the extra damage and attack rating.
3) I picked a merc with

Prayer and geared him up with Insight, a Cure

Helm, and Chains of Honor.
4) I’m also still figuring out how effective Sunders are – does having a Sunder indirectly boost the damage from my aura, or does it mainly affect the sword swings? I’m looking for a balance between the risk of lower resists and higher damage output.

At first, I was worried that Insight would be not utilized properly, but after some playtime, I realized I was wrong – I can spam

Charge all day without worrying about running out of mana and getting stuck on the map after holding it for a few seconds. This merc setup also serves another purpose – if I ever want to switch to a Tesladin (mainly for Enigma), I’ve already got the merc’s gear sorted.

As for my main goal, which was survivability, it's working great. I regen about 80 HP every 2 seconds and only used 3 rejuvs, all for the merc. The aura keeps clearing the map, and I don't have to worry about sudden health drops – so far, I’m really happy with how it’s going.

Huge thanks to everyone who took the time to give me valuable advice, and see you in-game!

If you want to just walk around killing things I think

Flame Rift is needed (as

Conviction is not enough to break some fire immunes - breaks more than cold ones, but less than lightning ones...)
Otherwise you (or your Merc) can just beat up Immunes that

Conviction can't handle...

I prefer go sunder and give the same treatment to all monsters
(Flickering Flame and/or

Laying of Hands can deal with the resistance penalty)

FF and Sunder was the way to go for me.

Don't forget that FF carries your synergy of +20% max fire resist to all party members, mercs and minions, the latter gaining immunity even without that synergy bonus!

Even the most sucky geared party member will have their fire resist maxed out at 95% when you are nearby. That's crazy effective in the most dangerous areas of the game! People will love you.