Hammer/foh paladin hybrid

I wanted to share the build I've been playing recently. For some time, I tried a dedicated FOH paladin build but I found it to work great in a few places and not so much/or too slow in others. I'm the type that likes to clear all mobs everywhere I go so it's partly my fault. A couple weeks ago I changed my spec and am now doing a FOH and hammer hybrid. It's been years since I used hammers, and maybe that's why I'm finding it so fun?

Spec FOH
increase the FOH magic damage (Fist of Heavens and

Holy Bolt) ignoring the extra lightning damage skills like

Holy Shock. It might be worth putting one point in it though to benefit from all the added +skill points. FOH is my primary attack skill specially as I

Teleport or run towards groups of mobs.

Hammers
Next is adding skill points to raise the dmg output of hammers (

Blessed Hammer,

Vigor,

Blessed Aim). Finally, the auras I walk around in are almost exclusively in

Concentration which increases the dmg output of

Blessed Hammer and every so often, I'll switch to

Redemption

Gear

• https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/cr8xk0ul

125 fcr breakpoint makes casting all the things and teleporting great. Currently using mf gear > 400% with decent gold find as well. Spirit on the shield gives me plenty fhr so I don't get stopped along the way. FOH and Hammers hit plenty hard for P1 which is what I play. Have max all resistance and I did put many points in dex to get to max block or close to it - my

Helm and ammy both have a little dex.

Merc
Act 2 with

Prayer for hp regen and using Insight for mana regen. Allows me to spam hammers or foh non-stop. Great for

Baal when he mana leeches too. Rearely need to use

Redemption because of this combo.

Play Style
Run around with

Concentration on casting FOH on groups of mobs. If mobs rush at me and circle me, I cast hammers. If I find a straggler I'll use hammers. On bosses, hammers for quick kills. If my hp seems to get a little low, I'll switch to

Redemption for a tick and back to

Concentration. I tend to do this with TZ

Nihlathak. Often I start with FOH and switch over to hammers in large groups.

Thoughts
I like using more than one skill to play the game - something about using both hammers and FOH makes it more fun to me. For example, in act 5 throne, I can spam hammers until the wave of mobs shows up and switch to foh. I'm enjoying farming all TZ now instead. Overall, I give the build 2 thumbs up and maybe I'll get to lvl 98!

As a fellow enjoyer of juggling many buttons and clearing all sorts of places, your build looks fun to play — thanks for sharing!

I've seen second-hand how much a pure FoH Paladin struggles with zones including a significant presence of non-Undead or -Demons, so mixing in some hammers sounds great. Any areas you particularly enjoy farming with your new hybrid setup?

Runasutaru wrote: 2 weeks ago

Any areas you particularly enjoy farming with your new hybrid setup?

I used to skip the act iv TZ's other than Chaos. I did them last night and it was enjoyable. I also found

Tal Rasha's being more pleasant being able to kill the beatles pretty quick with hammers while clearing most of the others with foh. I'm using my paly on all TZ's atm, not being picky as I was before.

azeroti wrote: 2 weeks ago

Gear

• https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/cr8xk0ul

Shako+

Magefist is better in every metric than a cheap circ+chancies (except gold find)

uuee wrote: 1 week ago

azeroti wrote: 2 weeks ago

Gear

• https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/cr8xk0ul

Shako+

Magefist is better in every metric than a cheap circ+chancies.

Good call! I don't need the extra gold from chancies since I have a gold barb so yeah, I agree I should make that change. I'll try it tonight, thanks.

uuee wrote: 1 week ago

azeroti wrote: 2 weeks ago

Gear

• https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/cr8xk0ul

Shako+

Magefist is better in every metric than a cheap circ+chancies (except gold find)

Well, as long as you do not care for the "look-metric"... (Btw, if no one looks, in p1 games my Sorc wears a

Shako+

Topaz instead of Nightwings, too )

oOKIWIOo wrote: 1 week ago

[..]
(Btw, if no one looks, in p1 games my Sorc wears a

Shako+

Topaz instead of Nightwings, too )

You yourself are looking. Which is the only person you should care about in that context.
Though nightwings is beyond fugly anyways so going from that to

Shako..no big visual loss.

Schnorki wrote: 1 week ago

oOKIWIOo wrote: 1 week ago

[..]
(Btw, if no one looks, in p1 games my Sorc wears a

Shako+

Topaz instead of Nightwings, too )

You yourself are looking. Which is the only person you should care about in that context.
Though nightwings is beyond fugly anyways so going from that to

Shako..no big visual loss.

I cast that much blizzard that it conceales my Sorc at least a little

Thank God I am at least colour blind (not joking). But you´re right: Both "options" are a complete aesthetic failure...

this build seems counter intuitive - at least to me.

The full force of the boring BH din originated way back in LOD where i last stopped playing it. Simply OP but boring class to play because primary skill is all you need.

& an Enigma as standard uniform.

Spam hammers. Tings die. I fell asleep with BH spam in LOD in my younger days and god forbid me what would happen if i do so now..

Why make a hybrid when you can focus on pure BH and not gimp yourself?

FOH is great as a FOH/Smiter hybrid that's for sure.
D2r made a great change to FOH -tip of the hat to that- by allowing

Bolts to 100%

Pierce & travel 2 screens away.
Totally raised the dead &

Revive interest in the Din class for me.

Now they need to get back & look at the

Shock Wave bear druid. . .

I see you have CtA in a

War Scepter, what automeds does it have?
I have a 5os

Divine Scepter w +3 FOH and +1

Holy Shock, I am thinking of making a CtA with it for my FOH-din.
Not sure if it is a better option than the Hand of the Blessed Light i am currently using. Would appreciate some feed-back on that

Kbob2 wrote: 5 hours ago

I see you have CtA in a

War Scepter, what automeds does it have?
I have a 5os

Divine Scepter w +3 FOH and +1

Holy Shock, I am thinking of making a CtA with it for my FOH-din.
Not sure if it is a better option than the Hand of the Blessed Light i am currently using. Would appreciate some feed-back on that

A while back @Necrarch pointed out I could replace my cta cs/

Flail with a

Scepter having

Vigor and save those points and I have been doing that since. The way I use it is to have my primary weapon/shield set be what I use for fighting mobs and when I'm in town, I switch to my cta defaulted to

Vigor to run arond faster. I only use it for buffing and running around town then switch back to main set for what ever other aura I normally would use.

3 foh +

Concentration cta's sell for a good bit so they seem to be a popular choice for some.

azeroti wrote: 5 hours ago

Kbob2 wrote: 5 hours ago

[..]
Not sure if it is a better option than the Hand of the Blessed Light i am currently using. Would appreciate some feed-back on that

[..]
I only use it for buffing and running around town then switch back to main set for what ever other aura I normally would use.
[..]

Correct choice imo.

A main FoH CtA

Scepter is nice primarily in that it offers you +4 to FoH as well as frees up your secondary weapon set.
The secondary being freed up however tends to not be too important for pure FoHdins as well as some hybrids for that matter. And the +4 FoH, nice as it is, is just that. +4. There are other choices that offer you superior (primary/light) dmg than a mere +4 by combining both, +skills/FoH and room for facets. Hand of the blessed light would actually be an example of that as it also gets +4 total to FoH but leaves room for a socket and with that a facet for more dmg than CtA would offer.

Though the ideal weapon choice is actually more complex than just "skills + facet sockets" as most of the ones that would win that contest also come with 0 faster cast, meaning you have to get enough of that elsewhere to make up for none on your weapon which in turn very easily costs you the same skills + facet socket you just gained, if not more. E.g. having to move from HoZ to Spirit for FCR costs you not only a socket but also 2 levels of FoH so..pricy.

great, thanks for the input!

The idea was to have the

Scepter-CtA and Spriit as primary for FoH and HoZ and Greif on switch for

Zeal/

Smite.

But now I think I will reconsider based on what you guys are saying and make a regular CtA and sell the

Scepter. I sold a 5os FoH

Scepter months ago for

Ohm

good point about

Vigor, I am currently using

Tearhaunch for that.

I also realised that I have a 2os, +3 skills

Heaven's Light lying around, good for both FoH and

Smite, maybe a better option the HoBL?