Paladin: Dual Dream or Dual Dragon + HoJ?

Hey!

I was aiming to build my paladin to a dual Dream tesladin, 30

Holy Shock aura +

Conviction and

Zeal/

Sacrifice. But i just read that I can equip a dual-Dragon runeword + hands of justice and achieve 44

Holy Fire +

Conviction +

Zeal/

Sacrifice. I dont have the bases yet, but I have enough runes to build either.

Considering that I have both Fire and Lightning sunder charms, which one you think will be more destructive/fun do play?

I can't speak for the Holy Firedin, but i build myself a Tesladin and the experience is underwhelming. You can afk farm (which i always assumed meant play with one hand, while pleasuring yourself with the other and obviously only half paying attention) on player 1 terrorzones, but if you want a strong, fast lightning build, Javazon is the way to go in my opinion.

The Auras do okay damage but they are certainly not overpowered. On players 1 it took 3 ticks for a terrorized Hellbovine to go down.

I'm glad i kept my hammerdin gear and will probably respec back into a hammerdin at some point.

You can read this guide in order to decide which variant on auradin is more suitable for you: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/t ... etc/156954. The Dream variant featured here: https://www.icy-veins.com/d2/dream-zealot-paladin-build also excels at building physical damage which can be very nice vs lightning immune mobs. Also, take into account your preferences for farming zones. If you like to do a lot of

Chaos Sanctuary runs then a Dragon build might not be the one for you.

Dual Dream + Dragon + HoJ (no sunder needed, no grand charms needed) or dual Dragon + HoJ (

Flame Rift needed, no grand charms needed)

Pure Fire build has incredible aura range, worse resists, stronger vs enemies.
Lightning/Fire hybrid has it easier to max out resists and keep more MF/GF at the same time, better farming char.

I have both the dreamadin and holy-fire-din (and even a funny dreambear sorc, but that is another story).

In short, the first one is ok in p1, probably not that bad in p3, but is much less effective in higher p-counts. In my experience, the

Holy Fire boy performs much better, particularly if you add a good CoA with 2 fire facets or Flickering Flame. He literally instantly melts down almost every trash mob around, often off screen, while uniques/champs die in a couple of charges. Tge only issue is

Chaos Sanctuary, as fire immune demons there still have quite high res/hp despite sunders, max

Conviction aura and minus res from the items.

He is not that good on higher player counts as well.

another con compared to the dreamadin- u can't have Enigma on, so no tele unless u use Naj's on swap

I tested both builds and i decided for double Dragon, Flickering Flame and Hand of Justice. its more powerful

I think i'll try first the double Dragon + flickering + HoJ then. If they are not good enough i could always use those gear with a fire sorc or sell it and build a double-Dream paladin.

Thanks so much for the replies!

SnowSnow wrote: 11 months ago

You can read this guide in order to decide which variant on auradin is more suitable for you: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d2r/t ... etc/156954. The Dream variant featured here: https://www.icy-veins.com/d2/dream-zealot-paladin-build also excels at building physical damage which can be very nice vs lightning immune mobs. Also, take into account your preferences for farming zones. If you like to do a lot of

Chaos Sanctuary runs then a Dragon build might not be the one for you.

Really nice guide, thanks!

For me its more depending what you want to do. My random 2cents

my auradin (Dragon+hoj) can do P8 cows, they just take 4-6 ticks depending how close they are. I find him best on P1-5

Pros:
Very lazy play style. Just

Charge around in circles and things die..no need to even attack.
P1-5 cows is usually 2-3 ticks depending how close, plus hitting the ENTIRE screen plus off a little is crazy.
Probably easiest P1 build there is...don't even need to use a keyboard, just move with the mouse and everything on screen dies.
Cheaper overall as all you really need to start killing p5+ cows is hoj, and dual Dragon in any bases.
- Since I don't play this guy as melee focused you can have lower resists or crappy gear other than those three, and still kill.

More variety in builds I think.
I went with a 3FOH

Scepter that had 1 to

Redemption, so I saved 5 hard points and can quickly tap up if needed. speced into FOH/

Holy Bolt with remainders so I can do demon/UD areas easier.


Cons:
Any plays with walls/moats/bridges sucks due to no tele, unless you use a

Charge (annoying imo)
Does seem to get hit a LOT more then my tesladin, even with max block, same armor amount etc.
Less melee damage but way stronger aoe then tesladin.
Chaos is a bit rougher due to high FR mobs even with sunder and - rez gear.

Tesladin
More of a melee/interactive build.

Pros:
Great for killing bosses / going anywhere due to Enigma.
Can use different weps, Creasant moon for example is super cheap and works very well
Lot better surviviablity imo then my auradin, both 75 block, both ~7600 armor, both max rez..no idea why, I can sit in p8 cows and just melee around and live, or even run past them and they hit me, but I take less damage overall (Has Enigma for some, but auradin has COA/

Shako for PDR)

Cons:
Expensive as heck to fully gear out if you want those crazy lightning dmg small charms.
Have to be more focused on playing due to less dmg on the aoe

You really can't go wrong with either. Double Dream technically does more damage than Double Dragon Justice, but they both pretty much wipe the floor with P1. DDJ can certainly play quite passive by just running around and watching things drop. DD requires a little more active engagement.

Also, as a slight aside here, if you really want to stack the damage, you may find that running

Holy Shock yourself is much stronger... whether that's with DDJ gear or purely stacking 5/5 facets (lmao).

The deciding factor for me was Enigma, the Tesladin can use it for much faster travel and better mfing. For killing trash mobs/cows a javazon or

Nova sorc will likely still be faster, but I bet the dragondin will still be fun!

This thread actually inspired me to go for a Dragon-HoJ Paladin

Read several guides but I am not yet sure which charms to equip for him.

Among the +Skill charms I guess Offensive Aura Charms are probably best for him, since it gives +1

Holy Fire and +1

Conviction.

Defensive Skiller probably dont make a lot of sense since only "hard points" count for synergies?

And lastly Combat would "only" increase

Zeal and

Holy Shield...

I guess Offensive Skillers wouldnt even make too much of a difference, hence it might make sense to just equip whatever might be missing on the character - MF Scs, Resistances, Life - you name it...

Feedback on that is appreciated

For me its better to hybrid standard Zealot&

Smite with FoH.

Fist of the Heavens just melt down any deamon/undead areas like Sanctuary of Chaos.

Zeal/

Smite for normal mobs and bosses, very tanky with Grief+Exile shield and heal full hp on each strike.

I'm a bit late, but here's my two cents.

I tried both Dreamdin and Dragondin and I find Dreamdin much more versatile and enjoyable to play with. Dragondin is a monster in < 3 player games, you gotta constantly check if you didn't miss some nice loot 'cause lots of trash mobs die off the screen. It's kinda fun, but actually boring and a bit frustrating. Can't remember when was the last time I played him. Plus he's highly dependent on gear so has little to no place for experimentation.
Dreamdin, on the other hand, have lots of space to make him suitable for lots of situations. Wanna do Ubers? Put on CoH or Forti, Grief or LW, and you're good to go. Wanna farm with tons of mf? Enigma, Skullder's, LW once again, you even can use something like isted PB or Ali Baba, anyway most of your damage comes from aura. It's definitely not the most efficient way to farm, but it just feels great when I find gg stuff using this guy.

I will probably still use my javazon on cows, even with Dream or Dragon paladins.

This build actually is more of a challenge to me, as I only play as Amazon or Necromancer all the time. I'm forcing myself to play as a Paladin and a Zoo Keeper Druid (my brother plays as a Summon Druid and I call him zoo keeper all the time lol).

Thanks for all the replies! I will probably go for a Dual Dragon / Hand of Justice with Flickering Flame, but not for any particularly reason other than experiment with fire builds.

I still have probably 35 or more levels to get lol and one or two high runes to collect. I will update later with my 2 cents as well.

reconone wrote: 11 months ago

Tesladin
More of a melee/interactive build.

Pros:
Great for killing bosses / going anywhere due to Enigma.
Can use different weps, Creasant moon for example is super cheap and works very well
Lot better surviviablity imo then my auradin, both 75 block, both ~7600 armor, both max rez..no idea why, I can sit in p8 cows and just melee around and live, or even run past them and they hit me, but I take less damage overall (Has Enigma for some, but auradin has COA/

Shako for PDR)

Cons:
Expensive as heck to fully gear out if you want those crazy lightning dmg small charms.
Have to be more focused on playing due to less dmg on the aoe

You are absolutely correct here, and i was thinking just about Enigma here and

Teleport, and the resists that I could get with COA.

How could we circumvent the lower resists with dual Dragon/HoJ? Flickering Flame would boost Fire Resist, but and the other ones? I could probably get maybe +20 from Anny + Torch (mine aren't perfect) but that is far from good.

Eldryndor wrote: 11 months ago

This thread actually inspired me to go for a Dragon-HoJ Paladin

Read several guides but I am not yet sure which charms to equip for him.

Among the +Skill charms I guess Offensive Aura Charms are probably best for him, since it gives +1

Holy Fire and +1

Conviction.

Defensive Skiller probably dont make a lot of sense since only "hard points" count for synergies?

And lastly Combat would "only" increase

Zeal and

Holy Shield...

I guess Offensive Skillers wouldnt even make too much of a difference, hence it might make sense to just equip whatever might be missing on the character - MF Scs, Resistances, Life - you name it...

Feedback on that is appreciated

The auras you get from DDJ (and Dream) are set by the items. You can't increase them with +skills, so Offensive Aura skillers don't help

Holy Fire or

Holy Shock in this case. It will help

Conviction, but that generally isn't very useful since DDJ has so many free skill points it can reach level 25 convic without issue.

You don't really gain any benefit from any skiller charms as your main skills (

Zeal,

Charge,

Holy Shield) don't gain very much as they get higher level.

Zeal has higher AR, but HoJ has ITD, you mostly watch things die from your aura, and arguably you'll get more AR using AR charms instead of +Pcombs.

Charge doesn't get faster with higher levels, and +DMG isn't useful as your main damage is fire not phys.

Holy Shield you could make an argument for, but you shouldn't have problems getting mobbed where higher Def and Block chance would start to really matter. All your supplemental aura choices (Redemp,

Vigor,

Meditation, etc...) are 1-point wonders, so no need to boost them very high, except maybe Redemp just so you can wipe a pack and reduce the time it takes to refill all health and mana before charging towards other mobs.

Ultimately, charms end up being entirely complementary. You can fill in gaps like +Res, +Life/Mana, and +STR/DEX. You can stack MF/GF, or you could go nuts and stack +Fire/Light damage to make

Zeal hurt more... or +Def for laughs. Really up to you.