I’ve been looking for a good Paladin Warpath build and what better to model off than the top paladin warpath build on the ladder.
So in looking at their skills it uses Smite, Judgement, Holy Aura and Sigils of Hope. If i’m looking at this correctly all of those are spenders, but most builds with warpath are net 0 gains for mana so you’d get a few casts and then you’d have to stop warpathing to regen mana and then start again. If you go the 2H route you can pick up the mana generation there and get up to 5 mana every three seconds if you use all 5 points. Is this enough mana generation to be able to cast judgement every so often?
I’m thinking the build could use the axe throwing passive and the idols that cast smite for that skill, use the sigil skill talent that generates sigils on kill and use the aura in passive mode except when needed?
Does anyone have some thoughts on if this is feasible for a build? Are there uniques that I’m not aware of (new to the game) that could impact what talents are taken or how this build would work?
Thanks for any input or advice
Also how to tag this as a paladin post… I looked up another post that shows an optional tag field, but I only get the main class not the subclass optional field.
Edit: Did some more research in the planner, if I go the full 5 points in the 2h mana generation and take the four points in unchained with reckless spin to get the mana channeling cost down to 2 then depending on how the talents in judgement work with the 45% mana efficiency and then the 50% additional mana cost to turn it into an aura, it comes pretty close to equal mana usage. Seems like a lot of work that may not be worth anything.
From everything you are saying, it sounds like a pretty basic paladin build, you can do alot of variations to that.
Judgment is not really good currently and we will see a rework of it (and many other sentinel skills) in the next patch, which is soon too arrive.
While those are not super good for endgame, there is a pair of very good unique gloves, which already can drop super early.
Those in conjunction with the Axe Thrower Passive will trigger quite a few throwing attacks, which can also be combined with the Sentinel Idol, that triggers Smite on throwing attack hit.
Sentinel has ridiculous mana regeneration with Vengeance or Rive, if you use Time And Faith Passive and the corresponding prefix for rive or vengeance, which gives mana on use (for both of those abilities)
I am pretty sure those passive and affixes are probably getting nerfed or changed.
But you don’t need good mana management currently as Sentinel if oyu use Vengeance or Rive, since you can literally refill your mana within a second, by just doing shadow boxing with one of those abilities.
Also you can use Volatile Reversal for mana regeneration and other benefits.
You can get up to 35 mana every 3 seconds if you put all 5 points in Dark Nexus, which would be more than enough to keep even an instant cast Sigils of Hope up all the time. They could also be using a mana on smite prefix on their helm to get mana back from the proc’d smites using the Axe Thrower passive.
Maybe, maybe not, all we know is that Time & Faith will be affecting more skills (the new Multi Slap). Ideally they’ll change it so you have to hit something rather than just swipe at the air to regain mana.
Thanks for the feedback. And yeah, the judgement inclusion assuming skills are real for what they used, is what threw me, the other skills i can see how they fit even passively not using active abilities, but the cost for judgement if there is no mana regen depending on the skill builds seemed difficult to work in or not worth the cost.
Build just had me curious since it was in the top 15/20 on the ladder, but couldn’t figure it out from just the skills listed. I have the gloves posted currently just hunting for the sentinel idol with the smite cast on throw hits, but no luck so far.
Thanks again, if anyone has thoughts on how judgement would fit or logic behind it, besides whats already been posted that’d be awesome, otherwise i’ll probably just use volatile reversal like most builds use.
Righteous Decree Node on Judgement (4 points) obviously.
Did you take Axe Thrower Passive (5 Points) with the Smite On Throw Idol - I cannot see if the axe is proc’ing in the gif.
Did you need the Mana on Smite Affix - T5 or more?
I dont see any fissures from the smite etc… Did this require too much mana for the multiple smites?
I wonder if converting Smite to lightning and having the additional lightning bolt triggers (min 3) with each Smite would be possible and even more OP…
I really need to make more alts to try out things like this…one of each class just isnt enough!
Yes. With max points in the mana efficiency node (45%) Judgement would cost 31 mana. If you’re getting 4 Smites on each cast (with no Smite nodes that increase the cost such as Unbalanced Scale) then a t5 mana on Smite prefix would give you a net 1-9 mana per Judgement. So you’d need at least a +8 mana for it to be broadly mana positive but it gets better if you have +9 or +10.
Yes. If you could get your Judgement attack speed to better than 1 per 0.5s then you would be able to get more Smites that don’t proc Fissure & thus return mana.
Any increase to the mana cost of Smite would make the Judgement/Smite mana-negative. As it is, you’d have to have a -3 spell mana cost from either a staff or wand implicit or prefix on a sceptre.
I like this reverse engineering of the top unknown ladder builds…
Judgement has always seemed so “meh” to me when I have tried it as I seldom think of using one skill to proc another when I am messing around… this thread makes me want to try it again and see if it is actually viable…
I understood - but I may be wrong - Judgement will be slightly improved in 0.8.3 and more deeply reworked later.
It’s something @EHG_Mike said during one of his streams, if I remember well.
We fixed a bug that was causing judgement to do way less damage than it was supposed to. The overall fix for it feeling clunky and the tree being meh is coming later.
So based on the infinite mana from smite procs with judgement, can you cast judgement while using warpath? Or will it have to be a mix of warpath and then judgement depending on what you need at the time?
I think you can just proc smite while using warpath alone, by simply just having smite on throwing attack idols+ the sentinel throwing attack passive+ the riverbend grasp gloves.
Yeah, as long as you’ve got some way to proc a throwing attack from a melee attack (either the Axe Thrower node, Riverbend gloves or both) and some Smite idols you wouldn’t need to use Judgement for Smites.
