First Time LE player, Would appreciate feedback on my build

Sentinel
1

Hello fellow travelers.

I’ve recently picked up Last Epoch, it’s been a great fun so far.

For my first character I picked acolyte and while I had fun leveling to mid forties I realized that it was hitting a wall.

I went on to read a newbie guide and game concepts, I think I got some of it.
I spent a bit of time theory-crafting and went to play my next character.

Here is where I would appreciate your feedback.
I was inspired by character of old and went on to recreate Smitedin. Paladin that focuses on smite as main ability if that wasn’t clear.

I wasn’t able to find an armory or to sharecharacter online so I’ve made a planner to show it. HERE

I’ve just leveled up to 83 while doing empowered monoliths. While I am happy with the movement speed -65, Shield charge it goes through echoes lightning fast, I feel like my damage is on the low side.

I have no AoE at all, I mostly relayed on smite’s Rightous overlord to clear packs, which was fine in lower level content but I feel like it is a bit lacking at level 100 areas.

With all the buffs on even the single target doesn’t feel that great, tooltip on smite says 66k ,80k with holy aura active.

I literally have no ground for comparison, is it the normal clear and boss speed?

On the subject of defenses:
While I tried to spread my defense: get raw health, armour, block and endurance it doesn’t look all that great overall, or maybe it does? I really have no way of judging, I would appreciate suggestions. Should I focus in single area or keep trying to get a bit of everything? what are the number I should be aiming for?

Any and all feedback is welcome, thank you all in advance.

EDIT: Found how to load character into the planer from a save, link updated.

2

Paladin is on the defensive extreme, so your clear speed is going to be lower than anyone else. I never use smite so I can’t really comment on whether it’s the best way to go, but most skills can be built around just fine. I can tell you that paladin was my third character and I learned a LOT about how the game works with my first 2 so I was able to do better on my third.

Tooltip dps on my primary skill, btw, is 20k. Some people have shown over 600k with other classes. It’s kind of wild.

3

Tooltip dps is not really meant to compare the dps of different skills.

It’s just a tool to compare passives and gear.

Since it’s not really an accurate representation of how much the skill is actually doing, but if you change anything gear or passive wise, you can tell (most of the time) which item is better.

1 Like
4

I’m not crazy familiar with Paladin, and I’m still pretty new to the game myself but one thing that is standing out to me is that you went the Ignite route on Smite. Have you tried going Fissure and taking it all the way to Six Feet Under? It could really help out on clear speed, you could even leave 1 point in Holy Fire for the Ignite chance since you already have over 100% sheet you’ll still get 1 stack of Ignite per use so you can stack the burning DoT.

Aside from that I know enough to know that Paladin is mostly focused on defensive play and aside from the Hammerdin build most of the ones I’ve looked at aren’t great for speed clearing, so as long you like the way it plays and it’s not taking you TOO long to clear Monos I’d say you should be ok. The build doesn’t have any glaring issues though as far as I can tell. I could be overlooking something as well, but it looks like a fun build and you’ve done a good job scaling your fire damage for Ignite and your defenses look fine. With some good Exalted drops you should be tearing it up.

5

I saw the glimmer of explode when killed and just gunned for it, not even sure what my ignite damage is like. I’ll give fissure a try, I mean what the worst that can happen, respec twice?

6

One thing you can do is throwing attack (see skill which has throwing tag) which procs smite for more AoE smite itself is pretty heavy single target IMO unless you get more individual Smite hits.

There is Idols named ” keen” which gives this ability.
Not sure what skills you use but this is one way to get more AoE.

Fissure+ lightning nodes gives also AoE.

Just giving options and if you are familiar for this then you can just ignore this reply :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

7

List of mistakes I noticed

  • Rahyeh’s light when NOT running judgement(that shield is for when you want to stack a lot of damage for judgement specifically)

  • Using a wand when running Rahyeh’s light - as judgement scales off of melee damage, not spell damage. If you really want to scale spell AND melee damage use a sceptor.

  • Devouring orb when you are running fire damage build, replace this with judgement

  • Your rings would be better replaced with generic fire damage rare rings(and maybe increased healing effectiveness if you start running judgement)

  • excessive fire resistance setup - you seem to have 200% fire res when 75% is the cap(after equipping Rahyehs light you would already fire res capped), the stuff I would change is boot base type(get cold res boots instead), and both your rings(the fire res from them is wasted and they really are not good for your damage)

  • Not stacking many resists of types other than fire, you can get a lot of these in the passive tree. Resists should allways be your FIRST priority for any build. Even if the node gives fire resist so long as it also gives another type of resist you should pick it up.

  • On the subject of defences, you are using a shield but have not picked up many block chance or block effectiveness nodes from sentinel, paladin or forge guard. I suggest you stack these as high as it can go.

  • Further on the subject of defences - as you are running Rahyehs light and thus really should pick up judgement, increase healing effectiveness acts as both an increase to the damage of judgement and to how fast you heal. This also means that the “Prayer” node would always be active .

  • Regarding a judgement setup, I suggest you either pick up the “annointed” node to turn it into an aura and kill enemies by running into them or go for a smite setup(you cannot do both because smite setup disables judgements consecrated ground). Aura setup involves judgement(melee) scaleing, smite setup means you are only using it to proc smite(and thus not actually going for melee damage, thus a staff become better gearing)

EDIT:also your devouring orb idol is a waste of space, get a smite or fire damage idol there
EDIT2:This is a link to your build but devouring orb swapped for judgement(smite spell damage setup, this version doesn’t benefit from increased healing or melee damage), the single point from the shield is useful here, but I would still use a staff and just get a +1 to level of judgement on a relic Paladin, Level 83 (LE Beta 0.8.2i) - Last Epoch Build Planner

1 Like
8

I just noticed your smite setup has “righteous overload” at level 4 instead of 5. You definetly need it at level 5, as you need it to proc the explosion on every enemy you kill so that you can kill packs of mobs fast.

9

First of, wow, thank you for very detailed post!

Do you mind if I ask some question? As I don’t understand some of your points and would like to be more educated on the subject.

Rahyeh’s light when NOT running judgement(that shield is for when you want to stack a lot of damage for judgement specifically)

If I take it off according to the tooltip I lose about 15k dps, roughly 25% of my damage, on par with Calamity and only my weapon provides bigger bonus. Why is using it bad without using judgment?

Using a wand when running Rahyeh’s light - as judgement scales off of melee damage, not spell damage. If you really want to scale spell AND melee damage use a sceptor.

Why is using Wand bad, I am not using melee or melee scaling? Why should I care about judment? I don’t even have it on my bars or in my tree. Why would I want to scale melee damage for smite caster build?

Devouring orb when you are running fire damage build, replace this with judgement

Might not be obvious but I am trying to stack attunement, which accorind to the tags should scale both smite and devouring orb. From my understanding Devouring orb provides 60 % global damage increase and 20 movement speed, and 33% increased amage from devouring orb idol.
If I ignore the devouring orb 4k dps and look purely at smite, it adds 5k dps.
20 movement speed and 5k dps for my main skill as simple fire and forget buff is very nice. what judgement can do for me that is better?

Your rings would be better replaced with generic fire damage rare rings(and maybe increased healing effectiveness if you start running judgement)

I might be a total tool tip warrior and would love an explanation on how generic fire damage ring can be better than The Invoker’s Scorching Grasp. Even ring with T5 elemental damage and T5 fire damage lowering the dps.

I could see an argument about replacing Heirloom of the Last Nomad, but it provides so much res and health that the replacement would need T6 health and two T5 res to be comparable while the last nomad also clears ailment and I would be hard pressed to get it on holy aura without giving up lot in the process.

excessive fire resistance setup - you seem to have 200% fire res when 75% is the cap(after equipping Rahyehs light you would already fire res capped), the stuff I would change is boot base type(get cold res boots instead), and both your rings(the fire res from them is wasted and they really are not good for your damage)

I have over 250 fire res, I sure wouldn’t want it on gear as I have more than cap just from the passive tree, but what I am supposed to do, pick a bad piece of kit just because I would be over capped?

I can kind of understand the point to switching to different boot base, to have greater flexibility on gear but I am already on 88 cold res, why would I want to overcap it more and lose 60 armor in the process?

Not stacking many resists of types other than fire, you can get a lot of these in the passive tree. Resists should allways be your FIRST priority for any build. Even if the node gives fire resist so long as it also gives another type of resist you should pick it up.

Gear planner might be misleading I am res capped on all of them, the planner just doesn’t show buffs like holy aura, devouring orbs etc’.

On the subject of defences, you are using a shield but have not picked up many block chance or block effectiveness nodes from sentinel, paladin or forge guard. I suggest you stack these as high as it can go.

I understand that I could get, max block , max endurance and crazy amount of armour but is it really necessary? I’ve looked over acolyte and mage, they don’t seems to get any. Just because I picked Sentinel I must do all of those things?
My line of thought was , wow, would you look at Staunch Defender, that likes dual wielding wands but you get to get a shield too!

I might be low corruption(100) empowered mono so I am not facing the really challenging content but I didn’t feel too squishy, I did feel challenged on damage out put front.

I would reiterate that I don’t have any frame of reference when it comes to what is good defenses/damage in the game as I literally picked the game up last week. I would greatly appreciate explanation on what would be considered a “normal baseline” for Last Epoch.

Further on the subject of defences - as you are running Rahyehs light and thus really should pick up judgement, increase healing effectiveness acts as both an increase to the damage of judgement and to how fast you heal. This also means that the “Prayer” node would always be active .

I am sorry, might be my noobiness talking, but you keep talking about judment like it’s the holy grail that would safe my build, while I look at it all I see is melee attack and 45 mana cost, and as a ranger caster I think unsustainable mana cost and bad range.

Why would I need consecrated ground to activate prayer, doesn’t sigil of hope with word of alacrity do that? I am not even sure that prayer is the best node to pick as my next points. I I was thinking about picking up Umbral Attunement. I am probably speaking out of my ass and would hold in high regard “education” on the game mechanics.

Regarding a judgement setup, I suggest you either pick up the “annointed” node to turn it into an aura and kill enemies by running into them or go for a smite setup(you cannot do both because smite setup disables judgements consecrated ground). Aura setup involves judgement(melee) scaleing, smite setup means you are only using it to proc smite(and thus not actually going for melee damage, thus a staff become better gearing)

I would loose so much mana and health regen from time and faith that I am not sure how could I be able to do what you suggest.
I guess I could play melee paladin that procs smite off judgement but that like completely different archetype and play-style.
I am confused but could give it a shot, maybe I am just not understanding the interactions correctly.

Once again thanks you a whole bunch, especially the planner, really given me something to chew.

10

I just noticed your smite setup has “righteous overload” at level 4 instead of 5. You definetly need it at level 5, as you need it to proc the explosion on every enemy you kill so that you can kill packs of mobs fast.

Oh yeah, I had +1 smite on piece of gear that I replaced, the point must have come out there instead of where I’ve put the 21st one. Need to fix that.

This is a link to your build but devouring orb swapped for judgement(smite spell damage setup, this version doesn’t benefit from increased healing or melee damage), the single point from the shield is useful here, but I would still use a staff and just get a +1 to level of judgement on a relic Paladin, Level 83 (LE Beta 0.8.2i) - Last Epoch Build Planner

I’ve gave it a shot for few echos, I am more confused now than before trying it out.

Searing faith removes heal from Consecrated Ground, how can it proc prayer now?
Even more confusing is Devine Verdict, it removes consecrated ground from judgement entirely, what would be the point of Searing Faith ,destructive impact and, holy eruption?

11

I would like to say that most of what I was saying was because I looked at the shield, thought “judgement” then didn’t see it on your bar. I did not know what you were going for.

two handed staffs have higher base adaptive spell damage(oracle staff is 80-100 vs prophecy wand at 50-62 or obsidian sceptre at 55-65). Also affixes on two handed weapons go higher than one handed weapons, so a staff just means more damage, this is even after taking the +20 spell damage with shield node from paladin. You take shields for defence, paladin just gets a node that lets them ignore most of the downside.

It is possible most of that dps comes just because it is a shield and you have that paladin node - not from the unique itself.

… you wouldn’t, I was distracted by the shield. It really only provides 75% increased fire damage for a smite build, in this game that is actually very little. It also is not a very good defence shield(no block chance affixes). So that leaves using it to scale Judgement.

Judgement can proc 4 smites per use. It also has a node that causes skills casted by judgement to deal 100% MORE damage. In other words you are casting 4 smites at double damage, allowing you to kill mob packs fast. Though, you mentioned the 45 mana cost and that makes me think it is unreliable to mass cast.

Had to check this(i am the idiot here), as I missed the cast speed on that ring(13% cast speed), I will ignore the rings base fire damage because you would use the same base with a crafted ring, i am also ignoring ignite damage because it is actually rather insignificant. T5 fire is 40-60 T5 elemental is 33-45. You should be around 20-30% attack/cast speed and 500% damage on most builds, making cast speed more useful. The only reason is because crafted bases get defence affixes as well.

You answered your own question, you don’t need to change the boots

Not all, block and armor are the most effective sentinel defences, it is usually a good idea to focus scaling one type of defence and use the less damage taken nodes. Armor and Block are the best sentinel defences, if you are using a shield, block nodes are best.

You are right. Not only can you pick prayer, but Umbral Attunement is 1%increased damage more than it. I would get more defences though(that is just me)

I was thinking about the shield the whole time

12

Hey there, I’m also a first timer and coincidentally have been mostly playing Fire Smite Paladin. Currently at level 77, now at Reign of Dragons MoF. Here’s my planner. Just some sharing here.

As you said, single target (ST) damage is decent, but AoE clear with pure Smite is kinda slow. For that, I add Lightbringer (Abyssal Echoes) for AoE clear and it’s doing wonders. Tooltip is only around 2k, but in game it deals around 3-4k damage per crit. Even when it doesn’t clear the mob, it’s still great to spread on hit affixes and provide decent healing. Abyssal Form is a comfort pick for mana regen.

For Smite I’ve tried multiple paths: Fissure, Conflagration (+ damage on ignite), Crit, Cast Speed… and I found the best path for me to be Righteous Flurry + Sacrifice/Crit. My current tooltip is only 25k, 50k with all buffs active.

Ring of Shields is a recent change from Sigils of Hope. Sigils of Hope adds more damage, but Ring of Shields gives good healing to counteract Sacrifice, draws aggro, and blocks ranged attacks.

Lunge for Initiative (and because I don’t really like Shield Rush). The healing on Lunge also procs Prayer for some damage boost.

About gear choices, I’m currently gambling for Rahyeh’s Light as well, I think the extra fire damage and healing effectiveness will help. Woven Flesh is there for a decent amount of %Health, leech (very important), and 100% CSA. Maybe a crafted chest can be better, but it’s a great comfort pick. Invoker’s fire rings can be great, although with Righteous Flurry you can somehow reduce the need for %CS and get some other affixes like crit multiplier. Defense stats are currently not very good, still trying to get better affixes.

Thanks for the thread, learnt a lot from this!

13

Thank you! I appreciated the effort of you going through the points and explaining the mechanic and though process behind it. it really helps to put things in perspective. Even if it just says your build is bad and you should do it differently, here is how is nice silver lining.

14

I am looking at your planner and I see that we went for very similar approach, you obviously picked more block nodes while I glanced over them and picked more raw health.

Prayer is another of those nodes that I should really pick but I didn’t pick because I didn’t know if I could proc it with self healing through smite and sigil of hope.

Abyssal Form is a comfort pick for mana regen.

Do you really need more mana? I would imagine that with increase cast speed and smite smite smite that with time and faith you should be swimming in mana.

Ring of Shields is a recent change from Sigils of Hope. Sigils of Hope adds more damage, but Ring of Shields gives good healing to counteract Sacrifice, draws aggro, and blocks ranged attacks.

Really? that’s interesting, I felt that sigil of hope with words of alacrity and faith give good healing while iron sigils gives a decent armor boot. But as I look at the rings of shields it looks like it provides significantly more healing. I should give it a try.

%CS and get some other affixes like crit multiplier. Defense stats are currently not very good, still trying to get better affixes.

I’ve tried different affixes on wand, Caster speed seems to effect the smite damage the most, crit multi the least, spell damage increase somewhere in the middle. I wish I could have a more detailed tool tip breakdown. I wish I understood how it works so that I could actually plan around what I should get and not that put it on look if number goes up or down.

15

It does, there’s no other healing you can get other than self-healing…

I really like Faith/Unwaving Faith as an automated oh #### button & it can give a decent heal if you spec for it.

The build planner is probably the simplest way to get that info at the moment. Crit multi’s benefits scale proportionally with crit chance (obviously), if you can get 100% crit chance then a single 44% crit multi prefix on your wand is equivalent to 22% more damage (assuming you’re starting with the base 200% crit multi, if you have more crit multi then additional crit multi is worth less due to diminishing returns).

16

Self healing from Lunge, Smite, Ring of Shields does proc it. I take Lunge’s healing node just so I can cast Lunge continued directly by Abyssal Echoes.

It’s a leftover from when I leveled Smite without Righteous Flurry. Abyssal Echoes can be quite pricey, so it does help. If you have enough mana, you can move Abyssal Form for Temporal Blight debuff.

I definitely love this as well. Initially I leveled up with this, and since I don’t have much defenses Faith helps a lot. Now that my defenses are better, it’s quite hard to proc (since most of the time I’ll be taking chip damage instead of big chunks). It’s still helpful against telegraphed attacks, but you shouldn’t be standing there anyways.

17

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.