I was pretty much in your situation last season when I was attempting my first kill. I was playing shield bash and I was dependent on leech. Unfortunately block capping isnāt going to really help you since most of the dangerous stuff in that fight, especially in the last phase, are all DoTs. (Even that big slam is a DoT, just one that deals so much damage it might as well be a hit.) So block isnāt going to do anything for you. (Not that you should get rid of it, itās definitely helping your survive the rest of it.) There is that new shield: https://www.lastepochtools.com/db/items/UAwRgzALCJA That applies some of your block effect to DoTs though. I didnāt have that at the time. I donāt know if your build needs some specific other shield or not, but itās an option if you can get it. It just drops from a woven echo boss, so itās straightforward to get one.
Aside from that, the higher level bases give DoT mitigation. Eternal Gloves and Championās Regalia provide DoT mitigation based on your armor. Plus thereās an experimental affix on gloves that does the same thing. Oracle Amulets just straight up give less damage over time taken. One thing that really pushed me over the edge last season was getting lucky and finding an Orianās Eye https://www.lastepochtools.com/db/items/UAzAcwNgRiA Since all the degen stuff is void, this can help mitigate that. As a bonus I was playing Forge Guard which gets a passive that gives fire DR for overcapped fire res, so it was doing even more for me. Not something paladin has access to though.
Beyond gearing though, a lot of it is just managing the stuff throughout the fight. Try your best to keep all the beams in roughly one place so you have the rest of the arena free when you donāt have a lot of space. Try your best to not spawn the degen circles and if you do, the fire AoE he drops on you actually cleanses those, so you can use that to fix any mistakes as long as youāre close enough to them. I suppose keeping to the edge of the arena in general is going to make sure that any void pools that do spawn arenāt in the center area for the final phase. In the necrotic phase, itās VERY important to dodge the necrotic slashes. They debuff your defenses which can make the difference surviving the damage in the final phase. Listen for when he yells āDIE!ā Try not to roll through him because if your timing is off sometimes those can still hit you. Lastly, your positioning in the final phase can help a lot. You want to try to set yourself up in a spot such that when he does his void beam you know your escape route will be safe. Plan that before he starts charging.
If all else fails, I have a stupid option. Not really a suggestion, just a thought Iāll put out there: This season I played what turned out to basically be Judgement Paladin, but instead of doing it based on spell damage and healing effect, I was playing a combination of two sets. (crafted onto gear with the new mechanic.) The Last Bear set gives tons of % Health regen based on STR and The Shattered Lance set gives you increased melee cold damage based on your HP regen. As long as you add a source of flat melee cold damage, such as an affix on your swords, this will work with any melee attack, judgement included. I wouldnāt call it a top tier build or even better than the real judgement paladin, but it was surprisingly decent for the level of difficulty that Aberroth is at and it had the benefit of being regen based, so it didnāt have the same problems with losing itās sustain when it ran away from the boss. I actually killed him on my first try with the character. Granted I had a lot of practice from when he was harder, but I still didnāt play it perfectly and the fight felt pretty smooth.
Obviously itās a bit of a swap since you need to go from stacking attunement to str, but with the woven echo that lets you convert attributes into other attributes it shouldnāt be that hard to get together the basics. The lance is a guaranteed drop off the boss of well, The Shattered Lance timeline and The Last Bear set is really common. Also, the build can make use of Attunement too since Paladin has attunement to HP regen and Judgement scales off both. So you can kind of mix and match, but Str is prefered because you also get armor and endurance threshold.
Hereās a thread I made about it with a link to the final character: Final Update on Icy Judgement Paladin
Ignore the Red Rings if you donāt have them obviously. You can use the Rings that give auto Symbols of Hope or perhaps the crab ring for the stats and flat regen. Or really whatever as long as you can get str on them. Apogee of Frozen Light isnāt strictly necessary, itās just a way to get more flat cold damage for the build, but another crystal sword or even a shield if you want to be tankier is probably fine.
