Check out my build guide that utilizes Manifest Armor + Utility Smite + Peak of the Mountain to great effect! It dishes out some of the highest DPS in the game while also healing and cleansing half the screen all the time. If the smite idols remain intact after 0.9, this build will be a great addition to any multiplayer party due to the utility coming from smite. Let me know what you think - if you enjoy it or if you see ways to optimize it even further!
It’s my first build guide so let me know how I did. All constructive criticism is welcome so I can improve for the next one!
For the next video, I’m planning on sharing my bone golem build which has quite a similar play style to Pally MA so it’s a good comparison.
PS. @EHG, please don’t nerf the “smite on throwing attack” idols and just nerf the damage that smite does. Or perhaps replace the idol bonus by adding ways to trigger smite on throwing attack in the utility side of the skill tree. Much love regardless of what you choose to do, we’ll adapt to the meta! <3
I am now using a configuration similar to yours, only with a Forge Guard and without Smite.
This one in particular
But I definitely want to try your build
Hopefully as you say EHG doesn’t nerf the healing part of Smite!!!
One question: what would you advise to leveling this build? I always level Forge Guard with manifest armor + forge strike. But I’ve never leveled a paladin. I would appreciate your advice on this matter
Good question, I spec’d into the build at level 100 so I didn’t need to worry about it.
If we were to level it from scratch, we would need a transitory skill to get us from 0 to level ~40, which is when we would have Shield Throw + Manifest Armor unlocked. So we could go for any of the skills available early on like Hammer Throw or Warpath to carry us to the mid game. Once we hit level 35-40 and unlock MA, we can respec into MA + shield throw. We can pick up Holy Aura as soon as it becomes available. Volatile Reversal is a nice addition for boss fights so we can spec into that when we find 5 extra passive points to put into the Void Knigth tree.
If we are running SSF or on a brand new season, we won’t have the smite idols until a bit later. So I would recommend not speccing into Smite until we have at least 3 smite idols. Until that point, we can run Sigils of Hope for more defense (or even try applying them directly to our MA), or Void Cleave (Molten Blades) for more damage.
Good shoutout to Kryce’s MA build guide, I learned a lot from it too!
Nice to see players still interested in this build more than a year after I wrote it. Just popping by to share some tips on leveling the build.
I would highly recommend leveling with holy trail if you are going to play as pally. It is extremely tanky and very easy to scale since you can scale it with healing effectiveness, attunement, generic elemental damage and DoT damage. Using a shield gives a lot of defenses and pally has great shield nodes for both offense and defense. If you need a guide for this, I’m sure there are many on youtube, just be careful to look at the date when the guide was posted. Holy trail was extremely overtuned on release (it has been tuned down), so don’t be baited by some videos showing giga damage holy trail and expect to replicate it.
Hello again, I want to share my experience with this character from nothing (solo) to level 80, where I’m already farming empowered monoliths very comfortably.
Here is my planner
I have started using “Hammer Throw” with the following tree, and nothing else. That’s enough
At level 35 when I had access to “Manifest Armor”, I followed @TheCurse build. I only died once, on the final boss dragon of the Dragon Realm. The rest of the campaign so far has been tremendously comfortable and fun. I’ve been very lucky with the idols since one dropped during the campaign and the other three practically at the beginning of the monoliths. As advised by @TheCurse I haven’t used Smite until I had three of those idols; meanwhile I have been using the hope (damage) sigils. The Prismatic Gaze helmet dropped on THE BLACK SUN monolith, and although the last epoch tools database indicates that it is a rare drop, the truth is that I have dropped it several times and I think it is more or less common. I don’t know (??)
I just have to ask THE CURSE (or anyone else reading this) a question. What stats should I look for in the two-handed weapons until I get Apathy’s Maw (critical damage? melee damage? flat melee damage? What would be the order of priority?
PS: later on I will also try @Kryce levelling advice with another fresh character to see how it performs.
@Miguel_KP , for weapon prior to Apathy’s Maw, I would definitely prioritize flat damage and % damage increase (preferably physical damage for both). So if you can get T6/T7 for one of those two and T5 for the second, that would be ideal. Sealing a T1/T2 melee critical strike chance is nice boost in crit.
Depending on your other items’ stats, a suffix of Increase Minion Melee Damage % might raise your dps more than the % physical dmg increase prefix. You definitely want this suffix at T5 or higher. For example, if you have chest + helmet + gloves that have + % melee damage, I believe that stacks additively with the + % physical damage increase on the weapon. In this case, I would prioritize +% minion melee damage suffix over + % physical damage prefix.
For the last suffix, it will be far lower priority than the 3 affixes I mentioned above. Any of Shred Armor, All attributes, frailty on hit would be solid.
Hope that helps and I’m glad the build is working out well for you!
So I’ve got a lvl 99 Pally, respecced to your build, and it’s insane!
I tried out a dozen of builds, but have never even been able to take down T3 Julra, and Fire Lich.
Now I’m almost cutting through them.
I don’t have Apathy’s Maw yet, so farming for that. But I wonder if Apathy’s Maw would work great with Siphon of Anguish? For more Doom Chance and effect.
The Manifest Armor minion would not benefit from Siphon of Anguish, only our hero’s damage would. And our hero’s damage is minimal so I don’t think it would add much in terms of dps.
Yeah, I kinda thought so. Just needed it clarified.
So our MA, gets affected by our armour, boots, gloves, helmet and weapon. Now throw attack speed on rings, gloves, ect makes sense. But what about critical strike chance, multiplier on gear that dosen’t affect our MA? I kinda thought you’d go for as much personal survivability on the gear that dosen’t affect it. Other than attunement, minion damage, health ect?
I agree with you, I wouldn’t put crit chance/multi on anything other than weapon, chest, helm, gloves, boots. And this build has one of the highest DPS in the game so you can easily justify shifting some DPS affixes to survivability.
Yep that’s right! Even better, minion damage is multiplicative with the melee damage the MA gets from the chest/helm/etc. So if you have +900% melee damage from helm+chest and another +300% minion damage from jewelry, MA’s damage becomes 10x4x = 40x! If it were additive, it would be (1+9+3)x = 13x
