Last updated on Nov 30, 2023 at 20:30by AaronActionRPG
This is the perfect leveling guide for new players wanting to start with Paladin!This page will cover everything and anything you could need to know about leveling the class,including which skills to use, what stats to prioritize, and what uniques are useful early inthe game.
1.
Introduction
This Paladin mastery leveling guide is designed to get us started in the rightdirection with your new mastery, by offering a simple skill setup to assist uswhile we play through main story act of the game and begin the Monolithendgame. We have chosen a set of skills and passives that create an effectiveand yet simplistic play style that can rapidly push our character to level 70and complete the main campaign.
This build uses 
Rive with dual wield swords to dish out fast attacks aswe dart around the battlefield with 
Lunge. For defenses, we stickto Paladin skills 
Holy Aura and 
Sigils Of Hope to keep ourselves inthe fight, regardless of what tries to stand in our way. This build was made forbrawling, diving into packs of enemies and triggering our three strike combinationwith Rive to cut down groups with ease. As a fail-safe for any majordamage we are hit with, we can use 
Volatile Reversal to rewind ourposition and restore our Health and Mana pools. This build works great withno reliability on uniques or must-have items.
2.
Paladin Leveling Passive Trees
Class PassivesSkill Passives
SentinelVoid KnightPaladin
RiveLungeHoly AuraVolatile ReversalSigils of Hope
2.1.
Sentinel Passive Tree
Sentinel is our base class to start this character off with. Our goal in thisPassive Tree is to gain some critical stats for our Melee skills as they will be ourfocus all the way to level 70. We start with Juggernaut andOverwhelm boosting our Melee Damage and adding a chance to stun withmelee attacks. Next, we move into Armour Clad for the Damage Reductionfrom nearby enemies and boosting our Armor. Our goal is to get to the skillnode Gladiator as soon as we can for the ability to dual wield, stickingto two one-handed swords so we can benefit from Blademaster's increasedAttack Speed for swords.
Now that we've completed our the Passive Tree for Sentinel, we will bemoving on to our Mastery Passive Trees. For this build specifically, we will besplitting our passive points into a larger invest into Void Knight and asmaller amount into our chosen mastery Paladin. This is because we are simplygoing to be adding the minimum points into Paladin to secure two skills whilekeeping our focus on damage nodes in the Void Knight tree for Rive tohelp us with the leveling process.
2.2.
Void Knight Passive Tree
The Void Knight tree will be focusing on buffing our damage and gainingHealth Leech through the passive node World Eater. We start off withDevouring Blade to boost our damage by 100% as long as we are killingquickly, anything over 4 seconds between enemies and we will lose the buff.Then we take Abyssal Endurance and Doom Knight, for the flathealth boost and Strength stats for added damage. Now we take one of the keycomponents to our damage, Void Corruption, which grants us a CriticalStrike Multiplier bonus for every point we have in the Void Knight passivetree. When we combine this with our Rive skill tree nodes that guaranteeus a Critical Strike, we will receive all the damage buffs of the Void Knightpassive tree.
2.3.
Paladin Passive Tree
Here we are only going to use only 15 points so we can unlockSigils Of Hope. We will start with Conviction - a powerful damagenode that also helps with Damage Penetration. Next, we add 2 points intoValor then put 5 points into Blinding Light for the chance toBlind enemies.
2.4.
Rive
Rive is our main DPS skill and is performed in 3 strikes against theenemies. Each stage of the skill acts differently, but we are mainly focusingon the final stage which is an AoE attack around us. The main pathway we wantto focus on completing first is the 
Flurry, to Concentration,and finally Focused Strike. This last skill node is the most important,guaranteeing us a Critical Strike with our skill.
2.5.
Lunge
This skill tree is broken into two main pathways, to the left hand side andthe upper pathway. We want to complete the upper pathway first for the healfrom Endless Will and extra skill charge from Double Strike. Thenwe can complete the path on the left hand side for Blade Stream,allowing to damage enemies we pass over with our skill. Lastly, we want theskill node Crusader's Fury for the bonus buff of Physical Penetration of10% per enemy we hit along our path, a very big damage boost forRive.
2.6.
Holy Aura
This is a skill that offers both a passive bonus, but also an amplifiedversion when the skill is activated. To start, we want to increase the HealthRegen and cleanse for this skill with Vital Boon andPurification. Then we will be focusing on using this skill's aura as adamage amplification with the pathway on the left hand of the skill tree endingwith Extreme Zeal. Lastly, we can add points intoShelter from the Storm to assist with our defensive layers.
2.7.
Volatile Reversal
This skill is designed to be a fail safe for health as well as boost youroverall damage and movement speed. We want to start with the upper pathway,taking all three skill nodes: Time Sap, Catching Up andWarped Time. These nodes will boost our Movement and Attack speed afterusing the skill. Next, we want to take the bottom right path forTimelost Wisdom. Finally, we will get the added damage of
Void Rift with Incipient Void Rift and Terminal Void Rift.Remember we can use this as an extra Traversal skill along side Lunge.
2.8.
Sigils of Hope
This skill has perfect synergy with this build and a single cast can lastfor quite a while. We use the Sigils as an extra defensive layer to keepourselves healed and to amplify our damage for every Sigil we have applied. Theskill tree is separated into two sides: left and right. We want to take theleft side first, getting Exigency as soon as we can for the insta-cast.Once that pathway is filled out, we can take the path on the right workingtowards the extra sigil with Tetragram.
Image courtesy of Last Epoch Tools
3.
Mechanics and Playstyle
This build has fantastic mobility and damage; all you need to do is powerup with Holy Aura and Sigils Of Hope, then head off to the battlefield.Use your Lunge and Volatile Reversal to jump across the map, groupingtogether enemies for your Rive to cut down. Our damage is primarily focusedinto the third strike of Rive, adding kill threshold, boosted Critical StrikeChance, damage and most importantly, Health Leech. The rest of our skills are used toround out the build and increase our mobility.
Your typical rotation is quite simple. Start with Lunge, targeting apack of enemies. Once you dash to them, use Rive and cut them down. At this point,if you feel the need to reposition, you can use Volatile Reversal to reset yourposition and buff your character. Holy Aura and Sigils Of Hope willkeep your survivability high and allow you to constantly be searching for the next groupof enemies to attack. Overall, this build is strong enough to crush the Monolith, withfast and very effective gameplay. As long as you keep your buffs going and are playingsmart with your position while using Lunge andVolatile Reversal, you should not have any issues. However, be awarethat while you are almost unstoppable with Rive, your Lungeskill does leave you vulnerable in between packs.
4.
Gearing and Affixes
As for gearing, we will be targeting Strength based stats and someHealth/Resistance for our brawler. You should aim to upgrade your gear using aloot filter to highlight the gear you need with the right affixes. This gamealso carries a substantial crafting system where you will be able to augmentpieces of gear you find with either strong affixes or craft new one you can addto an empty slot. There is a deeper look at the crafting system in the linkbelow.
| Attributes | Offensive | Defensive |
|---|---|---|
| Intelligence Vitality | Increased Melee Damage Increased Physical Damage Increased Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Critical Strike Multiplier Chance to Shred Armour on hit | Armor Resistances Damage Leeched as Health |
4.1.
Useful Uniques
As you go through the game, you will come across many uniques. While the majorityof low-level uniques should be set aside for leveling alts (Yay, for unlimitedstash space), we will want to keep our eyes out for these specific items toassist with the build. None of these have huge build changing affixes; themajority of them are solid items you can scale easily with. One of thethemes you will see with these uniques is Movement Speed. This affixaccelerates gameplay even just from being able to go around faster thebattlefield.
A great unique for this build, is the 
Bleeding Heart.This amulet is an easy quest pick up and grants us some Health Leech at earlylevels - very helpful. So be on the look out, they could literally save your life.
One of the best unique belts for Physical builds is the 
Thorn Slingerwith its extra skill point for all physical skills and increase to potions.Don't leave this one on the ground if you come across it.
Our next targeted unique are the unique gloves 
Fighting Chance.Despite their level 15 requirement, these gloves can be a massive damage boostand help accelerate you through the game. The only draw back is the increaseddamage taken, but everything else about them is amazing.
Speaking of accelerating, we must talk about unique boots, particularlythe 
Advent of the Erased. These boots boots can grant us Haste,and while this chance is small, it can happen on every kill. With a max roll of11% it can trigger quite often.
Despite the lower level of these uniques, they are quite valuable and canhelp push you that much faster to level 70. These can all be expanded intofantastic items if found with Legendary Potential for any future levelingneeds. Good luck hunting and may your luck be high!
5.
Idols
Idol slots are gained through the campaign, unlocking small bonuses andunique affixes for the player to discover and augment their builds with. The Idol screenconsists of a grid system for the player to fill out with different sized idols,eventually filling in every part of the grid. As the Idol shape increases (1x1, 1x2,1x3, 1x4, etc.) the stronger an affix you might find for your build.
The target Affixes we want to look for in our Idols are:
- +% Health
- + Health
- Resistances
6.
Progressing to Endgame
This build will carry you all the way to the start of the Monolith, whereyou will need to decide on an Endgame build to follow. We have several optionsavailable to our Paladins.
Healing Hands Rive BuildLightning Smite Meteor BuildAurelis' Judgement Build
