Paladin

The Paladin serves the Zakarum faith as a warrior-cleric, channelling divine force through his combat skills and persistent auras. He is a natural melee fighter but what distinguishes him is the aura system — passive radius effects that affect enemies, allies, and himself simultaneously. This makes him one of the most party-friendly classes in the game while retaining strong solo viability across multiple build configurations.

Weaknesses

The Paladin's early skill variety is limited relative to other classes — Holy Fire is effective but the build path is narrow until Blessed Hammer is available. His physical combat builds in the endgame are powerful but represent a significant gear barrier: the specific items required are not common, and assembling the full configuration from scratch is a lengthy project. Players starting fresh are generally better served staying with Blessed Hammer until the necessary items accumulate.

Playstyle & Skills

Offensive Auras amplifies damage: Fanaticism increases attack speed and damage for the whole party, Concentration boosts damage and cannot be interrupted, and Conviction reduces enemy resistances. Defensive Auras handles survivability — Salvation improves all resistances, Holy Shield adds defence and blocking, and Redemption converts corpses into life and mana. Combat Skills provides his active attacks, including Blessed Hammer, which fires homing magic-damage projectiles, and Smite, which deals guaranteed hit damage tied to a shield and is immune to blocking.

Early Game & Leveling

Holy Fire provides strong passive area damage through an aura during Normal difficulty and carries the Paladin comfortably through early acts without requiring active skill use beyond basic attacks. Its effectiveness drops in Nightmare as Fire Immune monsters become more common, at which point the transition to Blessed Hammer with Concentration is the standard move. The Hammer build requires almost no gear to function — it deals magic damage, which very few enemies resist, and scales through skill investment alone.

Farming & Endgame

Blessed Hammer with Concentration is one of the highest-efficiency farming setups in the game. The combination clears Mephisto, Diablo, and Baal runs reliably, and the low gear floor means it remains viable across a wide range of item levels. Smite is the tool of choice for the Pandemonium Ubers — its guaranteed hit ignores the block and defence calculations that reduce melee damage against those bosses, and the Black runeword combined with a Life Tap wand provides the minimum gear requirement for a functional Über run.

The Paladins originated as the Protectors of the Word — holy warriors trained by the Church of Zakarum to safeguard missionaries spreading the visions of Akarat across the Western Kingdoms. In practice, these armoured warriors proved more persuasive than the priests they guarded, converting locals through martial demonstrations rather than sermons.

Decades later, a darker chapter began with the Zakarum Inquisition. A new generation of Paladins, the Hand of Zakarum, led a violent crusade across the lands, destroying anyone suspected of demonic corruption. Eventually, a faction within the Paladins rebelled, condemning the Inquisition's methods and arguing that the true source of corruption was the Three Prime Evils themselves — not the innocents being persecuted.

These rebel Paladins broke from Zakarum and ventured west, dedicated to fighting Diablo, Baal, and Mephisto directly. They carry the original ideals of their order — protection of the innocent and righteous combat against evil — while rejecting the institutional corruption that overtook the Church.