*I am honestly too lazy to photoshop “Zantai’s eye” on top of a shield’s star, but you get the idea
Foreword
“Your highness. Your highness?” Servant was always using his hushed voice first when trying to wake up the Inquisitor. These days he was sometimes catching himself daydreaming that maybe today was finally the day where the grumpy old man doesn’t wake up. But then those were the dangerous thoughts, and servant knew very well that thoughts were being policed and carefully curated in the Temple of Inquisition. “Your highness… Lord Malakor?” He now switched to a more loud yet still timid and compliant tone. He carefully poked the Inquisitor’s shoulder. Malakor shuddered and mumbled something in his slumber. He fell asleep at his table, his head resting among the old manuscripts, drooling a bit on the one that looked like a blueprint of an ancient shield. “My Lord?” Servant was now gently shaking Malakor - he didn’t want to get the same hiding he got last time when the Inquisitor slept through the breakfast ceremony. “Ah yes, what in the name?.. don’t shoot the gun, just throw the shield at those mage bastards…” Malakor finally raised his head squinting from the cold morning sun that was so boldly intruding into his private chambers. The room smelled like Temple’s wine cellar.
The Build
<<<< GRIMTOOLS >>>>
*Craft for stun resistance and slow resistance
**In-game physical resistance and casting speed are higher because grimtools doesn’t calculate Erulan shield’s bonus correctly
***For gear and gear alternatives explanation check Gear section below
Painfully Piercing Questions
So this Paladin looks relatively cheap. But those pistol affixes look unrealistic…
It is cheap. All gear alternatives are explained below.
It looks fairly tanky and has decent clearing speed for the relatively low price of its equipment. What’s the catch?
The catch is single target damage. It’s on the lower end, as you can see from 2:29 minutes Ravager kill.
Gear/Skills and Devotions/Leveling
So about the gear.
Ugdenbog Reapeter - you need this very pistol but affixes can literally be anything as long as you roll casting speed on that. Damage reduction, weapon piercing, flat damage are all irrelevant since we hit with the shield. So basically any Cunning, OA, %damage would be a bonus as long as you roll casting speed.
Helmet - Fettan mask or Goredrinker helmet or blue Ravager helmet would also work here. I prefer the red Ravager helmet for its huge %life bonus.
Shield - Erulan is preferred here. But cheap and viable alternative would be Wraitguard whose blueprint can be bought from Malmouth Resistance (I wish Crate added casting speed to that).
Jewellery - Obviously the specific Conduit is required here. However, its resistance roll depends on the resists on your other gear. Vine Rings can be vendor farmed in Ancient Grove, although it will take a while.
Shoulders - Chosen epaulets are a must have here, however rolls depend on your other gear. They can be easily target farmed in act 6.
Gloves - Mythical Quickdraw gloves are bis here, but you can use green crafted ones or even Shadow’s Grasp.
Boots - again, if you don’t have the blueprint for Windshears yet, you can use a crafted pair with %damage and relevant resists.
Medal - can be target farmed. BiS for optimal damage output, but you can use any medal with %damage and stats. Basilisk Fang is the second best option.
Belt - again, Treacherous Means is required for optimal damage output since it converts Word of Pain damage. Without it your damage will be a bit low. But at the beginning you can use any belt that you currently have.
Relic - other options would be Serenity, Mogdrogen’s Ardor and a lower level relic Vendetta.
Pants - Grava pants would be bis, but if you don’t have them - any green pair with a good amount of stats and attributes would suffice.
Chest - duh, sold at Coven’s vendor.
Skills focus on getting the maximum amount of flat damage out of Paladin’s passives while also covering Word of Pain line and all other required skills. Devotions allow us to include Hydra (because of the pistol) but overall are pretty standard.
For leveling check beginner guides, this is an endgame build
Gameplay
In Crucible
Build facetanks everything in buffed Crucible. Try to herd mobs together to get the most value out of shield’s bounce aoe damage.
In Shattered Realm
Build comfortably and safely farms SR 75-76, you can even herd less dangerous Nemeses in boss chunks. Shard 90 is relatively easy too. Never tried going above it but I suspect that low single target damage (and thus lower sustain) would be a bottleneck for this build to go deeper than 90 without dying multiple times and fishing for boss rooms.
Celestial fights
Ravager is not hard to beat, but you need pharma and you need to watch your cooldowns and be ready to pop a cluster. Mogdrogen should be easy, maybe I will do him and add a video later. Callagadra fight would be tedious, but any build with a high hp pool and decent enough defenses that can kite can kill her, and I don’t think this Paladin would be an exception. Might add the video later.
Just watch the videos to learn how to play the build.
Stats
All screenshots are taken WITHOUT Ascension
General
Aegis damage
Defense
Videos
1.1.9.4 Crucible Gladiator 150-170 6:59 “naked” extra spawn run
1.1.9.4 Crucible Gladiator 150-170 4:33 run
1.1.9.4 Shard 90 boss room with one death
1.1.9.4 Ravager kill 2:29 kill
In Conclusion
While the build works well for its affordable price I would like Crate to address one major technical issue which is that gun’s white auto-attack sometimes goes off when spamming Aegis.
Another minor thing is the general lack of Avenging Shield bonuses on gear and specifically on Pierce gear.
This would probably be my last or second to last guide posted here. Check my other guides posted under my name or posted by @Stupid_Dragon since my forum ban (click here and look for guides that have “by mad_lee” in their name).
Shout out to @Stupid_Dragon himself for kindly agreeing to post my builds here!
